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Charles Augustus Lindbergh (4 February 1902 –
26 August 1974), known as "Lucky Lindy" and "The Lone Eagle,"
was an American pilot famous for the first solo, non-stop
flight across the Atlantic, from Roosevelt
Field, Long Island to Paris in 1927 in the "Spirit of St. Louis." In the ensuing deluge of notoriety, Lindbergh became the world's best-known
aviator.
In the years prior to World War II, Lindbergh was a noted isolationist, and a leader in the America First Committee
to keep the U.S. out of the coming war. Nevertheless, he flew combat missions in the Pacific
Theater as a consultant. In later years, Lindbergh took an active role in the environmental movement. Charles Lindbergh is a recipient of the Medal
of Honor. [1] [2]
Early years
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan, on 4 February 1902. He spent summers on a farm near Little Falls, Minnesota, but also spent time in Detroit and Washington, D.C.
His father, Charles August Lindbergh, a Swedish immigrant, was a lawyer and later a U.S. Congressman who
opposed the entry of the U.S. into World War I. His mother Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh,
of English, French, and Irish
descent, was a teacher at Cass Technical High School and later at Little
Falls High School. Lindbergh, for a short time, attended Redondo Union High
School in Redondo Beach, California. He graduated from Little Falls, Minnesota High School in 1918.
Introduction to aviation
Early on, he showed an interest in machinery (first his family's Saxon Six, later his own
Excelsior motorbike and, finally, aircraft). 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 aircraft, a World War I-surplus Curtiss JN-4, "Jenny" and
became a barnstormer, the "Daredevil Lindbergh."[3] 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 the Billings Municipal Airport (later renamed
Billings 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 bags 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 nighttime flight over Lake Village and Lake Chicot.
First non-stop flight from New York to Paris
The Orteig Prize, a $25,000 prize offered in 1919 by New York hotelier
Raymond Orteig, a Frenchman, for the first non-stop flight from New York City to Paris
spurred a great amount of interest worldwide. Either an eastbound flight from New York or a westbound flight from Paris would
qualify. The first challengers were French war heroes Captain Charles Nungesser and
his navigator Raymond Coli. They took off on 8 May 1927 on a
westbound flight in a Levasseur PL 8 named L'Oiseau Blanc. Their last contact was when
they crossed the coast of Ireland. Other teams including famed World War I fighter 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 prize. Noel Davis and
Stanton H. Wooster were killed in a crash, and Charles N. Clavier and Jacob Islaroff were burned to death at Roosevelt Airfield when Fonck’s overloaded Sikorsky aircraft
nosed over on takeoff.
Lindbergh gained sudden great international fame as the first pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. He flew from Roosevelt Airfield in Garden City,
New York, to Paris (Le Bourget Airport) on 20
May - 21 May 1927 in 33.5 hours. His plane was the
single-engine aircraft, The Spirit of St.
Louis. It was designed by Donald Hall and custom built by Ryan
Aeronautical Company of San Diego, California. (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 11 June
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 13 June 1927.[4]
His public stature following this flight was such that he became an important voice on behalf of aviation activities,
including the central committee of the National Advisory Committee
for Aeronautics in the United States. 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.
Elinor Smith Sullivan, winner of the 1930 Best Woman Aviator of the Year Award, described the impact Lindbergh had on
aviation. Before his flight, she remembers, "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 the Wall 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." [5]
Although Lindbergh was the first to fly solo from New York to Paris non-stop, he was not the first aviator to complete 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 before by two British flyers, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown in a modified Vickers Vimy
IV bomber on 14 June-15 June 1919, departing Lester's Field near St. John's,
Newfoundland and arriving at Clifden, Ireland (a shorter route than Lindbergh's). A total
of 81 people had flown across the Atlantic prior to Lindbergh. However, his was the first solo, non-stop transatlantic
flight.[6]
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 manufactured to his design and is still produced today.
Marriage, children, kidnapping
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Anne Morrow Lindbergh was the daughter of diplomat Dwight Morrow. According to a Biography Channel profile on
Lindbergh, she was the only woman that he had ever asked out on a date. The couple married on 27
May 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 II (1930-1932); Jon Morrow Lindbergh (b. 16 August 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 II, 20 months old, was abducted from the Lindbergh home on 1 March
1932. A nationwide, ten-week search ensued, and ransom negotiations were conducted with the
kidnappers. An infant corpse was found on 12 May in Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home, and identified by Lindbergh as
his son. 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. The Lindberghs grew tired of being in the spotlight and moved to
Europe in December 1935, still mourning the loss of their son. Hauptmann maintained his innocence
until the end, but he was found guilty and was executed on 3 April 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 many
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 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 he 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.[7] 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 within a few
days.[8] Carrel also introduced Lindbergh to
eugenics and scientific racism; these ideas
significantly influenced Lindbergh's later sympathies with fascist politics and American isolationism, which eventually ruined
his public reputation in America.[9]
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[10] but it was decades before one was actually built.
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 honor 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.
Munich Crisis
Lindbergh went to Germany at the urgent request of the U.S. 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 other 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 in 1939 and 1940. The Bf 109 and Ju 88 were frontline 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."[11]
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 Adolf 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. There is a case for both of these arguments, since Lindbergh favored a war
between Germany and Russia, but deplored the rivalry 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 consensus among British and American officials was that it was slightly exaggerated but
nevertheless badly needed. Lindbergh saw no contradiction between his advocacy of stronger American and British armed forces and
diplomatic appeasement of Nazi Germany. "Our civilization depends on peace among Western nations," he wrote in a controversial
1939 Reader's Digest article, "and therefore on united strength, for Peace is a
virgin who dare not show her face without Strength, her father, for protection."[12]
Political allegations against Lindbergh
Lindbergh was suspected of being a Nazi sympathizer because of his numerous scientific expeditions to Nazi Germany, combined
with a belief in eugenics. President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt considered him a Nazi and banned him from rejoining 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 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. Actions which were later seen as controversial at the time passed without notice. Lindbergh's receipt of the
German medal was approved without objection by the American embassy; the war had not yet begun in Europe. Indeed, the award did
not cause controversy until the war began and Lindbergh returned to the United States in 1939 to spread his message of
non-intervention.
A. Scott Berg similarly contends that Lindbergh's views were commonplace in the United States in the pre-WWII era. Lindbergh's
support for the America First Committee was representative of the sentiments of
a number of American people. His anti-Communism resonated deeply with many Americans.
Eugenics and Nordicism enjoyed much social
acceptance,[13] and other notable enthusiasts of such
ideas included Theodore Roosevelt,[14] Winston Churchill[15] and George S. Patton[16].
Lindbergh's political views were complex, and revealed both consistencies and inconsistencies with those of the Nazis. For
instance, Lindbergh avowed a belief in American democracy. [17] However, he clearly stated elsewhere that he believed the survival of the white race was more
important than the survival of democracy in Europe: "Our bond with Europe is one of race and not of political ideology," he
declared.[18] He had, however, a relatively positive
attitude toward blacks[19] (something that was scheduled
to be fully revealed in an undelivered speech interrupted by the events that followed the bombing of Pearl Harbor[20]). Critics have noticed an apparent influence of German philosopher Oswald Spengler's ideas on Lindbergh's thinking[21]. Controversial and widely read throughout Western World during the interwar era[22][23], Spengler was conservative and authoritarian, but
eventually fell out of favor with the Nazis because he did not wholly subscribe to their theories of racial purity.[24]
Lindbergh's detractors created propaganda pamphlets attempting to tie him to alleged Nazi intrigue, pointing out that his
efforts were praised in Nazi Germany and including quotations such as "Racial strength is vital– politics, a luxury." They also
included pictures of him using the stiff-armed Bellamy salute (a hand gesture described
by Francis Bellamy to accompany his Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States).[25] 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 that it would be indistinguishable
to observers from the Hitler salute.
Despite his anti-Semitism, Lindbergh was ultimately critical of Nazi Germany's treatment of Jews.
He said in 1941 that "No person with a sense of dignity of mankind can condone" such treatment. [26] He did not, however, think that 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 was because 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. As an advocate of political realism and a cultural pessimist, he may have also felt that state-enforced white supremacy had become untenable
and counterproductive. His message was popular throughout many Northern communities and especially well-received in the
Midwest, while the American
South was Anglophilic and supported a pro-British foreign policy.[27] Lindbergh considered Hitler a fanatic even before the details of the
Holocaust reached him, but he openly stated that, if he had to choose, he would rather see
his country allied with Nazi Germany than Soviet Russia. (He preferred "Nordics" [28], but he also believed that Russia would one day be a valuable ally against potential aggression
from East Asia after Soviet Communism was defeated.[29])
The American Axis ([4]), written by Holocaust researcher and investigative journalist Max Wallace, takes a harsh view of Lindbergh's pre-war actions, agreeing with Franklin Roosevelt'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 "Genghis 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 that Berg's Pulitzer Prize winning bestseller Lindbergh was published, a book appeared by
Pat Buchanan entitled A Republic, Not An Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny. 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". [30] The views
expressed in the book caused considerable controversy that eventually led to Buchanan's departure from the Republican Party. [31]
Lindbergh had always preached military strength and alertness. [32] He believed that a strong defensive war machine, as well as his views about race, would make
America an impenetrable fortress and defend the Western Hemisphere from an attack by foreign powers, and that this was the US military's sole
purpose. [33]
Many acknowledge that Lindbergh helped keep American public opinion isolationist until 1941 by advancing the movement to keep
America out of the war for as long as possible. At the same time, some praise Lindbergh for his prediction that an
Iron Curtain would descend upon Europe; many of the predictions which Lindbergh made about
the war came before Hitler violated his non-aggression pact with Stalin and launched Operation Barbarossa.[34]
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 that
Lindbergh was highly influential in ensuring that Hitler's war machine would advance toward the Eastern Front and inflict the most devastation there.
However, it should be noted that, as the most prominent spokesman of the America
First Committee, he fought the Lend-Lease Act and the Atlantic Charter. Had the Lead-Lease Act not been passed, as well as the Destroyers for Bases Agreement, Britain might not have survived, possibly leading to Axis
victory.[citation needed]
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 23
January 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 11 September 1941
in Des Moines entitled "Who Are the War Agitators?" Lindbergh claimed that the three
groups who had been "pressing this country toward war [were] the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt Administration" and
complained about what he insisted was the Jewish People's "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 "No person with a sense of
the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race 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". [35]
Lindbergh revealed a nativist xenophobia in an expurgated portion of his published
diaries: “We must limit to a reasonable amount the Jewish influence… Whenever the Jewish percentage of total population becomes
too high, a reaction seems to invariably occur. It is too bad because a few Jews of the right type are, I believe, an asset to
any country.” His reaction to Kristallnacht 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?"[citation needed]
There was widespread negative reaction to the speech. 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.
Lindbergh said: "I am not attacking the Jewish people. But I am saying that the leaders of both the British and the Jewish
races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not
American, wish to involve us in the war." [36]
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 21 May
1944 he flew his first combat mission. It was with VMF-222 on a
strafing run near the Japanese garrison of Rabaul.[37]
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. [38]
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 28 July 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.[39][37] The US Marine and Army Air Force pilots who served
with Lindbergh admired and respected him, praising his courage and defending his patriotism. [40]
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. With most of
Eastern 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.
Children from other relationships
From 1957 until his death in 1974, Lindbergh had an affair with German hat maker Brigitte Hesshaimer who lived in a small
Bavarian town called Geretsried (35 km south of Munich). On
23 November 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, "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.
A new German book by Rudolf Schroeck, "The Double life of Charles A. Lindbergh", claims seven secret children in Germany. It
says Lindbergh "came and went as he pleased" during the last 17 years of his life, spending between three to five days with his
Munich family about four to five times each year. "Ten days before he died in August 1974, Lindbergh wrote three letters from his
hospital bed to his three mistresses and requested 'utmost secrecy'," Schroeck writes, whose book includes a copy of that letter
to Brigitte Hesshaimer.
Environmental causes
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, the Lindbergh Award was established in 1978.
Each year since 1978, the Lindbergh Foundation has given the award to recipients whose work has made a significant contribution
toward the concept of "balance".
His final book, Autobiography of Values, was published posthumously.
Death
Charles Lindbergh's grave
Lindbergh spent his final years on the Hawaiian island of Maui,
where he died of lymphoma [41] on 26 August 1974.[42] 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
Because of earthquake damage to Hawaii State Highway 31, Lindberg's final resting place is presently accessible by land only
via State Highway 360, or the so-called Road to Hana.
Legacy
The Lindbergh Terminal at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International
Airport was named after him, and a replica of The Spirit of St. Louis hangs there. Another replica of his plane
hangs in the great hall at the recently rebuilt Jefferson Memorial at Forest Park in St. Louis. The definitive oil painting of
Charles Lindbergh by St. Louisan Richard Krause entitled "The Spirit Soars" (
