Charles Lindbergh, also known as “The Lone Eagle” and “Lucky Lindy” has become the world’s best known aviator. He is best known for his first solo, non-stop flight across the Atlantic to Paris in 1927. He was a famous American pilot who was also awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Growing Up
•Charles Lindbergh was born on February 4 1902 in Detroit, Michigan.
•Lindbergh’s father, Charles August was a Swedish immigrant who practiced law and later became a U.S. Congressman.
•Lindbergh’s mother, Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh was a high school teacher at a Technical High School. She taught English, French and Irish.
•Charles Lindbergh attended the Redondo Union High School in California.
•Lindbergh graduated from Little Falls High School in Minnesota in 1918.
The Challenge
•In 1919 Raymond Orteig, a Frenchman offered a $25, 000 prize to anyone who could fly nonstop from New York City to Paris. This of course spurred interest all around the world.
Many individuals tried to take the challenge and failed.
•Noel Davis and Stanton H. Wooster were killed in a crash trying to win the prize.
•Charles N. Clavier and Jacob Islaraoff were burned to death at Roosevelt Airfield when their aircraft nose-dived after take-off.
•In 1927 Lindbergh became the first to make that nonstop flight across the Atlantic to Paris. He flew from Roosevelt Airfield on May 20 and arrived in Paris on May 21. It took him thirty three and a half hours to get there.
•He named his plane the “Spirit of St. Louis. It was designed by Donald Hall and custom built.
•The President of France bestowed on him the French Legion d’honneur.
•When he arrived back in the United States on June 11 1927, he was escorted to Washington D.C. where President Calvin Coolidge awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross.
•Lindbergh obviously won the $25,000 prize and was also given a parade down 5th Avenue in New York City on June 13, 1927.
•Lindbergh’s grandson, Erik Lindbergh repeated the journey seventy five years later in 2002 in seventeen hours and seventeen minutes.
Married Life & Children
•Lindbergh married Anne Morrow on May 27, 1929. She was the first woman to ever ask him out on a date.
•Charles Lindbergh taught Anne how to fly and did many of his charting of air routes with her.
•Charles and Anne had six children; Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, John Morrow Lindbergh, Land Morrow Lindbergh, Anne Lindbergh, Scott Lindbergh, and Reeve Lindbergh.
•On March 1, 1932 Charles Augustus Lindbergh III was abducted at the age of twenty months from the Lindbergh home. A ten week search was ensued and negotiations were made with the kidnappers.
•On May 12 the small body was found just a few miles from the Lindbergh’s home in Hopewell, New Jersey.
•More than three years later the accused man would go on trial, was found guilty, and put to death on April 3, 1936.
•Charles and Anne Lindbergh, still mourning the death of their young son, grew tired of the spotlight and moved to Britain in December of 1935.
•From 1957 until 1974, the year he died, Lindbergh had an affair with German hat maker Brigitte Hesshaimer.
•Charles Lindbergh fathered three other children; Dyrk, Astrid, and David. The affair was kept a secret until their daughter Astrid found a number pictures and letters written from him to her. The affair was disclosed after both Brigitte and Anne Morrow Lindbergh had died.
Late Life
•After WW II Lindbergh lived quietly in Connecticut as a consultant to the Chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force and to Pan American World Airways.
•In 1953 Lindbergh wrote a book called “The Spirit of St. Louis which recounted his non stop flight. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954.
•Charles Lindbergh spent his final years in Hawaii living on the island of Maui. He died of Lymphoma on August 26, 1974 and was buried in Maui.
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