GENERAL ""BILLY"" MITCHELL

A warmhearted biography of the tempestuous, stubborn, fanatic crusader for air power concerns itself with Mitchell's early history as well as his later and more publicized career. The building up of his character from the thorough-going application of childhood, to the impatience with inefficiency experienced in Cuba, to the patient observation in the Philippines and the expert efficiency in Alaska, the knowledge of military techniques from his experience in the Army Signal Corps, his introduction to and belief in aviation all fall in place as time and the man meet in World War I. Mitchell's briefing under Trenchard, his insistence on planes for observation and defense, his personal flying exploits proved their value at St. Mihiel, just before the end of the war. His battle with the Navy followed, air destruction of supposedly unsinkable ships was argumentatively accepted, his tour of the Pacific revealed information for the future had it been used and his later insubordination is pictured as holding his country rather than the services first. Aimed at both adult and juvenile audiences, the black and whites here are effectively presented, but for a deeper work Levine's Mitchell (1943) holds its own.