Viewing page 72 of 75
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
[[newspaper article]] THE MITCHELL TRIAL; BRITISH VIEWS OF CASE Aviation Experts in England Refuse to Accept Colonel As Authority—Point To Admissions He Made At Court-Martial By HECTOR C. BYWATER Special Correspondence of The Sun London, Dec. 24 [[pencil hand-written]] Baltimore Sun 1-13-26 To say that the court-martial proceedings against Colonel Mitchell were followed with close attention by service men in this country would be to overstate the fact. Some notice was certainly taken of the case, especially by aviation experts; but the truth is that Colonel Mitchell is not accepted here as an authority on the technical and strategial problems of air power, which alone appeal to foreign interest. He is regarded as an efficient and practical flying man whose war record would lend weight to any views he might express on the actual handling of aircraft and even on the organization of air forces for cooperation with a field army. His knowledge and experience on those subjects are probably no greater and no less than those of many other senior air officers of all nationalities who served in the World War. But on the broad question of air power versus military and naval power Colonel Mitchell's opinions are discounted here as those of a zealous but ill-informed amateur. - His admissions during the court-martial that he knew nothing of rudimentary technical facts relating to naval warfare were scarcely needed after the extraordinary statements to which he had committed himself in the newspaper communique that brought about his trial. Statements hardly less stupefying had previously been made by him in a series of magazine articles on air power. Capt. Dudley Knox, U. S. N., has already exposed in THE SUN the absurdity of the claim that the United States fleet would be instantly annihilated by mines and submarines if it ventured to leave San Francisco harbor in war time. But Colonel Mitchell's articles must have been read by millions of Americans who accept them as gospel, coming as they do from one who is popularly regarded as the highest authority on aviation. One can therefore sympathize with American army and navy writers in their thankless task of nailing down a series of preposterous claims which, if allowed to pass unchallenged, must inevitably undermine the nation's confidence in its land and sea defenses. - It is always dangerous to make a publicity stunt of any subject pertaining to national defense. Gabriel Charmes and other leaders of the "Jeune Ecole" did this in France some forty years since, and their heresies nearly wrecked the French Navy. Admiral Sir Percy Scott might have done a similar disservice to the British Navy by his intemperate campaign against the battleship had it not been that his last offensive was launched only a few weeks before the World War began, and was therefore speedily overlaid by greater and more immediate issues. True, he revived it after the war, but by that time the public had formed its own opinion about the value of battleships, and Sir Percy found himself crying in the wilderness. - To anyone who has studied the progress of armament in modern times the present controversy on air power has a familiar ring. Not once but a dozen times has the arrival of a new weapon evoked prophecies of a complete revolution in the art of war. When the shell-gun was first introduced by Colonel Paixhans early in the nineteenth century the world was assured that sea fights were a thing of the past, because no ship could survive for a minute the explosive and incendiary effect of the new projectiles. When the ram scored an isolated but spectacular success at the battle of Lissa in 1866—thus appearing to confirm experience in the American Civil War—naval opinion in all countries grew dubious as to the value of gunfire and forthwith went "all out" for ramming tactics, with the result that only a few years before the coming of the dreadnaught elderly naval officers were still drawing up battle plans based primarily on the use of the ram. On the outbreak of the Franco-German War in 1870 one of the highest military authorities in Europe publicly forecast that the contending armies would obliterate themselves in the first engagement: the French sweeping away whole army corps by the fire of their mitrilleuses, while the German needle-gun laid low the French in regiments. - Undismayed by the falsification of their predictions, the prophets kept right on up to the World War. In the nineties M. de Bloch proved to his own satisfaction, and that of millions of his admirers, first, that war between the great civilized nations had become impossible, and second, that if the impossible did happen, war would begin and end within a week owing to the reciprocal destruction of the contending forces. - It may be that aircraft are indeed destined to either change the face of war or abolish it altogether. All we can say with certitude is that neither development is immediately foreshadowed. Military men here indorse that phrase in the Dwight Morrow report which declares that while the next war may begin in the air, it will probably end, as the late war ended, in the mud. In the realm of naval warfare the issue is defined more clearly. Here it is a question of radius plus offensive power, and the plain fact is that aircraft in their present stage represent an untried and purely experimental means of offense. Their value, nay, their indispensability as an adjunct to naval force has long since been conceded. What is still problematic is their ability to supersede any conventional naval unit, from battleship to destroyer or submarine. It is, however, a positive and demonstrable fact that no existing type of marine bombing airplane can sink or even cripple a major warship. - An intriguing feature of the American air controversy has been the insistence laid by the Mitchell school on the exposure of American continental territory to attack from the sky. It is still uncertain whether Colonel Mitchell believes that the United States even now lies open to invasion by aircraft flying direct from Europe or Asia. Passages in his press articles, and in his evidence at the trial, suggest that he does. If so, he has cognizance of super-aircraft of which European experts profess their entire ignorance. If he is referring to Zeppelins, his warnings will hardly be taken seriously. The American air force would surely ask nothing better than an enemy should send his dirigibles on such a mission. Apparently, however, Colonel Mitchell means that giant airplanes will cross the intervening ocean and lay New York, Washington and Chicago in ruins. This is certainly not possible at the present, and unless the development of heavier-than-air craft is enormously accelerated, it may be several decades before a trans-oceanic airplane is perfected. - By concentrating on the supposed menace of air invasion from oversea, Colonel Mitchell unwittingly gave a splendid advertisement to the United States Navy, for it must be evident to all thinking Americans that since hostile aircraft can only be brought within range of their cost on board ships, a strong navy is the one and only sure safeguard against that form of attack.
