Lucky Lindy Still Shines

By Robert D. Barnard  MPS.

On May 21, 1927, a shy, handsome young
man landed his airplane at Le Bourget Field in
Paris, France and the world went into a parox-
ysm of adulation. Charles A. Lindbergh was
the first individual to fly arross the Atlantie
Occan and by doing so, he won the Orteig Prize
and a $25, 000 purse; a lot of money in those
days.

However, the reasons for Lindbergh's
popularity were much more profound.
He was the "All-American boy," clean,
self-effacing devoted to his mother. He
flew in a relatively crude single engine
plane built by a little known firm, with-
out a pilot or navigator with him. All
others entering the contest had much
more to work with. Also, in carrying out
the flight, the young aviator displayed
bravery and determination, as well as
good fortune. The underdog had flown
away with the Orteig Prize and everyone
loved it. Finally. the Ryan-built mono-
plane carried the name, "Spirit of St.
Louis, " bringing special praise from
that city and from France and the rest of
the Catholic world . Practically over-
night, Lindbergh became the best known
name to people everywhere.

The young man added to the admira-
tion by refusing to accept millions of
dollars to endorse products and ideas.
He agreed only to help promote aviation
by flights and guest appearances spon-
sored by the Guggenheim Foundation.

This public adoration lasted many
years. The nation was inexpressibly
shocked when the infant son of Charles
and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was kid-
napped and killed in 1932. Aroused pub-
lic opinion led Congress to pass the Lind-
bergh Law, making interstate abduction
a possible death penalty offense.

After being the world's greatest hero in
the "roaring twenties" and then going
through the traumatic death of an only
child, a third emotionally charged era
arrived for Lindy in the rise of Nazi
Germany and the approach of World
War II. He believed strongly that France
and Great Britain combined could not
win a war against Germany and that
United States participation would be a
mistake.

The majority of the press and official
U. S. Government spokesmen turned
against him, even to the extent of taking
away his reserve commission in the
Army Air Force. (This was returned to
him after the war while he was serving as
a consultant and board member for sev-
eral major air lines. ) He joined the
"America First" organization and gave
speeches for them throughout the coun-
try. In doing so, he became anathema to
many of those who hailed him as a con-
quering he~o in the past.

What does posterity have to tell us
about the comprehensive life of this
man? Today, we are far enough away
from the events to view them objectively.

Charles A. Lindbergh was born in
Detroit, Michigan, but spent most of his
boyhood in Little Falls, Minnesota or
Washington, D.C., where his father
served several terms as a Congressman.
Sr,urred by dreams of flyine from his
childhood, he dropped out of college in
his sophomore year at the University of
Wisconsin and enrolled in flying school
at Lincoln, Nebraska. When he was
competent, he joined a barnstorming
aerial group as a stunt performer. After
a year, he saved enough money to buy a
World War I Curtiss "Jenny." He was
just in time to take his father around the
state of Minnesota for an unsuccessful
attempt to become governor. He then
applied for and received admission to the
United States Army Air Sorvice as a
cadet and became one of only 33 men out
of 104 to complete the course, graduating
at the top of his class.

Taking a job with Robertson Brothers
Air Service, he also asked for and re-
ceived a commission in the Missouri
National Air Guard. During this time,
Robertson's contracted with the govern-
ment for Air Mail runs and Lindy gained
much piloting experience.

It was in 1925 that he first heard of the
Orteig Prize offering $25,000 to the first
pilot who successfully crossed the Atlan-
tic Ocean. The award had waited un-
claimed for six years, although the
world's most prominent fliers were con-
stantly trying to achieve it.

Lindy felt that this experience couldn't
be any worse than the nightly mail runs
in the middle of Winter and he deter-
mined to win the prize for himself. He
was competing against such world re-
nowned pilots as Commander Richard
E. Byrd and Noel Davis, who had sub-
stantial financial backing and the sup-
port of the major aircraft manufacturers.

To obtain his goal with all possible
speed, he talked to a group of St. Louis
businessmen who agreed to provide the
funds, knowing that they would be re-
paid if he won the prize. He experienced
difficulty finding any aircraft plant
willing to trust him with their plane,
especial!y since his idea was to fly with
onl y a smgle engine.

Finally, the Ryan Airline Company of
San Diego, California agreed to build a
single engine monoplane for $10,500. In
the building of the plane, Lindbergh
stressed fuel capacity, holding down the
overall weight, and having plenty of
emergency equipment, even though it
meant lengthening the plane's wing-
span. Beginning on February 20, 1927,
Ryan fulfilled the contract by completing
it in ninety days.

In the meantime, Byrd had an accident
with his aircraft during take off and Davis
was killed while practicing for the flight.
Lindy decided to be thorough, even if it
made his flight planning somewhat
slower.

He took his completed plane to show his
financial backers in St. Louis on May 10
and arrived in New York on the 12th. He
was ready to begin flight with the first
superior weather, which came on May
20. At 7:52 a.m., he took off from
Roosevelt Field, barely missing electric
wires because extra gas made his plane
so heavy.

Lack of sleep plagued Lindy and heavy
fog forced flying at wave top altitude.
Wmning his fight to keep awake, he
sighted the Irish coast and flew on to the
continent, landing at Le Bourget Field in
Paris at 10: 20 p. m., after thirty-three and
a half hours in the air.

A vast crowd surrounded the field and
soon engulfed the hero. Lindbergh's life
was never the same again.

He was returned to triumph to America
aboard the U.S.S. Memphis, sent by
President Calvin Coolidge, to face the
greatest ticker tape parade New York
ever saw, a visit to the White House, and
a whirlwind of invitations from all over
the world. Casting aside endorsements
for great personal gain Lindy began his
round of flights to popuiarize aviation for
the Guggenheim Foundation.

One such trip was to Mexico, where he
not only charmed everyone as a goodwill
envoy, but met the lovely daughter of the
American Ambassador to Mexico,
Dwight Morrow. Friendship grew to
love and Anne Morrow and Lindbergh
were married in 1929, after which she
became his partner on many air trips.
This era ended when they were devas-
tated by the kidnapping and death of
their son. They retired from society to
live in Europe.

In the decade before World War II,
Lindbergh was invited by the German
Government to visit their aircraft plants
and flying fields and to evaluate this
phase of Adolf Hitler's rearmament pro-
gram. He became convinced that Ger-
many was by far the strongest nation in
the world militarily and especially in the
air where their Luftwaffe planes and
trained fliers placed them on a superior
plane.

Believing that this information should
be made public to the democracies of the
world and the United States must be kept
from the mistake of underestimating
German power, Lindbergh wrote to
Joseph P. Kennedy, United States Am-
bassador to Great Britain and also con-
tacted personally several high British of-
ficers and some of the U.S. military of-
ficers stationed at the American Em-
bassy in London. This led to Lindbergh' s
testimony on German strength before
the British Cabinet and talks with
General Henry H. (Hap) Arnold, Chief
of the U.S. Army Air Force in private
meetings at West Point in New York to
escape reporters.

Lindbergh's unemotional narration to
these officials describing the situation as
he saw it was not received by his hearers
in the same manner. Their answers were
charged with emotion and hatred for
Germany and in some cases also re-
flected on Lindbergh as the bearer of
"bad news" that couldn't possibly be
true. He was accused of implausibly and
purposely exaggerating Germany's
strength and they implied that Lind-
bergh was motivated by tacit approval of
the Nazi regime and all that it stood for.

Though facing the castigation of the
world, Lindbergh continued to state his
belief that Germany " now had the
means of destroying London, Paris and
Prague because German air strength is
greater than that of all other European
countries combined " and that " England
and France are too weak in the air to
protect themselves. " He felt that the
United States should develop its own
strength militarily in the air and else-
where and not waste valuable time at-
tempting to prop up those two weak
European democracies. Taking advan-
tage of the protection of the two wide
oceans, the United States should at that
time " avoid entanglement in Nazi
aggression. "

As the debate became public, Lind-
bergh was called a traitor and many
worse names by both U.S. Government
officials and the ordinary citizens of his
country. His colonel's commission in the
United States Army Air Force Reserve
was recalled to serve notice that his mil-
itary abilities were no longer required.
His warning observations were called
outright lies by those we elected to run
our country and the general public.

Lindy's reactions to these multiple at-
tacks was to stubbornly continue to state
the truth as he saw it. Because of his
ongoing political dispute, he was, of
course, not permitted to serve on active
duty with the armed forces at any time
in the years of World War II. Instead, he
spent the war years as a consultant to
private companies making war planes
and as a test pilot of military aircraft.

Gary N. Smith, past director of
Museum Programs for the Missouri His-
torical Society which manages the Lind-
bergh Collection, reminds us that as part
of his work, " Lindbergh managed to get
himself sent to the South Pacific where he
worked closely with young pilots to de-
monstrate how to get maximum flight
range from their planes. Although over-
age for a fighter pilot and strictly forbid-
den to engage in combat, Lindbergh
managed to fly sixty combat missions in
his 'unofficial' capacity." Thus, Charles
A. Lindbergh answered the critics who
called him a traitor to his country.

Some of Lindbergh's statements spe-
cifically named the numbers of German
strength in the air. For instance, he said
that in 1939 Germany was producing
500 to 800 pianes per month. Evidence
of the United States Strategic Bombing
Survey produced after the war shows
German production at 436 planes per
month in 1938 and 691 per month in
1939.

Colonel Martin F. Scanlon was Assis-
tant Sir Attache at the American Em-
bassy in London when Lindbergh gave
his official warning there before the war.
Now a retired Air Force General, when
he was asked about the Lindbergh report
recently, Scanlon said, " I didn' t put
much credence in his opinion of the Ger-
man Air Force, but I'm afraid I was
wrong. They had a hell of an air force.
Lindbergh deserves a lot of credit. " ~For
deducing the true facts and not hesltat-
ing to state them.)

General Hap Arnold, Army Air Force
commander, wrote after the war, "Lind-
bergh gave me the most accurate picture
of the Luftwaffe, its equipment, leaders,
apparent plans and traming methods and
present defects that I had so far received. "

Thus, posterity records that Lindy's
figures and estimate of pre-World War II
strength was largely true as stated. Many
American people who forgave him for his
evaluation of German strength reacted
in explosive anger when he said that
France and Great Britain by themselves
were incapable of surviving a war with
Germany. History shows this to be an
obvious truth; any American veteran of
World War II in the European Theatre
will set that record straight.

Lindbergh's philosophy of U.S. isola-
tion does not seem to fare as well in the
light of history. Given an Adolf Hitler
who openly boasted of conquering the
world and the then tremendous strength
of the Axis Powers, it seems best both
strategically and morally for America to
have entered the war with allies rather
than to wait and perhaps face the enemy
alone.

Lindbergh's detested opinions, although
extremely embarrassing to the gov-
ernment and President Roosevelt and not
at all what the majority of Americans
wished to believe, have been partially vin-
dicated by time. On the role of American
heroes, Lucky Lindy still shines.

To the world of 1927 and still todav
Lucky Lindy gives us all hope. Our feel-
ing for this man was perhaps best ex-
pressed by Frederick Lewis Allen: A dis-
illusioned nation fed on cheap heroics
revolts against the low estimate of hu-
man nature which it had allowed itself to
entertain.--The American people had
seen their early ideals and illusions and
hopes one by one worn away; by the
disappointing aftermath of World War I;
by scientific doctrines and psychological
theories which undermined their religion
and ridiculed their sentimental notions
by the spectacle of graft in politics and
crime on city streets; their newspaper
diet of smut and murder.--All on once
Lindbergh provided what people needed
if they were to live at peace with them-
selves and with the world; the proof that
men could do heroic things and continue
to act as heroes in the aftermath! He
continues to stand for these things today.

Brethren may pridefully state today, as
in the days of his triumphant flight, that
Charles A. Lindbergh determined to be-
come a Freemason at the age of 24, re-
ceiving his degrees in 1926 in Keystone
Lodge #243 in St. Louis, Missouri and
that he was a life member of that Lodge.

On his famous flight, he wore the square
and compass on his flight jacket. The
"Spirit of St. Louis" also wore a Masonic
tag from his Lodge. The many Masonic
medals and citations rest beside the Con-
gressional Medal of Honor, the Pulitzer
Prize and the multitude of medals he
received from around the world. The
Lindbergh memorabilia are on display at
the Jefferson Memorial in St. Louis. So
mote it be.
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