William (Billy) Mitchell was a U.S. Army officer who, during World War I, came to command all U.S. Army air operations in France. He became a strong believer in air power and predicted that in the next war, bombers would be the decisive weapon. After WWI ended he became a forceful advocate for allocating funds to develop a powerful U.S. Air Force as an independent military branch. At the same time he argued for reducing the Navy's heavy spending on battleships, which he was convinced would be easily sunk by enemy aircraft. His efforts to change military policy in these areas became so obnoxious to U.S. military leadership that he was court martialed and separated from the service in 1925. The story of Mitchell's fight with the War Department was told in the 1955 motion picture "The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell", where Mitchell was played by Hollywood star Gary Cooper. In the present 1921 book, "Our Air Force: The Keystone of National Defense", Mitchell stated his case to the public. - Summary by Ted Lienhart

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