Billy Mitchell had incredible foresight.  Prophets are always hated during their lifetimes.  After they die, they are revered as heroes.

I'm retired from the US Air Force. Mitchell was a hero of ours. His grandson was the Base Commander when I was stationed in Germany in the late 1980s.

My father in law fought his ass off, almost literally - all across the Pacific, island to island as a grunt.  He earned three Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars and two Bronze Stars for Valor.  Without air cover, support and in most cases, supremacy, he would have been a dead man.  And I would be married to someone else.  Or no one.  Thanks Billy!

This story is so emotionally
moving and meaningful to me...
Billy Mitchell, a true American hero.

he was a childhood friend of Douglas MacArthur, who was the only member of the court martial who voted for his acquittal

Now Watch the Movie, THE COURT-MARTIAL OF BILLY MITCHELL, with Gary Cooper.

This was one of my favorite shows as a kid. I love it even more now!

I was about to watch a Gary Cooper movie about him & saw this. It's on Retro TV   TY 4 sharing! ✌️✈️

Billy Mitchell's amazingly accurate predictions are incredible.  Predicting the prominence of the airplane in warfare, more than a decade before World War II.  The possibility of a Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor, and even space flight!

Patton had the same trouble with the army. He was a member of the cavalry, and was pushing to get the tank recognized as a legitimate, necessary tool in the American forces. He, too, was stonewalled in his quest to modernize the forces, the old school army still in love with horses and cavalry charges.

Calvin Coolidge is my favorite president.  But he made mistakes and this was one of them.

From the days of President Lincoln, President Coolidge, right down to the present day, governments have always been cursed with worthless unelected bureaucrats heading government agencies. Instead of carrying out policy, those bureaucrats improperly make policy with usually disastrous results. The reason is always the same. Those worthless bureaucrats serve corrupt entrenched special interests. In Mitchell's day those interests included Generals and Admirals highly motivated to hide how outdated their experience was. The last thing those senior officers wanted was to see the careers of officers with more relevant experience advance while their careers stalled. But while the particular entrenched corrupt interests may change, they are always laden with gross conflicts of interest.  

Yet resistance is futile. The worthless bureaucrats always win as Mitchell found out. Worthless though those bureaucrats are, calling them out too bluntly only leads to career ending retribution or worse and criticism of them goes unheeded, until too late. Thus despite Mitchell's warnings,  in 1941 the United States and Great Britain were woefully unprepared to take on Japan in the Pacific. Incompetent leaders like General Short and Admiral Kimmel would have to be belatedly fired. And their replacements would have to learn on the job as the U.S. belatedly geared up its latent industrial capacity to wage war. As the saying goes, "a prophet (paraphrasing) is always reviled in his own country."

Billy would have loved the aircraft carriers they had fighting in WW 2.

I used to watch this every Saturday.

If the stuff shirts in the military had only listened and acted after they watched Mitchell's group sink those ships. The British will also learn a tough lesson when the HMS Prince Of Wales was sunk by Japanese bombers and shore batteries.

Those who did listen, Hitler, Mussolini, and Gen. Tojo of Japan.

I'd like to know how the army and sailors feel now?

I'm surprised the last scene wasn't of an actual rocket launch to space.

adolph hitler certainly listened to Billy Mitchell.

I find it difficult to believe that Mike Wallace could be impartial to any subject he centered on, especially those that held views opposite his  own.

If it's not broke, don't fix it can also be translated as we don't like new things and having to adapt.

Imagine if Mitchell decided to stay quiet.

The US would have had their butts handed to them by foreign air power.