CASTLEGAR NEWS, Thursday, May 26, 1877 SO Years ago, May 20,1927. ° Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic alone. By H.D.Quigg EW YORK (UPI)—"No attempt at humor today,” Will Rogers wrote in his column. “An old alim bashful smiling boy is somewhere sur ores the middle of the Atlanti ander the spring sky 50 years ago. - rgh Flies Alone" the New York Sun titled its most famous editorial . since “Yes, ”” It asked could be alone when courage was riding at his right and emprise at his left. ‘The little monoplane with the buzzing nine-foot propeller had taken off Friday morning in New York and had last been reported over Newfoundland early that Lowell Thomas, with a special lilt: “He made it! Charles A, Lindbergh — ‘Lucky Lindy’ as iy call him— landed at Le Bourget airfic The dispatch fron ‘Paris My the New York Times was dated May It started out: SLiniperdh did it. ‘Twenty minutes after 10 o'clock tonight, suddenly and softly there slipped out of the darkness a gray-white monoplane rs 25,000 Pairs of eyes strained toward at 10:: 124 the Spirit of St. Louis Iand- ed and lines of soldiers, ranks of police- ’ men and stout steel fences went down - before a mad see “Well, I made it,’ smiled Lind- The flight took 33 hours, 29° minutes and some’ stretches of it were battles -with weather — Lindbergh flew only 20. feet above the waves at times in mano- euvring through the elements. During the anxious period of waiting for news, announcer Joe Humphreys at the Sharkey-Maloney fight in New York had asked the audience for one minute of si- lence for the youngster in the plane. the moment he set his plane down at Le Bourget — with no para- chute or extra clothing along with him, wes Jerry-built periscope to see over _ the gasoline tanks in front of him that Wockss normal forward sight, proud of e planning and the flying skill that ive brought him solo and nonstop across the stormy Atlantic with enough {uel to have flown on to Rome — the 25- year-old boy from a broken home in ‘was an instant hero. On this coming Golden Abniversary of that 1927 flight, we in the Jet Age would do well to remember that Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. in one daring act opened the modern aviation era and the world for flying. He had one engine, no radio and he averaged only 107.5 miles per hour over $600 miles. “Every man [hat flies the ocean from now on will always be just an imitation of Lindbergh,” Will Rogers remarked. In addition to flying through fog and storm, Lindy had to fight fatigue so great that at times he was asleep with eyes wide open and he felt that the fase- lage behind him was filled with phan- + toms, ghostly presences. A meticulous planner, he had calcu- fated on staying awake for 40 hours. But through unfortunate circumstances he got no sleep the whole night before his takeoff and had to remain alert for 63 hours. Lindbergh, an aviation genius — and a loner who neither danced nor dated as a youth — went to internationa? acclaim. as the “Lone Eagle” of the skyways. But he was already a heroic figure to his colleagues as early as 1922-23 when he was barnstorming, stunt parachuting and suspending himself from the wings by his teeth, Tn a new book published colneldent with the anniversary, titled “Lindbergh Alone,” Brendan Gill observes that Lindbergh in his early 20s was earning, as much as any aviator in the country and “ had made four emergency para- chute jumps from planes he had been forced to abandon. No other man in the country had made so many.” ~ But while America and much of the rest of the world went wild with joy and adulation over the tall, slim, seat-of-the- pants pilot, privacy remained his fetish and ultimately his burden when tragedy ‘visited his family. The public delirium after the flight obscured the meticulous planning by the handsome batchelor with the wide smile and the lock of blond hair over his forehead. He had helped: design the Ryan monoplane in San Diego, making his own specifications— he laid out his route and when he took off that morning from Long Island's muddy. Roosevelt Field every ounce aboard had been as- sessed for weight reduction. He had been 2 U.S. mail pilot on the St. Louis-Chicago run and St. Louis businessmen were his financial back- ers. He was one of several fiyers com- peting for the $25,000 Orteig prize for the first to fly nonstop from New York to Paris, On May 10, he flew from San Diego to St. Louis in the record time of 14 hours, 25 minutes and pressed ahead on May 12 to New York. He was a professional with 2,000 hours of flight time in five years, While fying the mail in 1926 he had asked himself: “Why shouldn't I fy from New Yerk to Paris? I've barnstormed over half of the 48 states, I've flown my mail through the worst of nights."" >. He: was motivated by eagerness to improve his standing as 9 pilot as well as by the prize money. He had calculat- ed everything but the public response to his feat. Headlines of scream proportions hit the civilized world. Medals were pinned allover him. France, Belgium and Brit- ain fawned on him. President Coolidge sent the cruiser Memphis to bring him and his plane back, jumped him from captain to colonel in the Officers Re- serve Corps and gave him the Distinguished Flying Cross —the first in the nation’s history. The Washington reception was im- mense. New. York's was more immense. “Colonel Lindbergh,” said Mayor Jimmy Walker, amid the mass hyste- ria, “New York is yours. I don't give it to you. You won it. And before you leave , you will have to provide a new street ' cleaning department to clean up the mess.” Lindbergh went to endless receptions 1 — St. Louis. to every state and to Latin "america. winging in on his little plane. He said that at one point he was “so fill- ed up with listening to hero guff that 1 was ready to shout murder.” One .; Woman tried to rent the hétel room he was leaving so she could take a bath in the same tub. From ‘he Vancouver Province "**".' * & ‘unibangh's and the alone i in which he made the first solo trans-Atlantic crossing. The subject of this ove adoration — who went on to careers as an author, medical technologist and conservatin- nist — had grown up among the white - pine groves of-his father's farm on the bank of the upper Mississippi. His: grandfather had given him a rifle when he was 6; he learned to drive his fa- ther’s Model T Ford when he was 11. Paris opens her heart By Aline Mosby ARIS (UPI)— FIFTY YEARS ago on May 21,-1927, Fernand Sarrazin, chief mechanic at. Le Bourget Airport. peered at the black sky above the field. At 10/15 p.m. he heard the faint throb of a small air- plane. Electrician Andre Braconnier heard the pulsating motor at the other end of the field. Stumbling, he raced to turn on the airfield lights. France never has forgolten the night when Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., a lanky 24-year-old from the American Middle West, landed in Paris to complete the first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean and suddenly found him- self a deliriously acclaimed hero on both sides of the Atlantic. Time and again the French have evoked the name of Lindbergh during the tumult ‘over whether the Franco- British supersonic Concorde could Jand “* in New York. A Lyon woman wrote to the U.S. embassy in Paris, “America certainly can welcome our handsome bird Con- corde with the same enthusiasm with which we welcomed in Paris their Spirit of St. Louis with the glorious and youriz Charles Lindbergh.” And that unforgettable moment still is bright in the memories of the people who were there when Lindbergh con- quered Paris, “We heard from Cherbourg purt offi- cials when Lindbergh flew in from the | Allantic and entered French skies, 31 8:30 p.m; Butt did not know what time he would appear. over Le Bourget.” re- called Surrazin, then chief airnurt me- chanic. now a handsome man in a tur- tleneck sweater who has retired to his villa in suburban Joinville-le-Pont. “T left the hangar about 10 p.m. and walked slowly, listening carefully ... The night was black except for lights burn- ing on the only building then existing at Le Bourget Airport. A dig crowd was waiting in (ront of the building behind metal police barriers. “About 10:15 p.m. I heard the noise of the motor. I started walking faster."" Electrician Braconnier, now retired to a cottage in suburban Bobigny, re- called, “There were no cement runways © : then. Planes landed on the grass. There ; Wasn't any control tower either." “T heard a little motor, then nothing. then a minute later I heard it stronger,” the stocky, white-haired electrician said softly. his eyes shining with emotion: as he sat at his dining room table.» “The lights weren't on. No point in il- tuminating the field for nothing. 1 ran to turn on the field lights. “We really hadn’t believed he would make it. He had no radio in the plane. it was just a little plane. One motor. Sud: denly there he was, landing opposite the terminal, using tail brakes."* Ex-mechanie Sarrazin recalls, “I ran with all my strength in his direction, guided hy the sparks flying out of the motor exhaust. I arrived breathless next‘lo the plane just alter he’made a perfect landing. “Lindbergh. lowered the window next to the pilot's seat and I saw he was com- pletely stunned after 33 hours of flying and nearly denf from the motor noise. We shook hands. I did net speak English and did not know what to suy, Hevnei- ther. “He didn't know one ward af French - He was mechanical, At age 9 he work- ed out a complicated system for convey- ing ice from the icehouse into the icebox. The Lindbergh farm had no electricity nor phone, His father had a law office in nearby Little Falls and jan wallteal reformer, was & man from 1907 to 1917. During that would have ruined his political career. Both parents took care to give young Charles a sense of ity. ‘The boy operated the farni for a year in World War I. In, 1920, he rode off on his Excelsior motoreycle to the Univer- how to shoot quarters out of the out- stretched fingers of his friends at 50 feet witha rifle. In 1922-23 he learned to fly and was billed as ‘Daredevil Lindbergh" for his barnstorming stunts such as wingwalk- ing. In 1923, he bought his first plane, a Jenny in‘Georgia, barnstormed to Texas, then went north and landed on the Lindberghfarm: =: . “T felt nostalgia then... for I knew the farming deys I loved so much were over. I had made my choice. | loved sti more to fly.” He enlisted in the army. flying school . in Texas, was graduated as the top man - in his class and was commissioned in the Air Service Reserve. Then ‘he was hired in St. Louis as chief pilot of the mail run to Chicago and joined the Mis- souri National Guard as a lieutenant. + After the Paris flight, he met Dwight Morrow and in 1929, when Morrow was . Ambassador to Mexico, married pe daughter Anne, a poet, who ly and navigate and went with Charen on many of his travels. Also in 1929, Lindbergh, in an act not well known until more than 30 years Inter, sought out Dr. Robert Goddard — 41 subject of ridicule who has since be- come famed as “the father of rocketry" and a space flight pioneer — raised money and helped him with his experi- ments for 16 years, until Goddard’s death. Lindbergh in the 1930s collaborated with Dr. Alexis Carrel; the Nobel Jaure- ate, in’ developing a perfusion. pump ~ that can Keep.animal organs alive for hours after their, removal. It helped...’ lead to the heart-lung machines, invent- 3 ti others, used today in open heart a the he Lindberghs’ first child, Charles ee Augustus rd, was born in 193) and wi Mother Anne, g ne photographed © iddnapped from his nursery in Hope- well, N.J. in 1932 and found dead in a shallow grave near the home. After a_ sensational and bizarre hunt, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested, con-. victed on circumstantial evidence and executed. Hauptmann's “Trial of the Century" was treated sensationally. Then there were threats to kidnap the second Lind- bergh son, Jon. Lindbergh took his family.to England for seclusion from “‘public hysteria.” They after moved to France, where, as a famed Mer, he was invited to vist alrlane faclaies: The Bi “Germans invited him, too. oa In Germany, ‘be got the redearpet treatment and a medal from Hitler's aviation chief, Goering. By 1939, he had concluded that the German Luftwaffe was overwhelmingly powerful com- pared to those of France, Britain and ‘ the Soviet Union. He believed that a World War II “would probably devastate Europe, kill millions and possibly bring the end of Werte civilization.” ie , Lindberghs returned to the | vunled States.in 1939 not long before the war in Europe started.and he sought to prevent American involvement, making and joining America First. ‘When he said that ‘‘our leaders ... have’ consistently directed us toward war,” President Roosevelt called him a ” defeatist:and Licdbergh resigned his commission, With Pearl Harbor, he sought to rejoin the armed forces was turned down; he blamed Roosevelt. _ ‘As a‘ civilian’ ‘pepresentative of an aviation company, he got permission to visit the South and Southwest Pacific war theatre. He flew 50 fighter mis-. sions, shot down at least one ery plane, nearly go! got shot down himself "Baby token good core of, read the kidnoppers post card— ‘Look for instructions © Soturday. If po- tice get too close lookout.’ escaped. He accomplished his main mission; he taught MacArthur's fighter pilots how to increase the range of the P.38 from 400 miles to 600 miles and perhaps 800. His books ineluded “We,” “OF Flight Journals," won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and was made into a movie enering years with Pan American World Airways as a consultant (he began work with the firm in 1928), travelled extensively and in 1964 in Africa took up the conservation cause. This brought him back to public appearances. He helped, save the blue and hump- back whales. He worked a great deal in ‘The Philippines and in 1972 went on the rain forest expedition that found the Stone Age Tasaday tribe. He opposed development of the supersonic trang- : port on en' In 1074, at age ” Lindbergh: was told. - in a New York hospital that he was A-frame seaside bome. He talked to his sons Scott of Paris and Jon of Seattle . and saw his daughters Anne and Reeve. He was flown to Maui and died eight . - At Le Bourget,‘ people were trampled beneath metal barriers, but eventually with: . police protection, the aircraft wos finally pushed into the hanger. “To reassure him. 1 shouted, ‘Tei (this is) Paris, Le Bourget.’ He understood , and J felt he Telaxed, happy to have accomplished his trans-Atlantic flight. “] tell you, that was an unforgettable moinent. “My intention was to guide Lindbergh and his plane to the hangar but I heard an ineredible clamor. The crowd had trampled down the police barriers and was rushing toward the plane,” Sarra- zin said. Braconnier shook his head as he remembered, “I've never seen anything like it since.” He pulled out a yellowed photograph showing the metal police barriers bent like hairpins to the ground. People were trampled underneath the barriers. Some were sent to hospitals with legs and arms broken. People shouted and van and cheered. + “1 was alraid,” continued Sarrazin. “and 1 wondered how to protect him trom the crowd. To avuid an accident } signalied Lindbergh to stop his motor. Suddenly automobiles with military: officers from the 34th regiment at, Le Bourget came quickly in cars, seized , Lindbergh and I was left alone with the ‘plane while the crowd roared toward : + the Spirit of St. Louis. “The first people on the spot started to tear the cloth off the fuselage for squvenirs. I received several blows trying to keep them. out of the pilot's seat and if police hadn't arrived Uwon- der how I could have got out of that up- roar, Under police protection we finally pushed the aircraft into the hangar.” - He took out a yellowed photograph | and pointed to four holes on the cloth Erie! and steering Tudders of the | Penh next day 1 ‘had to repair’ the ‘4 fuselage and rudders and I found a leak © - 20 centimetres long (six inches) in the coil tank. If it had been in the lower part of the tank it’s certain Lindbergh's ex- ploit would have ended in catastrophe. “The next day Lindbergh came to the airport.” Sarrazin said. He displayed another photograph of Lindbergh with him which the pilot had autographed. ‘He explained to us the different in- struments on his plane. The visibility “was obstructed by ‘a wing and the motor. Soihe had installed a periscope to permit him to see’ ‘atiead of him for takeoffs and landings. - While Sarrazin tenaired the Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh was‘ being feted - from one. end of Paris'to the other: ‘Thousands of workers gathered outside the Citroen auto plant to cheer him. On the steps of the Elysee Palace he re- ceived France's highest medal. the Cross of the Legion of Honor, from * President Gaston Doumergue. He was guest of honor at the Hotel Ambassador ata Juncheon organized by the Ameti- can Ley Twenty French air force planes {ot- loved Lindbergh to his next stop, Brus- sels. 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