Lindbergh, Charles ___ 1902-1974 ___ American ___ aviator

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Lindbergh, the son of Swedish immigrants (his father became a lawyer and congressman, his mother a chemistry teacher), grew up on a farm near Little Falls in Minnesota. He began to study engineering at the University of Wisconsin but left after two years to fly daredevil stunts at fairs. In 1924, he enlisted in the army, was trained to fly, and then joined the Robertson Aircraft Corporation as a pilot. In 1927, Lindbergh took up a $25,000 challenge, that had stood since 1919, to fly non-stop from New York to Paris. Several St Louis businessmen helped finance the cost of a plane, which he helped design, and on 20 May he made his famous flight of around 5,600km in under 34 hours. Thereafter, he became a celebrity, and an active campaigner, partly backed by Harry Guggenheim, for the further development of aeronautics. While in Mexico on a promotion trip, he met Anne Spencer Morrow, the daughter of the American ambassador. They married in 1929; he taught her to fly and they did many trips throughout the world. In 1932, their toddler son, Charles, was kidnapped. Ten weeks later the body was found. Five years later in 1934 Bruno Richard Hauptmann was charged with the murder. He was executed in 1936. Before then, however, the Lindberghs and a second son (four other children were to follow) had moved to England to escape the press. Lindbergh attracted more public attention when he accepted a German medal of honour from Goering. After returning to the US in 1939, Lindbergh campaigned against US involvement in the European war, and was accused of being a Nazi sympathiser. After Pearl Harbor, though, he sought involvement in the war, and ended up flying about 50 combat missions even though he was a civilian. He also helped develop aviation techniques. After the War, Lindbergh worked as an adviser for government and industry. His 'The Spirit of St Louis', an expanded account of the 1927 flight, won a Pulitzer Prize. In the 1960s, he campaigned on environmental issues. From 1957 until his death, Lindbergh maintained a secret affair with Brigitte Hesshaimer, a German hatmaker, who had three children by him.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - Our civilization’s survival

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1938-1945 ___ military political people transport Nazism

WEB TEXT LINKS
about
googlebooks
several quotes

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Yale University Libraray

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Wartime Journals
The Boyhood Diary of Charles Lindbergh
 

May 2005, July 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.