Mitscher, Marc Andrew, ADM

Marc Andrew "Pete" Mitscher was a pioneer in naval aviation who became an admiral in the United States Navy, and served as commander of the Fast Carrier Task Force in the Pacific during the latter half of World War II.

At the conclusion of World War II, and in the face of markedly reduced U.S. military spending, a political battle ensued in America over the need for, and the nature of, a post-war military, with advocates from the Army Air Forces insisting that with the development of the atomic bomb the nation could be defended by the devastating power that strategic bombers could deliver, thereby doing away with the need for Army or Navy forces.

In their view, air assets in the Navy should be brought under the control of the soon-to-be-formed Air Force. In the face of such proposals, Mitscher remained a staunch advocate for naval aviation, and went so far as to release the following statement to the press:

Japan is beaten, and carrier supremacy defeated her. Carrier supremacy destroyed her army and navy air forces. Carrier supremacy destroyed her fleet. Carrier supremacy gave us bases adjacent to her home islands, and carrier supremacy finally left her exposed to the most devastating sky attack – the atomic fission bomb – that man has suffered.

When I say carrier supremacy defeated Japan, I do not mean air power in itself won the Battle of the Pacific. We exercised our carrier supremacy as part of a balanced, integrated air-surface-ground team, in which all hands may be proud of the roles assigned them and the way in which their duties were discharged. This could not have been done by a separate air force, exclusively based ashore, or by one not under Navy control.

By July 1946, when he was serving as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air), Mitscher received, among other awards, two Gold Stars in lieu of a second and third Navy Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal with two Gold Stars.

He served briefly as commander of the 8th Fleet and on 26 September 1946 became Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, with the rank of admiral.

While on that assignment, Mitscher died on 3 February 1947 at the age of 60 of a coronary thrombosis at Norfolk, Virginia. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Two ships of the Navy have been named USS Mitscher in his honor: the post-World War II frigate, USS Mitscher (DL-2), later re-designated as the guided-missile destroyer (DDG-35), and the currently serving Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, USS Mitscher (DDG-57).

Though reserved and quiet, Mitscher possessed a natural authority. He could check a man with a single question. He was intolerant of incompetence and would relieve officers who were not making the grade, but was lenient with what he would consider honest mistakes.

Harsh discipline, he believed, ruined more men than it made. He was not forgetful of the abuse he took at the Naval Academy. He believed pilots could not be successfully handled with rigid discipline, as what made for a good pilot was an independence that inflexible discipline destroyed. At the same time, he was insistent on rigid "air discipline" and he would break a man who violated it.