Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, and author. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight fromNew York toParis, a distance of 3,600 miles (5,800 km), flying alone for over 33 hours. His aircraft, theSpirit of St. Louis, was built to compete for the $25,000Orteig Prize for the first flight between the two cities. Although not thefirst transatlantic flight, it was the firstsolo crossing of the Atlantic and the longest at the time by nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km), setting a new flight distanceworld record.[4] The achievement garnered Lindbergh worldwide fame and stands as one of themost consequential flights in history, signalling a new era ofair transportation between parts of the globe.
On March 1, 1932, Lindbergh's first-born infant child, Charles Jr.,was kidnapped and murdered in what the American media called the "crime of the century". The case prompted the U.S. to establishkidnapping as a federal crime if a kidnapper crosses state lines with a victim. By late 1935, public hysteria from the case drove the Lindbergh family abroad to Europe, from where they returned in 1939. In the months before the United States enteredWorld War II, Lindbergh'snon-interventionist stance and statements about Jews and race led many to believe he was aNazi sympathizer. Lindbergh never publicly stated support for the Nazis and condemned them several times in both his public speeches and personal diary, but associated with them on numerous occasions in the 1930s. He also supported theisolationistAmerica First Committee and resigned from the U.S. Army Air Corps in April 1941 after PresidentFranklin Roosevelt publicly rebuked him for his views.[7] In September 1941, Lindbergh gave a significant address, titled "Speech on Neutrality", outlining his position and arguments against greater American involvement in the war.[8]
From an early age, Lindbergh had exhibited an interest in the mechanics of motorized transportation, including his family'sSaxon Six automobile, and later hisExcelsior motorbike. By the time Lindbergh started college as amechanical engineering student, he had also become fascinated with flying, though he "had never been close enough to a plane to touch it".[19] After quitting college in February 1922, Lindbergh enrolled at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation's flying school inLincoln and flew for the first time onApril 9 as a passenger in a two-seatLincoln Standard "Tourabout" biplane trainer piloted byOtto Timm.[20]
A few days later, Lindbergh took his first formal flying lesson in that same aircraft, though he was never permitted to solo because he could not afford to post the requisite damage bond.[21] To gain flight experience and earn money for further instruction, Lindbergh left Lincoln in June to spend the next few monthsbarnstorming acrossNebraska,Kansas,Colorado,Wyoming, andMontana as awing walker andparachutist. He also briefly worked as an airplane mechanic at theBillings, Montana, municipal airport.[22][23]
Lindbergh left flying with the onset of winter and returned to his father's home in Minnesota.[24] His return to the air and his first solo flight did not come until half a year later in May 1923 atSouther Field inAmericus, Georgia, a former Army flight-training field, where he bought a World War I surplusCurtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplane for $500. Although Lindbergh had not touched an airplane in more than six months, he had already secretly decided that he was ready to take to the air by himself. After a half-hour of dual time with a pilot who was visiting the field, Lindbergh flew solo for the first time in the Jenny.[25][26] After spending another week or so at the field to "practice" (thereby acquiring five hours of "pilot in command" time), Lindbergh took off from Americus forMontgomery, Alabama, some 140 miles (230 km) to the west, for his first solo cross-country flight.[27] Lindbergh went on to spend much of the remainder of 1923 engaged in almost nonstop barnstorming under the name "Daredevil Lindbergh", this time flying in his "own ship" as the pilot.[28][29] A few weeks after leaving Americus, he made his first night flight nearLake Village, Arkansas.[30]
Lindbergh as a young 2nd Lt., March 1925
While Lindbergh was barnstorming inLone Rock, Wisconsin, on two occasions he flew a local physician across theWisconsin River to emergency calls that were otherwise unreachable because of flooding.[31] Lindbergh broke his propeller several times while landing, and onJune 3, 1923, he was grounded for a week when he ran into a ditch inGlencoe, Minnesota, while flying his father—then running for the U.S. Senate—to a campaign stop. In October, Lindbergh flew his Jenny toIowa, where he sold it to a flying student. Lindbergh returned to Lincoln by train, where he joined Leon Klink and continued to barnstorm through the South for the next few months in Klink's Curtiss JN-4C "Canuck" (the Canadian version of the Jenny). Lindbergh also "cracked up" this aircraft once when his engine failed shortly after takeoff inPensacola, Florida, but again Lindbergh managed to repair the damage himself.[32]
Following a few months of barnstorming throughthe South, the two pilots parted company inSan Antonio, Texas, where Lindbergh reported toBrooks Field onMarch 19, 1924, to begin a year of military flight training with theUnited States Army Air Service there (and later at nearbyKelly Field).[33] Lindbergh had his most serious flying accident onMarch 5, 1925, eight days before graduation, when a mid-air collision with another ArmyS.E.5 during aerial combat maneuvers forced him to bail out.[34] Only 18 of the 104 cadets who started flight training a year earlier remained when Lindbergh graduated first overall in his class in March 1925, thereby earning his Army pilot's wings and a commission as asecond lieutenant in theAir Service Reserve Corps.[35][N 2]
Lindbergh later said that this year was critical to his development as both a focused, goal-oriented individual and as an aviator.[N 3] However, the Army did not need additional active-duty pilots, so following graduation, Lindbergh returned to civilian aviation as a barnstormer andflight instructor, although as a reserve officer, he also continued to do some part-time military flying by joining the110th Observation Squadron, 35th Division, MissouriNational Guard, in St. Louis. Lindbergh was promoted tofirst lieutenant on December 7, 1925, and to captain in July 1926.[38]
OnApril 13, 1926, Lindbergh executed theUnited States Post Office Department's Oath of Mail Messengers,[40] and two days later, he opened service on the new route. On two occasions, combinations of bad weather, equipment failure, andfuel exhaustion forced Lindbergh to bail out on night approach toChicago;[41][42] both times he reached the ground without serious injury.[42][43] In mid-February 1927, Lindbergh left forSan Diego, California, to oversee design and construction of theSpirit of St. Louis.[44]
Around the same time, French-born New York hotelierRaymond Orteig was approached byAugustus Post, secretary of the Aero Club of America, to put up a $25,000(equivalent to $453,000 in 2024) award for the first successful nonstop transatlantic flight specifically between New York City and Paris within five years after its establishment. When that time limit lapsed in 1924 without a serious attempt, Orteig renewed the offer for another five years, this time attracting a number of well-known, highly experienced, and well-financed contenders—none of whom were successful.[47] OnSeptember 21, 1926, World WarI Frenchflying aceRené Fonck'sSikorsky S-35 crashed on takeoff fromRoosevelt Field in New York, killing crew members Jacob Islamoff and Charles Clavier.[48] U.S. Naval aviatorsNoel Davis andStanton H. Wooster were killed atLangley Field, Virginia, onApril 26, 1927, while testing theirKeystone Pathfinder. OnMay 8, French war heroesCharles Nungesser andFrançois Coli departedParis – Le Bourget Airport in theLevasseur PL 8 seaplaneL'Oiseau Blanc; they disappeared somewhere in the Atlantic after last being seen crossing the west coast ofIreland.[49]
The specific event that inspired Lindbergh to attempt the flight was René Fonck's September 1926 failure. Reading of Fonck's crash, Lindbergh decided that "a nonstop flight between New York and Paris would be less hazardous than flying mail for a single winter."[50] He soon "discussed his idea with St. Louis businessmen and aviation supporters" and began to gather resources, making "several inquiries" with airplane manufacturers.[45]
Financing the historic flight was a challenge due to Lindbergh's obscurity, but two St. Louis businessmen eventually obtained a $15,000 bank loan. Lindbergh contributed $2,000 (equivalent to $36,000 in 2024)[51] of his own money from his salary as an air mail pilot and another $1,000 was donated by RAC. The total of $18,000 was far less than what was available to Lindbergh's rivals.[52]
The group tried to buy an "off-the-peg" single or multiengine monoplane fromWright Aeronautical, thenTravel Air, and finally the newly formedColumbia Aircraft Corporation, but all insisted on selecting the pilot as a condition of sale.[53][54][55] Finally, the much smallerRyan Airline Company (later called theRyan Aeronautical Company) ofSan Diego agreed to design and build a custom monoplane for $10,580, and onFebruary 25, 1927, a deal was formally closed.[56] Dubbed theSpirit of St. Louis, the fabric-covered, single-seat, single-engine high-wing monoplane was designed jointly by Lindbergh and Ryan's chief engineerDonald A. Hall.[57] TheSpirit flew for the first time just two months later, and after a series of test flights Lindbergh took off from San Diego onMay 10. Lindbergh went first to St. Louis, then on toRoosevelt Field on New York'sLong Island.[58]
Lindbergh with theSpirit of St. Louis prior to his flight
In the early morning of Friday,May 20, 1927, Lindbergh took off fromRoosevelt Field onLong Island.[59][60] His destination,Le Bourget Aerodrome, was about 7 miles (11 km) outsideParis and 3,610 miles (5,810 km)[61] from his starting point. Lindbergh was "too busy the night before to lie down for more than a couple of hours", and "had been unable [to] sleep."[62] It rained the morning of his takeoff, but as the plane "was wheeled into position on the runway", the rain ceased and light began to break through the "low-hanging clouds."[62] A crowd variously described as "nearly a thousand"[63] or "several thousand" assembled to see Lindbergh off.[62] For its transatlantic flight, theSpirit was loaded with 450 U.S. gallons (1,700 liters) offuel that was filtered repeatedly to avoid fuel line blockage. The fuel load was a thousand pounds heavier than any theSpirit had lifted during a test flight, and the fully loaded airplane weighed 5,200 pounds (2,400 kg; 2.6 short tons).[64][65] With takeoff hampered by a muddy, rain-soaked runway, the plane was "helped by men pushing at the wing struts", with the last man leaving the wings only one hundred yards (90 m) down the runway.[62] TheSpirit gained speed very slowly during its 7:52AM takeoff, but cleared telephone lines at the far end of the field "by about twenty feet (6.1 m) with a fair reserve of flying speed".[66]
Crowd assembled atRoosevelt Field to witness Lindbergh's departure
At 8:52 AM, an hour after takeoff, Lindbergh was flying at an altitude of 500 feet (150 m) overRhode Island, following an uneventful passage—aside from some turbulence—overLong Island Sound andConnecticut.[67] By 9:52 AM, he had passedBoston and was flying withCape Cod to his right, with anairspeed of 107 miles per hour (172 km/h) and altitude of 150 feet (46 m); about an hour later, Lindbergh began to feel tired, even though only a few hours had elapsed since takeoff. To keep his mind clear, Lindbergh descended and flew at only 10 feet (3 m) above the water's surface.[68] By around 11:52 AM, he had climbed to an altitude of 200 feet (60 m), and at this point was 400 miles (640 km) distant from New York.[68]Nova Scotia appeared ahead and, after flying over theGulf of Maine, Lindbergh was only "6 miles (10 km), or 2 degrees, off course."[67] At 3:52 PM, the eastern coast ofCape Breton Island was below; he struggled to stay awake, even though it was "only the afternoon of the first day."[67] At 5:52 PM, Lindbergh was flying along theNewfoundland coast, and passedSt. John's at 7:15 PM.[68][69] On its May 21 front page,The New York Times ran a special cable from the prior evening: "Captain Lindbergh's airplane passed over St. John's at 8:15 o'clock tonight [7:15 New York Daylight Saving Time]...was seen by hundreds and disappeared seaward, heading for Ireland...It was flying quite low between the hills near St. John's."[70] TheTimes also observed that Lindbergh was "following the track ofHawker and Greeve and also ofAlcock and Brown".[70]
Map of Lindbergh's route on the May 21, 1927, front page of theSan Diego Evening Tribune, by artist Wallace Hamilton
Great circle sailing chart of the North Atlantic withgnomonic projection, published by theU.S. Hydrographic Office and annotated by Lindbergh. He described this chart as a "nugget of gold"[71] and used it to plot the course of his 1927 flight
Stars appeared as night fell around 8:00 PM. The sea became obscured by fog, prompting Lindbergh to climb "from an altitude of 800 feet (240 m) to 7,500 feet (2,300 m) to stay above the quickly-rising cloud."[68] An hour later, he was flying at 10,000 feet (3,000 m). A toweringthunderhead stood in front of Lindbergh, and he flew into the cloud, but turned back after he noticed ice forming on the plane.[68] While inside the cloud, Lindbergh "thrust a bare hand through the cockpit window", and felt the "sting of ice particles."[62] After returning to open sky, he "curved back to his course."[62] At 11:52 PM, Lindbergh was in warmer air, and no ice remained on theSpirit; he was flying 90 miles per hour (140 km/h) at 10,000 feet (3,000 m), and was 500 miles (800 km) from Newfoundland.[67] Eighteen hours into the flight, Lindbergh was halfway to Paris, and while he had planned to celebrate at this point, he instead felt "only dread."[68] Because Lindbergh flew through several time zones, dawn came earlier, at around 2:52 AM.[67] He began to hallucinate about two hours later.[67] At this point in the flight, he "continually" fell asleep, awakening "seconds, possibly minutes, later."[68] However, after "flying for hours in or above the fog", the weather finally began to clear. 7:52 AM marked 24 hours in the air for Lindbergh and he did not feel as tired by this point.[68]
At around 9:52 AM New York time, or 27 hours after he left Roosevelt Field, Lindbergh saw "porpoises and fishing boats", a sign he had reached the other side of the Atlantic.[67][72] Lindbergh circled and flew closely, but no fishermen appeared on the boat decks, although he did see a face watching from a porthole.[67][62]Dingle Bay, inCounty Kerry of southwestIreland, was the first European land that Lindbergh encountered; he veered to get a better look and consulted his charts, identifying it as the southern tip of Ireland.[73][69][67] The local time in Ireland was 3:00 PM.[68] Flying over Dingle Bay, theSpirit was "2.5 hours ahead of schedule and less than 3 miles (5 km) off course."[68] Lindbergh had navigated "almost precisely to the coastal point he had marked on his chart."[62] Lindbergh wanted to reach the French coast in daylight, so increased his speed to 110 miles per hour (180 km/h).[68] The English coast appeared ahead of him, and he was "now wide awake."[67] A report came fromPlymouth, on the English coast, that Lindbergh's plane had started across theEnglish Channel.[62] News soon spread across both "Europe and the United States that Lindbergh had been spotted over England", and a crowd started to form at Le Bourget Aerodrome as he neared Paris.[72] At sunset, he flew overCherbourg, on the French coast 200 miles (320 km) from Paris; it was around 2:52 PM New York time.[68][67]
Over the33+1⁄2 hours of the flight, the aircraft foughticing, flew blind through fog for several hours, and Lindbergh navigated only bydead reckoning (he was not proficient at navigatingby the sun and stars and he rejectedradio navigation gear as heavy and unreliable). Fortunately, the winds over the Atlantic cancelled each other out, giving Lindbergh zero wind drift—and thus accurate navigation during the long flight over featureless ocean.[74][75]
Silent short film documenting his flight and landing in Paris
On arriving at Paris, Lindbergh "circled the Eiffel Tower" before flying to the airfield.[61] He flew over the crowd atLe Bourget Aerodrome at 10:16 and landed at 10:22 PM on Saturday,May 21, on the far side of the field and "nearly half a mile from the crowd", as reported byThe New York Times.[76][77][78] The airfield was not marked on his map and Lindbergh knew only that it was some seven miles northeast of the city; he initially mistook it for some large industrial complex because of the bright lights spreading out in all directions—in fact the headlights of tens of thousands of spectators' cars caught in "the largest traffic jam in Paris history" in their attempt to be present for Lindbergh's landing.[79]
Samples of theSpirit's linen covering
A crowd estimated at 150,000 stormed the field, dragged Lindbergh out of the cockpit, and carried him around above their heads for "nearly half an hour."[80] Some minor damage was done to theSpirit by souvenir hunters before pilot and plane reached the safety of a nearby hangar with the aid of French military fliers, soldiers, and police.[80] TheTimes reported that before the police could intervene the "souvenir mad" spectators "stripped the plane of everything which could be taken off", and were cutting off pieces of linen when "a squad of soldiers with fixed bayonets quickly surrounded" the plane, providing guard as it was "wheeled into a shed."[78] Lindbergh met theU.S. Ambassador to France,Myron T. Herrick, across Le Bourget field in a "little room with a few chairs and an army cot."[81] The lights in the room were turned off to conceal his presence from the frenzied crowd, which "surged madly" trying to find him. Lindbergh shook hands with Herrick and handed him several letters he had carried across the Atlantic, three of which were fromCol.Theodore Roosevelt Jr., son of former PresidentTheodore Roosevelt, who had written letters of introduction at Lindbergh's request.[82][81] Lindbergh left the airfield around midnight and was driven through Paris to the ambassador's residence, stopping to visit theFrench Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at theArc de Triomphe;[81] after arriving at the residence, he slept for the first time in about 60 hours.[78][72][68]
Lindbergh accepts the prize fromRaymond Orteig in New York,June 16, 1927[85]
Lindbergh received unprecedented acclaim after his historic flight. In the words of biographerA. Scott Berg, people were "behaving as though Lindbergh had walked on water, not flown over it".[86]: 17 The New York Times printed anabove the fold, page-wide headline: "Lindbergh Does It!"[78] and his mother's house in Detroit was surrounded by a crowd reported at nearly a thousand.[87] Lindbergh became "an international celebrity, with invitations pouring in for him to visit European countries", and he "received marriage proposals, invitations to visit cities across the nation, and thousands of gifts, letters, and endorsement requests."[88] At least "200 songs were written" in tribute to Lindbergh and his flight.[88] "Lucky Lindy!", written and composed byL. Wolfe Gilbert andAbel Baer, was finished on May 21 itself, and was "performed to great acclaim in several Manhattan clubs" that night.[89] After landing, Lindbergh was eager to embark on a tour of Europe. As he noted in a speech a few weeks afterward, Lindbergh's flight marked the first time he "had ever been abroad", and Lindbergh "landed with the expectancy, and the hope, of being able to see Europe."[88]
The morning after landing, Lindbergh appeared in the balcony of theU.S. embassy, responding "briefly and modestly" to the calls of the crowd.[90] TheFrench Foreign Office flew the American flag, the first time it had saluted someone who was not a head of state.[91] At theÉlysée Palace, FrenchPresidentGaston Doumergue bestowed theLégion d'honneur on Lindbergh, pinning the award on his lapel, with AmbassadorHerrick present for the occasion.[92][93][94] Lindbergh also made flights to Belgium and Britain in theSpirit before returning to the United States. On May 28, Lindbergh flew toEvere Aerodrome inBrussels, Belgium, circling the field three times for the cheering crowd and taxiing to a halt just after 3:00 PM, as a thousand children waved American flags.[95] On his way to Evere, Lindbergh had met an escort of ten planes from the airport, who found him on course nearMons but had trouble keeping up as theSpirit was averaging "about 100 miles an hour."[95] After landing, Lindbergh was welcomed by military officers and prominent officials, including BelgianPrime MinisterHenri Jaspar, who led the procession of Lindbergh's plane to a "platform where it was raised to the view of cheering thousands."[95] "It was a splendid flight," Lindbergh declared, stating: "I enjoyed every minute of it. The motor is in fine shape and I could circle Europe without touching it."[95] Belgian troops with fixed bayonets protected theSpirit to avoid a repeat of the damage at Le Bourget.[95] From Evere, Lindbergh motored to the U.S. embassy, and then went to place a wreath on theBelgian tomb of the unknown soldier.[95] He then visited theBelgian royal palace at the invitation ofKing Albert I, where the king made Lindbergh a Knight of theOrder of Leopold; as Lindbergh shook the king's hand, he said: "I have heard much of the famous soldier-king of the Belgians."[95][96] TheUnited Press reported that "One million persons are in Brussels today to greet Lindbergh", constituting "the greatest welcome ever accorded a private citizen in Belgium."[95]
After Belgium, Lindbergh traveled to theUnited Kingdom. He departed Brussels and arrived atCroydon Air Field in theSpirit on May 29, where a crowd of 100,000 "mobbed" him.[98][99][100] Before reaching the airfield, Lindbergh overflew London where crowds, some on roofs, "gazed at the flyer" and observers with "field glasses in theWest End business district" watched him.[101] About 50 minutes before Lindbergh landed, the "roads leading toward Croydon airport were jammed."[101] Flying into the airfield, he "appeared on the horizon" at 5:50 PM accompanied by six British military planes, but the massive crowd "swept over the guard lines" and forced Lindbergh to circle the airfield "while police battled the crowd", and "not until 10 minutes later had they cleared a space large enough" for him to land.[101] Police reserves were sent to the airfield in "large numbers", but it was not enough to contain the multitude. As the plane came to a stop, the crowd "waved American flags, smashed fences, and knocked down police", while Lindbergh himself was described as "grinning and serene" amid the "seething" crowd.[101] The United Press reported that a "man's leg was broken in the crush", and another man fell from atop a hangar and suffered internal injuries.[101] English officials were reportedly "surprised" by the enthusiasm of the welcome.[101] A limousine pulled near theSpirit, escorting Lindbergh to a tower on the field where he responded to the cheering crowd. "All I can say is that this is worse than what happened at Le Bourget Field", Lindbergh told them. "But all the same, I'm glad to be here."[101] When he reached the reception room where British Secretary of State for AirSir Samuel Hoare, U.S. AmbassadorAlanson B. Houghton, and others waited, Lindbergh's first words were: "Save my plane!"[101] Mechanics moved theSpirit to a hangar where it was placed "under a military guard."[101] Also present at Croydon were formerSecretary of State for AirLord Thomson, Director of Civil AviationSir Sefton Brancker, andBrig. Gen.P. R. C. Groves.[101]
Newsreel of Lindbergh landing inBrussels, Belgium soon after his historic transatlantic flight[102]
Accompanied by twoRoyal Air Force planes, Lindbergh then flew 90 miles from Croydon toGosport, where he left theSpirit to be dismantled for shipment back to New York.[103] On May 31, accompanied by an attache of theU.S. Embassy, Lindbergh visited British Prime MinisterStanley Baldwin at10 Downing Street and then motored toBuckingham Palace, whereKing George V received him as a guest and awarded him the BritishAir Force Cross.[103][104] In anticipation of Lindbergh's visit to the palace, a crowd massed "hoping to get a glimpse" of him.[103] The crowd became so great that police had to call in reserves fromScotland Yard.[103] Upon his arrival back in the United States aboard the U.S. NavycruiserUSS Memphis (CL-13) onJune 11, 1927, a fleet of warships and multiple flights of military aircraft escorted him up thePotomac River to theWashington Navy Yard, where PresidentCalvin Coolidge awarded him theDistinguished Flying Cross.[105][106] Lindbergh received the first award of this medal, but it violated the authorizing regulation. Coolidge's own executive order, published in March 1927, required recipients to perform their feats of airmanship "while participating in an aerial flight as part of the duties incident to such membership [in the Organized Reserves]", which Lindbergh failed to satisfy.[107][108]
Lindbergh flew from Washington, D.C., to New York City onJune 13, arriving inLower Manhattan. He traveled up theCanyon of Heroes to City Hall, where he was received by MayorJimmy Walker. Aticker-tape parade[109] followed toCentral Park Mall, where he was awarded the New York Medal for Valor at a ceremony hosted by New York GovernorAl Smith and attended by a crowd of 200,000. Some 4,000,000 people saw Lindbergh that day.[110][111][112][113] That evening, Lindbergh was accompanied by his mother and Mayor Walker when he was the guest of honor at a 500-guest banquet and dance held atClarence MacKay's Long Island estate,Harbor Hill.[114]
The New York City"WE" Banquet, held on June 14, 1927
The following night, Lindbergh was honored with a grand banquet at theHotel Commodore given by the Mayor's Committee on Receptions of the City of New York and attended by some 3,700 people.[115] He was officially awarded the check for the prize onJune 16.[85]
OnDecember 14, 1927, a SpecialAct of Congress awarded Lindbergh theMedal of Honor, despite the fact that it was almost always awarded for heroism in combat.[117] It was presented to Lindbergh by President Coolidge at theWhite House onMarch 21, 1928.[118] The medal contradicted Coolidge's earlier executive order directing that "not more than one of the several decorations authorized by Federal law will be awarded for the same act of heroism or extraordinary achievement" (Lindbergh was recognized for the same act with both the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Flying Cross).[119] The statute authorizing the award was also criticized for apparently violating procedure; House legislators reportedly neglected to have their votes counted.[120]
Lindbergh was honored as the firstTime magazineMan of the Year (now called "Person of the Year") when he appeared on that magazine's cover at age 25 onJanuary 2, 1928;[121] he remained the youngestTime Person of the Year untilGreta Thunberg in 2019. The winner of the 1930 Best Woman Aviator of the Year Award,Elinor Smith Sullivan, said that before Lindbergh's flight:
People seemed to think we [aviators] were from outer space or something. But after Charles Lindbergh's flight, we could do no wrong. It's hard to describe the impact Lindbergh had on people. Even the first walk on the moon doesn't come close. The twenties was such an innocent time, and people were still so religious—I think they felt like this man was sent by God to do this. And it changed aviation forever because all of a sudden theWall Streeters were banging on doors looking for airplanes to invest in. We'd been standing on our heads trying to get them to notice us but after Lindbergh, suddenly everyone wanted to fly, and there weren't enough planes to carry them.[122]
Barely two months after Lindbergh arrived in Paris, G. P. Putnam's Sons published his 318-page autobiography"WE", which was the first of 15 books he eventually wrote or to which he made significant contributions. The company was run by aviation enthusiastGeorge P. Putnam.[123]The dustjacket notes said that Lindbergh wanted to share the "story of his life and his transatlantic flight together with his views on the future of aviation", and that"WE" referred to the "spiritual partnership" that had developed "between himself and his airplane during the dark hours of his flight".[124][125] However, as Berg wrote in 1998, Putnam's chose the title without "Lindbergh's knowledge or approval", and Lindbergh would "forever complain about it, that his use of 'we' meant him and his backers, not him and his plane, as the press had people believing"; nonetheless, as Berg remarked, "his frequent unconscious use of the phrase suggested otherwise."[126]
Putnam's sold special autographed copies of the book for $25 each, all of which were purchased before publication.[126]"WE" was soon translated into most major languages and sold more than 650,000 copies in the first year, earning Lindbergh more than $250,000. Its success was considerably aided by Lindbergh's three-month, 22,350-mile (35,970 km) tour of the United States in theSpirit on behalf of theDaniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. BetweenJuly 20 andOctober 23, 1927, Lindbergh visited 82 cities in all 48 states, rode 1,290 mi (2,080 km) in parades, and delivered 147 speeches before 30 million people.[127]
Lindbergh andPan American World Airways headJuan Trippe were interested in developing an air route across Alaska and Siberia to China and Japan. In the summer of 1931, with Trippe's support, Lindbergh and his wife flew from Long Island toNome, Alaska, and from there to Siberia, Japan and China. The flight was carried out with aLockheed Model 8 Sirius namedTingmissartoq. The route was not available for commercial service until after World WarII, as prewar aircraft lacked the range to flyAlaska to Japan nonstop, and the United States had not officially recognized the Soviet government.[132] In China they volunteered to help in disaster investigation and relief efforts for theCentral China flood of 1931.[133] This was later documented in Anne's bookNorth to the Orient.
Lindbergh-autographed USPOD penalty cover with C-10 flown by him over CAM-2
Lindbergh used his world fame to promote air mail service. For example, at the request of Basil L. Rowe, the owner of West Indian Aerial Express (and laterPan Am's chief pilot), in February 1928, he carried some 3,000 pieces of special souvenir mail betweenSanto Domingo, Dominican Repulic;Port-au-Prince, Haiti; andHavana, Cuba[134]—the last three stops he and theSpirit made during their 7,800 mi (12,600 km) "Good Will Tour" of Latin America and the Caribbean betweenDecember 13, 1927, andFebruary 8, 1928, and the only franked mail pieces that he ever flew in his iconic plane.[135]
Two weeks after his Latin American tour, Lindbergh piloted a series of special flights over his old CAM-2 route onFebruary 20 andFebruary 21. Tens of thousands of self-addressed souvenir covers were sent in from all over the world, so at each stop Lindbergh switched to another of the three planes he and his fellow CAM-2 pilots had used, so it could be said that each cover had been flown by him. The covers were then backstamped and returned to their senders as a promotion of the air mail service.[136]
Cover flown aboard the first airmail flight by Charles Lindbergh, from Brownsville, Texas to Mexico City, March 10, 1929
In 1929–1931, Lindbergh carried much smaller numbers of souvenir covers on the first flights over routes inLatin America and theCaribbean, which he had earlier laid out as a consultant toPan American Airways to be then flown under contract to the Post Office as Foreign Air Mail (FAM) routes 5 and 6.[137]
On March 10, 1929, Lindbergh flew an inaugural flight fromBrownsville, Texas, toMexico City viaTampico, in aFord Trimotor airplane, carrying a load of U.S. mail. When a number of mail bags came up missing for a period of one month, they subsequently came to be known in thephilatelic world as thecovers of the "Lost Mail Flight". The historic flight was received with much notoriety in the press and marked the beginning of extended airmail service between the United States and Mexico.[138][139]
In his autobiography, Lindbergh derided pilots he met as womanizing "barnstormers"; he also criticized Army cadets for their "facile" approach to relationships. He wrote that the ideal romance was stable and long-term, with a woman with keen intellect, good health, and strong genes,[140] his "experience in breeding animals on our farm [having taught him] the importance of good heredity".[141]
Anne Morrow Lindbergh was the daughter ofDwight Morrow, who, as a partner atJ.P. Morgan & Co., had acted as financial adviser to Lindbergh. He was also the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico in 1927. Invited by Morrow on a goodwill tour to Mexico along with humorist and actorWill Rogers, Lindbergh met Anne inMexico City in December 1927.[142]
The couple was married onMay 27, 1929, at the Morrow estate inEnglewood, New Jersey, where they resided after their marriage before moving to the western part of the state.[143][144] They had six children:Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. (1930–1932);Jon Morrow Lindbergh (1932–2021); Land Morrow Lindbergh (b. 1937), who studied anthropology atStanford University;[145]Anne Lindbergh (1940–1993); Scott Lindbergh (b. 1942); andReeve Lindbergh (b. 1945), a writer. Lindbergh taught Anne how to fly, and she accompanied and assisted him in much of his exploring and charting of air routes.
Lindbergh saw his children for only a few months a year. He kept track of each child's infractions (including such things as gum-chewing) and insisted that Anne track every penny of household expenses.[146]
Lindbergh came to theMonterey Peninsula with his wife in March 1930 to continue innovations in the design and use ofgliders. He stayed atDel Monte Lodge in Pebble Beach, to search for sites for launching gliders. He came to thePalo Corona Ranch inCarmel Valley, California, and stayed there as guests at the Sidney Fish home, where he flew a glider from a ridge at the ranch. Eight men towed the glider to the ridge where he soared over the countryside for 10 minutes and brought the plane down 3 miles below theHighlands Inn. Other flights lasted 70 minutes. In 1930, his wife became the first woman to receive a U.S.glider pilot license.[149][150][151][152]
1932missing person poster for Lindbergh's sonLindbergh testifying at theRichard Hauptmann trial in 1935. Hauptmann is in half-profile at right.
On the evening ofMarch 1, 1932, twenty-month-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. was abducted from his crib in the Lindberghs' rural home,Highfields, inEast Amwell, New Jersey, near the town ofHopewell.[N 4] A man who claimed to be the kidnapper[154] picked up a cash ransom of $50,000 onApril 2, part of which was ingold certificates, which were soon to be withdrawn from circulation and would therefore attract attention; the bills' serial numbers were also recorded. OnMay 12, the child's remains were found in woods not far from the Lindbergh home.[155]
The case was widely called the "Crime of the Century" and was described byH. L. Mencken as "the biggest story since theResurrection".[156] In response, Congress passed the so-called"Lindbergh Law", which made kidnapping afederal offense if the victim is taken across state lines or (as in the Lindbergh case) the kidnapper uses "the mail or... interstate or foreign commerce in committing or in furtherance of the commission of the offense", such as in demanding ransom.[157]
Richard Hauptmann, a 34-year-old German immigrant carpenter, was arrested near his home inthe Bronx, New York, onSeptember 19, 1934, after paying for gasoline with one of the ransom bills. $13,760 of the ransom money and other evidence was found in his home. Hauptmann went on trial for kidnapping, murder and extortion onJanuary 2, 1935, in a circus-like atmosphere inFlemington, New Jersey. He was convicted onFebruary 13,[158] sentenced to death, and electrocuted atTrenton State Prison onApril 3, 1936.[159] His guilt is contested.[160]
An intensely private man,[161] Lindbergh became exasperated by the unrelenting public attention in the wake of the kidnapping and trial,[162][163] and was concerned for the safety of his three-year-old second son, Jon.[164][165] In the predawn hours of Sunday,December 22, 1935, the family "sailed furtively"[162] fromManhattan forLiverpool,[166] the only three passengers aboard theUnited States Lines freighter SSAmerican Importer.[N 5] They traveled under assumed names and with diplomatic passports issued through the personal intervention of former U.S. Treasury SecretaryOgden L. Mills.[168]
News of the Lindberghs' "flight to Europe"[162] did not become public until a full day later,[169][170] and even after the identity of their ship became known[163]radiograms addressed to Lindbergh on it were returned as "Addressee not aboard".[162]They arrived in Liverpool onDecember 31, then departed for South Wales to stay with relatives.[171][172]
The family eventually rented "Long Barn" inSevenoaks Weald, Kent.[173] In 1938, the family (including a third son, Land, born May 1937 in London) moved toÎle Illiec, a small four-acre (1.6 ha) island Lindbergh purchased off theBreton coast of France.[174]
Except for a brief visit to the U.S. in December 1937,[175] the Lindberghs lived and traveled extensively around Europe in their personalMiles M.12 Mohawk two person airplane, before returning to the U.S. in April 1939 and settling in a rented seaside estate atLloyd Neck, Long Island, New York.[176][177] The return was prompted by a personal request byGeneral H. H. ("Hap") Arnold, the chief of theUnited States Army Air Corps in which Lindbergh was a reserve colonel, for him to accept a temporary return to active duty to help evaluate the Air Corps's readiness for war.[178][179] His duties included evaluating new aircraft types in development, recruitment procedures, and finding a site for a new air force research institute and other potential air bases.[180] Assigned aCurtiss P-36 fighter, he toured various facilities, reporting back toWilbur Wright Field.[180] Lindbergh's brief four-month tour was also his first period of active military service since his graduation from the Army's Flight School fourteen years earlier in 1925.[176]
Lindbergh wrote to theLongines watch company and described a watch that would make navigation easier for pilots. First produced in 1931, they called it the "Lindbergh Hour Angle watch",[181] and it remains in production today.[182]
In 1929, Lindbergh became interested in the work of rocket pioneerRobert H. Goddard. By helping Goddard secure anendowment fromDaniel Guggenheim in 1930, Lindbergh allowed Goddard to expand his research and development. Throughout his life, Lindbergh remained a key advocate of Goddard's work.[183]
In 1930, Lindbergh's sister-in-law developed a fatal heart condition.[184] Lindbergh began to wonder why hearts could not be repaired with surgery. Starting in early 1931 at theRockefeller Institute and continuing during his time living in France, Lindbergh studied theperfusion of organs outside the body withNobel Prize-winning French surgeonAlexis Carrel. Although perfused organs were said to have survived surprisingly well, all showed progressivedegenerative changes within a few days.[185] Lindbergh's invention, a glass perfusion pump, named the "Model T" pump, is credited with making futureheart surgeries possible. In this early stage, the pump was far from perfected. In 1938, Lindbergh and Carrel described anartificial heart in the book in which they summarized their work,The Culture of Organs,[186] but it was decades before one was built. In later years, Lindbergh's pump was further developed by others, eventually leading to the construction of the firstheart-lung machine.[187]
In July 1936, shortly before the opening of the1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, American journalistWilliam L. Shirer recorded in his diary: "The Lindberghs are here [in Berlin], and the Nazis, led by Göring, are making a great play for them."
This 1936 visit was the first of several that Lindbergh made at the request of the U.S. military establishment between 1936 and 1938, with the goal of evaluating German aviation.[188] During this visit, the Lufthansa airline held a tea for the Lindberghs, and later invited them for a ride aboard the massive four-engineJunkers G.38 that had been christenedField-Marshal Von Hindenburg. Shirer, who was on the flight, wrote:
Somewhere over Wannsee Lindbergh took the controls himself and treated us to some very steep banks, considering the size of the plane, and other little manoeuvres, which terrified most of the passengers. The talk is that the Lindberghs have been favorably impressed by what the Nazis have shown them. He has shown no enthusiasm for meeting the foreign correspondents, who have a perverse liking for enlightening visitors on the Third Reich, as they see it, and we have not pressed for an interview."[189]
Hanna Reitsch demonstrated theFocke-Wulf Fw 61 helicopter to Lindbergh in 1937,[190]: 121 and he was the first American to examine Germany's newest bomber, theJunkers Ju 88, and Germany's front-linefighter aircraft, theMesserschmitt Bf 109, which he was allowed to pilot. He said of the Bf 109 that he knew of "no other pursuit plane which combines simplicity of construction with such excellent performance characteristics."[188][191]
There is disagreement on how accurate Lindbergh's reports were, but Cole asserts that the consensus among British and American officials was that they were slightly exaggerated but badly needed.[192]Arthur Krock, the chief ofThe New York Times's Washington Bureau, wrote in 1939, "When the new flying fleet of the United States begins to take air, among those who will have been responsible for its size, its modernness, and its efficiency is Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh. Informed officials here, in touch with what Colonel Lindbergh has been doing for his country abroad, are authority for this statement, and for the further observation that criticism of any of his activities – in Germany or elsewhere – is as ignorant as it is unfair."[193]General Henry H. Arnold, the only U.S. Air Force general to hold five-star rank, wrote in his autobiography, "Nobody gave us much useful information about Hitler's air force until Lindbergh came home in 1939."[194] Lindbergh also undertook a survey of aviation in theSoviet Union in 1938.[195]
In 1938,Hugh Wilson, the American ambassador to Germany, hosted a dinner for Lindbergh with Germany's air chief,GeneralfeldmarschallHermann Göring, and three central figures in German aviation:Ernst Heinkel,Adolf Baeumker, andWilly Messerschmitt.[196] At this dinner, Göring presented Lindbergh with the Commander Cross of theOrder of the German Eagle. Lindbergh's acceptance became controversial when, only a few weeks after this visit, the Nazi Party carried out theKristallnacht, a nation-wide anti-Jewish pogrom which is considered a key inaugurating event of theHolocaust.[197] Lindbergh declined to return the medal, later writing:
It seems to me that the returning of decorations, which were given in times of peace and as a gesture of friendship, can have no constructive effect. If I were to return the German medal, it seems to me that it would be an unnecessary insult. Even if war develops between us, I can see no gain in indulging in a spitting contest before that war begins.[198]
Ambassador Wilson later wrote to Lindbergh:
Neither you, nor I, nor any other American present had any previous hint that the presentation would be made. I have always felt that if you refused the decoration, presented under those circumstances, you would have been guilty of a breach of good taste. It would have been an act offensive to a guest of the Ambassador of your country, in the house of the Ambassador.[193]
Lindbergh's reaction to theKristallnacht was entrusted to his diary: "I do not understand these riots on the part of the Germans", he wrote. "It seems so contrary to their sense of order and intelligence. They have undoubtedly had a difficult 'Jewish problem', but why is it necessary to handle it so unreasonably?"[199]Lindbergh had planned to move to Berlin for the winter of 1938–39. He had provisionally found a house inWannsee, but after Nazi friends discouraged him from leasing it because it had been formerly owned by Jews,[200] it was recommended that he contactAlbert Speer, who said he would build the Lindberghs a house anywhere they wanted. On the advice of his close friendAlexis Carrel, he cancelled the trip.[200]
In 1938, the U.S.Air Attaché in Berlin invited Lindbergh to inspect the rising power ofNazi Germany's Air Force. Impressed by German technology and the apparently large number of aircraft at their disposal and influenced by the staggering number of deaths fromWorld War I, he opposed U.S. entry into the impending European conflict.[201] In September 1938, he stated to the French cabinet that theLuftwaffe possessed 8,000 aircraft and could produce 1,500 per month. Although this was seven times the actual number determined by theDeuxième Bureau, it influenced France into trying to avoid conflict with Nazi Germany through theMunich Agreement.[202] At the urging of U.S. AmbassadorJoseph Kennedy, Lindbergh wrote a secret memo to the British warning that a military response by Britain and France to Hitler's violation of theMunich Agreement would be disastrous; he claimed that France was militarily weak and Britain over-reliant on its navy. He urgently recommended that they strengthen their air power to force Hitler to redirect his aggression against "AsiaticCommunism".[192]
Following Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland, Lindbergh opposed sending aid to countries under threat, writing "I do not believe that repealing thearms embargo would assist democracy in Europe" and[201] "If we repeal the arms embargo with the idea of assisting one of the warring sides to overcome the other, then why mislead ourselves by talk of neutrality?"[201] He equated assistance with war profiteering: "To those who argue that we could make a profit and build up our own industry by selling munitions abroad, I reply that we in America have not yet reached a point where we wish to capitalize on the destruction and death of war".[201]
In August 1939, Lindbergh was the first choice ofAlbert Einstein, whom he met years earlier in New York, to deliver theEinstein–Szilárd letter alerting President Roosevelt about the vast potential ofnuclear fission. However, Lindbergh did not respond to Einstein's letter or toSzilard's later letter of September 13. Two days later, Lindbergh gave a nationwide radio address, in which he called forisolationism and indicated some pro-German sympathies and antisemitic insinuations about Jewish ownership of the media, saying "We must ask who owns and influences the newspaper, the news picture, and the radio station, ... If our people know the truth, our country is not likely to enter the war". After that, Szilard stated to Einstein: "Lindbergh is not our man."[203]: 475
In October 1939, following the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and Germany, and a month after theCanadian declaration of war on Germany, Lindbergh made another nationwide radio address criticizingCanada for drawing theWestern Hemisphere "into a European war simply because they prefer the Crown of England" to the independence of theAmericas.[204][205] Lindbergh further stated his opinion that the entire continent and its surrounding islands needed to be free from the "dictates of European powers".[204][205]
In November 1939, Lindbergh authored a controversialReader's Digest article in which he deplored the war, but asserted the need for a German assault on theSoviet Union.[192] Lindbergh wrote: "Our civilization depends on peace among Western nations ... and therefore on united strength, for Peace is a virgin who dare not show her face without Strength, her father, for protection".[206][207]
In late 1940, Lindbergh became the spokesman of the isolationistAmerica First Committee,[208] soon speaking to overflow crowds atMadison Square Garden and Chicago'sSoldier Field, with millions listening by radio. He argued emphatically that America had no business attacking Germany. Lindbergh justified this stance in writings that were only published posthumously:
I was deeply concerned that the potentially gigantic power of America, guided by uninformed and impractical idealism, might crusade into Europe to destroy Hitler without realizing that Hitler's destruction would lay Europe open to the rape, loot and barbarism ofSoviet Russia's forces, causing possibly the fatal wounding of Western civilization.[209]
In April 1941, he argued before 30,000 members of the America First Committee that "the British government has one last desperate plan ... to persuade us to send anotherAmerican Expeditionary Force to Europe and to share with England militarily, as well as financially, the fiasco of this war."[210]
In his 1941 testimony before theHouse Committee on Foreign Affairs opposing theLend-Lease bill, Lindbergh proposed that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Germany.[211] PresidentFranklin Roosevelt publicly decried Lindbergh's views as those of a "defeatist and appeaser", comparing him toU.S. Rep. Clement L. Vallandigham, who had led the"Copperhead" movement opposed to theAmerican Civil War. Following this, Lindbergh resigned his colonel's commission in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve on April 28, 1941, writing that he saw "no honorable alternative" given that Roosevelt had publicly questioned his loyalty; the next day,The New York Times ran an above the fold, front-page article about his resignation.[7]
On September 11, 1941, Lindberghdelivered a speech for an America First rally at theDes Moines Coliseum that accused three groups of "pressing this country toward war; the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt Administration".[212] He said that the British were propagandizing America because they could not defeat Nazi Germany without American aid and that thepresidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt was trying to use a war to consolidate power.[213][214] The three paragraphs Lindbergh devoted to accusingAmerican Jews of war agitation formed what biographer A. Scott Berg called "the core of his thesis".[215] In the speech, Lindbergh said that Jewish Americans had outsized control over government andnews media (even though Jews did not compose even 3% of newspaper publishers and were only a minority offoreign policy bureaucrats),[216] employing recognizablyantisemitic tropes.[217] The speech received a strong public backlash as newspapers, politicians, and clergy throughout the country criticized America First and Lindbergh for his remarks' antisemitism.[218][214]
His speeches and writings reflected his adoption of views on race, religion, and eugenics, similar to those of the GermanNazis, and he was suspected of being a Nazi sympathizer.[219][220] However, during a speech in September 1941, Lindbergh stated "no person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany."[221]Interventionist pamphlets pointed out that his efforts were praised inNazi Germany and included quotations such as "Racial strength is vital; politics, a luxury."[222]
Roosevelt disliked Lindbergh's outspoken opposition to his administration's interventionist policies, telling Treasury SecretaryHenry Morgenthau, "If I should die tomorrow, I want you to know this, I am absolutely convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi."[223] In 1941 he wrote to Secretary of WarHenry Stimson: "When I read Lindbergh's speech I felt that it could not have been better put if it had been written byGoebbels himself. What a pity that this youngster has completely abandoned his belief in our form of government and has accepted Nazi methods because apparently they are efficient."[224] Shortly after the war ended, Lindbergh toured aNazi concentration camp, and wrote in his diary, "Here was a place where men and life and death had reached the lowest form of degradation. How could any reward in national progress even faintly justify the establishment and operation of such a place?"[221]
In a speech on Oct. 12, 1939, Lindbergh stated "Our bond with Europe is a bond of race and not of political ideology. We had to fight a European army to establish democracy in this country. It is the European race we must preserve; political progress will follow. Racial strength is vital; politics, a luxury. If the white race is ever seriously threatened, it may then be time for us to take our part in its protection, to fight side by side with the English, French, and Germans, but not with one against the other for our mutual destruction.”[225]
Critics have suggested an influence on Lindbergh of German philosopherOswald Spengler,[226] a conservativeauthoritarian popular during theinterwar period.[226] In a 1935 interview, Lindbergh stated "There is no escaping the fact that men were definitely not created equal..."[227][228]
Lindbergh developed a long-term friendship with the automobile pioneerHenry Ford, who was well known for his antisemitic newspaperThe Dearborn Independent. In a famous comment about Lindbergh toDetroit's former FBI field office special agent in charge in July 1940, Ford said: "When Charles comes out here, we only talk about the Jews."[229][230]
Lindbergh considered Russia a "semi-Asiatic" country compared to Germany, and he believedCommunism was an ideology that would destroy the West's "racial strength" and replace everyone of European descent with "a pressing sea of Yellow, Black, and Brown". He stated that if he had to choose, he would rather see America allied with Nazi Germany thanSoviet Russia. He preferredNordics, but he believed, afterSoviet Communism was defeated, Russia would be a valuable ally against potential aggression fromEast Asia.[226][231]
Lindbergh elucidated his beliefs regarding thewhite race in a 1939 article inReader's Digest:
We can have peace and security only so long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood, only so long as we guard ourselves against attack by foreign armies and dilution by foreign races.[232]
Lindbergh said certain races have "demonstrated superior ability in the design, manufacture, and operation of machines",[233] and that "The growth of ourwestern civilization has been closely related to this superiority."[234] Lindbergh admired "the German genius for science and organization, the English genius for government and commerce, the French genius for living and the understanding of life". He believed, "in America they can be blended to form the greatest genius of all".[235]
In his bookThe American Axis,Holocaust researcher and investigative journalistMax Wallace agreed with Franklin Roosevelt's assessment that Lindbergh was "pro-Nazi". However, he found that the Roosevelt Administration's accusations ofdual loyalty ortreason were unsubstantiated. Wallace considered Lindbergh to be a well-intentioned but bigoted and misguided Nazi sympathizer whose career as the leader of the isolationist movement had a destructive impact onJewish people.[236]
Lindbergh'sPulitzer Prize-winning biographer,A. Scott Berg, alleged that Lindbergh was not so much a supporter of the Nazi regime as someone so stubborn in his convictions and relatively inexperienced in political maneuvering that he easily allowed rivals to portray him as one. Lindbergh's receipt of theOrder of the German Eagle, presented in October 1938 byGeneralfeldmarschallHermann Göring on behalf ofFührerAdolf Hitler, was approved without objection by theAmerican embassy. Lindbergh returned to the United States in early 1939 to spread his message ofnonintervention. Berg contended Lindbergh's views were commonplace in the United States in theinterwar era. Lindbergh's support for theAmerica First Committee was representative of the sentiments of a number of American people.[238]
Berg also noted:
"As late as April 1939—after Germany overtookCzechoslovakia—Lindbergh was willing to make excuses forAdolf Hitler. 'Much as I disapprove of many things Hitler had done', he wrote in his diary onApril 2, 1939, 'I believe she [Germany] has pursued the only consistent policy in Europe in recent years. I cannot support her broken promises, but she has only moved a little faster than other nations ... in breaking promises. The question of right and wrong is one thing by law and another thing by history.'"
Berg also explained that leading up to the war, Lindbergh believed the great battle would be between the Soviet Union and Germany, not fascism and democracy.
Lindbergh always championed military strength and alertness.[239][240] He believed that a strong defensive war machine would make America an impenetrable fortress and defend the Western Hemisphere from an attack by foreign powers, and that this was the U.S. military's sole purpose.[241]
While theattack on Pearl Harbor came as a shock to Lindbergh, he did predict that America's "wavering policy in thePhilippines" would invite a brutal war there, and in one speech warned, "we should either fortify these islands adequately, or get out of them entirely."[242]
In January 1942, Lindbergh met with Secretary of War,Henry L. Stimson, seeking to be recommissioned in the Army Air Forces. Stimson was strongly opposed because of the long record of public comments.[243] Blocked from active military service, Lindbergh approached a number of aviation companies and offered his services as a consultant. As a technical adviser with Ford in 1942, he was heavily involved in troubleshooting early problems at theWillow RunConsolidated B-24 Liberator bomber production line. As B-24 production smoothed out, he joinedUnited Aircraft in 1943 as an engineering consultant, devoting most of his time to itsChance-Vought Division.[244]
In 1944 Lindbergh persuaded United Aircraft to send him as a technical representative to thePacific Theater to study aircraft performance under combat conditions. In preparation for his deployment to the Pacific, Lindbergh went toBrooks Brothers to buy a naval officer's uniform without insignia and visitedBrentano's bookstore in New York to buy aNew Testament, writing in his wartime journal entry for April 3, 1944: "Purchased a small New Testament at Brentano's. Since I can only carry one book—and a very small one—that is my choice. It would not have been a decade ago; but the more I learn and the more I read, the less competition it has."[245] He demonstrated howUnited States Marine Corps Aviation pilots could take off safely with a bomb load double theVought F4U Corsair fighter-bomber's rated capacity. At the time, several Marine squadrons were flying bomber escorts to destroy the Japanese stronghold ofRabaul,New Britain, in the AustralianTerritory of New Guinea. OnMay 21, 1944, Lindbergh flew his first combat mission: a strafing run withVMF-222 near the Japanese garrison of Rabaul.[246] He also flew withVMF-216, from the Marine Air Base atTorokina,Bougainville. Lindbergh was escorted on one of these missions by Lt. Robert E. (Lefty) McDonough, who refused to fly with Lindbergh again, as he did not want to be known as "the guy who killed Lindbergh".[246]
Lindbergh with a P-38J Lightning in 1944
In his six months in the Pacific in 1944, Lindbergh took part in fighter bomber raids on Japanese positions, flying 50 combat missions (again as a civilian).[247] His innovations in the use ofLockheed P-38 Lightning fighters impressed a supportive Gen.Douglas MacArthur.[248] Lindbergh introducedengine-leaning techniques to P-38 pilots, greatly improving fuel consumption at cruise speeds, enabling the long-range fighter aircraft to fly longer-range missions. P-38 pilot Warren Lewis quoted Lindbergh's fuel-saving settings, "He said, '... we can cut the RPM down to 1400 RPMs and use 30 inches of mercury (manifold pressure), and save 50–100 gallons of fuel on a mission.'"[249] The U.S. Marine and Army Air Force pilots who served with Lindbergh praised his courage and defended his patriotism.[246][250]
OnJuly 28, 1944, during a P-38 bomber escort mission with the433rd Fighter Squadron in theCeram area, Lindbergh shot down aMitsubishi Ki-51 "Sonia" observation plane, piloted by Captain Saburo Shimada, commanding officer of the 73rd Independent Chutai.[11][246] Lindbergh's participation in combat was revealed in a story in thePassaic Herald-News on October 22, 1944.[10]
In mid-October 1944, Lindbergh participated in a joint Army-Navy conference on fighter planes atNAS Patuxent River, Maryland.[251]
1954 Air Force identification card, with Lindbergh in uniform
After World War II, Lindbergh lived inDarien, Connecticut, and served as a consultant to theChief of Staff of the United States Air Force and toPan American World Airways. With most of eastern Europe under communist control, Lindbergh continued to voice concern about Soviet power, observing: "Freedom of speech and action is suppressed over a large portion of the world...Poland is not free, nor theBaltic states, nor the Balkans. Fear, hatred, and mistrust are breeding."[252] In Lindbergh's words, Soviet and communist influence over the post-war world meant that "while our soldiers have been victorious", America had nonetheless not "accomplished the objectives for which we went to war", and he declared: "We have not established peace or liberty in Europe."[252]
Commenting on the post-war world, Lindbergh said that "a whole civilization is in disintegration", and believed America needed to support Europe against communism. Because America had "taken a leading part" in World War II, he said it therefore could not "retire now and leave Europe to the destructive forces" that the war had "let loose."[252] While he still believed his prewar non-interventionism was correct, Lindbergh said the United States now had a responsibility to support Europe, because of "honor, self-respect, and our own national interests."[252] Furthermore, Lindbergh wrote that "we could not let atrocities such as those of the concentration camps go unpunished", and firmly supported theNuremberg trials.[252]
After the war, Lindbergh toured Germany, covering "almost two thousand miles during his last two weeks" in the country, and also traveled to Paris and participated in "conferences with military personnel and the American Ambassador" during the same trip.[252] While in Germany in June 1945, he touredDora concentration camp, inspecting the tunnels of Nordhausen and viewingV-1 andV-2 missile parts. He attempted to "reconcile", as Berg wrote, the technology he saw with how the "forces of evil had harnessed it."[252] Reflecting on what happened in the camps, Lindbergh wrote in his wartime journal that it "seemed impossible that men—civilized men—could degenerate to such a level. Yet they had."[252][253]
In the following page in his journal, he also lamented the mistreatment of Japanese people by Americans and other Allied personnel during the war, comparing these "incidents" to what the Germans did.[253] As Berg wrote in 1998, Lindbergh returned from this two-month European journey "more alarmed about the state of the world than ever", but nonetheless "he knew that the American public no longer gave a hoot for his opinions."[252] Drawing lessons from the war, Lindbergh stated: "No peace will last that is not based on Christian principles, on justice, on compassion...on a sense of the dignity of man. Without such principles there can be no lasting strength...The Germans found that out."[252]
Soon after returning to America, Lindbergh visited his mother in Detroit, and on the train home he wrote a letter wherein he mentioned a "spiritual awareness", speaking of how important it was to spend time in the garden, take in the sun, and listen to birds.[252] In Berg's words, this letter "revealed a changed man."[252] As time went on, Lindbergh became increasingly spiritual in his outlook and grew concerned with the impact science and technology had on the world. In 1948, hisOf Flight and Life was published, a book that has been described as an "impassioned warning against the dangers of scientific materialism and the powers of technology."[254] He wrote of his experiences as a combat pilot in the Pacific theater, and declared his conversion from a worshiper of science to a worshiper of the "eternal truths of God", expressing concern for humanity's future.[255] In 1949, he received theWright Brothers Memorial Trophy and declared in his acceptance speech: "If we are to be finally successful, we must measure scientific accomplishments by their effect on man himself."[255]
Lindbergh and his wife, Anne, with PresidentJohn F. Kennedy at the White House in May 1962
On April 7, 1954, on the recommendation of PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower, Lindbergh was commissioned abrigadier general in theU.S. Air Force Reserve; Eisenhower had nominated Lindbergh for promotion on February 15.[3][12][256][257] Also in that year, he served on a Congressional advisory panel that recommended the site of theUnited States Air Force Academy.[258] He won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1954 with his book,The Spirit of St. Louis, which focuses on his 1927 flight and the events leading up to it.[259][260] In May 1962, Lindbergh visited the White House with his wife and met PresidentJohn F. Kennedy, having his picture taken by White House photographer Robert Knudsen.[261]
AnApollo 11 viewing pass signed by Lindbergh. He and his wife wereNeil Armstrong's personal guests at the 1969 launch.[262]
In December 1968, he visited the astronauts ofApollo 8 (the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon) the day before their launch, and in July 1969 he and his wife witnessed the launch ofApollo 11 as personal guests ofNeil Armstrong.[263][255][262] Armstrong had met Lindbergh in 1968, and the two corresponded until the latter's death in 1974.[262] In conjunction with the first lunar landing, he shared his thoughts as part ofWalter Cronkite's live television coverage. He later wrote the foreword to Apollo astronautMichael Collins's autobiography.[264] While he maintained his interest in technology, Lindbergh began to focus more on protecting the natural world, and after viewing the Apollo 11 launch, he "participated in aWWF-sponsored dedication of a 900-acre bird preserve."[255]
Beginning in 1957, Lindbergh engaged in lengthy sexual relationships with three women, while remaining married to Anne Morrow. He fathered three children with hatmaker Brigitte Hesshaimer, who lived in the Bavarian town ofGeretsried. He had two children with her sister Mariette, a painter, living inGrimisuat. Lindbergh also had a son and daughter, born in 1959 and 1961, with Valeska, who was his private secretary in Europe and lived inBaden-Baden.[265][266][267][268] All seven children were born between 1958 and 1967.[2]
Ten days before he died, Lindbergh wrote to each of his European mistresses, imploring them to maintain the utmost secrecy about his illicit activities with them even after his death.[269] The three women, none of whom ever married, all kept their affairs secret even from their children, who during his lifetime, and for almost a decade after his death, did not know the true identity of their father, whom they had only known by the alias Careu Kent, and seen only when he briefly visited them once or twice a year.[2][270]
After reading a magazine article about Lindbergh in the mid-1980s, Brigitte's daughter Astrid deduced the truth. She later discovered photographs and more than 150 love letters from Lindbergh to her mother. After Brigitte and Anne Lindbergh had both died, she made her findings public. In 2003,DNA tests confirmed that Lindbergh had fathered Astrid and her two siblings.[2][270]
Reeve Lindbergh, Lindbergh's youngest child with Anne, wrote in her personal journal in 2003, "This story reflects absolutely Byzantine layers of deception on the part of our shared father. These children did not even know who he was! He used a pseudonym with them (To protect them, perhaps? To protect himself, absolutely!)"[271]
In an essay appearing in the July 1964Reader's Digest, Lindbergh wrote about a realization he had inKenya during a trip to see land being considered for a national park.[255] He contrasted his time amid the African landscape with his involvement in a supersonic transport convention in New York, and while "lying under anacacia tree", he realized how the "construction of an airplane" was simple compared to the "evolutionary achievement of a bird". He wrote "that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes."[255][275]
In this essay, he questioned his old definition of "progress", and concluded that nature displayed more actual progress than humanity's creations.[255] He wrote several more essays forReader's Digest andLife, urging people to respect the self-awareness that came from contact with nature, which he called the "wisdom of wildness", and not merely follow science.[255] As David Boocker wrote in 2009, Lindbergh's essays, appearing in popular magazines, "introduced millions of people to theconservation cause", and he made an important "appeal to lead a life less complicated by technology."[255]
On May 14, 1971, Lindbergh received the PhilippineOrder of the Golden Heart at a formal dinner atMalacañang Palace inManila.[276] He was described as an aviation pioneer who had symbolized the advance of technology, and who now was a symbol of the drive to protect natural life from technology.[277] Lindbergh actively participated in both conservation and advocacy for tribal minorities in the Philippines, frequently visiting the country and working to protect species including the tamaraw and Philippine eagle, which he described as a "magnificent bird", lending his name to a law against killing or trapping the animal.[278]
In August 1971, inDavao City, he ceremonially received a young Philippine eagle kept in captivity after its mother was killed by a hunter, delaying his return to the United States so he could take part in the presentation.[278] Arturo Garcia, a movie theater manager in Davao, had bought the bird in March 1970 after the hunting incident, and built a large cage for it behind his house. Lindbergh entered the cage with Jesus Alvarez, director of the Philippines park and wildlife commission, received the eagle, and then turned it over to Alvarez, remarking: "Now we have to see if the bird can go back to its natural place."[278] TheAssociated Press reported on both Lindbergh's reception of the Order of the Golden Heart and the presentation of the eagle.[278][279]
Lindbergh's speeches and writings in later life centered on technology and nature, and his lifelong belief that "all the achievements of mankind have value only to the extent that they preserve and improve the quality of life".[272] In 1972, Lindbergh undertook an expedition with a television news crew toMindanao, in the Philippines, to investigate reports of a lost tribe.[280][281] TheTasaday, a Philippineindigenous people of theLake Sebu area, were attracting much media attention at the time. Although bothNBC Evening News andNational Geographic ran stories about the supposed discovery of the tribe, a controversy emerged over whether the Tasaday were trulyuncontacted, or had just been portrayed that way for media attention—particularly byManuel Elizalde Jr., a Philippine politician who publicized the tribe—and were in reality "not completely isolated."[282]
Lindbergh cooperated with Elizalde to get a "proclamation from PresidentFerdinand Marcos to preserve more than 46,000 acres of Tasaday country."[255] However, during Lindbergh's 1972 expedition, the support helicopter for his team had mechanical trouble, creating the prospect of a three-day return trek through difficult jungle terrain. On April 2,The New York Times ran aUPI report stating Lindbergh's party had "sent a radio message from the rain forests of the southern Philippines saying their food was nearly gone and they needed help."[283]Henry A. Byroade,U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, called upon the31st Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron atClark Air Base on the island ofLuzon to perform a rescue.[284][285]
U.S. Air ForceMaj. Bruce Ware and his crew—co-pilotLt. Col. Dick Smith, flight engineerSSgt Bob Baldwin, and pararescuemanAirman 1st Class Kim Robinson—flew theirSikorsky HH-3E Jolly Green Giant over 600 miles (970 km) to rescue Lindbergh and his news crew on April 12, 1972.[286][287][284] Lindbergh and the news team were stranded on a 3,000-foot (910 m) high jungle ridge line, and because of this terrain the Sikorsky "had to hover with the nose wheel on one side of the ridge, and the main wheels on the other, with the boarding steps a few feet over the ridge top."[286] During the operation, the helicopter had to refuel twice, prompting Lindbergh to comment that although he had helped developin-flight refueling, he had never been aboard a helicopter during the procedure, nor on the receiving end of it.[286][284]
After more than twelve hours, and a total of eight trips to a nearby drop point, the mission was completed, and all 46 individuals stranded on the ridge were extracted. With Lindbergh aboard, the helicopter then flew toMactan Air Base, on the island of Cebu, where photographers were waiting for him.[286][284] Ware rested in the pilot's seat for several minutes after landing, and Lindbergh was hesitant to disembark before him. He told Ware he was certain he could not have made the "hard" three-day journey back.[288][289] Lindbergh, with other passengers, was then loaded on aHC-130 and flown to Manila.[284][290] As reported by the Associated Press, Lindbergh remarked after his rescue: "We were in no danger but we were stranded and running low on food."[290]
Maj. Ware received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions, and the other Sikorsky crew members received theAir Medal.[286] In 2021, Ware described how he received his medal "in less than a week", remarking that it normally "takes several months. But when you've got an international hero, it kind of gains some momentum.”[289]
TheMaui coastline near Lindbergh's retirement home inKipahulu, where he supportedconservation efforts during his later years
Lindbergh joined with early aviation industrialist, former Pan Am executive vice president, and longtime friend, Samuel F. Pryor Jr., in "efforts by the Nature Conservancy to preserve plants and wildlife in Kipahulu Valley" on theHawaiian island ofMaui.[291][292] Lindbergh chose theKipahulu Valley for retirement, building an A-frame cottage there in 1971;[293] Pryor moved there in 1965 with his wife, Mary, after retiring from Pan Am.[292][291][294] Lindbergh's choice of Maui as a retirement home "represented his love of natural places" and his "lifelong commitment to the ideal of simplicity."[295]
Commenting on Lindbergh's profound concern with the impact of technology on humanity, Richard Hallion wrote: "He recognized the narrow margin on which society trod in the unstable nuclear era, and his work after World War II confirmed his fear that humanity now had the ability to destroy in minutes what previous generations had taken centuries to create. And so Lindbergh the technologist changed to Lindbergh the philosopher, protector of the Tasaday, preaching a turn from the materialistic, mechanistic society toward a society based on 'simplicity, humiliation, contemplation, prayer.'"[296] In her 1988 book,Charles A. Lindbergh and the American Dilemma, Susan M. Gray wrote that Lindbergh "established his 'middle ground' between technology and human values, embracing both, rejecting neither."[296]
Lindbergh's grave at Palapala Ho'omau Church in Kipahulu,Hawaii
Lindbergh spent his last years on Maui in his small, rustic seaside home. In 1972, he became sick with cancer and ultimately died oflymphoma[297] on the morning ofAugust 26, 1974, at age 72.[298][273] After his cancer diagnosis, Lindbergh "sketched a simple design for his grave and coffin."[299] helping to design his grave in the "traditional Hawaiian style."[300] Following "a series of radiation treatments, he spent several months in Maui recuperating", and also made a 26-day stay in the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, but with little improvement.[293][301]
After he realized the treatment would not save him, he decided to leave the hospital in New York and returned to Kipahulu with his wife Anne, flying toHonolulu on August 17 and then traveling to Maui by small plane, dying a week later.[273][293] He was buried on the grounds of the Palapala Ho'omau Church in Kipahulu, Maui, a Congregational church first established in 1864, which fell into disuse in the 1940s and was restored beginning in 1964 by Samuel F. Pryor Jr., whose family cooperated with the Lindbergh family to create an endowment for the upkeep of the property.[302][294][292] Lindbergh took part in the church restoration with his old friend Pryor, and both men agreed to make their final resting place in the small cemetery they cleared.[292]
On the evening of August 26, PresidentGerald Ford made a tribute to Lindbergh, saying that the courage and daring of his Atlantic flight would never be forgotten, describing him as a selfless, sincere man, and stating: "For a generation of Americans, and for millions of other people around the world, the 'Lone Eagle' represented all that was best in our country."[293][303]
OnMay 8, 1928, a statue was dedicated atLe Bourget Airport inParis honoring Lindbergh and his New York to Paris flight as well as Charles Nungesser and François Coli who had disapppeared while attempted the same feat two weeks earlier in the other direction aboardL'Oiseau Blanc (The White Bird).
San Diego International Airport was named Lindbergh Field from 1928 to 2003. A replica of his plane hangs above baggage claim.
In 1937, a transatlantic race was proposed to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Lindbergh's flight to Paris, though it was eventually modified to take a different course of similar length.See1937 Istres–Damascus–Paris Air Race.
In February 2002, theMedical University of South Carolina atCharleston, within the celebrations for the Lindbergh 100th birthday established the Lindbergh-Carrel Prize,[310] given to major contributors to "development of perfusion and bioreactor technologies for organ preservation and growth". M. E. DeBakey and nine other scientists[311] received the prize, a bronze statuette expressly created for the event by the Italian artist C. Zoli and named "Elisabeth", after Elisabeth Morrow, sister of Lindbergh's wife Anne Morrow, who died as a result of heart disease.[312] Lindbergh was disappointed that contemporary medical technology could not provide an artificial heart pump that would allow for heart surgery on Elisabeth and that led to the first contact between Carrel and Lindbergh.[312]
TheCongressional Gold Medal presented in 1930 to Lindbergh by PresidentHerbert HooverLindbergh receiving theHarmon Trophy on December 13, 1928, at the International Civil Aeronautics Conference in Washington, D.C. He was escorted to the platform byOrville Wright, standing at Lindbergh's left.[313]
Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve. Place and date: From New York City to Paris, France,May 20–21, 1927. Entered service at: Little Falls, Minn. Born:February 4, 1902, Detroit, Mich. G.O. No.: 5, W.D., 1928; Act of CongressDecember 14, 1927.[342][N 6]
Citation
For displaying heroic courage and skill as a navigator, at the risk of his life, by his nonstop flight in his airplane, the "Spirit of St. Louis", from New York City to Paris, France,20–21 May 1927, by which Capt. Lindbergh not only achieved the greatest individual triumph of any American citizen but demonstrated that travel across the ocean by aircraft was possible.[346]
In addition to"WE" andThe Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh wrote prolifically over the years on other topics, including science, technology, nationalism, war, materialism, and values. Included among those writings were five other books:The Culture of Organs (withDr. Alexis Carrel) (1938),Of Flight and Life (1948),The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh (1970),Boyhood on the Upper Mississippi (1972), and his unfinishedAutobiography of Values (posthumous, 1978).[352][353]
In addition to many biographies, such as A. Scott Berg's 1998 award-winning bestsellerLindbergh, Lindbergh also influenced or was the model for characters in a variety of works of fiction.[354] Shortly after he made his famous flight, theStratemeyer Syndicate began publishing a series of books for juvenile readers called theTed Scott Flying Stories (1927–1943), which were written by a number of authors using thenom de plume "Franklin W. Dixon", in which the pilot hero was closely modeled after Lindbergh. Ted Scott duplicated the solo flight to Paris in the series' first volume,Over the Ocean to Paris (1927).[355] Another reference to Lindbergh appears in theAgatha Christie novel (1934) and movieMurder on the Orient Express (1974) which begins with a fictionalized depiction of theLindbergh kidnapping.[356]
Lindbergh has been the subject of numerous documentary films, includingCharles A. Lindbergh (1927), a UK documentary by De Forest Phonofilm;40,000 Miles with Lindbergh (1928), featuring Lindbergh himself; andThe American Experience—Lindbergh: The Shocking, Turbulent Life of America's Lone Eagle (1988).[358][359][360]
In the major motion pictureThe Spirit of St. Louis (1957), directed byBilly Wilder, Lindbergh was played byJames Stewart, an admirer of Lindbergh and himself a World WarII aviator. The film largely centers around Lindbergh's record-breaking 1927 flight.[362] Prior to the casting of Stewart,John Kerr declined to play the role because of Lindbergh's alleged pro-Nazi beliefs.[363]
Lindbergh was the theme of prolific directorOrson Welles's final living film project in 1984,The Spirit of Charles Lindbergh, where Welles speaks of the human spirit while quoting Lindbergh's journal. Although never intended to be viewed by the public, a brief clip can be seen at the end of Vassili Slovic's 1995 documentaryOrson Welles: the One-Man Band.
The 2020HBO alternate history miniseriesThe Plot Against America, based on the Philip Rothbook of the same name, features actor Ben Cole as a fictionalized President Lindbergh following his defeat of Roosevelt in 1940. The series portrays Lindbergh as axenophobic populist with strong ties to Nazi Germany.
Within days of the flight, dozens ofTin Pan Alley publishers rushed a variety of popular songs into print celebrating Lindbergh and theSpirit of St. Louis including "Lindbergh (The Eagle of the U.S.A.)" by Howard Johnson andAl Sherman, and "Lucky Lindy!" byL. Wolfe Gilbert and Abel Baer. In the two-year period following Lindbergh's flight, the U.S. Copyright Office recorded three hundred applications for Lindbergh songs.[366][367]Tony Randall revived "Lucky Lindy" in an album ofJazz Age andDepression-era songs that he recorded titledVo Vo De Oh Doe (1967).[368]
While the exact origin of the name of theLindy Hop is disputed, it is widely acknowledged that Lindbergh's 1927 flight helped to popularize the dance: soon after "Lucky Lindy" "hopped" the Atlantic, the Lindy Hop became a trendy, fashionable dance, and songs referring to the "Lindbergh Hop" were quickly released.[369][370][371][372]
In 1929,Bertolt Brecht wrote a cantata calledDer Lindberghflug (Lindbergh's Flight) with music byKurt Weill andPaul Hindemith. Because of Lindbergh's apparent Nazi sympathies, in 1950 Brecht removed all direct references to Lindbergh and renamed the pieceDer Ozeanflug (The Flight Across the Ocean).[373]
In the early 1940sWoody Guthrie wrote "Lindbergh" or "Mister Charlie Lindbergh"[374] which criticizes Lindbergh's involvement with theAmerica First Committee and his suspected sympathy for Nazi Germany.
Scott C-10 and #1710 withMay 20, 1977 First Day of Issue CDS
Lindbergh and theSpirit have been honored by a variety of world postage stamps over the last eight decades, including three issued by the United States. Less than three weeks after the flight theU.S. Post Office Department issued a 10-cent "Lindbergh Air Mail" stamp onJune 11, 1927, with engraved illustrations of both theSpirit of St. Louis and a map of its route from New York to Paris. This was also the first U.S. stamp to bear the name of a living person.[375] A 13-cent commemorative stamp depicting theSpirit over the Atlantic Ocean was issued onMay 20, 1977, the 50th anniversary of the flight fromRoosevelt Field.[376] OnMay 28, 1998, a 32¢ stamp with the legend "Lindbergh Flies Atlantic" depicting Lindbergh and theSpirit was issued as part of theCelebrate the Century stamp sheet series.[377]
During World War II, Lindbergh was a frequent target ofDr. Seuss's first political cartoons, published in the New York magazinePM, in which Seuss criticized Lindbergh's isolationism, antisemitism, and supposed Nazi sympathies.[378]
^Lindbergh fathered six children with long-time wife Anne Morrow, the first-born of which, Charles Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in his infancy; and seven other children with three separate European women out of wedlock.[2]
^Dates of military rank: Cadet, Army Air Corps – March 19, 1924, 2nd Lieutenant, Officer Reserve Corps (ORC) – March 14, 1925, 1st Lieutenant, ORC – December 7, 1925, Captain, ORC – July 13, 1926, Colonel, ORC – July 18, 1927 (As of 1927, Lindbergh was a member of the Missouri National Guard and was assigned to the 110th Observation Squadron in St. Louis.[36]), Brigadier General, USAFR – April 7, 1954.[37]
^"Always there was some new experience, always something interesting going on to make the time spent at Brooks and Kelly one of the banner years in a pilot's life. The training is difficult and rigid, but there is none better. A cadet must be willing to forget all other interest in life when he enters the Texas flying schools and he must enter with the intention of devoting every effort and all of the energy during the next 12 months towards a single goal. But when he receives the wings at Kelly a year later, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he has graduated from one of the world's finest flying schools.""WE" p. 125
^Quote: So while the world's attention was focused on Hopewell, from which the first press dispatches emanated about thekidnapping, theDemocrat made sure its readers knew that the new home of Col. Charles A. Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was in East Amwell Township, Hunterdon County.[153]
^Lindbergh's "flight to Europe" ship SSAmerican Importer was sold to Société Maritime Anversoise, Antwerp, Belgium in February 1940 and renamedVille de Gand. Just after midnight on August 19, 1940, the vessel was torpedoed by the German submarine U-48 about 200 miles west of Ireland while sailing from Liverpool to New York and sank with the loss of 14 crew.[167]
^In 1927, the Medal of Honor could still be awarded for extraordinarily heroic non-combat actions by active or reserve service members made duringpeacetime with almost all such medals being awarded to active-duty members of theUnited States Navy for rescuing or attempting to rescue persons from drowning. In addition to Lindbergh,Floyd Bennett andRichard E. Byrd of the Navy were also presented with the medal for their accomplishments as explorers for their participation in the first successful heavier-than-air flight to the North Pole and back.[343][344][345]
^Smith, Susan Lampert "Dr. Bertha Stories: Dr. Bertha's Decades in the River Valley Included remarkable Medical Feats".Wisconsin State Journal, April 20, 2003.
^abc"New York-to-Paris Flight".Minnesota Historical Society: Charles Lindbergh House and Museum. Archived fromthe original on November 12, 2022. RetrievedNovember 12, 2022.
^"Croydon Battle to Welcome Atlantic Hero".Daily Mirror. May 30, 1927. pp. cover page. RetrievedNovember 14, 2022.The famous monoplane 'Spirit of St. Louis', which brought her intrepid pilot, Captain Lindbergh, alone across the Atlantic, and yesterday from Brussels to Croydon
^"Thousands greet Lindbergh in London - UPI Archives".UPI. United Press International, Inc. May 30, 1927. Archived fromthe original on June 12, 2021. RetrievedFebruary 3, 2023.Greeted by the cheers of 100,000 persons, Capt. Charles A. Lindbergh arrived at Croydon airport Sunday night.
^"Lindbergh Parade Has 10,000 Troops; Soldiers, Sailors and Marines Precede Flier From Battery to Central Park".The New York Times, June 14, 1927, p. 4.
^"Radio Keeps Pace with Lindbergh; Announcers Along Route Tell of His Progress, Noise Drowning Their Voices at Times. Every Detail Is Covered; 15,000,000 Are Thus Able to Take Part in Welcome and Escape Milling Crowds."The New York Times, June 14, 1927, p. 16.
^Wohl, Robert.The Spectacle of Flight: Aviation and the Western Imagination, 1920–1950. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2005.ISBN978-0-300-10692-3 p. 35.
^Lindbergh, Charles A."WE" (with an appendix entitled "A Little of what the World thought of Lindbergh" byFitzhugh Green, pp. 233–318). New York & London: G. P. Putnam's Sons (The Knickerbocker Press), July 1927. Dustjacket notes, First Edition, July 1927
^Richard Flower (2014). "Charles Lindbergh: Piloting a Flider in the Carmel Highlands".Stories of Old Carmel: A Centennial Tribute From The Carmel Residents Association. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. p. 149.OCLC940565140.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^abLyman, Lauren D. "Press Calls For Action: Hopes the Public Will Be Roused to Wipe Out a 'National Disgrace'".The New York Times, December 24, 1935, p. 1.
^Walker, Stanley. "What Makes a Good Reporter?",The American Mercury. February 1946, p. 211.
^Lyman, Lauren D. "Lindbergh Family Sails for England To Seek a Safe, Secluded Residence; Threats on Son's Life Force Decision".The New York Times, December 23, 1935, p. 1.
^Lindberghs Rest in English Hotel: They Seclude Themselves in Liverpool Before Departing for South Wales Today. Flier Bars Interviews. Telescopic Cameras Used To Get Photos – Appeal for Privacy is Broadcast".The New York Times, January 1, 1936, p. 3.
^"Lindberghs Arrive Home On Surprise Holiday Visit: Try to Slip In as Secretly as They Left U. S. 2 Years Ago, but Are Recognized Leaving Ship—Silent on Their Plans Here".The New York Times, December 6, 1937, p. 1.
^abButterfield, Roger. "Lindbergh: A Stubborn Young Man of Strange Ideas Becomes the Leader of the Wartime Opposition".Life, August 11, 1941.
^"Lindbergh's Wife and Children Back: Closely Guarded by Policemen, They Speed to Morrow Home in Englewood, NJ".The New York Times, April 29, 1939, p. 14.
^Reitsch, H., 1955,The Sky My Kingdom, London: Biddles Limited, Guildford and King's Lynn,ISBN978-1-85367-262-0
^Herman, Arthur.Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, pp. 289–93, 304–5, Random House, New YorkISBN978-1-4000-6964-4.
^Carrier, Jerry, 1948- (2014).Tapestry the history and consequences of America's complex culture. Algora Publishing.ISBN978-1-62894-050-3.OCLC984784037.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^abRaynor, William (2011).Canada on the Doorstep: 1939. Dundurn. p. 188.ISBN978-1-55488-992-1.
^abDoenecke, Justus D. (2003).Storm on the Horizon: The Challenge to American Intervention, 1939-1941. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 208.ISBN978-0-7425-0785-2.
^Lindbergh, Col. Charles A."Aviation, Geography, and Race". Archived from the original on April 4, 2005. RetrievedAugust 15, 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)Reader's Digest, November 1939.
^Herman, Arthur (2012).Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II. New York City:Random House. pp. 232–6.ISBN978-1-4000-6964-4.
^Herman, Arthur (2012).Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II. New York City:Random House. p. 287.ISBN978-1-4000-6964-4.
^Associated Press,"Lindbergh Assists In Plane Data Study",The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Sunday October 22, 1944, Volume 51, page 16.
^"Charles Lindbergh Biography".charleslindbergh.com.Archived from the original on June 4, 2001. RetrievedOctober 7, 2021.President Dwight D. Eisenhower restored Lindbergh's commission and appointed him a brigadier general in the Air Force in 1954.
^"Timeline".Minnesota Historical Society.Archived from the original on August 19, 2018. RetrievedOctober 7, 2021.1954 ... President Dwight D. Eisenhower appoints him a brigadier general in the Air Force.
^Schröck, Rudolf; Hesshaimer, Dyrk; Bouteuil, Astrid; Hesshaimer, David (2005).Das Doppelleben des Charles A. Lindbergh, Der berühmteste Flugpionier aller Zeiten – seine wahre Geschichte [The Double Life of Charles A. Lindbergh] (in German). Munich, Germany: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag.
^ab"President's Week in Review: May 14 – May 20, 1971 | GOVPH".Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. March 24, 1971. Archived fromthe original on February 6, 2023. RetrievedNovember 6, 2022.In the evening, the President [Marcos] conferred the Order of the Golden Heart on Gen. Charles A. Lindbergh "for his persevering concern regarding the kind of impact civilization makes on the quality of all forms of life on earth—human life, and other life as well."
^James, Jamie (May 19, 2003)."The Tribe Out of Time".Time.ISSN0040-781X. Archived fromthe original on October 20, 2022. RetrievedOctober 20, 2022.Hemley, who concludes that although the Tasaday were not completely isolated, as Elizalde, National Geographic and others had first presented them, some of the original claims, particularly those based on linguistic evidence, cannot be easily dismissed.
^"Documento BOE-A-1927-5509".boe.es. Agencia Estatal Boletín Oficial del Estado (Government of Spain). June 2, 1927. Archived fromthe original on November 26, 2022. RetrievedMay 8, 2024.Dado en Palacio a primero ele Junio de mil novecientos veintisiete.
^Phillips, Gene D.Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder (Screen Classics). Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2009., p. 180.
^Lindbergh Arrives After Record Hops,The New York Times, Front Page, May 13, 1927
^Bastin, Bruce,The Melody Man: Joe Davis and the New York Music Scene, 1916–1978, University Press of Mississippi, 2012
^Jazz OdysseyThe Sound Of Harlem Volume III Original 1964 3×LP Vinyl Box Set Columbia Records C3L 33 Mono Jazz Archive Series Various Artist in High Fidelity Sound with 40-Page Booklet, produced by Frank Driggs
Gehrz, Christopher.Charles Lindbergh: A Religious Biography of America's Most Infamous Pilot (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2021)online also seeonline book review.
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