1921/1923 GENERAL MITCHELL BOMBS BATTLESHIPS

July 13 - 21, 1921 ... Army crews from the First Provisional Air Brigade at Langley Field, Va., flying Martin MB-2 bombers, sink three ships, off the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, including the captured German battleship Ostfriesland, demonstrating the vulnerability of naval craft to aerial attack. *** Virginia (BB 13) and her sister ship USS New Jersey(BB 16) were taken to a point three miles off the Diamond Shoals lightship, off Cape Hatteras, N.C., and anchored there on 5 September 1923. The "attacks" made by Army Air Service Martin bombers began shortly before 0900. On the third attack, seven Martins, flying at 3,000 feet, each dropped two 1,100-pound bombs on Virginia, only one of them hit. That single bomb, however, "completely demolished the ship as such." An observer later wrote: "Both masts, the bridge, all three smokestacks, and the upper-works disappeared with the explosion and there remained, after the smoke cleared away, nothing but the bare hull, decks blown off, and covered with a mass of tangled debris from stem to stern consisting of stacks, ventilators, cage masts, and bridges."
Within one-half hour of the cataclysmic blast that wrecked the ship, her battered hulk sank beneath the waves. Her sister ship ultimately joined her shortly thereafter. Virginia's end, and New Jersey's, provided far-sighted naval officers with a dramatic demonstration of air power and impressed upon them the "urgent need of developing naval aviation with the fleet." As such, the service performed by the old pre-dreadnoughts may have been their most valuable. (VIDEO-National Archives ... Text-Various Internet)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Ostfriesland
• MB-2
• Martin
• Bombers
• Army
• Air
• Service
• Navy
• BB-13
• BB-16
• Virginia
• New
• Jersey
• Cape
• Hatteras
• Capes
• Mitchell

[Contrajoe]

@matamuelas I think he eventually got a medal of honor.

[tss77]

rizon72 Did you forget about what happened to the Battleship Prince of Wales and the Battle Cruiser Repulse sunk at Sea and firing back the Japanese managed that very well. One more thing General Mitchell was fighting the War Department bureaucracy and the Navy ;Those Gentlemen in the Navy especially the top brass were Battleship Admiral's and they were not listening to anyone that appeared as a threat to their status.

[cabbievonbump]

Concerning Pearl Harbor. Consider this. The Japanese used about 360 aircraft in the raid, and of the 8 battleships present at the time, three damaged but serviceable as is, four sunk and later raised (although Oklahoma never returned to service) and one that was only partially salvaged. The targets were not maneuvering. Four years later, it took 1000 aircraft sorties to sink the Yamato. The difference? Yamato was maneuvering, thus harder to hit. Comments?

[rizon72]

Mitchell was also an idiot. Yes he recognized air power, but failed to see exactly how airpower would change naval warfare. The biggest problem was you had a battleship which had no crew, was in poor condition, was not moving and not firing back.

Sinking a battleship (or any ship) was actually tougher than he thought.  If he had worked with the navy, naval airpower might have been very different for WW2.

[frantic1971]

Mitchell was truly amazing. With prophetic clarity he realized that that air power would be decisive in future wars. And this was TWENTY years before the Battle of Britain, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, the allied air campaign against Germany and Japan, and the A bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[matamuelas]

Nice, Mitchell is one dishonored prophet of Air Power, humilliated by their own countrymen...

Sad he wasn't alive when Pearl Harbour happened, so he could said "guys, don't want to say "I told you guys", but I realy did it".

USA paid a high tribute at Pearl Habrour, horror that was fed by their own square head military advisors, even the same that saw when the Ostfriedsland was badly damaged by thiny little "mosquitos"of Mitchell ...

I wonder if his image was later rehabilitated.

[TonyN737]

I know Billy Mitchell's greatgrandson, same name, same job, and a very cool guy.

Thank you General Mitchell.