by Dan Hampton
The Pilgrims had departed from these same chalk-colored, limestone cliffs. Seen from his vantage point, that part of the city is shaped like an enormous M with a tower perched near the edge. Strikingly obvious with red and white bands, the tower is easy to see against a bright green lawn.* Unlike the American Plymouth, this harbor has no natural shelter from the sea, but there is a man-made breakwater about a third of the way into the sound with a circular fort built directly behind it.
Pushing the throttle forward with his left hand, Slim pulls the stick back at 1,800 revolutions to climb and watches Plymouth fall away. The Devon shoreline slides along under his left wing, and even in the dim light its beauty is obvious. Not so scalloped as Ireland, it is nonetheless gray, weathered, and ancient. Grass and trees disappear close to the edges, but the cliffs seem stained with green and red lichen. To his right dozens of ships carve through the offshore waters, including a few liners. Maybe bound for Southampton, or even Brest, he thinks. How safe the people on those ships have been, but how little they know the air and ocean.
Leveling at 2,000 feet, Slim brings the throttle back to hold 110 miles per hour and clicks the stabilizer trim into place. From this altitude he has a spectacular view of Devon’s undulating hills and mottled green fields, much larger and less rugged than those of Cornwall. The cliffs, with their long vertical cracks, smooth out and bend 90 degrees north into a long, pebbled beach on the shore of a bay. To the north the coast shrinks into a tail-shaped promontory with a plain, white lighthouse perched on the end. Like a giant finger, it seems to be England saying goodbye, pointing east across the last body of water before France.*
THE ENGLISH CHANNEL is a 350-mile long pathway to the British Isles, and for a long list of invaders, it has been a road to conquest. Julius Caesar and his Roman legions; Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes; Viking raiders who pillaged, raped, and burned before settling in northern England themselves. William the Conqueror, who mounted the last successful invasion of Britain by a Frenchman, created modern England, and laid the foundation of the greatest empire the world has ever known. At its zenith, the British Empire controlled nearly a quarter of the world’s surface, and through the channel it became the undisputed master of the seas. Others tried to end this global hegemony and failed; Napoleon himself would stand at Calais staring impotently across twenty miles of water at Dover’s white cliffs, unable to defeat the English Channel.
But where military conquest failed, more peaceful means succeeded. Captain Matthew Webb, a British naval officer, completed the first unassisted channel swim in 21 hours, 45 minutes, on August 25, 1875. Just nine months before Lindbergh found himself over the channel, New Yorker Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle became the first woman to swim the channel, from Cap Gris-Nez to Kingsdown, Kent, in 14 hours, 34 minutes. She was met by a British immigration officer who politely asked to see her passport. Jean Blanchard, a Frenchman, and John Jeffries, an American physician, made the first successful air crossing in 1875, flying a hydrogen balloon from Dover to Calais in two and a half hours. On July 25, 1909, Louis Blériot took off from Calais and landed safely thirty-six minutes later near Dover Castle.
Now, barely forty minutes after leaving the Devon shore, Charles Lindbergh peers into the fading light and spots a dark mass looming up from the water. Ten miles off Spirit’s nose Slim sees what he hopes is Cape La Hague, the western tip of France’s Cotentin Peninsula. Behind him the sun touches the horizon and a few final golden rays shoot out into the darkening sky. The coast of France!
SLIM LEANS FORWARD, excited. It comes like an outstretched hand to meet me, he thinks, glowing in the light of sunset. Again he considers Nungesser and Coli, how easily their fate could have been his. What was it, he wonders. Ice? Perhaps they lost a wing in the turbulence of a storm. Could they have flown off through starlit passageways and lost the thread of earth entirely? They too rode on a magic carpet, but somehow the magic was lost. It doesn’t take much error or bad luck to bring a pilot to a lonely and often unknown death. A welder’s mistake, a freak wind, or a bit of ice clogging a carburetor. It is far too easy to die in the air.
But up ahead the white V shapes of wakes are visible along the coastline. Cherbourg! Just over 3,400 miles from Long Island by 3:52 P.M. New York time—he has to think about the time—on May 21. Relief and a sort of numb amazement flow through him. Lindbergh tries to process what this means but cannot, so he concentrates again on navigation. As Dover is the key to the English Channel coast, so is this port to La Manche, the “Sleeve,” as the French call the English Channel.
Peering from the left window, Slim watches the gray twilight cover the harbor. Titanic made a stop here on April 10, 1912, just five days before the unsinkable liner struck an iceberg and sank, never to complete her maiden voyage to New York. As the Normandy coastline disappears beneath his feet Slim leans far out to look down. I’m over the country of my destination, he realizes. I’ve made the first nonstop airplane flight between the continents of America and Europe. No matter what happens now, he thinks, I’ll land in France. There’ll not be another night above the clouds.
This part of Normandy is flatter than Cornwall or Devon, with large woodlands interspersed among the farms. Lindbergh folds up the Mercator chart for the last time and slips it into his leg pocket. Now for the map of France; there’s Barfleur, off the left wing, and up ahead another harbor with an island at its mouth called St.-Vaast-la-Hougue. It’s about ten miles off the nose, and the Spirit passes overhead six minutes later. Slim stares to the right, trying to pick out landmarks in the waning light. From both directions the coast bends into a giant funnel, an estuary labeled on his map as Carentan. The French names are tricky. I don’t speak a word of French, Slim laments sheepishly. The map shows ten miles of beaches along the Norman coast; Calvados, it’s called, and though there are some cliffs, they’re more sheltered from the wind and waves than those seen earlier today.* He figures to cut across the Baie de Seine to parallel the coastline past Bayeux and Caen. This should take him to another estuary between Deauville and Le Havre: the mouth of the Seine. From there he plans to simply follow the great river all the way to Paris.
He overflew Cherbourg at 3:52 New York time, and it’s sixty-two miles from Spirit’s nose to Le Havre, so he ought to reach the mouth of the Seine in forty minutes, about 9:30 P.M. local time. At 2,000 feet he is just beyond gliding range of the coast, but that no longer troubles him after last night. Slim settles back and tries to relax, but thoughts spin wildly through his head. I didn’t get a visa before I took off. . . . I wonder how much trouble that will cause? Still, there’s a letter of introduction in his pocket from Theodore Roosevelt Jr. for the U.S. ambassador to France, Myron Herrick. Surely that will help. I’m so far ahead of schedule, he also worries, that I may not find anybody waiting for me on the field.
Nearly three hours early, he notes. The original plan had Spirit landing after 1 A.M., but if nothing else strange happens he ought to touch down at Le Bourget by 10:30 Paris time. I’ll have to buy a new suit of clothes, Slim realizes. I haven’t brought even a toothbrush, or an extra shirt with me. To the west, toward England and the Atlantic, the last oranges and reds are washed with gray, like a thin watercolor, as the sun disappears below the horizon. To his right France is darkening and lights begin to twinkle below. It’s not an ominous dusk, like last night, but a friendly one now, especially since he knows exactly where Spirit is, and that his life is no longer in imminent peril.
Two brightly lit areas, Le Havre and Deauville, show up off his nose and he flys toward the hazy spot between them. White wakes appear below obviously aiming toward the same place, and it’s comforting to be near his fellow men again. Reaching for the Lukenheimer manifold, Slim twists the far right petcock to feed fuel from the right wing, then shuts off the fuselage tank. Out the left window, the sun is gone, and a deep red band stains the far-off horizon.
The mouth of this river is also very close to the prime meridian: zero degrees of longitude. That was me
asured from the British Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England, though the French still measured their meridian from Paris. He had now crossed over 73 degrees of longitude, and was 3,500 miles from New York.* I’ve broken the world’s distance record for a nonstop airplane flight, he realizes with a start.
Directly off the nose is Deauville, and Lindbergh decides to drop low and see a bit of France before darkness covers it completely. Sliding the mixture up to RICH, he eases the throttle back, then pulls the stabilizer trim out to neutral. Right hand forward now, and Spirit drops toward the little seaside town. Wind whistles through the open windows and Slim sticks his head out to the right. Booting the right rudder, he skids the aircraft sideways to get a better view. The beach is wide and looks like pure sand, no rocks. There is just enough light to see rows of colored umbrellas above the waterline, and a boardwalk at least a thousand feet long just beyond.† As the airspeed hits 120 miles per hour Lindbergh pulls the stick back and brings the nose up. No sense taking foolish risks this close to the end. Roaring across the beach, he angles off left toward the Seine as a big racetrack passes beneath the right wing. Eyeballing the clock he does the math: 9:20 P.M. Paris time means he should be over the French capital in less than an hour.
Heading east, Slim is cutting across country at rooftop height and edging closer to the river. Below him people are running out of their homes to see what is making this great noise; he can see yellow squares of light from windows, a pale flash from a dress, and faces. Faces everywhere turned up to the sky. He feels good: completely alert, and the clinging sleepiness has vanished. Why, it’s past suppertime. Slim is surprised to feel a hunger pang. It’s been . . . how long since he ate? Dinner on the way back from seeing Rio Rita in New York the night before he left. Taking some water, Lindbergh finally eats a sandwich, and is thoroughly unimpressed with the taste. One sandwich is enough, he decides, crumpling the wrapper and leaning toward the window. No. He stops himself. These fields are so clean and fresh it’s a shame to scatter them with paper.
The earth below his wheels has darkened noticeably in the past few minutes, and there is no color left on the fields. Shoving the throttle forward, Slim pulls back on the stick and Spirit climbs away from the shadows. He checks the mixture, oil, and fuel pressure, then glances at the heading. Southeast. Not that a compass is needed. Passing 1,000 feet he looks left and can see the smooth black ribbon of the Seine angling directly at him. Easing the pull to hold 100 miles per hour, Lindbergh continues to climb. Settling back again, he scans the instruments and gauges, then decides to give up looking for checkpoints. If he holds this heading and keeps the river on his north side, the Seine will guide him all the way in. Slim wants to see Paris, and what better way to navigate than fly toward the glow of a city of three million people?
A sudden flash catches his eye, then another, up ahead on the left. Passing 3,000 feet, he focuses on the area and sees it again. It might be . . . he counts the interval between flashes. Eleven seconds. It is. Yes, it’s an air beacon! There are others, he notices, at least two more blinking off in the darkness. The London–Paris Airway . . . nobody told me it had lights. But why wouldn’t it? American airmail pilots had been using beacons for years. In 1925, the 2,665-mile route between New York and San Francisco had more than five hundred such towers, one every three to five miles.* Their acetylene-powered beacons could be seen for dozens of miles if the visibility was good, as it was tonight.
Slim leans into the wicker seat and stares around the cockpit with the satisfaction of any pilot who has completed a dangerous flight. Or nearly completed it. There’s still Le Bourget and, he reminds himself, he’s never brought the Spirit in at night before. But he’s made many night landings in other aircraft and this is a magnificent plane. A sudden surge of affection for the Spirit of St. Louis shoots through him. They have shared this experience together. He looks around the cockpit, under each wing, and at the spinning, silver propeller. Each feeling beauty, life, and death as keenly as the other . . . we have made this flight across the ocean, not I, or it. All pilots are loyal to their aircraft, at least those planes that see them through dire times and bring them back to earth and to life.
But Lindbergh feels a special sense of loyalty and gratitude toward the Spirit, to Don Hall for his astounding design, to B. F. Mahoney and all the men at Ryan Airlines who painstakingly crafted such a magnificent piece of machinery. Wright’s Whirlwind has been incomparable. At least 7,000 precisely timed explosions in each of his nearly 2,000 minutes of flight. It’s truly a magic carpet, he marvels.
Slim levels at 4,000 feet, trims the stabilizer, and leans the mixture ever so slightly. His eyes, dry but no longer tired, roam over the instruments and gauges: all normal. Lindbergh leaves the throttle up since there’s no need to conserve fuel on such a fine, clear night, so close to his destination. The sky is crisp and clear under a dark velvet blanket; bright pinpricks from innumerable stars show through, and a glow rises over the horizon.
Moon?
No, it’s much too early for the moon. Slim slips the goggles down over his eyes and cranes forward out of the window.
Paris.
I see it.
That scarcely perceptible glow is the City of Light. Thirty-three hours of flying, and now the dot on his map is a real place. As real as St. Mary’s Bay, St. John’s, Dingle Bay, and Plymouth. The bone-chilling fear of that thousand-mile storm and the desperation of his mirages all drop away before Paris’s yellow haze.* Every second he flies closer widens the glow; it now stretches from wingtip to wingtip, arcing above the city like a golden fan. Tiny, hard points begin to emerge and form distinct shapes. Alternating squares of light and darkness, long, straight lines of major thoroughfares, and curves. As the Spirit approaches from the northwest, boats on the dark, twisting Seine become visible.
He can see at least three bridges across the river, each dotted with headlights. Just past the Seine is a huge black area, bordered on the north by a long, extremely bright thoroughfare, and on the east by more of the French capital. No one at home could tell him the actual location of Le Bourget, and all he knows is that it lies some ten miles northeast of Paris. Not knowing the city, Lindbergh has to find a known point to start from, so he pulls the throttle back, slowing down and gaining some time. Sliding the stabilizer trim aft, he holds 4,000 feet and searches for the one landmark that ought to be impossible to miss. That big road must be something . . . and it runs directly into a big circle, like a wheel, that radiates spokes in all directions.* Clamping the stick between his knees again, Slim shines the flashlight over his map, then peers outside to the right.
Yes. Far below, a little offset from the center, is an unmistakable column of lights stabbing upward.
The Eiffel Tower!
It’s on the east side of the Seine, opposite a bridge, and well lit. With his left hand Lindbergh holds 90 miles per hour and with his right he banks up around the famous landmark. Even at 4,000 feet the air is bumpy from the heat below; the cooling of concrete, water, and trees after sunset can create turbulence. But with a little right rudder he hardly notices, and Slim watches the cityscape shift as Spirit comes around through the south. Crossing over the Seine again, he spots a wide bridge. Directly across from the Eiffel Tower, it joins a lighted rectangle with a circle on its west end.* Spokes fan out, disappearing into the dark area he’d flown over on the way in, and others join the first wheel he had observed.
But where is Le Bourget?
THERE SHOULD BE some type of beacon for such an important airport, he thinks, a big one. An American airport would have one—“Ford” beacons they were called, after the car headlights.† Rotating up to six times per minute, a 5,000-candlepower beacon could be seen for forty miles in clear weather. Though sometimes, Slim reminds himself, they only turned on when aircraft were due—and he is three hours early.
But at this altitude he might also be above the narrow 5-degree beam. After all, most lights are angled to be visible to low-flying aircraft searchi
ng for a field, not one as high as he is. Stick and rudder left, Slim rolls level as the Eiffel Tower slides past the right wing, then disappears beyond the tail. I shouldn’t be hunting for a beacon, he realizes and leans from the left window. Lights sprawl out everywhere below. Yellow or gold along the streets and buildings, then thousands of white, moving specks of automobile headlights. Le Bourget is probably a big patch of dark ground, like the one he flew over near the river.
Looking at the panel he sees about 90 miles per hour and 4,000 feet, so Slim nudges the Spirit farther right to the northeast. That’s where to look: northeast of the Eiffel Tower for about ten miles. Yes . . . there’s a black patch to my left. Leaning so far forward the stick touches his shoulder, Lindbergh peers through the goggles, his eyes tired and strained. It’s a big enough space, and lined with lights, though not the uniform, neatly spaced patterns of Chicago or St. Louis. I must remember I’m over Europe, where customs are strange. Glancing at his chart, Slim figures this is in the right place, though he had expected it farther away from the congested areas. The shape seems to fit, though it occurs to him that he might have marked the wrong spot on the map.
Twitching the stick slightly, Slim banks up left enough to see beneath the wing to the ground. There are floodlights, he sees, clustered down in one corner. Kicking the left rudder, he brings the stick to his thigh, rolling Spirit up farther, and squints against the glare. There are thousands and thousands of smaller, weaker lights jammed along the southeast side of the field. It is a field, too, he sees, rolling up a little more. Those floodlights are aimed at the bottom corner of it. As he reverses to the right, Slim makes out building shapes in the shadows. If it is Le Bourget, why no boundary lights and no beacon?
