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Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974), known as "Lucky Lindy" and "The Lone Eagle", was an American aviator famous for piloting the first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927. Some believe Lindbergh tarnished his good name by his leadership in the movement to keep the US out of World War II. Lindberghs Introduction to Aviation Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Swedish immigrants. He grew up in Little Falls, Minnesota. 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 chemistry teacher. Early on, he showed an interest in machinery, especially aircraft. Lindbergh, for a short time, attended Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach, California *. In 1922, he quit a mechanical engineering program, 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 stunt pilot. 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 class, Lindbergh took his first job as lead pilot of an airmail route operated by Robertson Aircraft Co. of Lambert Field in St. Louis, Missouri. He flew the mail in a DeHavilland 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. 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 solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean
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. 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 (b.1940), Scott Lindbergh (b.1942) and Reeve Lindbergh (b.1945). Charles Augustus Lindbergh III., 20 months old, was abducted on March 1, 1932, from their home. An infant corpse, identified by Lindbergh as his son, was found on May 12 in Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home, after a nationwide 10-week search and ransom negotiations with the kidnappers. More than three years later, a media circus ensued when the man accused of the murder, Bruno Hauptmann, went on trial in Flemington, New Jersey. 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. 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 decorated Lindbergh with the German Medal of Honor (the Verdienstkreuz Deutscher Adler) for his services to aviation and particularly for his 1927 flight (Henry Ford received the same award earlier in July). Lindbergh's decoration 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 88 and, again, the Messerschmitt 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 ME-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 ME‐ 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 ME-109 and JU-88 were first-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." Cole p 39-40 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 this was 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. 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
Outbreak of war
The Second World War He went on to assist with the war effort by serving as a civilian consultant to aviation companies and the government, as well as flying about 50 combat missions (again as a civilian) in 1944 in the Pacific War. 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. He also showed Marine F4U pilots how to take off with twice the bomb load that the aircraft was rated for. He is credited with shooting down one enemy aircraft *. The U.S. Marine and Army pilots who served with Lindbergh admired and respected him, praising his courage and defending his patriotism regardless of politics **. His innovations in the use of P-38s impressed a supportive Gen. Douglas MacArthur*. Later life 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 the 1960s, he became a spokesman for the conservation of the natural world, speaking in favor of the protection of whales, against supersonic transport planes and was instrumental in establishing protections for the "primitive" Filipino group the Tasaday. 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). In his final years, Lindbergh became troubled that the world was out of balance with its natural environment, and he stressed the need to regain that balance. In the early 1960s, he began working to help "primitive" Philippine and African tribes, campaigned to protect endangered species like humpback and blue whales, and he supported the establishment of a national park. 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. 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 in pop culture 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. Another alternative history novel, Robert Harris' Fatherland, published in 1992, has Lindbergh as the American Ambassador in 1964 Nazi Germany. The Agatha Christie book and movie Murder on the Orient Express begin with a fictionalized depiction of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. James Stewart played Lindbergh in the biographical The Spirit of St. Louis, directed by Billy Wilder. The film begins with events leading up to the flight before giving a gripping and intense view of the flight itself. Shortly after Lindbergh made his famous flight, the Stratemeyer Syndicate began publishing the Ted Scott Flying Stories by Franklin W. Dixon wherein the hero was closely modeled after Lindbergh. More recently, British Sea Power wrote, recorded and released (in 2002) a song in his honor entitled "Spirit of St Louis", a live favorite. See also Sources | |||||||||||||
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