Lindbergh

by A. Scott Berg

  After fifteen minutes of private conversation, Queen Mary entered with her personal congratulations. She watched while her husband decorated Lindbergh with the Air Force Cross, the highest peacetime honor that may be conferred “upon persons not in the service of the British crown who are credited with great flying achievement.” Before leaving the palace, Lindbergh entered a vestibule where he was introduced to the baby Princess Elizabeth, the King’s granddaughter. Lindbergh bent down, shook her hand, and patted her cheek. The large crowd that had amassed outside the palace cheered as his car pulled away.

  At 11:15 Lindbergh called on the Prince of Wales at York House. He noticed that the charming prince “seemed less interested in my flight itself than the King was, but he displayed great interest in me personally.” When the man who would become Edward VIII asked Lindbergh what he was going to do in the future, he replied that he was going to “keep on flying.” The press—which would caption the pictures of this meeting “The two most popular young men in the world”—asked Lindbergh what they had talked about. “Oh, about ten minutes,” was his reply.

  That afternoon Lindbergh visited the House of Commons as the guest of Lord and Lady Astor. The Speaker’s welcome inspired a great ovation, and Lindbergh was escorted to the “distinguished strangers gallery.” He listened to a few minutes of debate before retiring to the terrace. Upon taking his leave, he received a most unusual display of admiration, some believed the only such demonstration ever extended to an American: the entire House stood as one. On the terrace, Lindbergh had a few minutes with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill; and the next day in Parliament, Churchill offered a few words about the nation’s distinguished visitor. “From the little we have seen of him,” Churchill said, “we have derived the impression that he represents all that a man should say, all that a man should do, and all that a man should be.”

  The British tried to maintain their reserve at all the events Lindbergh attended—the British Air Council luncheon at which he received the Daily Mail’s gold cup, the Royal Aero Club dinner at the Savoy, the Derby eve ball at Albert Hall, and the Derby itself—but they could not restrain themselves. Wherever he went, bands spontaneously burst into “Yankee Doodle,” men on the street cheered and waved handkerchiefs and beseeched him for autographs, and women rushed up to kiss him.

  Just as the first boat from Europe containing films and photos of Lindbergh’s arrival in Paris reached New York—with special provisions by the Treasury Department that would speed the cargo through customs, so that the images could be transmitted nationwide within hours—there was a change in plans for transporting Lindbergh home. Admiral G. H. Burrage’s flagship, the cruiser Memphis, which had enough deckspace to carry the Spirit as well as room below for the crew of correspondents who wished to make the voyage, was “assigned” to bring him from France.

  After two weeks of punctual arrivals at dozens of events, Lindbergh was delayed for the first time, trying to cross the English Channel. While the Memphis stopped in Southampton to pick up the two huge crates that held the Spirit of St. Louis, fog and rain kept Lindbergh in England one night longer than had been scheduled. He had braved worse weather, but the diplomats refused to let him fly. On the morning of Friday, June second, he left Kenley Airdrome in a borrowed plane and arrived at Le Bourget, where thousands had turned out again to see him. After a few small ceremonies in Paris, Lindbergh quietly left the next morning for Cherbourg to meet the Memphis.

  Even in the gray cold, ten thousand citizens of Cherbourg stood in the public square, which was dressed with American flags. A plaque was unveiled, commemorating that spot in France over which Lindbergh first flew. As he shoved off in the launch that delivered him to the U.S.S. Memphis, a voice cried from shore, “Come back soon.” Lindbergh replied, “You bet I will.”

  Just as the Memphis reached the open sea, another voyage across the Atlantic commenced. After weeks of disputes, the Bellanca Columbia finally took off from Roosevelt Field with Clarence Chamberlin as pilot. To everybody’s amazement, at the last minute, the unannounced copilot turned out to be none other than Charles Levine, the man who months earlier had refused to sell that very plane to Lindbergh. For further dramatic effect, Chamberlin and Levine were keeping their destination a surprise. Forty-six and one-half hours later, the plane was forced down in Eisleben, Germany, one hundred ten miles short of its intended destination of Berlin.

  For days Chamberlin and Levine received boldfaced, front-page coverage, for they had in one swoop smashed two of Lindbergh’s records—distance (3,905 miles) and time in the air. Many journalists, especially the correspondents in Berlin, tried to outdo the rhetoric about Lindbergh; but neither diction nor distance made any difference. From the outset, the two flights hardly seemed comparable to the public. Lindbergh remained the first to connect the continents by airplane, and he did it alone—arriving exactly where he intended. The articles about Chamberlin and Levine battling the elements to reach Europe ended up sharing space with Lindbergh in repose, sailing home. As Lindbergh approached American shores, news of the preparation for his arrival edged Chamberlin and Levine out of the public consciousness.

  For the next nine days, Lindbergh rewound the fantastic memories of the past two weeks. He caught up on his sleep, and he worked several hours every day with Carlyle MacDonald, dictating the details of his flight and life for a book he had agreed to deliver based on the Times articles. “After the receptions at Le Bourget and Croydon,” Lindbergh said, “… I find myself wondering what sort of reception I will get at New York.”

  No previous event had ever inspired such a spontaneous outpouring of song, by amateurs and professionals alike—at least two hundred of them, mostly marches and hymns, but also the occasional waltz and fox trot, even a stomp and a mazurka. Most were soubriquets—“Lucky Lindy,” “The Lone Eagle,” “Eagle of Liberty,” “Lindbergh, the Eagle of the U.S.A.,” “The Monarch of the Air,” “The Flying Idol,” “Lindy, the Bird of the Clouds,” “America’s Son,” “Columbus of the Air,” “Eagle of Liberty,” “That Airplane Man.” Even America’s songwriter laureate, George M. Cohan, composed a tune for publication in all the Hearst newspapers—“When Lindy Comes Home.” More serious works came to be composed as well. Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht would soon collaborate on a cantata—“Der Lindberghflug”—fifteen scenes for soloists, chorus, and orchestra in which a tenor portraying Lindbergh sings of his preparations for the flight, and later faces such antagonists as the Fog, the Snowstorm, and Sleep.

  The night Lindbergh had landed in Paris, the excitement reached all the way into the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, where a number of patrons were dancing the latest variations on the Charleston. The whole joint was jumping, people elatedly screaming, “Lindy’s done it, Lindy’s done it.” One fellow on the sidelines, “Shorty George” Snowden, looked over at some young people doing swing-outs, breakaways, and “shine steps,” and was alleged to have commented, “Look at them kids hoppin’ over there. I guess they’re doin’ the Lindy Hop.” Both the dance and the name caught on.

  Thousands expressed themselves in verse. The New York Times alone received more than two thousand poems within a single week. To stanch the flow of unsolicited material, the paper published an editorial stating that “no poem worthy of the event” could be written until at least six months had allowed for “adequate perspective for imaginative treatment.” But doggerel continued to arrive, with similes likening him to Gutenberg, Hippocrates, Columbus, and often to Christ.

  When publisher Mitchell Kennerley offered cash prizes for the three best poems on the subject of Lindbergh and his flight, he received six thousand entries. Entire books were printed of Lindbergh verses. Effusions in seemingly every language were sent to Lindbergh—classroom assignments scrawled in pencil, housewives’ musings written in calligraphy, stanzas privately printed, some even decorated in gold leaf. For months it was difficult for any magazine or local newspaper to go without a poetic offering that rhymed “boy
” with “joy,” “chance” with “France,” “night” with “light,” “prayer” with “dare,” and “youth” with “truth.”

  The popular French dramatist Sacha Guitry wrote a play called Lindbergh, which would succeed his other theatrical treatments of Pasteur and Mozart. And before Lindbergh had even reached American shores, a dozen biographies of him were in the works, each more hagiographic than the last. No American had been so instantly mythologized, the tales meant to inspire youth and capitalize on patriotism. One successful volume, The Lone Scout of the Sky, would be written by James E. West, the Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America. The book most eagerly awaited, however, was being written aboard the U.S.S. Memphis.

  While Lindbergh had as little intention of returning to flying the mail as he had of keeping the Orteig Prize (which he felt belonged to his backers), he had wasted no time considering how he might earn his living. His June second article in the Times announced that his criterion in sorting through the many offers coming his way would be simple: “Whatever will aid aviation will interest me. Whatever does not mean help to aviation will not interest me at all.” The Christian Science Monitor ran a cartoon that showed the aviator holding at bay a group of promotors offering contracts for lectures, theater tours, movies, and books while he cast a pensive eye on the setting sun, which spelled out “achievement.” It was the common glorified image of Lindbergh, for newspapers reported that he had already turned down over one million dollars’ worth of contracts and product endorsements. But, Lindbergh would later recount, “it was essential that I find ways of earning more money that would leave me as free as possible to pursue the development of aviation.”

  “The closer we get to the shores of America the more radio messages I receive from cities, towns and persons who want to entertain me,” read one of Lindbergh’s Times columns, radioed from aboard ship. “I suppose I would have to dine out for a year if I were to accept them all, but I am awfully anxious to get back to hard work again just as soon as the receptions are over, and I know the public will help me out on this proposition.” In the meantime, he admitted finding it a relief to be able to sleep eight or nine hours and work on his book and “know there are no speeches ahead of me the next day.” At the start of his ocean crossing Lindbergh wrote, “I will be ready for anything when I step on dry land again.” Six days later that proved to be an idle boast.

  At five o’clock in the afternoon of June 10, 1927, the cruiser passed through the Virginia Capes, and Lindbergh got his first taste of the reception that lay ahead. A convoy of four destroyers, two Army blimps, and forty airplanes accompanied the Memphis up Chesapeake Bay. Standing on the ship’s bridge, as scenes of his lonely childhood approached, the twenty-five-year-old Army captain turned to Admiral Burrage and said, “It is a great and wonderful sight, and I wonder if I really deserve all this.”

  In Washington, Evangeline Lindbergh arrived as the guest of the President of the United States. Calvin and Grace Coolidge invited her to spend the night on the third floor at 15 Du Pont Circle, their temporary residence while the roof of the White House was being repaired. The only other guest that night was the President’s friend Dwight W. Morrow, a partner of J. P. Morgan and Company, who had recently chaired a presidential Aircraft Board. Shortly after dinner, the Coolidges had to excuse themselves for another engagement, leaving Morrow alone to entertain Mrs. Lindbergh. He was grateful for the opportunity, “greatly impressed by her simplicity, dignity, and spirituality.” Into the night she regaled Morrow with “countless stories about her son,” all “exalting.”

  It was already hot at dawn that Saturday when the Memphis entered its homestretch up the Potomac. The temperature would rise to eighty-eight degrees. A noisy greeting of whistles, horns, bells, and sirens as well as waves and cheers came from most of the citizens of the sleepy town of Alexandria. As the ship passed, heads tilted back to see the aerial escort of eighty-eight planes and the dirigible Los Angeles scudding over the Memphis.

  With the cruiser slowly rounding the bend before the naval yard, Cabinet members and heads of the armed services strained to get their first glimpse of the tall, slim young man in the blue suit on the bridge, holding his hat with one hand and waving with the other. A volley of gun salutes cracked the air, punctuating the roar of the crowd. As the anchor was dropped and the gangway fastened, Admiral Burrage led Lindbergh to the bow for a long welcoming cheer. At a word from Burrage, Lindbergh disappeared inside the ship.

  The Admiral ran down the gangway where two White House aides presented a woman dressed in shades of brown and wearing a large, black straw hat. Without saying a word, Burrage offered his arm and escorted the proud Evangeline Lindbergh up the ramp. Once the public realized who it was, every whistle, siren, and cannon in the vicinity sounded. Everyone was overcome with emotion, thinking of that last meeting in Long Island, when nobody knew if mother and son would ever see each other again. Grown men cried.

  After a few minutes, the Lindberghs appeared together. To the boom of saluting guns, Lindbergh stepped forward to greet the secretaries of War and the Navy. Then he and his mother stepped into the backseat of the President’s touring car, which made its way toward the back of the Capitol. Down the hill to the west, the entourage met up with a cavalry escort on Pennsylvania Avenue, which slowly led them to the Washington Monument. Columns of soldiers and sailors, interspersed with dignitaries, fell in behind. While Lindbergh was abroad, Postmaster General New had touted the use of airmail by encouraging the public to send Captain Lindbergh an airmail letter greeting him home; now three screened mail trucks, carrying over five hundred thousand packages and letters, brought up the rear of the parade. Spectators all along the route waved and cheered and threw their hats into the air. “No returning hero was ever escorted with greater dignity,” observed The New York Times. Political Washington took no sides that day.

  More than two hundred fifty thousand people stood shoulder to shoulder in the hazy heat around the base of the great obelisk and down into Potomac Park, where a grandstand had been erected. Beneath a simple white canopy sat the Coolidges and their guests, including the nation’s political, military, and business leaders. The moment the audience spotted Lindbergh, their minute-long demonstration drowned out the huge brass band. Then, most uncharacteristically, the man known as “Silent Cal” orated for several minutes, tracing Lindbergh’s personal history right through his royal receptions in Europe. “And now, my fellow citizens,” Coolidge said, “this young man has returned. He is here. He has brought his unsullied fame home.” With that, the President bestowed upon Lindbergh the first Distinguished Flying Cross—“as a symbol of appreciation for what he is and what he has done”—and announced his promotion to Colonel of the United States Reserve Corps. A demonstration ensued for minutes as Lindbergh stood there—neither bowing nor smiling, just modestly facing the crowd.

  Stepping up to the microphones, he spoke plainly in his slightly clipped, boyish voice to the hushed crowd and to another thirty million radio listeners across the country. Some five hundred photographers captured the moment as well, while special trains, planes, and automobiles waited to speed their film to laboratories for worldwide distribution. Lindbergh spoke but one hundred and six unscripted words, the gist of which was that he was a messenger between America and Europe, and that the attention lavished on him was “the affection of the people of France for the people of America.” The crowd stood for a moment in absolute silence, stunned by the brevity and the humility of the remarks. The world would little note, nor long remember what he said there, but many people likened his speech to Lincoln’s Address at Gettysburg. In lieu of shouts came only sustained, reverential applause. One radio broadcaster sobbed. Under the blazing hot sun, a display of daylight fireworks burst in the sky.

  Lindbergh and his party made their way to Du Pont Circle for an early dinner with the Cabinet, followed by a presentation of honors before six thousand at a meeting of the National Press Club in the Washington Aud
itorium. The Secretary of State handed Lindbergh a bound memorial volume of diplomatic exchanges between the State Department and the Foreign Offices around the world concerning the flight. Dr. Charles G. Abbot, Acting Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, announced that the Institute was awarding him its distinguished Langley “Medal of Pioneers.”

  The grandest gesture that night came from the Post Office Department, which announced that it had neither titles nor medals to bestow, and that the department had long labored under the rule that the likeness of a living American could not appear on a postage stamp. But there was nothing to stop them from using his name. And so, Postmaster General New announced that night that his department “has issued a stamp designed for special use with the airmails, which bears your name and a representation of the other member of that very limited partnership in which you made your now famous journey across seas. It is,” New declared, just before handing Lindbergh and his mother the first two copies of this issue of five hundred sixty thousand ten-cent stamps depicting the Spirit of St. Louis, the “first time a stamp has been issued in honor of a man still living—a distinction which you have worthily won.”

  Lindbergh began the next day by attending church services with the Coolidges, then laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, visited wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, and appeared at a celebration on the Capitol steps of the sesquicentennial of the American Flag. It turned into a celebration of Lindbergh instead, as former Secretary of State and soon-to-be Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes presented him with the Cross of Honor of the United States Flag Association. Hughes commended Lindbergh as “America’s most successful messenger of good-will.”