Charles A. Lindbergh

Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator and military officer. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance of 3,600 miles (5,800 km), flying alone for 33.5 hours. His aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis, was designed and built by the Ryan Airline Company specifically to compete for the Orteig Prize for the first flight between the two cities. Although not the first transatlantic flight, it was the first solo transatlantic flight and the longest at the time by nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km). It became known as one of the most consequential flights in history and ushered in a new era of air transportation between parts of the globe.

Lindbergh was raised mostly in Little Falls, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., the son of prominent U.S. Congressman Charles August Lindbergh. He became a U.S. Army Air Service cadet in 1924, earning the rank of second lieutenant in 1925. Later that year, he was hired as a U.S. Air Mail pilot in the Greater St. Louis area, where he started to prepare for his historic 1927 transatlantic flight. For his flight, President Calvin Coolidge presented Lindbergh both the Distinguished Flying Cross and Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. military award. He also earned the highest French order of merit, the Legion of Honor. In July 1927, he was promoted to the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve. His achievement spurred significant global interest in both commercial aviation and air mail, which revolutionized the aviation industry worldwide (a phenomenon dubbed the "Lindbergh boom"), and he spent much time promoting these industries.

Time magazine honored Lindbergh as its first Man of the Year in 1928, President Herbert Hoover appointed him to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1929, and he received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1930. In 1931, he and French surgeon Alexis Carrel began work on inventing the first perfusion pump, a device credited with making future heart surgeries and organ transplantation possible.

On March 1, 1932, Lindbergh's first-born infant child, Charles Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in what the American media called the "Crime of the Century". The case prompted the United States Congress to establish kidnapping as a federal crime if a kidnapper crosses state lines with a victim. By late 1935, the press and hysteria surrounding the case had driven the Lindbergh family into exile in Europe, from where they returned in 1939.

In the months before the United States entered World War II, Lindbergh's non-interventionist stance and statements about Jews and race led some to believe he was a Nazi sympathizer, although Lindbergh never publicly stated support for the Nazis and condemned them several times in both his public speeches and personal diary. However, like many Americans before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he opposed not only the military intervention of the U.S. but also the provision of military supplies to the British. He supported the isolationist America First Committee and resigned from the U.S. Army Air Corps in April 1941 after President Franklin Roosevelt publicly rebuked him for his views. In September 1941, Lindbergh gave a significant address, titled "Speech on Neutrality", outlining his position and arguments against greater American involvement in the war.Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and German declaration of war against the U.S., Lindbergh avidly supported the American war effort but was rejected for active duty, as Roosevelt refused to restore his Air Corps colonel's commission. Instead he flew 50 combat missions in the Pacific Theater as a civilian consultant and was unofficially credited with shooting down an enemy aircraft. In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower restored his commission and promoted him to brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. In his later years, he became a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, international explorer and environmentalist, helping to establish national parks in the U.S. and protect certain endangered species and tribal people in both the Philippines and east Africa. In 1974, Lindbergh died of lymphoma at age 72. Barely two months after Lindbergh arrived in Paris, G. P. Putnam's Sons published his 318-page autobiography "WE", which was the first of 15 books he eventually wrote or to which he made significant contributions. The company was run by aviation enthusiast George P. Putnam.

The dustjacket notes said that Lindbergh wanted to share the "story of his life and his transatlantic flight together with his views on the future of aviation", and that "WE" referred to the "spiritual partnership" that had developed "between himself and his airplane during the dark hours of his flight". However, as Berg wrote in 1998, Putnam's chose the title without "Lindbergh's knowledge or approval," and Lindbergh would "forever complain about it, that his use of 'we' meant him and his backers, not him and his plane, as the press had people believing"; nonetheless, as Berg remarked, "his frequent unconscious use of the phrase suggested otherwise."Putnam's sold special autographed copies of the book for $25 each, all of which were purchased before publication. "WE" was soon translated into most major languages and sold more than 650,000 copies in the first year, earning Lindbergh more than $250,000. Its success was considerably aided by Lindbergh's three-month, 22,350-mile (35,970 km) tour of the United States in the Spirit on behalf of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. Between July 20 and October 23, 1927, Lindbergh visited 82 cities in all 48 states, delivered 147 speeches, rode 1,290 mi (2,080 km) in parades, and was seen by more than 30 million Americans, one quarter of the nation's population.

Lindbergh then toured 16 Latin American countries between December 13, 1927, and February 8, 1928. Dubbed the "Good Will Tour", it included stops in Mexico (where he also met his future wife, Anne, the daughter of U.S. Ambassador Dwight Morrow), Guatemala, British Honduras, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, the Canal Zone, Colombia, Venezuela, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba, covering 9,390 miles (15,110 km) in just over 116 hours of flight time. A year and two days after it had made its first flight, Lindbergh flew the Spirit from St. Louis to Washington, D.C., where it has been on public display at the Smithsonian Institution ever since. Over the previous 367 days, Lindbergh and the Spirit had logged 489 hours 28 minutes of flight time together.A "Lindbergh boom" in aviation had begun. The volume of mail moving by air increased 50 percent within six months, applications for pilots' licenses tripled, and the number of planes quadrupled.: 17 

President Herbert Hoover appointed Lindbergh to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.Lindbergh and Pan American World Airways head Juan Trippe were interested in developing an air route across Alaska and Siberia to China and Japan. In the summer of 1931, with Trippe's support, Lindbergh and his wife flew from Long Island to Nome, Alaska, and from there to Siberia, Japan and China. The flight was carried out with a Lockheed Model 8 Sirius named Tingmissartoq. The route was not available for commercial service until after World War II, as prewar aircraft lacked the range to fly Alaska to Japan nonstop, and the United States had not officially recognized the Soviet government. In China they volunteered to help in disaster investigation and relief efforts for the Central China flood of 1931. This was later documented in Anne's book North to the Orient.