Though shy with people, Charles Lindbergh was not shy about flying, and his transatlantic voyage thrilled the world.
Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised on a farm near Little Falls, Minnesota. At age 18 he began attending the University of Wisconsin, but after two years quit to become a daredevil stunt flyer.
In 1924 he enlisted in the U.S. Army so he could train as a pilot, and in 1925 began flying mail between St. Louis and Chicago.
While making the mail runs, he decided to attempt the premier aviation challenge of his day. New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig had offered $25,000 to the first person to fly nonstop from New York to Paris, and Lindbergh thought he could do it.
Several flyers had been killed or injured attempting the flight, but that didn't discourage Lindbergh. He persuaded nine St. Louis businessmen to finance a plane incorporating features of his own design. In their honor he called the craft the "Spirit of St. Louis."
When it was finished, he flew the Spirit of St. Louis from San Diego to New York (with a stop-over in St. Louis) on May 10-11, 1927. It was a record for the transcontinental flight.
Then, just before 8 a.m. on May 20, Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in New York and headed east across the Atlantic Ocean. He landed at Le Bourget Field, near Paris, in the evening of May 21.
Thousands cheered his arrival. The press called him "Lucky Lindy," and the "Lone Eagle." The French government awarded him the French Cross of the Légion d'Honneur; Great Britain gave him the Royal Air Force Cross, and the United States awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor and the first-ever Distinguished Flying Cross.
Later, Lindbergh flew a good-will mission throughout Latin America and wrote of his transatlantic trip in his book "We." Unfortunately, his fame also brought him great heartache by making his family an attractive target for criminals. In 1932 his son, Charles, was kidnapped and murdered.
Prior to the United States entry into World War II, Lindbergh criticized what he considered the country's drift toward involvement in the conflict, but after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he gave himself wholeheartedly to the fight -- in fact, too wholeheartedly.
Lindbergh repeatedly -- and effectively -- flew combat missions in the South Pacific. The only problem was that he was a civilian and so it was illegal for him to participate in military actions. But with the tacit approval of local military commanders he continued doing so until forbidden by higher authorities.
Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis," shown here, is now on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
