Lindbergh Soared Into Pantheon of U.S. Heroes

Darkness had fallen hours earlier as Charles A. Lindbergh steered the Spirit of St. Louis into Paris, yet Le Bourget airport was bathed in light.

The lights were from cars as 100,000 French people rushed to greet him.

It had taken Lindbergh, in his daringly designed little plane, 33 hours to make the nonstop transatlantic flight.

In nine months, six men had died trying to win a $25,000 prize for the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris. Just two weeks before Lindbergh’s flight, two French pilots, including a World War I ace, disappeared after taking off from Paris.

The crowds went wild when Lindbergh, a mere air postal carrier, made it. They surged past police barriers and began picking pieces off his plane as souvenirs.

Lindbergh was only 25 at the time, single, handsome and a folk hero who had managed the flying feat alone in a single-engine plane. His rivals were much better financed, with larger crews and bigger planes.

But “Lucky Lindy” was, indeed, favored by fate as well. Were it not for a lawsuit that grounded a rival plane, Lindbergh could have been an obscure historical footnote.

Born in 1902, Lindbergh was the son of a schoolteacher and a Minnesota congressman. He dropped out of college to learn how to fly. He became an aviation barnstormer, buying a World War I surplus biplane and flying into small towns to perform aerial stunts. He then joined the U.S. Army and graduated from flight training school in 1925.

The great Atlantic flying race had technically begun six years earlier, in 1919, when a New York hotel owner offered $25,000 for the first nonstop flight either way between New York and Paris. Such a flight was beyond the technological limit of any aircraft and it wasn’t until 1926 that Rene Fonck, a French fighter pilot, made the first attempt.

Fonck piloted a $105,000 tri-motor biplane, then the most expensive plane ever built. But as it rolled down a New York runway, it spun out of control, bursting into flames. Fonck escaped, but two of his crew died.

Even so, Fonck’s effort inspired Lindbergh, an airmail carrier. Lindbergh thought about building a cheaper, stripped-down, single-engine plane for the flight. He raised $15,000 from backers in St. Louis.

Adm. Richard Byrd, the first to fly over the North Pole, was also in the race, with a $100,000 tri-motor monoplane and a four-man crew. But in April 1927 his plane flipped over during a test landing; an engine was damaged and Byrd’s wrist was broken.

Lindbergh’s most serious threat came from a long-distance monoplane called the Bellanca that belonged to New York businessman Charles Levine. Levine was willing to sell the plane to Lindbergh but insisted on the right to name the pilot. Lindbergh went hunting elsewhere. Only Ryan Airlines in San Diego was willing to take the job of making his plane.

Everything in its design was aimed at saving weight. It had no windshield; a fuel tank sat in front of the pilot, so Lindbergh had to look out side windows or through a periscope to see ahead.

In May 1927 Lindbergh flew to New York. By then Byrd had resumed flight tests and the Bellanca was mechanically ready. But a navigator sued, unhappy over the contract he had signed with Levine, and the Bellanca was grounded by court order.

On May 20, Lindbergh hurried to take off during a break in the weather. By evening he was spotted over Newfoundland. Then, no word of him for 15 hours.

Finally, he was spotted over Ireland. Word spread, and much of Paris rushed to the airport.

Lindbergh himself was more amazed by his instant celebrity than by his 3,600-mile achievement.

He was flooded with offers to star in movies, but opted instead to promote aviation by flying the Spirit of St. Louis around the Americas. During his tour he met Anne Morrow, daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, and they later married.

Lindbergh valued privacy, but celebrity haunted him. In 1932 his first child, Charles Lindbergh Jr., was kidnapped and killed. This led to “the Lindbergh law,” which made kidnapping a federal crime. The trial of his son’s kidnapper, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, riveted the public’s attention. Lindbergh moved his family to England for more privacy and security.

He made his living primarily as an aviation consultant and wrote several books, including “The Spirit of St. Louis,” published in 1953. It won a Pulitzer Prize.

Lindbergh became a controversial figure before World War II, when he visited Nazi Germany to inspect its air force and was given a medal by Hermann Goering.

He campaigned against U.S. involvement in the war, but after Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh flew about 50 U.S. combat missions in the Pacific.

Lindbergh died of cancer in 1974. In keeping with his penchant for privacy and meticulous planning, he had chosen his own grave site at a remote spot on Maui.