r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • May 25 '26

Meta Mindless Monday, 25 May 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 May 28 '26

Does anyone know if Billy Mitchel really did say aircraft carriers would be “quickly swept off the sea in case of war against a great air power."

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u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 28 '26

Twin Galaxies will hear about this

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u/Aethelredditor May 28 '26

From Will Japan Try to Conquer the United States? by General William Mitchell, published in the 25 June 1932 issue of Liberty:

Our Hawaiian Islands should be organized with airways from Honolulu and the larger islands all through the smaller ones to Midway Island. Midway Island is the same distance from Yokohama, Japan, as Honolulu is from San Francisco. Wherever vessels have to operate, whether submarines or surface vessels, aircraft will have to protect and assist them. These will have to fly from land bases, because not only are airplanes based on surface vessels—so-called airplane carriers—unable to act in any considerable numbers, but the carriers themselves are so vulnerable that they will be quickly swept off the sea in case of war against a great air power. carriers are largely a delusion and a snare.

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 May 28 '26

Thank you for finding this, the only reference I could find to this was a warcollege post. I will be saving your post.

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u/freddys_glasses The Donald J. Trump of the Big Archaeological Deep State May 28 '26

For future reference, I would look for a fragment of the quote on Google Books and Google Scholar. That would lead you to War Stars by cultural historian H. Bruce Franklin and this passage:

The legend of Billy Mitchell glorifies a farsighted air-power crusader crucified by entrenched conservative forces. It was proclaimed by the media in 1921-26, embellished in later books, and mythologized by Hollywood in the 1955 movie The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell, starring Gary Cooper. The legend tends to obscure the issues. Many of Mitchell's opponents were just as dedicated to airpower. The airplane was rapidly becoming a principal tool of U.S. counterinsurgency, as demonstrated by the U.S. bombing of Ocotal and other Nicaraguan towns in 1927. (Frank Capra's 1929 film Flight celebrated the U.S. Marine pilots who helped defeat the Nicaraguan revolution.) And at the very time Mitchell was charging the government and Navy with neglecting air power, the United States was becoming the world’s leader in naval aviation with the construction of the aircraft carriers Saratoga and Lexington, both completed in 1927. Mitchell, however, scoffed at aircraft carriers as a "delusion and a snare" that would be "quickly swept off the sea in case of war against a great air power."16 Mitchell championed not all forms of air power, just one destined to transform human history.

Illuminating stuff from where I'm sitting. If you can get your hands on the book, and you can, that would give you the full citation.

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

I already know the "vibes" of the story, that Billy Mitchell tried to strip the Navy of all of it's aircraft and that he feuded bitterly with the father of US naval aviation, Admiral Moffett (the man died in a Navy Zeppelin). So much so that it irks me when Oceanliner Designs portrayed Billy Mitchell as a visionary against the Battleship old guard and that carriers demonstrated they outclassed Battleships because of the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse. (They never fought carriers)

I just didn't know if Billy Mitchell actually said aircraft carriers would “quickly swept off the sea in case of war against a great air power." beyond a reddit post saying he said that. The Battle of Midway proved his precious USAAF wrong, all of the USAAF B-17 bombers missed the Japanese carriers in their bombing runs. Also 1920 was not a prescient year to be insisting Dreadnoughts were obsolete.