Air University Review, September-October 1967

Douhet and Mitchell: Some Reapraisals

Major Perry M. Smith

The doctrinal roots of American strategic air power theory have been debated in numerous books, historical studies, and doctoral dissertations, with each new work finding some previously uncovered root from which sprang the full-blown tree of American strategic bombardment theory. Trenchard, Mitchell, and Douhet make most of the lists, but Gorrell, Wilson, Caproni, George, Culver, Sherman, Walker, Peabody, Kuter, and Hansell, as well as many others, have been listed as theoretical contributors to American air power doctrine. With each new discovery, a denial usually follows, and the discussion continues.

In recent years, two scholarly studies on the development of air power doctrine within the Army Air Service have collectively reappraised the influence of Douhet and Mitchell on American air power doctrine. One of them, by Hurley, investigates the development of air power ideas and concepts of America’s foremost pioneer military airman, Brigadier General William (“Billy”) Mitchell.*The other, by Flugel, concentrates on the Air Corps Tactical School and the intellectual inputs into that crucible of doctrinal development. **The result of the research by these two scholars is an upgrading of the influence of Douhet both on the thinking of Mitchell and on the development of American air power doctrine. The curious similarity between the ideas of Douhet and the doctrine formulated in the Tactical School becomes less curious under the incisive investigations of Flugel and Hurley.

There is general agreement that the Tactical School at Langley Field, Virginia, later at Maxwell Field, Alabama, was the center of the explicit formulation of the American doctrine of precision daylight strategic bombardment, but the records of the Tactical School are frustratingly inexplicit as to the source material used by the instructors in the preparation of their lectures and manuals. The instructors, not being research-oriented scholars, were not constrained by the precise documentation standards of university research. They often used ideas of others without feeling any need to acknowledge their intellectual debt within the body of the lecture or manual or in footnotes.

Serious scholarship of the type that Lieutenant Colonel Hurley and Dr. Flugel have undertaken in their two studies is therefore limited in what it can accomplish, it being impossible to make unequivocal statements about doctrinal development within the Army Air Service and Army Air Corps. Therefore, these two works will not be the last on this general subject, nor will their conclusions he accepted by all. Nevertheless, each work makes a definite contribution, and any refutation of the conclusions reached will require considerable research and documentation.

Colonel Hurley has produced a much-needed work, the first scholarly treatment of Mitchell’s ideas about air power and the impact of these ideas on the development of doctrine within the Army Air Service and Navy aviation circles. The only other satisfactory biography of Mitchell (Mitchell, Pioneer of Air Power by Isaac Don Levine) gives a vivid but journalistic picture of Mitchell the warrior, the champion of air power, the unrestrained competitor. What the Levine biography lacks is a tracing of the development of air power ideas by Mitchell, the influence of other air power leaders and theoreticians upon Mitchell’s thinking, and the influence of Mitchell on the development of American air power doctrine within and without the Tactical School. Colonel Hurley, bridging this considerable gap by addressing himself to these three questions, has written a brief biography which lacks the flair and color of the Levine work but is much more satisfactory from a scholarly standpoint. Mitchell was such a colorful, dynamic, and controversial figure that his biographers have become fascinated with the public figure of Mitchell the protagonist. Since Mitchell the contributor to ideas about air power will probably outlive Mitchell the turbulent competitor in a turbulent era, the Hurley biography should be of greater lasting value than any previous biography of Mitchell. Hurley analyzes Mitchell the thinker by tracing his air power theories to their source. He finds Mitchell neither a seminal thinker nor a man without any original ideas; rather Mitchell is greatly influenced by Trenchard directly and by the Italian theoreticians Douhet and Caproni indirectly. Yet Mitchell neither accepts uncritically the ideas of others nor fails to make contributions to the theories about employment of air power that developed during World War I and the 1920s. Mitchell’s contribution is considerable, for he accommodated the thinking of the European theoreticians to the American environment an environment quite different―in geography, attitude, and strategy―from the European milieu.

Hurley’s objective treatment of Mitchell is indicative of the serious scholarship concerning American military aviation which recently has begun to supplement the plethora of subjective studies of the last forty years. An objective biography is difficult to write; biographers tend to be overly critical or overly sympathetic toward the individual they have so painstakingly investigated. Hurley has avoided this bias by concentrating on the study of ideas. The reader should be aware that this is not simply a biography of a man; it is a concise, clear, and scholarly but not esoteric study of ideas.

Mitchell’s ideas had a considerable influence on American air doctrine, yet this does not deny the European influence on that doctrine, both through Mitchell and through the Tactical School instructors’ study of the writings of Douhet, Caproni, Trenchard, and others. Hurley’s work, by focusing upon a single individual, cannot and does not answer all the questions about doctrinal development of American strategic air power theory (some are unanswerable), nor does it leave the reader satisfied that he fully understands the early development of United States military aviation. It does accomplish its primary aims (no more should be expected of any book), and it inspires the reader to look elsewhere.

The Flugel dissertation is a logical next step, for it looks specifically into the doctrinal roots of American air power theory developed at the Tactical School. The results are exciting in one aspect and disappointing in another: exciting in that Flugel shows conclusively that Douhet’s theories not only were available in English at the Tactical School as early as 1923 (a copy of a War Department translation of Douhet’s The Command of the Air was received at Langley Field on 3 May 1923) but also were directly applied to a Tactical School text in 1926; disappointing in that Flugel, in his obvious enthusiasm at uncovering an important link in the development of American strategic air power theory, overstates his ease for the Douhetan influence.

All previous writing in reference to development of American strategic air doctrine has indicated either that Douhet had little or no impact on American doctrinal development or that his influence was indirect. The substantiating evidence up to this time has been the fact that there was no indication that any translation of Douhet’s works reached the Tactical School prior to 1933 or that the instructors read Douhet until after they had formulated the American strategic air power doctrine. In addition, the individual instructors themselves have consistently disclaimed any intellectual debt to Douhet. Flugel proves beyond a reasonable doubt not only that Douhet’s The Command of the Air was available in English but also that it was used in the formulation of American strategic bombardment theory.

The precision-bombardment element of American strategic air theory, as well as the theory that an economy could be destroyed through the destruction of a few key elements of it were not Douhet’s ideas; but the principles which were basically Douhetan and which previously were considered a result of independent thinking on the part of Air Corps officers have now been traced directly to Douhet through Flugel’s systematic research.

Some questions remain, of course, including why so many officers deny the Douhetan influence, but it is difficult to refute the systematic research of Flugel when compared with the thirty-year-old recollections of Air Corps officers. Apparently, the Air Corps leaders who deny the debt to Douhet never thoroughly traced the vagaries of idea development from 1923 through 1935, either during the time they were instructors or subsequently.

Flugel, who is rather caught up in his admiration of Douhet, neglects the importance of Trenchard’s thinking on both Mitchell and Air Corps doctrine. He uses Douhet’s vagueness on the priority of targets to make broad generalizations about Douhet which are questionable. And he concludes his study by stating that “…. Mitchell himself fell increasingly under the influence of Douhet’s thought…,”whereas much of what Mitchell espoused in the 1922-36 period was a continuation of ideas he had developed during World War I. Hurley is probably closer to the truth when he states: “….any Douhetan influence on Mitchell was at best indirect and dated from World War I. Mitchell most likely regarded what he knew of the ideas of Douhet as only another argument for his point of view.”

Flugel says in his conclusion that both the massive retaliation policy of Dulles and Eisenhower and the counterforce policy of Kennedy and Johnson are predicated on Douhetan precepts. It might well be said that these policies are based on Douhetan vagueness about target selection. To quote Douhet in all his clarity on target selection:

All this sounds very, simple, but as a matter of fact the selection of objectives, the grouping of zones, and determining the order in which they are to be destroyed is the most difficult and delicate task in aerial warfare, constituting what may be defined as aerial strategy. Objectives vary considerably in war, and the choice of them depends chiefly upon the aim sought, whether the command of the air, paralyzing the enemy’s army and navy, or shattering the morale of civilians behind the lines. This choice may therefore be guided by a great many considerations―military, political, social, and psychological, depending upon the conditions of the moment.

Flugel also correctly points out the impact of Douhet’s theories on the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) without emphasizing what theoretical contributions the Tactical School itself made to American air power theory. The ex-instructors stress the differences between ACTS doctrine and Douhetan doctrine, while Flugel stresses the similarity. Somewhere in between, perhaps, lies the reality.

The instructors at the Tactical School were infected with Douhet though many were unaware of the source of their ideas. In many instances they received Douhetan ideas quite indirectly―through Mitchell, through Tactical School lectures and texts, through the press. Yet it must be emphasized that except in the mid-1920s the Tactical School never fully accepted Douhet, and throughout the 1930s new ideas were manifest at the Tactical School. The doctrine of precision daylight bombardment against potential bottlenecks in an enemy’s economy was an American concept, initially mentioned as early as 1925 but fully developed in the mid-1930s. By 1938 the Tactical School had rejected Douhet’s gross exaggeration of the destructiveness of TNT bombs and had advocated much larger formations against a target than had Douhet. By 1940 the Tactical School had rejected Douhet’s emphasis on enemy morale by pointing out that in China the Japanese bombing had actually strengthened the will of the Chinese villagers to resist.

Despite these modifications, Douhet’s influence is undeniable, and Flugel, by pointing out positive evidence of the early introduction of Douhet’s thought at the Tactical School, has made a useful contribution to the understanding of the development of air power theory and doctrine in this country.

Those who would intimate that our doctrinal roots are irrelevant to the problems of the 1970s might seriously consider developments of the last few years. The formulation of doctrine continues to play an important role within the military services, for the revolutionary ideas of Douhet became, in the 1950s, much less applicable as a rational basis for air power doctrine. Douhet, who was seemingly vindicated with the invention of atomic weapons, may have little applicability in the era of thermonuclear strategic missiles. By the mid1950s the James Gavins and the Maxwell Taylors were beginning to point out certain inconsistencies in American defense policies. By the early 1960s the new Democratic Administration was unwilling to accept only the two choices presented it by the defense establishment of the 1950s: either thermonuclear holocaust or abject surrender. The result, of course, is evident: the resurgence of the U.S. Army since its period of decline in the 1950s―a period when the Army leadership seriously questioned and realigned itself doctrinally as well as organizationally, concentrated on unit mobility, guerrilla warfare, and small-unit independence. By 1961 the Army was fully ready to exploit certain doctrinal weaknesses of the other services. The pendulum swung because the Army was ready and willing to question the doctrinal basis of basic strategy.

There is much to be gained from doctrine, but when doctrine becomes dogma the dangers are evident. One fundamental advantage of a pluralistic democracy over more authoritarian forms of government is that competing forces within the military as well as within the political element of the society constantly question the principles upon which policy is based. Douhet and Mitchell questioned a military doctrine that refused to encompass the important technological development of the airplane. They taught a lesson that should be constantly kept in mind: a doctrine that does not remain flexible enough to incorporate political, economic, strategic, technological, ideological, and sociological developments will never form a rational basis for policy.

United States Air Force Academy

*Alfred F. Hurley, Major, USAF, Billy Mitchell―Crusader for Air Power (New York Franklin Watts, Inc., 1964, $5.95), x and 180 pp.

**Raymond Richard Flugel, United States Air Power Doctrine: A Study of the Influence of William Mitchell and Giulio Douhet at the Air Corps Tactical School, 1921-1935 (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 1965; reprint by University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1966; Air University Library 358 F646u),270 pp.

 

Contributor

Major Perry M. Smith (USMA) is an instructor, Department of Political Science, United States Air Force Academy. After graduating from flying school, he served in Europe as a pilot, intelligence officer, and operations and training officer, 50th Tactical Fighter Wing. During his next assignment as gunnery officer, England AFB, Louisiana, he had three rotations to Turkey, becoming a jump-qualified forward air controller. After two years’ doctoral study at Columbia University, he assumed his present position.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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