Charles Lindbergh


Charles Augustus Lindbergh II (February 4, 1902 - August 26, 1974) was a
pioneering American aviator famous for the first solo non-stop flight across
the Atlantic Ocean.

Early life

Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan as son of Swedish immigrants. He
grew up in Little Falls, Minnesota. His father 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 machines. In 1922
he quit a mechanical-engineering program, joined a pilot and mechanist
training with Nebraska Aircraft, bought his own airplane, a Curtiss JN-4
"Jenny", and became a stunt pilot. In 1924, he started training as a U.S.
military aviator with the United States Army Air Service. After finishing
first in his class, he worked as a civilian air-mail pilot on the line St.
Louis in the 1920s.

First flight across Atlantic Ocean

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
one-motor airplane "The Spirit of St. Louis" which had been custom built by
Ryan Airlines of San Diego, California. He needed 33.5 hours for the trip.

This accomplishment, which was the first non-stop flight from New York to
Paris and the first solo flight across the Atlantic, won him the Orteig
Prize of $25,000. His public stature following this flight was such that he
became an important voice on behalf of aviation activities until his death.
He served on a variety of national and international boards and committees,
including the central committee of the National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics in the United States. On March 21, 1928 he was presented the
Congressional Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight.

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.

Marriage, children, kidnapping

He married the author Anne Morrow Lindbergh in 1929. He taught her how to
fly and did much of the exploring and charting of air-routes together with
her. The two had six children: Charles Augustus Jr. (born 1930), Jon (1932),
Land (1937), Anne (1940), Scott (1942) and Reeve (1945).

Their two-year-old son Charles Augustus was abducted on March 1, 1932 from
their home. The boy was found dead on May 12 in Hopewell, New Jersey just a
few miles from the Lindbergh's home, after a nation-wide ten 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 (which was dubbed the "trial of the century"). Tired of being
in the spotlight and still mourning the loss of their son, the Lindberghs
moved to Europe in December 1935. Hauptman, who maintained his innocence
until the end, was found guilty and was executed on April 3, 1936.

Second World War

In Europe during the rise of Fascism, Lindbergh spent some time in Germany,
where he admired the German air force. In 1938, Hermann Goering offered him
a German medal of honor, and Lindbergh's acceptance caused an outcry in the
United States when Lindbergh's alleged closeness to the Nazis was
criticized. Lindbergh himself had seen his mission in providing information
about European technological developments, and especially in warning the
U.S. of the rise of Nazi air power. As war loomed in Europe he was a
prominent speaker in favor of an isolationist policy for the USA. On January
23, 1941 Lindbergh testified before the United States Congress and
recommended that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf
Hitler. Criticism of his position led to his resigning from the Army Air Corps.

However, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, he assisted 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.

Later life

After World War II he lived quietly in Connecticut as an consultant both to
the chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force and to Pan American World Airways.
His 1953 book, The Spirit of St. Louis, recounting his non-stop
transatlantic flight, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954. Dwight D. Eisenhower
fully rehabilitated him by restoring his assignment with the Army Air Corps
and making him brigadier general in 1954. In the 1960s, he became a
spokesman for the conservation of the natural world, speaking in favor of
the protection of whales and against super-sonic transport planes.

From 1957 until his death in 1974, Lindbergh had an affair with a woman 24
years his junior, the German hat maker Brigitte Hesshaimer. They had three
children together: Dyrk (born 1958), Astrid, and David (born 1967). The two
managed to keep the affair completely secret; even the children did not know
the true identity of their father, whom they met sporadically when he came
to visit. 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 in 2003, two years after Brigitte Hesshaimer had died.

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. His epitaph 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