Think About it -- Never Give Up!

I flew into Milwaukee Airport recently and was struck by its name: “Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport.” I remembered Dad telling about Mitchell.

General William (Billy) Mitchell was a WWI era aviator from Milwaukee. His love of aviation was so intense, he paid for his own flying lessons while serving in the U.S. Army in 1916.

As WWI progressed, Mitchell quickly moved up the ranks. By the time the Army recognized aviation as serious enough for its own designation, Mitchell was chosen to head the Army’s “Aviation Section.” Then Colonel Mitchell became the first Chief of Air Service.

In 1919, he continued to champion the role aviation should have in war. As a Brigadier General he was appointed Director of Military Aeronautics.

But trouble found Mitchell. Old-school military leaders didn’t like suggestions of air power. Army leaders didn’t want to spend their appropriations on airplanes. Mitchell offended the Navy by suggesting airplanes could sink a ship. In 1921 he proved it when his airplanes successfully sank captured German ships.

Continuing to fight a war with the establishment itself, he charged the administration with neglecting national defense in 1925. He was tried by court-martial and found guilty of insubordination. Instead of accepting 5 years of unpaid suspension from active duty, he resigned in 1926.

He continued his promotion of air power as a private citizen until his death in 1936.

An extraordinary visionary, Mitchell wrote a paper in 1906 forecasting how future wars would be fought from the air and from under the sea. Such fantasy was ridiculed, but not as much as when, in 1924, he wrote that the Japanese would one day attack the US Navy at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. He wrote it would be a surprise Sunday morning attack, with such details as, the attack would happen, “at 7:30 a.m.” Then he predicted a follow-up attack on Clark Field (Philippines) “at 10:40 a.m.”

17 years after he wrote it (and 5 years after his death), the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in a surprise Sunday morning attack on December 7^th, 1941. They hit Pearl Harbor at 7:55 a.m. and Clark Field a few hours later.

In 1946 Congress posthumously awarded Mitchell the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Think About it

How many of you have been pleading with church leaders to get ready and your teams to stay ready? You know it’s true but endure opposition.  

Never give up.