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Title (Billy Prophet)
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Twenty-Five Years Ago the Great, Farseeing American Asserted the Superiority of Air-Power Over Sea-Power, but the Brass Hats Busted Him. Now the Atomic Bomb Is Putting America's Military and Naval Commanders to a Similar and Much Greater Test

(Major R. W. (SHORTY) SCHROEDER, like the late Maj. Gen. William (Billy) Mitchell, was a combat pilot in World War I, and was one of the earliest associates of America's first great apostle-and martyr-to air power. Last year Major Schroeder was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in belated recognition of an heroic experimental high-altitude flight he under took at Mitchell's behest in 1920. On that flight he nearly lost his life when he "blacked out" in a power dive and his plane plunged nearly seven miles toward the ground before he recovered control and pulled the plan out of the dive to land safely.)

By Major R.W (Shorty) Schroeder
If God would grant me one last request it would be a simple one to make. 
I'd ask Him to let Billy Mitchell live again for just one day-the day that the Navy finally tries out an atomic bomb on a bunch of battleships and seagoing warcraft.
I imagine I can hear the general say right now: "Well, boys, this is where I came in 25 years ago. But I hope they give the atomic bomb a better hearing than they gave me. Not for any vindication on my part. I don't need it now. The men who flew the planes in this war are vindication enough. But God knows this nation of ours is at stake in this question of atomic and air power effectiveness against surface craft."
I've got a hunch that if my last request isn't granted-and I doubt that it will be-old Billy's spirit will be watching if and whenever they put on the show.
The big question today is: What will this new danger from the skies do to American sea power? The same question was being asked more than two decades ago when Billy Mitchell tried to shake the brass hats out of their lethargy and make them see the menace that budding air power held for the battleship.
This time the men to whom we entrust out command of the seas seem alive to the new danger. In the plans tentatively made this last winter for an experiment in the lagoon of Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, it was provided that all types of warcraft would be subjected to the destructive power of the atom bomb. What a show that would be. Battleships. Cruisers. Destroyers. The whole works. Such planning certainly indicates a lively curiosity and we can be thankful for at least that much.
All this assembled for another chapter in a serial Billy Mitchell started 25 years ago. 
Everyone is worried this time. Even some of the brass hats who knocked Mitchell down, ripped the buttons from his tunic and broke his heart. 
As I indicated, this is not the first time that sea power has been put on trial by air power. They've merely got a new and more deadly bomb than they had before to let fly at the warships. 
It's the climax round of Mitchell's original fight. He started right after the last war to prove that an airplane, carrying bombs, could sink a battleship. He sank three.
The brass hats wouldn't accept his results and when he refused to give up his fight, they persecuted him and the nation almost lost a war. 
This time there's even more at stake. They're dealing with some stuff whic only the scientists know much about. The scientists and the military brains want to see if this new and horrible bomb can sink a modern battleship. They also would like to know what the release of this atomic energy does to the sea itself.
Certainly, no one has forgotten that a few Jap fliers broke the British resistance around Singapore and with them the British Navy's slowness in accepting air power. Several airborne missiles ripped His Majesty's battleships Repulse and Prince of Wales and they went down like rocks when we needed them most.
The experts say that the atom bomb may make the Navy of the future turn almost completely to air power. But let's look a little to the past.
Back in those days after we'd flown "Flaming Cofins" [?] all over the place trying to combat superior German planes. Billy Mitchell started a crusade and a campaign similar to this one coming up for the atomic bomb.
He dedicated his life to prove the value of aircraft in wartime as well as peacetime. But he fought a losing battle even when his experiments sank battleships and proved that the next war would be fought a whole lot of the time 25,000 to 30,000 feet above the ground.
Mossbacks, skeptics and bureaucrats, hand-cuffed by tradition, sneered at him. Then they went after him. He was demoted, then stripped of the uniform he loved and fought for so much. 
Had those brass hats not kicked him around, the Repulse and the Prince of Wales might now be riding at anchor in Singapore Bay. Pearl Harbor might-yes, probably would have been-averted. A lot of good American boys might be walking around today instead of being buried
If the General Could Live Again, Just Long Enough to See What an Atomic Bomb Could Do to a Fleet of Warships, He would Say: "Well,Boys, This Is Where I Came In 25 Years Ago."
May 5, 1946