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Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Charles Lindbergh
President Coolidge Honoring Lindbergh
President Calvin Coolidge puts a Congressional Medal of Honor around Lindbergh's neck as group look on in Washington D.C.
Charles Lindbergh returns to St. Louis, Missouri one month after his historic solo flight across the Atlantic.
He is pictured swapping stories with former mail pilots of the Robertson Aircraft Company.
On February 4, 1902 Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. (later known to the world as "The Lone Eagle" and "Lucky Lindy") was born in Detroit, Michigan to his father, a lawyer, and mother Evangeline Land Lodge, a chemistry teacher. His childhood would be spent on a farm in the state of Minnesota, for whose Sixth District his father served as an U.S. congressman from 1907-17.
At a very young age, Lindbergh developed an interest an aptitude for mechanics, so he became the designated keeper of the family car. This talent and interest would stay with him throughout his childhood; after attending the University of Wisconsin, where Lindbergh studied engineering for two years, he departed college to explore the emerging field of aviation. Interestingly, despite the fame he would shortly achieve, the great American aviator began as a barnstormer showcasing air stunts at fairs.
In 1924, Lindbergh began service in the U.S. Army and sought training as to be a Reserve pilot. After graduating the program atop his class and completing his military training, Lindbergh then sought out his first aviation job as a commercial pilot, flying the St. Louis-Chicago mail route for Robertson Aircraft.
Five years before Lindbergh's enlistment, New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig had promised a $25,000 prize to the first pilot to cross the Atlantic from New York to Paris non-stop, alone. By the present year of 1927, none of the pilots who had attempted the trek had succeeded in claiming Orteig's bid-several, though, had died trying. With the help of nine St. Louis-area financial investors, Lindbergh could then afford the services of Ryan Aeronautical, which manufactured the plane that he helped design. In early May, Lindbergh flew his legendary vessel, The Spirit of St. Louis, for the first time on a two-day trip from San Diego to New York, a night's layover in St. Louis; the mere flight to get to New York set a transcontinental record.
After a successful maiden flight, Lindbergh prepared for the New York-Paris attempt only nine days later. At the historic time of 7:52 am on the morning of May 20, 1927, he departed from New York's Roosevelt Field for a thirty-three-and-a-half-hour battle against the elements and his own will. On May 21, at 10:21p.m. (Paris time), a sleepless Lindbergh descended to the roaring cheers of a packed Le Bourget Field near Paris. The excited mob enveloped Lindbergh, people dismantling souvenir pieces of The Spirit of St. Louis and even grabbing for pieces of Lindbergh's clothing. Ironically, his departure from New York one and one-third days before received minimal attention and publicity.
This energy and excitement was not limited to those who witnessed the historic moment first-hand. Lindbergh gained instant celebrity worldwide and made innumerable appearances at celebrations and parades in his honor; he received the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Flying Cross from President Calvin Coolidge.
1927 saw the world's most famous aviator turn author as well with the publication of his book, We, an in-depth account of their-him and his prized plane's--transoceanic flight. Late in the year, Lindbergh, by request of the U.S. government, then toured various Latin-American countries as a sign of U.S. diplomacy. While in Mexico, Lindbergh became enamored with Anne Spencer Morrow, daughter of U.S.-Mexico ambassador Dwight W. Morrow. Lindbergh and Anne Morrow married in 1929, the two an ironically shy couple given their notoriety; with husband Lindbergh already established worldwide, Anne would make her own name as a popular author and poet.
Before withdrawing from public attention in his later years, Lindbergh made contributions to several and varied arenas. Between 1931 and 1935, he and French surgeon Alexis Carrel developed an artificial heart. Outspoken in politics, Lindbergh rallied for the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. In return, the Guggenheim family, supported the Lindbergh-advocated efforts of Clark University professor Dr. Robert H. Goddard, who sought to develop missile and satellite technology. Lindbergh also served as technical advisor to numerous airlines.
Of his contributions to the burgeoning commercial airline industry, Lindbergh's greatest is likely the surveys that he conducted for friend and Pan American Airlines owner Juan Trippe. These surveys included the Caribbean in 1927-28, to where Trippe had hoped to expand regular service. An extensive 6-month survey took Lindbergh and Anne as far as Moscow, searching for potential new terminal sites for Pan American in Northern Europe. He compiled a report of meteorology, geology, and harbors-delivered to Trippe in 1934-in which he concluded the potential for service to Europe all in all favorable. Undoubtedly, the information that Lindbergh tirelessly gathered helped Pan American become the industry giant that it was.
Much later, in 1941, Lindbergh became a member of the America First Committee, which opposed the United States willingly entering World War II, and became publicly critical of President F.D. Roosevelt's foreign policies. He also charged that certain ethnic and politically affiliated groups were goading America into the war. Lindbergh stepped down from his post, though, after a harsh public retaliation by the President himself. Accusations of the great aviator being sympathetic towards Nazis followed after he refused to return a medal bestowed upon him by German leaders.
The "Lone Eagle's" military career yet proved finished. Lindbergh re-enlisted with Roosevelt's approval and flew some 50 combat missions. His post-war rsum included serving as a consultant to the Air Force chief of staff and an appointment by President Eisenhower to Air Force brigadier general in 1954.
In 1953, Lindbergh published his second book about his legendary flight, The Spirit of St. Louis, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954. He now had been living a deeply private life on the island of Maui where he died of cancer on August 24, 1974. Even in his last years, Lindbergh remained outspoken on environmental issues such as the plight of the humpback and blue whales; he objected to the development of supersonic jets and their potential effects on the atmosphere.
Although remembered primarily for a single historic achievement, Charles A. Lindbergh proved to be a man of unwavering beliefs, and innumerable ambitions and talents.
CITATION
LINDBERGH, CHARLES A.
Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve. Place and date: From New York City to Paris, France, 20-21 May 1927. Entered service at: Little Falls, Minn. Born: 4 February 1902, Detroit, Mich. G.O. No.: 5, W.D., 1928; act of Congress 14 December 1927. Citation: For displaying heroic courage and skill as a navigator, at the risk of his life, by his nonstop flight in his airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, from New York City to Paris, France, 20-21 May 1927, by which Capt. Lindbergh not only achieved the greatest individual triumph of any American citizen but demonstrated that travel across the ocean by aircraft was possible.
Anne and Charles Lindbergh
Facts About 'Lindy'
* Charles returned to the U.S. a national hero - he was awarded both the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Congressional Medal of Honor. In addition he was promoted to Colonel.
* On March 21,1929, President Coolidge presented Charles Lindbergh with the nation's highest honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
* Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve.
* Place and date: From New York City to Paris, France, 20-21 May 1927.
* Entered service at: Little Falls, Minn.
* Born: 4 February 1902, Detroit, Mich.
* Act of Congress 14 December 1927. Citation: For displaying heroic courage and skill as a navigator, at the risk of his life, by his nonstop flight in his airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, from New York City to Paris, France, 20-21 May 1927, by which Capt. Lindbergh not only achieved the greatest individual triumph of any American citizen but demonstrated that travel across the ocean by aircraft was possible.
Like the other peacetime Air Force Medal of Honor recipients Billy Mitchell and Chuck Yeager, Lindbergh did prove himself in aerial combat, in this case after the fact, and this is yet another anomaly: by the time the US entered World War II, Lindbergh had resigned his Guard commission, partly due to the controversy over his relationship with the German government and German Air Force chief Hermann Goering in the immediate prewar years. As a civilian employee of United Aircraft Industries, he managed to get an assignment as a technical representative to the 5th Air Force in the Southwest Pacific Theater. In that capacity he began flying P-38 Lightnings with the 49th and 475th Fighter Groups and accompanying them on combat missions. He later in his memoirs mentioned downing at least one Japanese aircraft (and by some word-of-mouth accounts may have become an ace with at least 5 kills against Japanese aircraft), flying as wingman for the two top American aces of the war (and of all time), Majors Richard I. Bong and Thomas B. McGuire (who would both also receive the Medal of Honor). This became common
knowledge throughout the Air Force fighter pilot community, but as Lindbergh was strictly a civilian and
therefore technically a possible war criminal, and at the very least not protected by the Geneva Convention,
the Air Force never officially acknowledged the fact. Lindbergh therefore received what is normally only a
military combat decoration for a strictly private civilian peacetime venture, and then later as a civilian fought in combat and never received any official recognition for it. Lindbergh did return to the Air Force reserve components after the war, retiring as a Brigadier General.
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