MacArthur and the Court Martial of Billy Mitchell
Вставка
- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- In 1925, the court martial of Billy Mitchell captured national attention. At the center of the controversy was Billy Mitchell, a man who is today recognized as the father of the United States Air Force. Then Major General Douglas MacArthur, who later described the order to sit on Mitchell's court-martial as "one of the most distasteful orders I ever received” was the youngest judge on the court. He was also a longtime friend of Mitchell - and probably one of the only judges that did not have a negative view of Mitchell. However, as an ambitious officer who was on the path to becoming chief of staff of the U.S. Army, how did MacArthur navigate the politics of the trial? Did he vote to convict Mitchell?
Join MacArthur Memorial historians Jim Zobel and Amanda Williams for a discussion of MacArthur and the Billy Mitchell court-martial.
Great discussion, Amanda and Jim. Congratulations to being named the MacArthur Memorial Museum Director, Amanda!!! You totally deserve it and you will do a wonderful job!
Little known fact - MacArthur's and Mitchell's fathers both served in the 24th Wisconsin Regiment during the Civil War. Mitchell's father served as a US senator from 1893 to 1899.
Really, I didn't realize that about Uncle John. Yes I am a decendant. Billy's my cousin and namesake.
Hello from the Philippines. Thank you for another great episode. I always learn so much from each episode and your efforts continue to enrich my knowledge bank. I had no idea about the personal relationships, or the depth of them until watching this episode. I retired from the US Air Force after a 20 year career that in addition to many places, brought me here to the Philippines on assignment to Clark AB. My enlistment began on December 17.
Douglas MacArthur was the youngest Brig. General at that time at age 38. Only MacArthur had the genious to see what Billy Mitchell was doing, saying, and predicting.
What is so cool about MacArthur is when he was Army Chief of Staff he was the one behind the decision to go with the M1 Garand as the standard issue rifle for the Army and the B-17 Flying Fortress was greenlit by him out of many numerous other proposals for the Army's main rifle and bomber. He was the one who ordered that the M1 Garand use the same exact caliber round as an old Springfield rifle. It was a similar concept to NATO 5.56mm or .223 later able to mix and match between very different guns.
Was grandfather was a paratrooper in ww2 11th airborne. MacArthur and his chief of stone I forgot his name loved see his name in print and his pic. He took credit for staffmembers planning of operations. Sutherland was chief of staff I believe. Mac Arthur pushed his Co's to cause soilders yo get killed and wounded. He was a bastard!
@@nogoodnameleft… The .276 Pedersen was the original caliber for M1 Garand. As developed by Springfield Armory. MacArthur as Chief of Staff required the M1 be adopted in .30/06
@@Idahoguy10157 And thankfully MacArthur did that because the early part of WWII would have been an even bigger disaster if those M1s weren't able to use the massive surplus stockpiles of perfectly good .30/06 rounds at Bataan, Papua, and Guadalcanal.
The B-17 was also a thing thanks to MacArthur picking Frank Andrews to head up the R&D section of the USAAC. The chief of staff before and after MacArthur were against 4-engine bombers and supported the horrible B-18 Bolo bomber. MacArthur was awesome and sadly people don't even know his huge role in developing the M1 and B-17. The M1 became the service rifle of the Army just a month or two after he finished his tour of duty as Chief of Staff from 1930-35. He absolutely was crucial in the development of the M1 and it becoming the service rifle of the Army.
Fascinating! Thank you for proffering this interview, always been intrigued by Mitchell's story. So fitting that after his prognostication about Pearl, the medium bomber chosen for Doolittle's Tokyo raid was the North American B-25 Mitchell, named after Billy Mitchell. How appropriate!
I find it ironic that he was convicted in 25, and it was the "B-25" that is named after him. As a USAF Retiree, and a pilot, I have always admired Billy Mitchell.
One of the few things I can give him credit for, voting to acquit Mitchell. MacArthur was a complex personality. Great military mind overall, brave, yet his motives bent by personal ego, if not outright narcissism that ruined his virtues as a military commander. He created a staff of sycophants and yes men, to boost his ego. He always took great care in having his photo or being filmed, to show him heroic and his hair perfectly combed. He liked using the Marines and Australians to be cannon fodder for his operations, yet treated them both disdainfully, such as the Marines getting the worst and most miserable rest and training sites between battle, and the Army getting the best.
He demonstrated insubordination to two US Presidents, who are his CIC's. Once to Hoover when he disobeyed orders NOT to attack the Bonus army camp of WW1 vets and their families looking for help during the depression, and again in Korea, when he pushed toward the Yalu river on the border of China, and advocated dropping nukes to create a radioactive zone between China and Korea. Thank goodness Truman had the guts to sack him, a very unpopular action at the time due to his inflated popularity with the American people. For every good thing he did, he did a stupid thing due to his irrepressible hubris.
Would have saved us alot of isues....
Douglas MacArthur’s World War I service is often overlooked. His administration as head of the Japanese Occupation helped create modern-day Japan’s prosperity.
That admin of Japan was not after ww1 . Japan was then on "our " side . It was after WW2 that he was in charged with running Japan .
ANY WAY you want to measure it, Douglas MacArthur was the most economical General, in terms of men's lives, of any World War General. Where are our General MacArthurs today? Demoted, demoralized and not allowed to lead because of political correctness.
Have any photographs of MacArthur with his Medal of Honor ever been published? Have been told none have ever been located. Thank you.
That is one of the coolest things about MacArthur. He refused to ever wear his MoH for the cameras and never bragged about it. He was adamant to let everybody know that that MoH is not for Douglas MacArthur but for all the brave American and Filipino troops on Bataan and Corregidor. For some reason MacArthur critics never want to admit that MacArthur was so humble with regards to his MoH. He gave a speech in Australia that was filmed at the MoH ceremony for him but he kept saying that he accepts it only on the condition that this means all the men and women of USAFFE (U.S. Army Forces - Far East) are also honored via this MoH that nominally says only General Douglas MacArthur. I think you can see the MoH on the table next to him during his speech but he refused to wear it or hold it for the cameras out of respect to all the poor KIA and POWs in the Philippines.
Mrs. Don Ross,wife of MOH recipient, told me that neither MacArthur nor Lindbergh would ever cash the MOH bonus check sent to them which made book keeping difficult.
This trial predates both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, so those analogies of a man seeing the future could not be used or surely they would have. This is one of those few moments in history where people at the time quote him to make him look like a fool, but decades later, in retrospect, he was a man ahead of his time, a genious and the prosecution looks like a bunch of fools. In fact the Japanese failed to do a few things he predicted at Pearol Harbor like taking out the fuel storage, which would have hurt even more.
Dugout Doug MacArthur as the District of Columbia Police he burned out the Bonus Army veterans Shantytown the veterans tossed his tear gas back at him
Didn't know much about Billy Mitchell until I saw "The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell". Really enjoyed it, may get the book. For all his forward thinking though, surprising he didn't envision aircraft carriers.
Calling MacArthur “ambitious” is a understatement. The difference between God and MacArthur is God doesn’t think he’s MacArthur
I knew Ira Milton Jones who founded the WWI overseas fliers foundation here in Wisconsin.
Good job as always.
What real effect of the court martial, with its underlying theme of increasing air power make a big difference? Perhaps it seeing how other countries were investing in air power that made the biggest difference .
I never have accepted that McArthur could sneak away with wife on a sub and leave behind HIS men. And what he gets a MOH were is the Honor
I have read that McArthur was ordered to leave the islands. That order, according to what documents i read, came from the White House. To say
Gen. McArthur was arrogant would be an understatement (imo) but he had a memory and intelect that was very impressive.
Yes all true but what he left was an unbelievable horror. I just think for the captain to leave the ship like that is hard to take.
@@robheb1355 I understand your thoughts and i agree in part with you. I also understand why he was ordered to leave the islands and go to Australia.
I read that one person that knew Gen. Arthur McArthur said he was the most arrogant man he had ever met untill he met Douglas McArthur...if i remember correctly that man was on the Generals staff.
Next U.S. aircraft carrier should be named USS Billy Mitchell honoring his founding a modern U.S. Air Force.
First and only 27 minutes late, I like these ante-bellum talks (I forgot the term for in-between the Wars.). Out of curiosity, who was allowed to be on Court Martials then? I am not aware of any legal training for MacArthur.
The panel on which GOA MacArthur sat was, I think more like a jury than a sitting judge. Someone please correct me in I'm mistaken.
MacArthur did not have legal training. He was simply part of the panel of generals (peers) assigned by the War Department to judge the case. There was an officer with legal training there to provide the panel with legal and procedural advice.
@@TheMacArthurMemorial Thank You for the reply. So was there a prosecutor and defending attorney? What was military law (Wait does Congress write military law?)? My only reference for military tribunals are the Tokyo Trials (Mostly the TV-Series in 2016.) and The Execution of Private Slovik (1974) where I thought both had legal experts as Judges. Also how was he allowed to be a peer for his friend? Is there also a system of rank, as in you can only be judged by someone of equal rank? That is like feudal, cool. Sorry.
@@serpent645 So was there a Judge separately? For Private Slovik (I only know of the film.) there was no Judge, the commanding officers were the Judges I think.
@@TheMacArthurMemorial Can you all do a discussion about the Yamashita/Homma trials? That is another very interesting legal topic that MacArthur was involved in. I personally believe both Japanese generals deserved to be executed. Homma's HQ in 1942 was only 100 feet from the Bataan Death March and there was no way he didn't know it was happening like he claimed. He totally witnessed thousands of POWs walking right next to his HQ. Also, Yamashita's soldiers from the Army did numerous atrocities to POWs and civilian internees and Filipino civilians that he knew about and all the massacres like Palawan and Batangas were done by Japanese ARMY troops under his command. Yamashita was in charge of the Kempeitai military police too and he signed off on executions without any due process like the murder/execution of Filipino General Vicente Lim.
I don't get why people get angry at MacArthur for making sure the countless murdered Americans and Filipinos got some justice via executing some high-ranking generals who could have and should have countermanded the orders from Tokyo. If Yamashita and Homma were Nazi German generals they would have been executed at Nuremberg.
Billy Mitchell was from a well to do family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of a Senator, so money wasn't that big a thing to him. He could weather the pay cut.
MacArthur "got it" with regards to the future of military aerial warfare, hence why he went with the B-17 as the main future USAAF bomber when he was Chief of Staff. What a career MacArthur had. I am happy he has the MacArthur Memorial to honor and never forget him.
@@nogoodnameleft MacArthur was brilliant. He was the one person who voted not guilty in the Courtmarshall of Billy Mitchell. The 1977 movie they made with Gregory Peck I don't think did him justice, but I still enjoyed. it. He leap frogged over Japanese bases in the South Pacific, oversaw the transition of Japan to a Democracy, and then saved South Korea as a master strike of an invasion.
@@rickbourne1376 I agree completely. The 1977 film was good but not great. Gregory Peck was outstanding as MacArthur I thought. I thought it was funny how Peck was a hardcore liberal Democrat but during and after filming he turned into the biggest MacArthur fan and he said that Truman was 100% wrong in firing MacArthur..."MacArthur was right!" he said.
MacArthur should have been running the Central Pacific's amphibious operations too. Nimitz was way out of his depth and had no idea how to do amphibious invasions. When comparing the small little tiny islands that Nimitz kept meatgrinding away for no reason whatsoever with MacArthur just ignoring islands and pushing forward in feints and tricks it is shocking how King and Marshall didn't just let Nimitz handle the surface, carrier, and submarine warfare while letting MacArthur and his wonderful staff take over all the tactical and strategic amphibious invasions. MacArthur would have avoided Peleliu, Tarawa, and Iwo Jima and he would have taken Okinawa within a month with very few casualties. He would have taken only half of the island with all the airfields and naval bases and then starve to death the other half of Okinawa.
I will never understand how MacArthur was named U.S. Army in the Pacific Commander-in-Chief in April 1945 yet he wasn't allowed to do anything with regards to Okinawa. DC told him he had no ability to order anybody in Okinawa to do anything until after Nimitz and General "Gomer Pyle" Buckner finished the Okinawa campaign. I call Buckner that horrible nickname because the only reason Nimitz deemed him qualified to command the 10th Army at Okinawa was because Buckner was saying nasty things about MacArthur to Nimitz and Nimitz laughed and smiled and said "I like you! The job is yours!"
He also bedded a 16 year old dug out doug was out for himself claimed he did things that the Navy and Marines did. Don't forget dug out doug lost the pac air force,
Jim curb the enthusiasm and don’t beat on the microphone.
Yeah!!! Don't do a Corny Cornette!!!
Dugout Doug and Billy.
The trial was FUBAR!
He also proved planes can sink ships!
Billy sunk Ostfriesland. He kinda cheated by flying lower than what was instructed. Billy pulled a Pappy Boyington.
@williammitchell4417 look at the technology he had at the time. Bombers weren't well made and limitations on weight engines pilot skill weapons etc.
@@briancooper2112 true, at the time they would be modified fighters at the time.
Fascinating topic and information. What a shame that Jim, here, is so distractingly odd.
Who were the short sighted bastards who convicted Mitchell?
Damn your beautiful!
Sounds like MacArthur should have recused himself.
Mask On Nurse Marty (Ret)
Sounds like the whole court should have. All partizans, MacArthur the only one pro.
I would think, also, that on December 7, 1941 General Mitchell gained a significant amount of private reverence from those antagonists whom had previously opposed him...