Charles Lindbergh

1902-1974

Charles Lindbergh was the first aviator to complete a solo transatlantic flight. In May 1927, he successfully flew his plane, Spirit of St. Louis, from New York to Paris. The feat made him an international hero, and he later wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the experience. In 1932, his 20-month-old baby was kidnapped from the family home. Fueled by Lindbergh’s celebrity, the crime and its aftermath sparked a media frenzy and the first “Trial of the Century.” Lindbergh later became a target for his Nazi ties and isolationist, anti-Semitic views in the lead-up to World War II, though he did contribute to the American war effort after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The pioneering aviator died in 1974 at age 72.

FULL NAME: Charles Augustus Lindbergh
BORN: February 4, 1902
DIED: August 26, 1974
BIRTHPLACE: Detroit, Michigan
SPOUSE: Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1929-1974)
CHILDREN: Charles Jr., Jon, Land, Anne, Scott, Reeve, Dyrk, Astrid, David, Vago, Christoph, and 1 son and 1 daughter (names unknown)
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aquarius

Charles Lindbergh, age 8, stands next to his father Charles August Lindbergh

Born Charles Augustus Lindbergh on February 4, 1902, in Detroit, Lindbergh became famous for making the first solo transatlantic airplane flight in 1927. Before he took to the skies, however, Lindbergh was raised on a farm in Minnesota. He was the son of a lawyer and a U.S. congressman.

Lindbergh wasn’t an especially gifted student. “In high school, my marks fell so low that I doubt very much I could have passed the final examinations required for graduation,” he once said. “I was rescued by World War I.” With so many farmers serving in the military, the community was desperate for extra help. His school principle incentivized students by offering full academic credit to anyone who would work the farms. Lindbergh readily stepped up.

He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin before leaving school after three semesters to pursue his interest in flight. He went to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he learned to fly and made his first solo flight in 1923. Lindbergh became a barnstormer, or a daredevil pilot, performing at fairs and other events. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1924 and trained as an Army Air Service Reserve pilot. He later worked as an airmail pilot, flying back and forth between St. Louis and Chicago.

In the 1920s, hotel owner Raymond Orteig was offering a prize of $25,000 to the first pilot to make the journey from New York to Paris without any stops. Lindbergh wanted to win this challenge and enlisted the support of some St. Louis businessmen. Several others had tried and failed, but this didn’t deter the 25-year-old.

Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, on May 20, 1927. Flying a custom-built monoplane named Spirit of St. Louis, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Lindbergh landed the next day at Le Bourguet Field near Paris after 33.5 hours in the air. During his groundbreaking trip, he had traveled more than 3,600 miles. Upon his arrival, more than 100,000 people who came to see aviation history in the making welcomed the pioneering aviator.

A crowd surrounds Charles Lindbergh’s plane after his historic transatlantic flight on May 20-21, 1927.

After his daring feat, large crowds enthusiastically greeted wherever he went. Lindbergh received many prestigious honors, including the Distinguished Flying Cross medal from President Calvin Coolidge. He also became a colonel in the Air Corps Reserve.

Lindbergh dedicated much of his time to promoting the field of aviation. Traveling around the country, he flew his famous plane to different cities where he gave speeches and participated in parades. The public couldn’t get enough of Lindbergh. His book on the legendary flight entitled We (1927) became a bestseller. Nicknamed “Lucky Lindy” and “The Lone Eagle,” he became an international celebrity, and he tried to use that fame to help aviation and other causes he believed in.

Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh were married for more than 45 years.

During a trip to Latin America in December 1927, Lindbergh met Anne Morrow in Mexico. The daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, 21-year-old Anne was a college student home for holidays. Charles, then 25, was staying with the Morrow family during his visit. A romance blossomed.

Charles and Anne wed in May 1929. The next year, he taught her how to fly a plane, and the two enjoyed the privacy that flying afforded them. Together, they charted routes for commercial air travel around the world and became known as “the First Couple of the Skies.” Anne, who later became a best-selling author and poet, wrote about one of their trips in her first book North to the Orient.

Seeking a life away from the spotlight, Lindbergh and his wife went to live on an estate in Hopewell, New Jersey. There, the couple started a family.

Charles and Anne had six children together, starting with Charles Jr. in 1930. They had three more sons: Jon, born in 1932; Land, born in 1937; and Scott, born in 1942. Daughters Anne and Reeve arrived in 1940 and 1945, respectively.

Like his parents, Jon had an adventurous spirit, which he channeled into a notable deep-sea diving and research career as a marine biologist. He also was an actor for a short stint. Jon died in July 2021.

Like their mother, Anne and Reeve became authors. Anne Spencer Lindbergh earned several awards for her books before her death in December 1993. Among Reeve’s books are several memoirs and an autobiographical novel about her life as part of the famous Lindbergh family.

His children with his wife weren’t Charles’ only kids. He had three secret extramarital relationships that lasted until his death and produced seven additional children between 1958 and 1967.

With Brigitte Hesshaimer, a German hat maker he fell in love with in 1957, Charles had Dyrk, Astrid, and David. They knew him as a man named Careu Kent, until Astrid learned the truth in the 1990s. The siblings went public with the news in 2003, two years after their mother’s death.

Charles also had an affair with Brigette’s sister, Marietta. They had two children named Vago and Christoph. The famous aviator also had two kids, whose names aren’t public, with Valeska, his German translator and private secretary.

Seen here as a newborn, Charles Lindbergh Jr. was kidnapped in March 1932 when he was 20 months old.

Of all Lindbergh’s children, the most well-known was his firstborn child, Charles Lindbergh Jr., whose short life ended in tragedy. At only 20 months old, the boy was kidnapped from the Lindberghs’ Hopewell, New Jersey, home on March 1, 1932, and held for ransom. The crime made headlines around the world. The Lindberghs eventually paid the $50,000 ransom, but their son’s dead body was found in the nearby woods weeks later.

The police traced the ransom money to Bruno Hauptmann, a carpenter with a criminal record, and arrested him for the crime. To compound Lindbergh’s grief, the ensuing trial—dubbed the “Trial of the Century”—of his son’s accused killer became a media frenzy. Hauptmann was convicted and later executed in 1936.

To escape the constant media attention, the couple moved to Europe in December 1935, living in England, then France. Around this time, Lindbergh did some scientific research, inventing an early type of artificial heart with a French surgeon. He also continued his work in aviation, serving on the board of directors for Pan-American World Airways and acting as a special advisor at times.

Lindbergh was invited to tour German aviation facilities by Nazi leader Hermann Göring in 1936 and was impressed by what he saw. Two years later, Göring presented Lindbergh with the Service Cross of the German Eagle, an award that led to much criticism. Just before World War II began, the Lindberghs moved back to the United States.

Believing that German air power was unbeatable, Lindbergh became involved with the America First organization, which advocated that the United States stay neutral in the war in Europe. In September 1941, he delivered a widely condemned speech in Des Moines, Iowa, saying:

“The leaders of both the British and Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war. We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we also must look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.”

His position on the war eroded some of his public support, and some people believed he had Nazi sympathies and was anti-Semitic. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, Lindbergh became active in the war effort, working with Henry Ford on bombers and acting as an advisor and test pilot for United Aircraft. He eventually went to the Pacific as a United Aircraft “observer” and unofficially flew 50 combat missions, including one in which he shot down a Japanese plane.

Charles Lindbergh wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about his historic transatlantic flight named after his plane in the journey, Spirit of St. Louis.

After the war, Lindbergh wrote several books, including Of Flight and Life (1948) and The Spirit of St. Louis (1953), which won the 1954 Pulitzer Prize and led to a 1957 movie of the same name. He also lobbied for environmental preservation. In his later years, he and his wife moved to the Hawaiian island of Maui.

Lindbergh died of lymphoma on August 26, 1974, at age 72. At the time of his death, he was with his wife and son Land at the Lindberghs’ remote home in Kipahulu, Hawaii. He had returned there a little more than a week earlier after a lengthy stay in New York City, where he was receiving treatment for his cancer. Charles was buried the same day he died at a local cemetery in Kipahulu.

“Nearly half a century has passed since his courageous solo flight across the Atlantic, but the courage and daring of his feat will never be forgotten,” President Gerald Ford said in a statement remembering the aviator. “For years to come, we will also remember the selfless, sincere man himself, Charles A. Lindbergh, one of America’s all-time heroes and a great pioneer of the air age that changed the world.”

Despite his personal controversies, Lindbergh is credited with helping to usher in the age of commercial aviation. His incredible acts of courage continue to inspire others. In 1977, astronaut Neil Armstrong and others formed The Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation that supports sustainability in aviation and other environmental efforts. In 2002, Charles’ grandson Erik Lindbergh recreated the flight that made his grandfather famous.

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