Charles Lindbergh

For the U.S. Representative from Minnesota (1859 – 1924), see Charles August Lindbergh

Charles Lindbergh
Born
February, 1902 Detroit, Michigan
Died
August 26, 1974 Kipahulu, Maui, Hawaii

Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974), known as "Lucky Lindy" and "The Lone Eagle," was an American aviator famous for piloting the first non-stop flight alone from New York to Paris in 1927.

In the years prior to World War II, Lindbergh was a noted isolationist, and was a leader in the movement to keep the US out of the coming war. He was a strong advocate of the movement and the resolution of conflict with Germany.

Introduction to aviation

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Swedish immigrants. He spent summers on a farm near Little Falls, Minnesota but also spent time in Detroit and Washington, DC. His father, Charles Lindbergh Sr., was a lawyer and later a U.S. Congressman who opposed the entry of the U.S. into World War I; his mother was a teacher. Lindbergh, for a short time, attended Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach, California.

Note: Lindbergh was not a junior since his middle name was not the same as his father's. From Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg: "But he[Lindbergh] would be her only child - named for his father, with the addition of a syllable to the middle name: Charles Augustus Lindbergh."

Early on, he showed an interest in machinery (first his family's Saxon Six, later his own Excelsior motorbike and, finally, airplanes). In 1922, he quit the mechanical engineering program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, joined a pilot and mechanics training program with Nebraska Aircraft, bought his own plane, a World War I-surplus Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny," and became a barnstormer, the "Daredevil Lindbergh." In 1924, he started training as a pilot with the Army Air Service. During this time he also held a job as an airline mechanic in Billings, Montana, working at Logan International Airport.

After finishing first in his pilot training class, Lindbergh took his first job as the chief pilot of an airmail route operated by Robertson Aircraft Co. of Lambert Field in St. Louis, Missouri. He flew the mail in a de Havilland DH-4 biplane to Springfield, Peoria and Chicago, Illinois. During his tenure on the mail route, he was renowned for delivering the mail under any circumstances. After a crash, he even salvaged stashes of mail from his burning aircraft and immediately phoned Alexander Varney, Peoria's airport manager, to advise him to send a truck.

In April 1923, while visiting friends in Lake Village, Arkansas, Lindbergh made his first ever nighttime flight over Lake Village and Lake Chicot.

First non-stop flight New York to Paris

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Lindbergh drives through a parade in downtown Atlanta where crowds line the street on October 11, 1927.

The Orteig Prize, a $25,000 prize offered by New York hotelier, Raymond Orteig a frenchman in 1919 for the first flight from New York City to Paris spurred a great amount of interest worldwide. Either an easterly flight from New York or a westbound flight from Paris would qualify, consequently, the first challengers were French war heroes, Captain Charles Nungesser and Raymond Coli (his navigator) who had taken off May 8, 1927 on a westbound flight in the Levasseur PL 8, nicknamed the L'Oiseau Blanc. The aircraft disappeared after the last known contact made as the flyers crossed the coast of Ireland. Other teams including famed WWI "ace" René Fonck, Clarence Chamberlin (who made the second non-stop flight across the Atlantic two weeks after Lindbergh, landing in Eisleben, Germany near Berlin) and Admiral Richard E. Byrd, were also in the race to claim the Orteig Prize. The race had become more deadly when Noel Davis and Stanton H. Wooster were killed when the former’s New York to Paris entry crashed while Charles N. Clavier and Jacob Islaroff were burned to death at Roosevelt Field when Captain René Fonck’s Sikorsky plane nosed over in taking off(from weight).

Lindbergh gained sudden great international fame as the first pilot to fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean, flying from Roosevelt Airfield (Nassau County, Long Island), New York to Paris on May 20-May 21, 1927 in his single-engine aircraft The Spirit of St. Louis which had been designed by Donald Hall and custom built by Ryan Airlines of San Diego, California. He needed 33.5 hours for the trip. (His grandson Erik Lindbergh repeated this trip 75 years later in 2002 in 17 hours 17 minutes.) The President of France bestowed on him the French Legion of Honor and, on his arrival back in the United States, a fleet of warships and aircraft escorted him to Washington, D.C. where President Calvin Coolidge awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross on June 11, 1927.

Lindbergh's accomplishment won him the Orteig Prize; more significant than the prize money was the acclaim that resulted from his daring flight. A ticker-tape parade was held for him down 5th Avenue in New York City on June 13, 1927. His public stature following this flight was such that he became an important voice on behalf of aviation activities until his death. including the central committee of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in the United States. On March 21, 1929, he was presented the Medal of Honor for his historic trans-Atlantic flight.

Lindbergh's Medal of Honor

The massive publicity surrounding him and his flight boosted the aircraft industry and made a skeptical public take air travel seriously. Lindbergh is recognized in aviation for demonstrating and charting polar air-routes, high altitude flying techniques, and increasing aircraft flying range by decreasing fuel consumption. These innovations are the basis of modern intercontinental air travel.

Although Lindbergh was the first to fly solo from New York to Paris non-stop, he was not the first aviator on a transatlantic heavier-than-air aircraft flight. That had been done first in stages by the crew of the NC-4, in May 1919, although their flying boat broke down and had to be repaired before continuing. The NC-4 flights took 19 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

The first truly non-stop transatlantic flight was achieved nearly eight years previously by two British fliers, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown in their Vickers Vimy IV modified bomber on June 14-15, 1919. They flew from Lester's Field near St. Johns, Newfoundland to Clifden, Ireland (although this was a shorter flight than Lindbergh's) and, in so doing, won the Daily Mail prize of 10,000 pounds sterling presented to them by Winston Churchill. A statue commemorating this first non-stop transatlantic flight is at London Heathrow Airport. A total of 81 people had flown across the Atlantic prior to Lindbergh.

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Watch designed by Lindbergh after his transatlantic flight.

After his flight, Lindbergh wrote a letter to the director of Longines, describing in detail a watch which would make navigation easier for pilots. The watch was built and is still produced today.

Flight from Paris to Belgium File:Charles Lindbergh flight to Brussels.ogg Lindbergh's flight to Belgium to be honored after his trans-Atlantic flight. Problems seeing the videos? Media help.

Marriage, children, kidnapping

Main article: Lindbergh kidnapping

According to a Biography Channel profile on Lindbergh, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the daughter of diplomat Dwight Morrow, was the only woman he had ever asked out on a date. The couple were married on May 27, 1929, and he taught her how to fly and did much of his exploring and charting of air routes with her. They had six children: Charles Augustus Lindbergh III (1930-1932), Jon Lindbergh (b.1932), Land Morrow Lindbergh (b.1937) who studied anthropology at Stanford University and married Susan Miller in San Diego, Anne Lindbergh (1940-1993), Scott Lindbergh (b.1942) and Reeve Lindbergh (b.1945), a writer.

Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, 20 months old, was abducted on March 1, 1932, from the Lindbergh home. After a nationwide 10-week search and ransom negotiations with the kidnappers, an infant corpse, identified by Lindbergh as his son, was found on May 12 in Jefferson, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home. More than three years later, a media circus ensued when the man accused of the murder, Bruno Hauptmann, went on trial in British Columbia. Tired of being in the spotlight and still mourning the loss of their son, the Lindberghs moved to Europe in December 1935. Hauptmann, who maintained his innocence until the end, was found guilty and was executed on April 3, 1936.

Pre-war activities

In Europe, during the pre-war period, Lindbergh traveled to Germany several times at the behest of the U.S. military, where he reported on German aviation and the Luftwaffe (air force). Lindbergh was intrigued, and stated that Germany had taken a leading role in a number of aviation developments, including metal construction, low-wing designs, dirigibles, and Diesel engines. Lindbergh also undertook a survey of aviation in the Soviet Union in 1938 and reported to the United States military upon his return from each of these trips.

The Lindberghs lived in England and Brittany, France during the late 1930s in order to find tranquility and avoid the celebrity that followed them everywhere in the United States after the kidnapping trial.

While living in France, Lindbergh worked with Nobel Prize-winning French surgeon Dr. Alexis Carrel, with whom he had collaborated on earlier projects when the latter lived in the United States. In 1930, Lindbergh's sister-in-law developed a fatal heart condition. Lindbergh began to wonder why no one could repair hearts with surgery. He discovered it was because organs could not be kept alive outside the body, and set about working on a solution to the problem with Carrel. Lindbergh's invention, a glass perfusion pump, was credited with making future heart surgeries possible. The device in this early stage was far from perfected, however. Although perfused organs were said to have survived surprisingly well, all showed progressive degenerative changes in a few days. Carrel also introduced Lindbergh to eugenics and scientific racism, which would be one of the main factors in shaping the controversial views on foreign policy he would later divide his native country and eventually ruin his public reputation by advocating.

In 1929, Lindbergh became interested in the work of U.S. rocket pioneer Robert Goddard. The following year, Lindbergh helped Goddard secure his first endowment from Daniel Guggenheim, which allowed Goddard to expand his independent research and development. Lindbergh remained a key supporter and advocate of Goddard's work throughout his life.

Lindbergh's German Eagle

In 1938, Lindbergh and Carrel collaborated on a book, The Culture of Organs, which summarized their work on perfusion of organs outside the body. Lindbergh and Carrel discussed an artificial heart but it would be decades before one was actually built.

Since 2002, the annual Lindbergh-Carrel Prize is awarded at a Charles Lindbergh Symposium for an outstanding contribution to development of perfusion and bioreactor technologies for organ preservation and growth.

But his involvement with German aviation brought Lindbergh back into the American limelight once again. In 1938, the American ambassador to Germany, Hugh Wilson, invited Lindbergh to a dinner with Hermann Göring at the American embassy in Berlin. The dinner included diplomats and three of the greatest minds of German aviation, Ernst Heinkel, Adolf Baeumaker and Dr. Willy Messerschmitt. Göring presented Lindbergh with the Service Cross of the German Eagle (the Großkreuz des Deutschen Adlers) for his services to aviation and particularly for his 1927 flight (Henry Ford received the same award earlier in July). Lindbergh's acceptance of the honour later caused an outcry in the United States.

Lindbergh declined to return the medal to the Germans because he claimed that to do so would be "an unnecessary insult" to the German Nazi government. He returned to the United States soon after World War II broke out in Europe.

Lindbergh and the Munich Crisis

Lindbergh went to Germany at the urgent request of the US Military Attaché in Berlin, who was charged with learning everything possible about Germany's new warplanes. Thus Lindbergh traveled repeatedly to Germany, touring German aviation facilities, where the Luftwaffe Chief tried to convince Lindbergh that the Luftwaffe was far more powerful than it actually was. Lindbergh used his prestige to gain far more knowledge of German warplanes than any American. As historian Wayne Cole explains:

"Of particular importance were the Junkers Ju 88 and, again, the Messerschmitt Bf 109. With the approval of Goering and Ernst Udet, Lindbergh was the first American permitted to examine the Luftwaffe's newest and best bomber, the Ju 88. And he got the unprecedented opportunity to pilot its finest fighter, the Bf 109. He was highly impressed by both aircraft and knew "of no other pursuit plane which combines simplicity of construction with such excellent performance characteristics" as the Bf 109. In his visits to Germany from 1936 through 1938, Colonel Lindbergh closely inspected all the types of military aircraft that Germany was to use against Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and England in 1939 and 1940. The Bf 109 and Ju 88 were front-line German combat planes throughout World War II. And Lindbergh's findings about those various planes found their way into American air intelligence reports to Washington long before the European war began."

At the urging of U.S. Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, Lindbergh wrote a secret memo for the British arguing that if England and France attempted to stop Hitler's aggression, it would be military suicide. Some military historians argue that Lindbergh was basically accurate and that his warnings helped save Britain from likely defeat in 1938. Others say that his actions were beneficial to the Third Reich's war effort. In fact, it is said that Goering intentionally used Lindbergh to keep the French and British at bay while maneuvering in Eastern Europe.^{[citation needed]} There is a case for both of these arguments, as Lindbergh favored a war between Germany and Russia, but deplored the war between Germany and Britain. In Charles A. Lindbergh and the Battle against American Intervention in World War II, Cole explains how Lindbergh was dismayed that pacifism in France had already left that country without a sufficient military and possibly already doomed by 1938, and that Britain had an outdated military still focused on naval power instead of an updated air arsenal to deter the Luftwaffe and force Hitler to turn his ambitions eastward toward a war against "Asiatic Communism." There is some controversy as to how accurate his alarmism concerning the Luftwaffe was, but Cole reports that the general consensus among British and American officials was that it was slightly exaggerated but nevertheless badly needed.

Lindbergh and Nazi Germany

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1941 cartoon by Dr. Seuss.

Because of his numerous scientific expeditions to Nazi Germany, combined with a belief in eugenics, Lindbergh was tarred as a Nazi sympathizer. FDR considered him a Nazi and banned him from joining the military. Lindbergh's subsequent combat missions as a civilian consultant restored his reputation after the public found out about them, but only to an extent. However, his much acclaimed and Pulitzer Prize winning biographer A. Scott Berg contends 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, and that in his support for the America First Committee he was merely giving voice to the sentiments of some American people. In 1938, the war had not yet begun in Europe, and the German medal was approved without objection by the American embassy. It did not cause controversy until the war began and he returned to the United States in 1939 to spread his message of non-intervention. His anti-Communism resonated deeply with many Americans, and many of his views were common before World War II (Eugenics and Nordicism enjoyed much social acceptance in the pre-war era. and other notable enthusiasts of such ideas included Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and George S. Patton).

Many of Lindbergh's views, such as his expressed belief in American democracy and a surprisingly positive attitude toward blacks for the time (something that was scheduled to be fully revealed in an undelivered speech interrupted by the events that followed the bombing of Pearl Harbor) were quite inconsistent with the racial and political beliefs of the Nazis. Still, some people strongly dislike him to this day for public remarks that are difficult not to construe as anti-semitic and for clearly stating in numerous articles and speeches that he considered the survival of the white race to be more important than the survival of democracy in Europe: "Our bond with Europe is one of race and not of political ideology," he declared. His detractors created propaganda pamphlets attempting to tie him to alleged Nazi intrigue, pointing out the fact that his efforts were praised in Nazi Germany and including controversial quotes such as "Racial strength is vital– politics, a luxury." They also included pictures of him using the stiff-armed Bellamy salute (which was the standard United States salute until 1942). Berg explains that interventionist propagandists photographed Lindbergh and other America Firsters using this salute from an angle that did not show the American flag, so it would be indistinguishable to observers from the Hitler salute.

Lindbergh was critical of the Nazi Germany's treatment of Jews, which he said in 1941 that "No person with a sense of dignity of mankind can condone." He did not think America had any business attacking Germany and believed in upholding the Monroe Doctrine, which his interventionist rivals felt was outdated. He also feared that destroying a powerful European nation would lead to the downfall of Western Civilization and a rise in Communist supremacy over Europe.

Much of his position had to do with the fact that he considered Russia to be a "semi-Asiatic" rather than European country compared to Germany, and because he found Communism to be an ideology that would destroy the West's "racial strength" and eventually replace everyone of European descent with "a pressing sea of Yellow, Black, and Brown." He believed that race was directly correlated to national success and non-whites were intellectually inferior. Lindbergh admired specific elements from European nations, such as "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 that "in America they can be blended to form the greatest genius of all." His interrupted plan to voice his opposition to the Jim Crow laws was possibly inspired by his belief in black "sensate superiority" as well as an opportunity to expose what he saw as FDR's hypocrisy. Although he considered Hitler a fanatic even before the details of the Holocaust reached him, Lindbergh openly stated that if he had to choose, he would rather see his country allied with Nazi Germany than Soviet Russia. (While he preferred "Nordics," he also believed Russia would one day be a valuable ally against potential aggression from East Asia after Soviet Communism was defeated.)

The American Axis, written by Holocaust researcher and investigative journalist Max Wallace, takes a harsh view of Lindbergh's pre-war actions, agreeing with FDR's assessment that Lindbergh was "pro-Nazi." However, Wallace finds that the Roosevelt Administration's accusations of dual loyalty or treason are unsubstantiated. Wallace considers Lindbergh a well-intentioned, but bigoted and misguided sympathizer of the Nazis whose career as the leader of the isolationist movement had a destructive impact on Jewish people. In his 1999 biography of Lindbergh, A. Scott Berg criticizes Lindbergh's anti-Semitic beliefs but distinguishes between what Berg considers Lindbergh's paranoia about the intentions of most American Jews and the virulent anti-Semitism of the Nazis. Berg also finds that Lindbergh believed in a voluntary rather than compulsory eugenics program but takes his subject to task for basing his view of the war on his "xenophobic thinking" and his assumption that Hitler was not as dangerous as a "Ghengis Khan or Xerxes marching against our Western nations" because the Nazi leader was a European nationalist rather than a Communist or "some Asiatic intruder."

The same year Berg's Pulitzer Prize winning bestseller Lindbergh was published, a book by Pat Buchanan entitled A Republic, Not An Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny appeared. The book portrays Lindbergh and other pre-war isolationists as American patriots, who were smeared by interventionists during the months leading up to Pearl Harbor. Buchanan suggests that the backlash against Lindbergh highlights "the explosiveness of mixing ethnic politics with foreign policy." The views expressed in the book caused considerable controversy that eventually led to Buchanan's departure from the Republican Party.

Lindbergh had always preached military strength and alertness. He believed that a strong defensive war machine as well as his controversial ideas about race 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. Many respect Lindbergh for helping to keep American public opinion isolationist until 1941 and advancing the movement to keep America out of the war for as long as possible. Supporters of Lindbergh say the policy he supported helped to bleed Josef Stalin's military. The war was devastating for the Soviets, and with a pre-war population of over 168 million, over 13% of its population perished. By comparison, with a population of 132 million, the United States lost 418,500 and fought essentially the entire war outside of its continental borders (with the exception of a few Japanese attacks on the West Coast). At the same time, some praise Lindbergh for his prediction that an Iron Curtain would descend upon Europe; many of the predictions Lindbergh made about the war came before Hitler violated his non-aggression pact with Stalin and launched Operation Barbarossa. Berg reveals that while the attack on Pearl Harbor came as a shock to Lindbergh, he did predict that America's "wavering policy in the Philippines" would invite a bloody war there, and, in one speech, he warned that "we should either fortify these islands adequately, or get out of them entirely." Cole, Wallace and Buchanan all believe Lindbergh was highly influential in ensuring that Hitler's war machine would advance toward the Eastern Front and inflict the most devastation there, but their opinions differ as to whether or not this is something to be proud of.

Outbreak of war

As World War II began in Europe, Lindbergh became a prominent speaker in favor of non-intervention, going so far as to recommend that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Germany during his January 23, 1941 testimony before Congress. He joined the antiwar America First Committee and soon became its most prominent public spokesman, speaking to overflow crowds in Madison Square Garden in New York City and Soldier Field in Chicago.

Charles Lindbergh speaking at an AFC rally

In a speech at an America First rally on September 11, 1941 in Des Moines, Iowa entitled "Who Are the War Agitators?" Lindbergh claimed that three groups had been "pressing this country toward war: the Roosevelt Administration, the British and the Jews" and complained about what he insisted was the Jews' "large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government." Although he made clear his opposition to German anti-Semitism, stating that "All good men of conscience must condemn the treatment of the Jews in Germany," other comments seemed to suggest that he believed that Jews should expect trouble for supporting the war: "Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences. Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastation."

There was widespread negative reaction to the speech, and Lindbergh was forced to defend and clarify his comments by noting again that he was not anti-Semitic, but he did not back away from his statement. Lindbergh resigned his commission in the U.S. Army Air Corps when President Roosevelt openly questioned his loyalty (which did severe damage to his reputation at the time). After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Lindbergh attempted to return to the Army Air Corps, but was denied when several of Roosevelt's cabinet secretaries registered objections.

World War II

Charles Lindbergh went on to assist with the war effort by serving as a civilian consultant to aviation companies, beginning with Ford in 1942, working at the Willow Run B-24 production line. Later in 1943, he joined United Aircraft as an engineering consultant, devoting most of his time to its Chance-Vought Division. As a technical advisor with Ford, he was deeply involved in trouble-shooting early problems encountered in B-24 production. As B-24 production smoothed out, he devoted more time to Chance-Vought. The following year, he persuaded United Aircraft to designate him a technical representative in the Pacific War to study aircraft performances under combat conditions. He showed Marine F4U pilots how to take off with twice the bomb load that the aircraft was rated for and on May 21, 1944 he flew his first combat mission. It was with VMF-222 on a strafing run near the Japanese garrison of Rabaul.

In his six months in the Pacific in 1944, Lindbergh took part in fighter bomber raids on Japanese positions, flying about 50 combat missions (again as a civilian). His innovations in the use of P-38s impressed a supportive Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Despite the long range exhibited by the P-38 Lightning leading to missions such as the one that killed Admiral Yamamoto, Lindbergh's contributions included engine-leaning techniques that he introduced to P-38 Lightning pilots. These techniques greatly improved fuel usage while cruising, enabling the aircraft to fly even longer-range missions. On July 28, 1944 during a P-38 bomber escort mission with the 475th Fighter Group, Fifth Air Force, in the Ceram area, Lindbergh is credited with shooting down a Sonia observation plane piloted by Captain Saburo Shimada, Commanding Officer of the 73rd Independent Chutai. The US Marine and Army Air Force pilots who served with Lindbergh admired and respected him, praising his courage and defending his patriotism regardless of his politics.

Later life

The Spirit of St. Louis on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

After World War II he lived quietly in Connecticut as a consultant both to the chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force and to Pan American World Airways. Much of Europe having fallen under Communist control, Lindbergh believed most of his pre-war assessments had been correct all along. But Berg reports that after witnessing the defeat of Germany and the horrors of the Holocaust firsthand shortly after his service in the Pacific, "he knew the American public no longer gave a hoot about his opinions." His 1953 book The Spirit of St. Louis, recounting his non-stop transatlantic flight, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954. Dwight D. Eisenhower restored Lindbergh's assignment with the Army Air Corps and made him a Brigadier General in 1954. In that year, he served on the congressional advisory panel set up to establish the site of the United States Air Force Academy. In December 1968, he visited the crew of Apollo 8 on the eve of the first manned spaceflight to leave earth orbit.

From 1957 until his death in 1974, Lindbergh had an affair with a woman 24 years his junior, German hat maker Brigitte Hesshaimer who lived in a small Bavarian town called Geretsried (35 km south of Munich). On November 23, 2003, DNA tests proved that he fathered her three children: Dyrk (1958), Astrid (1960), and David (1967). The two managed to keep the affair secret; even the children did not know the true identity of their father, whom they saw when he came to visit once or twice per year using the alias name "Careu Kent". Astrid later read a magazine article about Lindbergh and found snapshots and more than a hundred letters written from him to her mother. She disclosed the affair after both Brigitte and Anne Morrow Lindbergh had died.

It is speculated that Lindbergh may also have fathered two children by Brigitte’s sister Marietta (Vago, 1962; and Christoph, 1966), and two more children with his private secretary Valeska (a son in 1959 and a daughter in 1961).

From the 1960s on, Lindbergh became an advocate for the conservation of the natural world, campaigning to protect endangered species like humpback and blue whales, was instrumental in establishing protections for the "primitive" Filipino group the Tasaday and African tribes, and supporting the establishment of a national park. While studying the native flora and fauna of the Philippines, he also became involved in an effort to protect the Philippine eagle. In his final years, Lindbergh became troubled that the world was out of balance with its natural environment; he stressed the need to regain that balance, and spoke against the introduction of supersonic airliners.

Lindbergh's speeches and writings later in life emphasized his love of both technology and nature, and a lifelong belief that "all the achievements of mankind have value only to the extent that they preserve and improve the quality of life." In a 1967 Life magazine article, he said, "The human future depends on our ability to combine the knowledge of science with the wisdom of wildness."

In honor of Charles and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh's vision of achieving balance between the technological advancements they helped pioneer, and the preservation of the human and natural environments, every year since 1978 the Lindbergh Award has been given by the Lindbergh Foundation to recipients whose work has made a significant contribution toward the concept of "balance".

His final book, Autobiography of Values, was published posthumously.

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Overall image of Charles Lindbergh grave

Lindbergh spent his final years on the Hawaiian island of Maui, where he died of cancer on August 26, 1974. He was buried on the grounds of the Palapala Ho'omau Church in Kipahulu, Maui. His epitaph on a simple stone which quotes Psalms 139:9, reads: Charles A. Lindbergh Born: Michigan, 1902. Died: Maui, 1974. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. — CAL

The Lindbergh Terminal at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport was named after him, and a replica of The Spirit of St. Louis hangs there. There also is a replica of his plane hanging from the ceiling of the great hall at the recently rebuilt Jefferson Memorial at Forest Park in St. Louis where the definitive oil painting of Charles Lindbergh by St. Louisan Richard Krause entitled "The Spirit Soars" has also been displayed. He also lent his name to San Diego's Lindbergh Field, which also is known now as San Diego International Airport. The airport in Winslow, Arizona has been renamed Winslow-Lindbergh Regional. Lindbergh himself had designed the airport in 1929 when it was built as a refueling point for the first coast-to-coast air service. The airport in Little Falls, Minnesota, where he grew up, has been named Little Falls/Morrison County-Lindbergh Field.

In 1952, Grandview High School in St. Louis County was renamed Lindbergh High School. The school newspaper is the Pilot, the yearbook is the Spirit, and the students are known as the Flyers. The school district was also later named after Lindbergh. The stretch of U.S. 67 that runs through most of the St. Louis metro area is called "Lindbergh Blvd." Lindbergh has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Lindbergh is a recipient of the Silver Buffalo Award, the highest adult award given by the Boy Scouts of America.

The controversy surrounding his involvement in politics (and to a lesser extent, his personal life) sometimes overshadows the fact that he was an important pioneer in aviation from the 1920s to the 1950s. His 1927 flight made him the first international celebrity in the age of mass media, and literally changed the world overnight. In the late 1940s, when he was inspecting U.S. Air Force bases to evaluate the capability of American air power in relation to the emerging Cold War (of which he was a staunch supporter), one general remembers Lindbergh's critical view of his own legacy. "I think my flight to Paris came too soon for the civilizations of the world," he commented, "They were suddenly thrown together by air travel and they weren't quite ready for it."

Awards and Decorations

Lindbergh was given many medals. Most were given to the Missouri Historical Society and are on display at the Jefferson Memorial, Forest Park, in St. Louis, Missouri.

• Legion of Honor {French}
• Medal of Honor {USA}
• Distinguished Flying Cross {USA}
• Service Cross of the German Eagle {German}
• Pulitzer Prize (USA)
• Silver Buffalo Award {USA}
• Offical Royal Air Force Museum medal

Lindbergh in pop culture

• Shortly after Lindbergh made his famous flight, the Stratemeyer Syndicate began publishing the Ted Scott Flying Stories (1927- 1943) by Franklin W. Dixon wherein the hero was closely modeled after Lindbergh.
• Charles A. Lindbergh (1927) was a UK documentary by De Forest Phonofilm based on Charles A. Lindbergh's landmark flight.
• A song called "Lucky Lindy" was released soon after the 1927 flight. Tony Randall, not particularly known for singing, but a fan of old songs, revived it in the 1960s in a collection of jazz-age and depression era songs that he recorded.
• The dance craze, the "Lindy Hop" became popular after his flight, and was named after him.
• 40,000 Miles with Lindbergh (1928) was a documentary featuring Charles A. Lindbergh.
• The Agatha Christie book (1934) and movie Murder on the Orient Express (1974) begin with a fictionalized depiction of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.
• The 1942 film, "Keeper of the Flame," starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, features Hepburn as the wife of a Lindbergh-like national hero who is secretly a fascist. He intended to use his influence, especially over America's youth to turn the country into a fascist state and eliminate inferior races. It appears have been inspired by the controversy surrounding Lindbergh, but is much-exaggerated from the views Lindbergh actually held.
• Verdensberømtheder i København (1939) was an English/Danish co-production starring Robert Taylor, Myrna Loy and Edward G. Robinson featured Charles A. Lindbergh as himself.
• James Stewart played Lindbergh in the biographical The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), directed by Billy Wilder. The film begins with events leading up to the flight before giving a gripping and intense depiction of the flight itself.
• An alternative history novel, Robert Harris' Fatherland, published in 1992, has Lindbergh as the American Ambassador in 1964 Nazi Germany.
• The American Experience - Lindbergh: The Shocking, Turbulent Life of America's Lone Eagle (1988) was a PBS documentary directed by Stephen Ives.
• British Sea Power wrote, recorded and released (2002) a song in his honor entitled "Spirit of St Louis", a live favorite.
• A fictional version of Lindbergh is a major character in Philip Roth's 2004 alternative history novel, The Plot Against America. In Roth's narrative, Lindbergh successfully runs against Roosevelt in the 1940 US presidential election and aligns his country with the Nazis. This portrayal engendered great controversy.

See also

• NC-4 - The first flight across the Atlantic in a heavier-than-air aircraft.
• Alcock and Brown - The first non-stop flight across the Atlantic in a heavier-than-air aircraft.
• Lindy Hop - The original swing dance named after "Lindy hopped the Atlantic."
• List of people on stamps of Ireland

External links

• Lindbergh's first solo flight
• 1927 Video of Charles Lindberg's Transatlantic Flight
• Lindbergh foundation
• Pat Ranfranz: CharlesLindbergh.com
• Woody Guthrie on Lindbergh
• FBI History - Famous cases: The Lindbergh kidnapping
• PBS companion site to The American Experience program on Charles Lindbergh
• The Lone Eagle: 75 Years Later
• Lindbergh's Public Statements Were More Troubling Than His Private Affairs
• THE AMERICAN AXIS: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of the Third Reich
• PBS Article: Charles Lindbergh in the 1940s
• St. Louis Walk of Fame
• Charles A. Lindbergh at the Internet Movie Database
• Recent criticism of Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh as part of a struggle to define American identity
• Charles Lindbergh: Address On US Neutrality (listen online)

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Berg, A. Scott. Lindbergh. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1998. ISBN 0-399-14449-8.
• Cole, Wayne S. Charles A. Lindbergh and the Battle Against American Intervention in World War II. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. ISBN 0-15-118168-3.
• Gill, Brendan. Lindbergh Alone. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977. ISBN 0-15-152401-7.
• Lindbergh, Charles A. Charles A. Lindbergh: Autobiography of Values. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977. ISBN 0-15-110202-3.
• Lindbergh, Charles A. We. New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, 1927.
• Mersky, Peter B. U.S. Marine Corps Aviation - 1912 to the Present. Annapolis, Maryland; Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1983. ISBN 0-933852-39-8.
• Milton, Joyce. Loss of Eden: A Biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. New York, Harper Collins, 1993. ISBN 0-06-016503-0.
• Mosley, Leonard. Lindbergh: A Biography. New York; Doubleday and Company, 1976. ISBN 0-395-09578-3.

Sources

• Gerd Kröncke: "Der Amerikaner und die Hutmacherin", Süddeutsche Zeitung, August 2, 2003 (German).
• Better Above than Below: [2] By Ellen Chesler, New York Times, March 7, 1993
• Charles Lindbergh:[3]Sept. 11, 1941 speech at Des Moines, Iowa, transcript via PBS.

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