by Dan Hampton
Newfoundland—his final, great stepping-stone before two thousand miles of dark ocean. The huge, 42,000 square mile island was once called “Vinland” by the great Viking explorer Leif Eriksson for its wild cranberry and gooseberry vines.† The inhabitants were a fiercely independent mix of Mi’kmaq natives with French, Portuguese, Spanish, and English settlers. As St. Pierre passes off his left wing, Lindbergh gazes at the windswept coastline and cold, merciless water. Men from English Harbor, Marystown, and Trepassey had put to sea for centuries to fish the Grand Banks or the Flemish Cap.
Slim was immensely relieved with his navigation, though. The adjusted course he’d calculated over Nova Scotia put him within a few miles of where he needed to be. So maybe finding Ireland wouldn’t be so daunting after all. Maybe now, by paralleling the Burin peninsula, Spirit would pass directly over Placentia Bay, and from there he could easily find St. John’s. Off his left wing a wall of reddish cliffs thrust upward from the pounding beaches. Rock, barren and hard, tapered off onto a mottled green peat plateau; from there the land sloped up to the Annieopsquatch Mountains. A fishing schooner bobbed in the swells below like a child’s toy. The sun dropped nearer to the horizon and the land darkened, with black shadows filling the gaps between the cliffs. I’ve never been as conscious of the minuteness of my plane or the magnitude of the world, he thinks, bending forward and looking out the other window. To his right, the seemingly limitless ocean curved over the earth, chasing the horizon east to Europe.
Minutes later the cliffs on his left abruptly fall away. Small islands dot the coast, with countless coves and inlets scarring the shoreline like claw marks.* Fifteen or so miles off the nose is another shoreline marking the eastern edge of Placentia Bay, green and flat down to the granite-capped southern tip. Cape St. Mary’s, Slim determines, peering at the chart. Fishing boats spread out beneath him, triangular white wakes moving across the dark water as they head into port, possibly Argentia or Petit Forte. The bay’s surface undulates gently compared to the violent waves of the neighboring Atlantic and the blue-green shades are lighter here as well, belying the shallower floor compared to the deeper ocean. At 6 P.M. Eastern Time the setting sun is nearly directly over the tail and flickering across the mirrorlike waves.
The coast looms ahead and Lindbergh sees tiny houses, mostly either red or white, scattered along the shoreline. A small, beak-shaped harbor lies about four miles off the left wing, and an odd spit of land juts away from it like a rooster’s comb. Buildings and houses are clustered in the little port and there are even a few lights visible, but it is not marked on his chart.† The pilot switches from the nose to the fuselage fuel tank and touches the throttle, but leaves it set at 1,600 revolutions. At this latitude the difference between true and magnetic north is significant, so he compensates accordingly and crosses the breakers heading 093 degrees. From the whitecaps near the shore he figures the wind to be at least 20 miles per hour from due west and he crabs the Spirit left to hold course.
If he holds this course then St. Mary’s Bay should appear off the right wing in about ten minutes and he should pass the southern end of Conception Bay in another half hour. Lindbergh is confident that from that point he can align himself perfectly to hit St. John’s, twenty miles northeast past the bay. That would be nearly 7 P.M., forty-five minutes from now, with just enough time before sunset to get an accurate fix before heading out into the Atlantic. Slim’s heart quickens a bit at that: this time the crossing is for real. Not that the shorter trips today weren’t real, and he learned a great deal from each segment, but in the back of his mind he knew there was always more land ahead. Chances to salvage bad navigation, or save himself if things went wrong—but not this time. There was nothing past St. John’s but open ocean and, very soon, darkness. Then, hopefully, Ireland.
Gazing from the windows there’s nothing to see now but rolling moors speckled with thousands of dark ponds to the right and rising hills, almost mountains, to the left. Near the southern tip of the peninsula is Trepassey, the launch point for the U.S. Navy flying boats eight years ago. Nungesser may also have crashed somewhere down there, too, he thinks. If so, it would explain why they hadn’t been found—and might never be recovered. A plane is hard enough to locate in the wilderness even when you have some idea of where it crashed. Still, a search had to be attempted—a gesture, the payment of a debt felt by living men to their lost brothers who, by some miracle, might not be dead. Slim had seen the famous ace once in St. Louis. Compact and quietly intense, the Frenchman was quick, polite, and clear-eyed. How unsettling to think that somewhere ahead he would cross over Nungesser’s remains—or join them beneath the waves.
But what a sight below!
Adding power, Lindbergh nudges the Spirit higher over the Avalon Peninsula’s steeply rising terrain—Nova Scotia and Newfoundland form the northernmost part of the Appalachian mountain range. Sunset is spectacular, a deep golden band along the horizon that melts into bronze before washing upwards into a thin, bright layer of red. High cirrus clouds reflect the light, and for a few minutes they glow like white claws, tearing at the darkening sky. The mountains north of him are stark, a hard silhouette against this magnificent backdrop. It’s breathtaking to be caught between heaven and earth, night and day. Sometimes flying feels like man is intruding upon the divine, Lindbergh muses, staring at the panorama below. Up here the world can seem too beautiful and too vast for human eyes.
Spirit rocks a bit from the normal turbulence over high terrain while the warm daytime air cools. Earlier today that made him nervous, but with experience the mind has a remarkable ability to adapt. He can hear the wind along the fabric, fingers of air scratching down the fuselage as the stabilizer lifts—just like a powerful current pushing a boat. With the wind just angled off the tail he doesn’t have to hold a crab so much, and Slim relaxes his left leg a bit.
He can imagine Nungesser and Coli circling over this same area looking for a place to land, feeling hopeless and lost. The ground below is rough, alternately heavy forests and rocky moors. Still, they wouldn’t have tried to come down on land, would they? After all, Nungesser had jettisoned their landing gear, so why not come down on the water if they had an emergency? There were lots of lakes around and big bays, yet the weather had been bad a few weeks ago so Newfoundland could have been covered with fog or low clouds. What a lonely, bad time that would be, circling endlessly, praying for a break in the weather while you inexorably run out of fuel. Then that sick, hollow feeling when the engine quits and you inevitably glide closer to the thick, gray quilt below. Then the fog covers your aircraft, robbing you of the one essential sense a pilot must have—sight. Do you break out in time to see the ground, or plow into a hillside, leaving a tangled wreck and smashed bodies?
Fifteen minutes later Slim passes a crest, the terrain ahead falls steeply away, and to his left a big body of gray water shines in the weak sun. Conception Bay. There are several dark smudges close to the shoreline that must be small islands, though he doesn’t know their names. A much larger island lies farther out, and even from here he can see its high, steep cliffs. Another twenty more miles northeast, about twelve minutes, and he should find St. John’s by 7 P.M.
Then what?
Spirit has covered 1,100 miles in eleven hours. Slim is well aware that he’s indulged himself by voluntarily deviating from the planned Great Circle route, and now he must deal with it. He had planned on obtaining his last navigational fix from Cape Bonavista, some 90 miles to the north, and would now have to correct back to course from St. John’s instead. Slim calculates that if he angles slightly left, say to hold 083 degrees, Spirit will intersect the planned course a thousand miles from the Newfoundland coast: ten hours into the night. Nearly a third of the 3,610 total miles is behind him so he’d be well over halfway to Paris by then, but there will be no way to identify that point, except by timing.
It will have to do.
Skimming over the hills, Lindbergh suddenly crosses a pocked ridge and there
it is—St. John’s. The harbor looks like a deep stab wound, a narrow cut through the coast that widens and turns inland. Sheltered by hills on three sides, the harbor is shielded from the ocean on its eastern edge by a huge breakwater. The town is built right up to the water and boats line the docks. It’s colorful, he’s surprised to see, with scores of wooden buildings painted in yellows, reds, and all shades of blue. The place looks like pictures of harbors in the West Indies, and is unexpected here over the last North American city he’ll see today.
Slim had thought of this moment hours before and doesn’t hesitate. Pushing the stick forward, he tugs the throttle back with his left hand and dives toward the flat, mansard rooftops. There are a lot of churches for a town of thirty thousand or so. Two big ones are directly ahead and their burgundy-colored gables make them easy to see. One is red, probably brick, and the other one is stone, with startling green high, narrow windows.* Alcock and Brown took off from somewhere nearby, Lindbergh knows, but he hasn’t time to dwell on this.
As the ground rushes up, Slim levels off just above the chimneys, shoves the throttle forward and the Wright’s throaty roar fills the cockpit. Hopefully someone down there will hear it, too; someone will surely see him and send a wire out. New York will know where he was, and St. Louis, too.
IN FACT, LINDBERGH and the Spirit had been seen many times over the past eleven hours. Chester Rice, a clerk at the Middleboro, Massachusetts, police station, saw “a monoplane, believed to be that of Captain Lindbergh . . . over West Middleboro at about 9:15 this morning flying northeasterly.”
From Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, a cable confirmed, “Captain Lindbergh passed over New Tusket, about forty miles from here, at 12:45 o’clock this afternoon [11:45 Eastern Daylight Saving Time]. He was flying low, but traveling very fast.” A banner from Halifax, Nova Scotia, ran proclaiming, “Captain Lindbergh passed over Mulgrave on the Strait of Canso, which separates the mainland of Nova Scotia from Cape Breton Island, at 4:05 Atlantic Day Time [3:05 Eastern Daylight Saving Time]. He was flying high and the markings on his gray monoplane could not be seen.”
From Sydney, Nova Scotia, it was reported in the May 20 New York Times that “Captain Lindbergh got his last sight of the American continent at 5 o’clock [4 P.M. Eastern Daylight Saving Time] this afternoon when he passed out into the Atlantic over Main-a-dieu, Cape Breton. The plane was flying low and at great speed, and her number, 211, was plainly visible to watchers with powerful glasses.”
Finally, as the evening editions went to press in the United States, President Coolidge said that in common with the rest of the American people he had the greatest interest in Charles Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic. “He has my best wishes for his success.”
That night 40,000 people gathered at Yankee Stadium in New York City to watch a boxing match boasting a $250,000 purse. “The remarkable thing about last night’s fight crowd was that they were all wondering how the transatlantic flight would come and not who would be knocked out,” the New York Times reported the following day. “On the subways, on the sidewalks, in the stadium, the conversation was all about Lindbergh . . . wondering whether a motor high over the Atlantic would keep going until Europe was reached.”
Between fights it was announced that Lindbergh was safely on course, 300 miles at sea.
“He is the greatest fighter of them all,” yelled a single voice from the crowd, followed by a deafening chorus of affirmation.
The ring announcer pleaded for silence. “When he got it he requested all to rise in a moment of prayer that Lindbergh might land safely in France.” At that, “40,000 persons rose as one and stood with heads bared. Looking back from the ringside on the upturned faces at this moment, there was none who did not show anxiety in his or her face.”
WITH HIS FACE in the window, Slim sees scores of white dots below, faces turned upward at the noise and the sight of the shiny airplane. Snapshots fill his eye: colored awnings along the busy waterfront streets, telephone poles with sagging wires crisscrossing the town, and ships in the harbor. Wharves pass below, a rowboat loses its rhythm, and the Spirit is suddenly over the harbor’s dark water.
Up ahead the hills come right down to the sea, then reluctantly spread out a bit to allow ships in and out. The northern side is steeper and a boxy, stone tower is just visible on top. A watchtower? Castle?* He banks slightly toward the middle of the harbor’s mouth and stares through the gap. A doorway out into the Atlantic. There are no more reassuring islands ahead, Slim realizes with cold finality, and the moment he’s dreaded is here. The engine’s snarl is lost in the crash of great waves breaking against the rocks that hurl white sheets of spray high onto the hillsides. The dying light catches the little silver plane, and for a long moment the Spirit of St. Louis is perfectly framed by the rocky pillars, feathery salt spray, and angry gray water.
Then suddenly it’s gone. One machine, one man—swallowed up by the darkness filling the eastern sky.
PART TWO
A minute ago, I was a creature of the land, thinking of the ocean ahead . . . now, I’m a creature of the ocean. . . . I’ve given up a continent and taken on an ocean in its place—irrevocably.
—CHARLES LINDBERGH, MAY 20, 1927
FIVE
INNOCENCE LOST:
SNAPSHOTS OF A DECADE
IT HAS BEEN said that the times make the man, but for a young Charles Lindbergh this wasn’t strictly accurate. Lindbergh made Lindbergh; his upbringing, temperament, and complex family characteristics all formed the outline of the man who took off from Roosevelt Field on May 20, 1927. However, his decade, the 1920s, provided the stage upon which he found himself, and the events from this time molded him into the man the public viewed. Variously known as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, the ten years following the Great War were seminal in American history. As a nation, the United States turned a corner and much of the world followed. Technology changed people’s lives; incredible fortunes were made and spent; old morals faced modern challenges; and new heroes, like Charles Lindbergh, came of age.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, prophet of the decade, wrote that his generation of Americans was “dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.” The catalyst for much of this, though certainly not the sole cause, was the Great War and its immediate aftermath. From 1914 to 1918 the conflict cost 30 million dead, wounded, and missing; 14 million from Germany and Austria Hungary alone. Among the Western Allies, France and England lost 9 million between them and were in no mood for moderation or reconciliation.
Much of the fighting in the west had been on French soil, and after four years of bombs, gas, artillery, and mines, millions of acres were obliterated. Destruction of land and farms, combined with the loss of so many able-bodied men, put Europe’s economy into a tailspin. All told, the war cost the Allies some $125 billion directly, and at least as much again indirectly.
Entering the war in April 1917, the United States nevertheless spent in excess of $22 billion, half of which was owed by fifteen European allies. Because the United States Congress never ratified the Treaty of Versailles, Washington had no claim to reparations from the defeated Central Powers, and of the Allies, only Finland repaid its $8 million debt. This left many Americans unenthused about Europe and bred an isolationist attitude that would largely endure until the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.*
With the industrial expansion to manufacture war material spiking prosperity, and a comparatively light loss of 53,402 combat deaths, the United States ended the war in a relatively strong position. On November 11, 1918, the State Department announced to newspapers on the American East Coast that the war had officially ended. Bells began to toll, and as the country awakened people in every city began celebrating. Businesses closed “For the Kaiser’s Funeral.” The Kaiser was burned in effigy and his dummy was washed down Wall Street with fire hoses. Sirens wailed and horns blared while people cried and laughed. Ei
ght hundred female students from Barnard College snake-danced in Morningside Heights and a young girl sang the Doxology in Times Square.
The first 3,500 American soldiers arrived home at New York’s West Fourteenth Street pier aboard the Cunard liner Mauretania on December 1, 1918. Other ships followed in quick succession to bring back the two million troops deployed to Europe. Amid flags and colored bunting the soldiers marched down Fifth Avenue, swinging in step with fixed bayonets under an immense plaster arch at Madison Square.
Lights blazed again and Broadway was once more the “Great White Way.” Wartime censorship ended, sugar was no longer scarce, and real bread reappeared. Women were still wearing their hair long with high patent leather shoes over black or tan stockings, and skirts still stopped a modest six inches up from the ground, but all of this was changing. The 1920s were alive with change of every sort and, as is usually the case, it was unsettling to those living through it. To begin with, the normal intergenerational rebellion was exacerbated by a wartime mentality that wasn’t particularly interested in looking far into the future. What was the point, young men who became soldiers asked, if they had an excellent chance of dying on a battlefield? And why, young women then wondered, should we wait for men who might never come home? Why not, both sexes asked in increasing numbers, live for today and enjoy life while we have it?
Automobiles were becoming more common and were a way to escape supervision of parents, neighbors and, of course, spouses. Only 10 percent of cars were enclosed in 1919, but by the time Lindbergh flew the Atlantic this had jumped to nearly 83 percent. “Sex and confession” magazines were popular; Bernarr Macfadden’s racy magazine True-Story sold two million copies annually by 1926 and was wildly successful. Yet the decade was hardly as gloomy and crass as it is often viewed. Walt Disney incorporated his first film company, Laugh-O-Gram, and Olympian Johnny Weissmuller swam the 100-meter freestyle in under a minute. The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated, carvings on Mount Rushmore began, and an eighteen-year-old named Ralph Samuelson became the first water-skier.
