Charles Lindbergh

Charles Lindbergh

Taken from Wikipedia

Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American pilot, writer, inventor, explorer, and social activist . In 1927, he flew the single-engine Spirit of St. Louis. from Roosevelt Airfield in New York City across the Atlantic to Paris-Le Bourget Airport in Paris, becoming the first successful solo non-landing flight in history. A man who crossed the Atlantic and received the Medal of Honor for it. San Diego Lindbergh International Airport is named after him.

early years

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan, USA, the descendant of Swedish immigrants and raised in Little Falls. His father, Charles August Lindbergh, a lawyer who served in Congress from 1907 to 1917, was criticized for opposing U.S. participation in World War I. His mother, Eglin Lindbergh, was a chemistry teacher at Cass Technical High School in Detroit. Lindbergh had an early interest in drugs. Lindbergh later graduated from the Sidwell Freders School in Washington and Redondo High School in California, before moving to California. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1920, but discontinued his mechanical engineering courses in February 1922 and began training as a pilot and mechanic.

start a flying career

Lindbergh became a student at the Nebraska Aircraft Company flight school in 1922 and made his career maiden flight on April 9, 1922, with Otto Thiem as a trainer [7]. Lindbergh made his first solo flight in May 1923, in Americx, Georgia. He also purchased a private jet, the Curtiss JN-4 (Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny"), and decided to fly alone. He completed his first career night flight in Lake Village, Arkansas, in 1923.

On March 19, 1924, he began a year of pilot training with the United States Army Air Forces. Eight days before graduation, Lindbergh suffered a serious flight accident on March 5, 1925, when he collided with another plane in mid-air and was forced to parachute to escape.

After graduating with first place in March, he became an Air Military Reserve Pilot as a Second Lieutenant. He worked on the St. Louis Line in the 1920s and was promoted to lieutenant in November 1925.

In October 1925, Lindbergh joined the St. Louis Robertson Aircraft Company (RAC), providing service between St. Louis and Chicago, with relay stations in Springfield, Illinois, and Peoria (Maywood Field). Lindbergh continued to be the chief pilot of the CAM-2 until mid-February 1927. At the time he traveled to San Diego, California, to oversee the design and construction of the Spirit of St. Louis.

First solo transatlantic flight without landing

On May 20, 1927, Lindbergh flew the single-engine St. Louis Spirit (type Ryan NYP-1) from Roosevelt Airfield in New York City to Paris, ready to fly across the Atlantic for a non-landing solo flight . Over the next 33.5 hours, Lindbergh faced a number of challenges, including skimming two cumulonimbus clouds at 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) and also flying over the sea at 10 feet (3.0 meters). He had been lost in the fog for hours. Charles Augustus Lindbergh relied solely on astronomical navigation and dead reckoning to guide the direction of flight.

He successfully arrived at Paris-Le Bourget Airport at 22:22 on May 21, with an estimated 150,000 spectators waiting there. Lindbergh was able to escape from the crowd under police and military protection. Lindbergh immediately became a world-famous figure and was awarded the Orteig Prize for it.

Second World War

Charles Augustus Lindbergh

When European fascism prevailed, Lindbergh was ordered by the U.S. military to Germany several times. In 1938, Hermann Goering awarded Lindberg the German Medal of Honor, which Lindberg accepted, indicating that Lindberg was close to the Nazis. Lindbergh refused to return the medal to Germany, claiming that doing so was an "unnecessary insult" to the Nazi leader.

After Germany launched World War II, Lindbergh was supported by isolationist and pro-German political factions. Lindbergh became a spokesman for the First Committee of the United States in the late 1940s, and soon became its most powerful, drawing crowds with speeches at Madison Square Garden in New York City and at Soldier Field in Chicago. On January 23, 1941, Lindbergh proposed before Congress a proposal for a neutral relationship between the United States and Nazi Germany. At a rally in Des Moois, Iowa, on September 11, 1941, Lindbergh criticized Jews for manipulating behind the scenes to get the United States to join the Confederate States. He also stated that he thought American Jews were less patriotic. Although Lindbergh never returned his medal, Lindbergh resigned from the U.S. Army Aviation Corps when President Franklin Roosevelt questioned his loyalty.

But after Pearl Harbor in 1941, he wanted to return to the aviation regiment, but could not get permission. As a result, he has been assisting the United States in World War II as a civilian adviser. While working with him in the U.S. Army Air Forces, Lindbergh used his experience to inform other pilots how to fly long distances and extend the range of their aircraft, and he flew 50 combat missions as a civilian, including one that shot down one. Japanese fighters, but this record was not made public at the time.

old age

After World War II, he lived in Connecticut and served as a consultant to both Pan Am and the United States Air Force. Eisenhower promoted Lindbergh to brigadier general in 1954. After that, Lindbergh learned that there was a research team on rockets, and immediately provided financial assistance and gained the vision of the top US military for it. The leader of this research team is Goddard, the "father of American rockets".

In 1953, he published his autobiography, Spirit of St. Louis. This book later won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954[18], and in 2004 SpaceShipOne flight 16P (SpaceShipOne flight 16P) sent the Spirit of St. Louis into space. Beginning in the 1960s, Lindbergh was involved in campaigns to protect endangered species such as humpback and blue whales.

In December 1968, he visited the crew of Apollo 8 the day before the first manned spaceflight in history. On July 16, 1969, Lindbergh and former Ryanair President T. Claude Ryan, who built the Spirit of St. Louis, watched the Apollo 11 launch from Cape Canaveral.

In his later years, Lindbergh moved to the Hawaiian island of Maui. He died of lymphoma in 1974 and is buried at Palapala Ho'omau Church.

Family life

Lindbergh was married to author Anne Morrow Lindbergh in 1929 and they had six children together. His eldest son, Charles August Lindbergh Jr., was kidnapped from his New Jersey home in 1932. The murderer demanded a ransom of $50,000, which was later raised to $70,000. But in the end, Charles Lindbergh Jr. was torn apart. The case shocked the United States and was regarded as the "crime of the century". Journalist H.L. Mencken described it as "the greatest crime since the resurrection of Jesus". The murderer was later identified as a German immigrant, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who was eventually sentenced to death and executed at the New Jersey State Prison on April 3, 1936, but many believe he was simply unlucky scapegoat. British detective writer Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express based on this mystery.

Lindbergh had a close relationship with Brigitte Hesshaimer, a German hat maker 24 years his junior, from 1957 until his death. They have three children, but will always cover it up, and even their children don't know the true identity of their father. Daughter Astrid later read the magazine article about Lindbergh and found more than a hundred letters Lindbergh wrote to Hesshaimer. She made the incident public in 2003, two years after the deaths of both Hesshaimer and Anne Lindbergh.

In 2002, Eric Lindbergh, grandson of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, repeated Lindbergh's 1927 transatlantic flight route in honor of Lindbergh's 75th successful transatlantic flight.

Related works

The Plot Against America, a fictional historical novel by Philip Roth.

In 1957, director Billy Wilder's biographical film "Lindbergh's Conquest" (formerly known as The Spirit of St. Louis; also translated as "Top Gun"), by another real Air Force hero James Starring Stewart.