Lindbergh

I was talking to a friend recently about our respective travel plans for this year.  She will fly from Sao Paulo to Amsterdam and Taipei.  I'm flying to New York and Lisbon.  Such inter-continental trips are now taken for granted.  Ninety-two years ago they would have been unthinkable.

By 1927, airplanes had been around for about two decades.  They had been used in the Great War in Europe.  Airplanes were employed for short-distances, both for personal and commercial reasons.  However, people started thinking about the possibility of long-distance travel.

In order to encourage progress in this area, New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig, on May 22, 1919 (about one hundred years ago), offered a prize of $25,000 to the first aviator(s) to fly non-stop from New York to Paris or vice versa.  In 1926, the first serious attempt to win the prize ended in the death of two men shortly after their plane's takeoff.

On May 20, 1927, a twenty-five year old aviator from Little Falls, Minnesota by the name of Charles Lindbergh, flying his plane (the Spirit of St. Louis), took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, east of New York City, at 7:52 AM.  He had recently become a very popular and heroic public figure in America.  30,000 people showed up at the airfield on the Sunday prior to his departure to catch a glimpse of him.

Lindbergh "packed five ham and chicken sandwiches (for his flight), though he would eat only one, when he was already over France.  He took one quart of water."

"From Roosevelt Field, Lindbergh turned north...before heading out over the misty gray waters of Long Island Sound.  By noon, he was over Nova Scotia, and at mid-afternoon over Cape Breton Island.  Shortly after 6 PM Lindbergh passed over the last rocky extremity of North America on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland and headed out over the open ocean. Now he would be out of touch completely for sixteen hours if all went well; forever if it didn't."

Thankfully, all went well, full credit to Lindbergh.  "As (he) covered the last leg from Cherbourg into Paris he had no idea that he was about to experience fame on a scale and intensity unlike any experienced by any human before.  A hundred thousand (French) people dropped whatever they were doing and went to Le Bourget (the Parisian airfield)" to greet Lindbergh upon his arrival.  

"After circling the Eiffel Tower, (Lindbergh) headed (northeast of Paris where the airfield was located).  The only possible site he could see was ringed with bright lights stretching out in all directions.  What he didn't realize was that the activity was all for him."

"At 10:22 PM Paris time, precisely 33 hours and 30 minutes after taking to the air the Spirit of St. Louis touched down on the grassy spaciousness of Le Bourget.  In that instant, a pulse of joy swept around the earth.  Within minutes the whole of America knew he was safe in Paris.  Le Bourget was instantly a scene of exultant pandemonium as tens of thousands of people rushed across the airfield to Lindbergh."

For the rest of his life, Charles Lindbergh would be a celebrity.
On May 27, 1929, he married Anne Morrow, a wealthy young woman.  They had six children.  On March 1, 1932, their eldest child, Charles Lindbergh, Jr. (then aged 20 months) was kidnapped from their home in East Amwell, NJ.  Two months later, the child was found dead.  

Beginning in 1936, Lindbergh began an involvement in America's political affairs becoming a member of the America First movement, a group that supported isolationism.  At a rally in September of 1941, he accused the British, the Jews and the Roosevelt administration of pressing America towards war.  After Pearl Harbor, isolationism disappeared in America and Lindbergh supported the war effort.  In 2004, the late Philip Roth wrote a novel, The Plot Against America, a fictitious account of Lindbergh's election as president of the United States in 1940 and how his pro-German views affected American Jews.  

On August 26, 1974, Lindbergh died of lymphoma in Hawaii (his home) at 72 years-of-age.