If airpower theorists like Wilson and Kuter had studied the life and work of Billy Mitchell more closely, they might have paid more attention to the role of fighter aircraft in bomber warfare, not only as escorts but also in pursuit. In World War I, Mitchell and other air commanders at the front realized that no aerial operation—tactical, strategic, or reconnaissance—was possible without mastery of the air. “For Mitchell an air force’s first task,” historian Williamson Murray pointed out, “should be destruction of the enemy’s air force, particularly his pursuit aircraft; not until one had
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