Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr.
Born	(1930-06-22)June 22, 1930 Englewood, New Jersey
Died	Tuesday, March 1, 1932 (aged 20 months) Hopewell, New Jersey
Cause of death	massive skull fracture
Body discovered	May 12, 1932, in Hopewell, New Jersey
Resting place	ashes scattered in the Atlantic Ocean
Other names	Lindbergh baby

The kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was one of the most highly publicized crimes of the 20th century. The 20-month-old toddler was abducted from his family home in East Amwell, New Jersey, near the town of Hopewell, New Jersey, on the evening of March 1, 1932. Over two months later, on May 12, 1932, his body was discovered a short distance from the Lindberghs' home.^[1] A medical examination determined that the cause of death was a massive skull fracture.^[2]

After an investigation that lasted more than two years, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested and charged with the crime. In a trial that was held from January 2 to February 13, 1935, Hauptmann was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death. He was executed by electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison on April 3, 1936, at 8:44 in the evening. Hauptmann proclaimed his innocence to the end.^[3]

Newspaper writer H. L. Mencken called the kidnapping and subsequent trial "the biggest story since the Resurrection".^[4] The crime spurred Congress to pass the Federal Kidnapping Act, commonly called the "Lindbergh Law", which made transporting a kidnapping victim across state lines a federal crime.^[5]

The crime[link]

At 8:00 pm on March 1, 1932, the nurse-maid, Betty Gow, put 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh, Jr., in his crib. She pinned the blanket covering him with two large safety pins so as to prevent it from moving while he slept. At around 9:30 pm, Col. Lindbergh heard a noise that made him think some slats had fallen off an orange crate in the kitchen. At 10:00 pm, Gow discovered that the baby was missing from his crib. She in turn went to ask Mrs. Lindbergh, who was just coming out of the bath, if she had the baby with her.

After not finding Charles Lindbergh, Jr., with his mother, the nurse-maid went downstairs to speak with Lindbergh, who was in the library/study just beneath the baby's nursery room in the southeast corner of the house. Charles Lindbergh then proceeded up to the nursery to see for himself that his son was not in his crib. While surveying the room, he discovered a white envelope had been left on the radiator that formed the window sill.

Lindbergh located his Springfield rifle and searched the rest of the house looking for intruders. Within 20 minutes, the local police were on their way to the Lindbergh house, as were the media and Lindbergh's attorney. A single distinguishable tire indentation was discovered a short time later just below the window in the mud caused by the rainy conditions that day. After authorities began to search the area immediately surrounding the house, they discovered three sections of a smartly designed but rather crude-looking ladder in a nearby cluster of bushes.

The investigation[link]

First on the scene was Chief Harry Wolfe of the Hopewell police. Wolfe was soon joined by New Jersey State Police officers. The police searched the home and scoured the surrounding area for miles.

After midnight, a fingerprint expert arrived at the home to examine the note left on the window sill and the ladder. The ladder had 400 partial fingerprints and some footprints left behind. However, most were of no value to the investigation due to the surge of media and police that were present within the first 30 to 60 minutes after the first call for help. During the fingerprint discovery process, not a single fingerprint was found in the room, none from Mr. and Mrs. Lindbergh, none from the baby, and none from Betty Gow. Getting any solid evidence outside the house proved to be virtually impossible. The ransom note that was found by Lindbergh was opened and read by the police after they arrived. The brief, handwritten letter was riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical irregularities:

Dear Sir!

Have 50.000$ redy 25.000$ in
20$ bills 15.000$ in 10$ bills and
10.000$ in 5$ bills After 2–4 days
we will inform you were to deliver
the money.

We warn you for making
anyding public or for notify the Police
The child is in gut care.
Indication for all letters are
singnature

and three holes.

A re-creation of the mark on the ransom note.The black circles indicate where punctures were made in the paper.

There were two interconnected circles (colored red and blue) below the message, with a hole punched through the red circle and two other holes punched outside the circles.

Word of the kidnapping spread quickly, and, along with police, the well-connected and well-intentioned arrived at the Lindbergh estate. Three were military colonels offering their aid, though only one had law enforcement expertise: Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police. The other colonels were Henry Skillman Breckinridge, a Wall Street lawyer; William Joseph Donovan (a.k.a. "Wild Bill" Donovan, a hero of the First World War who would later head the OSS). Lindbergh and these men believed that the kidnapping was perpetrated by organized crime figures. The letter, they thought, seemed written by someone who spoke German as his native language. Charles Lindbergh, at this time, used his influence to control the direction of the investigation.^[6]

They contacted Mickey Rosner, a Broadway hanger-on rumored to know mobsters. Rosner, in turn, brought in two speakeasy owners: Salvatore "Salvy" Spitale and Irving Bitz. Lindbergh quickly endorsed the duo and appointed them his intermediaries to deal with the mob. Unknown to Lindbergh, however, Bitz and Spitale were actually in cahoots with the New York Daily News, a paper which hoped to use the duo to scoop other newspapers in the race for leads in the kidnapping story.^{[citation needed]}

Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf

Several organized crime figures – notably Al Capone — spoke from prison, offering to help return the baby to his family in exchange for money or for legal favors. Specifically, Capone offered assistance in return for being released from prison under the guise that his assistance would be more effective. This was quickly denied by the authorities.

The morning after the kidnapping, U.S. President Herbert Hoover was notified of the crime. Though the case did not seem to have any grounds for federal involvement (kidnapping then being classified as a local crime), Hoover declared that he would "move Heaven and Earth" to recover the missing child. The Bureau of Investigation (not yet called the FBI) was authorized to investigate the case, while the United States Coast Guard, the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Immigration Service and the Washington, D.C., police were told their services might be required. New Jersey officials announced a $25,000 reward for the safe return of "Little Lindy". The Lindbergh family offered an additional $50,000 reward of their own. The total reward of $75,000 was made even more significant by the fact that the offer was made during the early days of the Great Depression.

A few days after the kidnapping, a new ransom letter arrived at the Lindbergh home via the mail. Postmarked in Brooklyn, the letter was genuine, carrying the perforated red and blue marks. Police wanted to examine the letter, but instead Lindbergh gave it to Rosner, who said he would pass it on to his supposed mob associates. In actuality, the note went back to the Daily News, where someone photographed it. Before long, copies of the ransom note were being sold on street corners throughout New York for $5 each. Any ransom letters received after this one were therefore automatically suspect.

A second ransom note then arrived by mail, also postmarked from Brooklyn. Ed Mulrooney, Commissioner of the New York City Police Department, suggested that, given two Brooklyn postmarks, the kidnappers were probably working out of that area. Mulrooney told Lindbergh that his officers could surveil postal letterboxes in Brooklyn, and that a device could be placed inside each letterbox to isolate the letters in sequence as they were dropped in, to help track down anyone who might be tied to the case. If Lindbergh, Jr., was being held in Brooklyn by the kidnappers, Mulrooney insisted that such a plan might help locate the child as well. Mulrooney was willing to go to great lengths, including organizing a police raid to rescue the baby. Lindbergh strongly disapproved of the plan. He feared for his son's life and warned Mulrooney that if such a plan was carried out, Lindbergh would use his considerable influence to ruin Mulrooney's career.^{[citation needed]} Reluctantly, Mulrooney acquiesced.

The day after Lindbergh rejected Mulrooney's plan, a third letter was mailed. It too came from Brooklyn. This letter warned that since the police were now involved in the case, the ransom had been raised to $70,000.

John Condon aka "Jafsie"[link]

During this time, a well-known Bronx personality and retired school teacher, John F. Condon, subsequently known as Jafsie, wrote a letter to the Bronx Home News,^[7] proclaiming his willingness to help the Lindbergh case in any way he could, and added $1000 of his own money to the reward. Condon received a letter in care of the Home News reportedly written by the kidnappers. It was marked with the punctured red-and-blue circles, and authorized Condon as their intermediary with Lindbergh.^[8] Lindbergh accepted the letter as genuine as, at the time, neither man seemed to know that copies of the first mailed ransom letter were being sold by the hundreds.^[9]

Following the latest letter's instructions, Condon placed a classified ad in the New York American: "Money is Ready. Jafsie". (Jafsie was a pseudonym based on a phonetic pronunciation of Condon's initials, "J.F.C.") Condon then waited for further instructions from the culprits.^[7]

A meeting between "Jafsie" and a representative of the group that claimed to be the kidnappers was eventually scheduled for late one evening at Woodlawn Cemetery. According to Condon, the man sounded foreign but stayed in the shadows during the conversation, and he was thus unable to get a close look at his face. The man said his name was John, and he related his story: he was a "Scandinavian" sailor, part of a gang of three men and two women. The Lindbergh child was unharmed and being held on a boat, but the kidnappers were still not ready to return him or receive the ransom. When Condon expressed doubt that "John" actually had the baby, he promised some proof: the kidnapper would soon return the baby's sleeping suit. The stranger asked Condon, "... would I burn [be executed], if the package [baby] were dead?" When questioned further, he assured Condon that the baby was alive. Lindbergh had insisted that Mulrooney not be informed, and so "John" was not followed by police after the meeting.^{[citation needed]} The New York Police were by now aware of the "Jafsie" newspaper advertisements and wanted to know who the mysterious Jafsie was, but Lindbergh refused to say anything.

On March 16, 1932, John Condon received a package by mail that contained a toddler's sleeping suit, which was sent as proof of their claim, and a seventh ransom note.^[10] Condon showed the sleeping suit to Lindbergh, who identified it as belonging to his son. After the delivery of the sleeping suit, Condon took out a new ad in the Home News declaring, "Money is ready. No cops. No secret service. I come alone, like last time." One month after the child was kidnapped, on April 1, 1932, Condon received a letter from the reported kidnappers. They were ready to accept payment.

Payment of the ransom[link]

The ransom was packaged in a wooden box that was custom-made in the hope that it could later be identified. The ransom money itself was made up with a number of gold certificates that were to be withdrawn from circulation in the near future. It was hoped that anyone passing large amounts of gold notes would draw attention to themselves and help aid in identifying the abductors.^[3][11] Also, while the bills themselves were not marked, the serial number of each bill was recorded.

The next evening, April 2, Condon was given a note by cab driver Raymond Perrone, who said he had been paid by a man to deliver the note. This note was the first in a series of convoluted instructions that led Condon and Lindbergh all over Manhattan. Eventually, they were sent to St. Raymond's Cemetery. Condon met a man he thought might have been "John" and told him that they had been able to raise only $50,000. The man accepted the money and gave Condon a note. Lindbergh, who saw the man only from a distance, had insisted the police not be informed of the meeting, and the suspect got away without being followed.^[12]

The note given to Condon stated that the child was being held on a boat called the Nelly at Martha's Vineyard.^[10] The child was supposedly in the care of two women who, according to the note, were innocent. Lindbergh went there and searched the piers; however, there was no boat called the Nelly. A desperate Lindbergh took to flying an airplane low over the piers in an attempt to startle the kidnappers into showing themselves. After two days, Lindbergh admitted he had been fooled.^[7]

Discovery of the body[link]

On May 12, 1932, delivery truck driver William Allen pulled his truck to the side of a road about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) from the Lindbergh home. He went to a grove of trees to urinate, and there he discovered the corpse of a toddler.^[13] Allen notified police, who took the body to a morgue in nearby Trenton, New Jersey. The body was badly decomposed, and it was discovered that the skull was badly fractured. The left leg and both hands were missing, and there were signs that the body had been chewed on by various animals as well as indications that someone had made an attempt to hastily bury the body.^[2][13] Lindbergh and Gow quickly identified the baby as the missing infant based on the overlapping toes of the right foot and the shirt that Gow had made for the baby. They surmised that the child had been killed by a blow to the head. Mr. Lindbergh was insistent on having the body cremated afterward.^[14]

Once the U.S. Congress learned that the child was dead, legislation was rushed making kidnapping a federal crime. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) could now aid the case more directly.

In June 1932, officials began to suspect an "inside job", in that someone the Lindberghs trusted may have betrayed the family. Suspicions fell upon Violet Sharp, a British household servant at the Morrow home. She had given contradictory testimony regarding her whereabouts on the night of the kidnapping. It was reported that she acted nervous and suspicious when questioned. She committed suicide on June 20, 1932, by ingesting a silver polish that contained potassium cyanide just prior to what would have been her fourth time being questioned.^[15][16] After her alibi was confirmed, it was later determined that the possible threat of losing her job and the intense questioning had driven her to commit suicide. At the time, the police investigators were criticized for what some felt were the "heavy handed" police tactics used.^[17]

Following the death of Violet Sharp, John Condon was also questioned by police. Condon's home was searched as well, but nothing was found that tied Condon to the crime. Charles Lindbergh stood by Condon during this time as well.^[18]

John Condon's unofficial investigation[link]

After the discovery of the body, John Condon remained unofficially involved in the case. To the public, he had become a suspect and in some circles vilified.^[12] For the next two years, he visited police departments and pledged to find "Cemetery John". During this time, Condon would frequently take a rowboat out into Long Island Sound to have "secret meetings with informants".^[7][12]

Condon's actions regarding the case were becoming increasingly flamboyant. On one occasion, while riding a city bus, he saw a suspect and, announcing his secret identity, ordered the bus to a stop. The startled driver complied, and Condon darted from the bus, though Condon's target eluded him. Another time, he dressed as a woman for his clandestine activities, with a collar pulled up to hide his handlebar mustache.^{[citation needed]} Tiring of Condon's interference, the police threatened to charge him as an accomplice to the crime.^{[citation needed]} John Condon's actions were also criticized as exploitative when he agreed to appear in a vaudeville act regarding the kidnapping.^[19] Liberty magazine published a serialized account of John Condon's involvement in the Lindbergh kidnapping under the title "Jafsie Tells All".^[20]

Tracking the ransom money[link]

Investigation of the case was soon in the doldrums. There were no developments and little evidence of any sort, so police turned their attention to tracking the ransom payments. A pamphlet was prepared with the serial numbers on the ransom bills, and 250,000 copies were distributed to businesses mainly in New York City.^[10][11] A few of the ransom bills turned up in scattered locations, some as far away as Chicago and Minneapolis, but the people spending them were never found.

As per Executive Order 6102, Gold Certificates were to be turned in by May 1, 1933.^[21] A few days before the deadline, a man in Manhattan brought in $2,990 of the ransom money to be exchanged. The bank was busy and no one could remember anything specific about the person. He had filled out a required form, which gave his name as J. J. Faulkner. The address supplied was 537 West 149th Street in New York City.^[11]

When authorities visited the address, they learned that no one named Faulkner had lived there – or anywhere nearby – for many years. U.S. Treasury officials kept looking and eventually learned that a woman named Jane Faulkner had lived at the address in question in 1913. She had moved after she married a German man named Geissler. The couple was tracked down, and both denied any involvement in the crime.

Capture of a suspect[link]

For thirty months, New York Police Detective James J. Finn and FBI Agent Thomas Sisk had been working on the Lindbergh case. They had been able to track down many bills from the ransom money that were being spent in places throughout New York City. A map created by Finn recorded each find and eventually showed that many of the bills were being passed mainly along the route of the Lexington Avenue subway. This subway line connected the East Bronx with the east side of Manhattan, including the German-Austrian neighborhood of Yorkville.^[3]

On September 18, 1934, a gold certificate from the ransom money was referred to Detective Finn and Agent Sisk.^[3] Although President Roosevelt had issued an executive order on April 5, 1933, calling for all gold certificates to be turned in by May 1, 1933, under the penalty of fine or imprisonment,^[21] some members of the public held on to them past the deadline.^[22] As of July 31, 1934, $161 million in gold certificates were still in general circulation.^{[citation needed]} The ten dollar gold certificate was discovered by a teller of the Corn Exchange Bank of the Bronx.^[3][10] It had a New York license plate, 4U-13-14- N.Y, penciled in the margin, which helped the investigators trace the bill to a gas station in upper Manhattan. The station manager, Walter Lyle, had written down the license plate number as per company policy, feeling that his customer was acting "suspicious" and was "possibly a counterfeiter".^{[3][10][11][23]}

It was found that the license plate number belonged to a blue Dodge sedan owned by Bruno Richard Hauptmann of 1279 East 222nd Street in the Bronx.^[3] Hauptmann was found to be a German immigrant with a criminal record in his homeland. When Hauptmann was arrested, he had on his person a twenty dollar gold certificate.^[3][10] A search by police of Hauptmann's home found $1,830 of the ransom money hidden behind a board. Another $11,930 was found in a can near a window in the garage.^[3] During the police investigation, the garage that Hauptmann had built was torn down in the search for the money.^[24]

Hauptmann was arrested by Finn; he was interrogated, as well as beaten at least once, throughout the day and night that followed.^[11] The money, Hauptmann stated, along with other items, had been left with him by friend and former business partner Isidor Fisch. Fisch had died on March 29, 1934, shortly after returning to Germany.^[3] Only following Fisch's death, Hauptmann stated, did he learn that the shoe box left with him contained a considerable sum of money. He took the money because he claimed that it was owed to him from a business deal that he and Fisch had made.^[3] Hauptmann consistently denied any connection to the crime or knowledge that the money in his house was from the ransom.

In the search of his apartment by police, a considerable amount of additional evidence that he was involved in the crime surfaced. One item was a notebook that contained a sketch for the construction of a collapsible ladder similar to that which was found at the Lindbergh home in March 1932. John Condon's telephone number, along with his address, were discovered written down on a closet wall in the house. A key linking piece of evidence, a piece of wood, was discovered in the attic of the home. After being examined by an expert, it was determined to be an exact match to the wood used in the construction of the ladder found at the scene of the crime. This particular wood was also traced back to the saw mill where the lumber was processed in South Carolina.

Hauptmann was indicted in the Bronx on September 24, 1934, for extorting the $50,000 ransom from Charles Lindbergh.^[3] Two weeks later, on October 8, 1934, Hauptmann was indicted in New Jersey for the murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr.^[10] Two days later, he was surrendered to New Jersey authorities by New York Governor Herbert H. Lehman to face charges directly related to the kidnapping and murder of the child. Hauptmann was moved to the Hunterdon County Jail in Flemington, New Jersey, on October 19, 1934.^[10]

The trial[link]

The old Hunterdon County Courthouse, site of the trial

Hauptmann was charged with extortion and murder. Conviction on even one charge could earn him the death penalty. He pleaded not guilty.

Held at the Hunterdon County Courthouse in Flemington, New Jersey, the trial soon became a sensation: reporters swarmed the town, and every hotel room was booked.

In exchange for rights to publish Hauptmann's story in their newspaper, Edward J. Reilly was hired by the Daily Mirror to serve as Hauptmann's attorney. Two other lawyers, Lloyd Fisher and Frederick Pope, were co-counselors. David T. Wilentz, Attorney General of New Jersey, led the prosecution.

In addition to Hauptmann's possession of $14,590 of the ransom money, the State introduced evidence showing a striking similarity between Hauptmann's handwriting and the handwriting on the ransom notes. Eight different handwriting experts (Albert S. Osborn, Elbridge W. Stein, John F. Tyrrell, Herbert J. Walter, Harry M. Cassidy, Wilmer T. Souder, Albert D. Osborn, and Clark Sellers)^[25] were called by the prosecution to the witness stand, where they pointed out similarities between words and letters in the ransom notes and in Hauptmann's writing specimens (which included documents written before he was arrested, such as automobile registration applications). One expert (John M. Trendley) was called by the defense to rebut this evidence, while two others (Samuel C. Malone and Arthur P. Meyers) declined to testify at the trial.^[25] The latter two demanded $500 for their services before even looking at the notes and were promptly dismissed when Defense Lawyer Fisher declined to render such an amount.^[26]

Based on the forensic work of Arthur Koehler at the Forest Products Laboratory, the State also introduced photographic evidence demonstrating that the wood from the ladder left at the crime scene matched a plank from the floor of Hauptmann's attic: the type of wood, the direction of tree growth, the milling pattern at the factory, the inside and outside surface of the wood, and the grain on both sides were identical, and two oddly placed nail holes lined up with a joist splice in Hauptmann's attic. Additionally, the prosecutors noted that Condon's address and telephone number had been found written in pencil on a closet door in Hauptmann's home. Hauptmann himself admitted in a police interview that he had written Condon's address on the closet door: "I must have read it in the paper about the story. I was a little bit interested and keep a little bit record of it, and maybe I was just on the closet, and was reading the paper and put it down the address." When asked about Condon's telephone number, he could respond only, "I can't give you any explanation about the telephone number."

The defense did not challenge the identification of the body, a common practice in murder cases at the time designed to avoid exposing the jury to an intense analysis of the body and its condition.

Lindbergh on the witness stand

Condon and Lindbergh both testified that Hauptmann was "John". Another witness, Amandus Hochmuth, testified that he saw Hauptmann near the scene of the crime.

Hauptmann was ultimately convicted of the crimes and sentenced to death. His appeals were rejected, though New Jersey Governor Harold G. Hoffman granted a temporary reprieve of Hauptmann's execution and made the politically unpopular move of having the New Jersey Board of Pardons review the case. They found no reason to issue a pardon.

Hauptmann turned down a $90,000 offer from a Hearst newspaper for a confession and refused a last-minute offer to commute his execution to a life sentence in exchange for a confession.

He was electrocuted on April 3, 1936, just over four years after the kidnapping.

Controversy[link]

As have other notorious crimes, the Lindbergh kidnapping has attracted hoaxes and alternative theories.For example, in the late 1970s, Theresa Smold, a woman living in Elizaville, NY, claimed to have special knowledge of the kidnapping and the kidnappers, even claiming a weapon buried in the chicken coop behind her house was the one used to kill the Lindbergh child. She further claimed Hauptmann was innocent, and had no part in it. The tale is chronicled in the book, "Sleeping Dogs: A true story of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping," by Michael Foldes, published in 2012 by Split Oak Press, Ithaca, NY.

Hoaxes during the investigation[link]

While the baby was still missing, at least two separate men, Gaston Means and John Hughes Curtis, came forward with false claims that they were associates of the kidnappers. Gaston Means, who was a former FBI agent and conman, was convicted of larceny after extorting $100,000 from Washington D.C. socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean. McLean had provided Means the money in an attempt to pay a ransom for the return of Charles, Jr., the Lindberghs' son. Means was sentenced to fifteen years in prison and died in custody in 1938.^[17] John Curtis, a respected boat builder in Norfolk, Virginia, also made claims that he was in contact with the kidnappers. Curtis even claimed that at one point he had held the baby in his arms. After the child's body was found, Curtis confessed that his stories were false and were brought about by "financial pressures". He was fined and given a one year suspended sentence.^[27]

The Lindberghs were the victims of several other pranks and claims about their baby. Even today, several people assert that they are the Lindbergh baby.^[28]

Re-examination of the evidence[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2011)

Erastus Mead Hudson was a fingerprint expert who knew the then-rare silver nitrate process of collecting fingerprints off wood and other surfaces on which the previous powder method could not detect fingerprints. He found that Hauptmann's fingerprints were not on the wood, even in places that the man who made the ladder would have had to touch. Upon reporting this to a police officer and stating that they must look further, the officer said, "Good God, don't tell us that, Doctor!" The ladder was then washed of all fingerprints, and Schwarzkopf refused to make it public that Hauptmann's prints were not on the ladder.^[29]

Several books have been written proclaiming Hauptmann's innocence. These books variously criticize the police for allowing the crime scenes to become contaminated, Lindbergh and his associates for interfering with the investigation, Hauptmann's trial lawyers for ineffectively representing him, and the reliability of the witnesses and the physical evidence presented at the trial. Ludovic Kennedy in particular questioned much of the evidence, such as the origin of the ladder and the testimony of many of the witnesses. A recent book on the case, A Talent to Deceive by British investigative writer William Norris, not only declares Hauptmann's innocence but also accuses Lindbergh of a cover-up of the killer's true identity. The book points the finger of blame at Dwight Morrow, Jr., Lindbergh's brother-in-law.^{[citation needed]}

At least one modern author does not agree with these theories. Jim Fisher, a former FBI agent and professor at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania,^[30] has written two books on the subject, The Lindbergh Case (1987)^[31] and The Ghosts of Hopewell (1999)^[32] to address, at least in part, what he calls a "revision movement" regarding the case.^[33] In these texts, he provides an interpretation discussing both the pros and cons of the evidence presented at trial. He summarizes his conclusions thus: "Today, the Lindbergh phenomena [sic] is a giant hoax perpetrated by people who are taking advantage of an uninformed and cynical public. Notwithstanding all of the books, TV programs, and legal suits, Hauptmann is as guilty today as he was in 1932 when he kidnapped and killed the son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lindbergh."^[34]

In 2005, the truTV television program Forensic Files conducted a re-examination of the physical evidence in the kidnapping using more modern scientific techniques. Kelvin Keraga concluded that the ladder used in the kidnapping was made from wood that had previously been part of Hauptmann's attic.^[35] Three forensic document examiners, Grant Sperry, Gideon Epstein, and Peter E. Baier, PhD, worked independently of each other. Sperry concluded that it was "highly probable" that the kidnapper's notes were written by Hauptmann.^[36] Epstein concluded "there was overwhelming evidence that the notes were written by one person and that one person was Richard Bruno Hauptmann."^[37] Baier wrote that Hauptmann "probably" wrote the notes, but that "Looking at all these findings no definite and unambiguous conclusion can be drawn."^[38] The program concluded that Hauptmann had indeed been guilty, but it noted that many questions remained, such as how he could have known that the Lindberghs would be remaining in Hopewell during the week.^{[citation needed]}

The Lindbergh kidnapping represented in the arts[link]

In Music

• May 1932: Just one day after the Lindbergh baby was discovered murdered, the prolific country recording artist Bob Miller (under the pseudonym Bob Ferguson) recorded two songs for Columbia on May 13, 1932, commemorating the event. The songs were released on Columbia 15759-D with the titles "Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr." and "There's a New Star Up in Heaven (Baby Lindy Is Up There)".^[39]

In Novels

• January 1934: Agatha Christie was inspired by circumstances of the case when she described the kidnapping of baby girl Daisy Armstrong in her 1934 Hercule Poirot novel Murder on the Orient Express, including a parallel of the death of Violet Sharpe.
• 1972: In Tom Tryon's novel and film The Other the Lindbergh kidnapping is mentioned several times, and Rider and Torrie's baby is kidnapped in a similar manner.
• 1981: The kidnapping and its aftermath served as the inspiration for Maurice Sendak's book Outside Over There.
• 1985–86: In The One (comics), it is suggested that the origins of two superheroes known only as Charles and Amelia were somehow connected to Charles Lindbergh Jr. and Amelia Earhart.
• 1991: 'Stolen Away' by Max Allan Collins is a thorough treatment of the case from the point of view of a fictional detecitve. The author examines several possible solutions and provides considerable support for one.
• 1992: In the novel Along Came a Spider, James Patterson refers to the kidnapping and calls the killer “Son of Lindbergh”.
• 1993: The bestselling novel Vanished, by Danielle Steel, makes several references to the Lindbergh kidnapping and subsequent trial. The novel is about the kidnapping of a child a few years after the Lindbergh case.
• 2004: In Philip Roth's novel The Plot Against America, the narrator describes theories about the kidnapping – most notably, the possibility that prominent Nazis were responsible and used the kidnapping to extort the Lindberghs into expressing some admiration for and defense of the policies of Nazi Germany. According to this theory (which the narrator neither accepts nor rejects), the baby is brought to Germany where he is adopted into a Nazi family and becomes a member of the Hitler Youth, unaware of his true background.
• 2008: Margaret Person Haddix's antagonist Mr. Hodge claims to have kidnapped Charles Lindbergh in Haddix's book, Found. He claimed it was his 'best rescue mission ever'.

In Film/Television

• 1976: In the television movie The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, Anthony Hopkins played the role of Bruno Hauptmann, and Sian Barbara Allen played Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
• 1996: The Lindbergh kidnapping was the subject of a 1996 Golden Globe and Emmy nominated HBO TV movie titled Crime of the Century. Bruno Hauptmann was played by Stephen Rea and his wife Anna by Isabella Rossellini.
• March 7, 2000: In the Family Guy episode "Brian in Love," Peter objects to toilet-training Stewie, as, according to a cutaway, Charles Lindbergh did the same thing to his son and his son ended up being flushed down the toilet. Lindbergh then decides to fake the kidnapping and get rid of Amelia Earhart, who was a witness.
• 2009: In the documentary Tell Them Anything You Want, author/illustrator Maurice Sendak tells interviewer Spike Jonze that he has been obsessed with the case of the Lindbergh baby since he was 2 years old.
• January 24, 2011: In the season 4 episode of Pawn Stars titled "Case Closed", documents and other items, purported to be from a private investigator hired by Charles Lindbergh, were featured on the show.
• 2011: The Clint Eastwood-directed film J. Edgar focuses on the Lindbergh kidnapping. Josh Lucas plays Charles Lindbergh, Damon Herriman was cast as Bruno Hauptmann^[40] and Stephen Root was cast as Arthur Koehler, an expert on wood who testified at the trial.^[41]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Ahlgren, Gregory and Stephen Monier, Crime of the Century:The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax, Branden Books, 1993, ISBN 0-8283-1971-5
• Fisher, Jim, The Lindbergh Case, Rutgers University Press, Reprint 1994, ISBN 0-8135-2147-5
• Fisher, Jim, The Ghosts of Hopewell: Setting the Record Straight in the Lindberg Case, Southern Illinois University Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8093-2717-1
• Kennedy, Sir Ludovic, The Airman And The Carpenter, 1985, ISBN 0-670-80606-4
• Kurland, Michael, A Gallery of Rogues: Portraits in True Crime, Prentice Hall General Reference, 1994, ISBN 0-671-85011-3
• Newton, Michael, The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes, Checkmark Books, 2004, ISBN 0-8160-4981-5
• Norris, William, A Talent to Deceive, SynergEbooks, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7443-1594-3

External links[link]

• Photographic Evidence from the trial on the New Jersey State Archives Website
• New Jersey police museum at West Trenton which holds evidence of the kidnapping
• Lindbergh Kidnapping and other Top 25 Crimes of the Century at Time.com
• Documents, information and a Discussion Group on the LKC: crime and trial
• More about the Lindbergh kidnapping
• The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax --- dissenting views on the trial
• FBI History – Famous Cases – The Lindbergh Kidnapping
• Lindbergh Case Chronology
• Famous American Trials – Richard Hauptmann (Lindbergh Kidnapping) Trial
• Current photographs of places connected with the Lindbergh kidnapping
• Lindbergh Kidnapping Discussion Board
• CSI Madison, Wisconsin: Wooden Witness

Coordinates: 40°25′26″N 74°46′04″W / 40.4240°N 74.7677°W / 40.4240; -74.7677

Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh, photo by Harris & Ewing
Born	(1902-02-04)February 4, 1902 Detroit, Michigan
Died	August 26, 1974(1974-08-26) (aged 72) Kipahulu, Maui, Hawaii
Nationality	American
Education	Sidwell Friends School, Redondo Union High School
Occupation	Aviator, author, inventor, explorer, social activist
Religion	Lutheran
Spouse	Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Children	With Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. Jon Lindbergh Land Morrow Lindbergh Anne Spencer Lindbergh (Perrin) Scott Lindbergh Reeve Lindbergh (Brown) With Brigitte Hesshaimer: Dyrk Hesshaimer Astrid Hesshaimer Bouteuil David Hesshaimer With Marietta Hesshaimer: Vago Hesshaimer Christoph Hesshaimer. With Valeska: unnamed son unnamed daughter
Parents	Charles August Lindbergh Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh
Signature

Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) (nicknamed "Slim",^[1] "Lucky Lindy", and "The Lone Eagle") was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.

As a 25-year-old U.S. Air Mail pilot Lindbergh emerged suddenly from virtual obscurity to instantaneous world fame as the result of his Orteig Prize-winning solo non-stop flight on May 20–21, 1927, made from Roosevelt Field^{[N 1]} located in Garden City on New York's Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France, a distance of nearly 3,600 statute miles (5,800 km), in the single-seat, single-engine purpose built Ryan monoplane Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh, a U.S. Army reserve officer, was also awarded the nation's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his historic exploit.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Lindbergh used his fame to promote the development of both commercial aviation and Air Mail services in the United States and the Americas. In March 1932, however, his infant son, Charles, Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in what was soon dubbed the "Crime of the Century". This eventually led to the Lindbergh family being "driven into voluntary exile" in Europe to which they sailed in secrecy from New York under assumed names in late December 1935 to "seek a safe, secluded residence away from the tremendous public hysteria" in America. The Lindberghs did not return to the United States until April, 1939.

Before the United States formally entered World War II, Lindbergh had been an outspoken advocate of keeping the U.S. out of the world conflict, as had his father, Congressman Charles August Lindbergh, during World War I. Although Lindbergh was a leader in the anti-war America First movement, he nevertheless strongly supported the war effort after Pearl Harbor and flew many combat missions in the Pacific Theater of World War II as a civilian consultant even though President Franklin D. Roosevelt had refused to reinstate his Army Air Corps colonel's commission that he had resigned in April 1941.

In his later years, Lindbergh became a prolific prize-winning author, international explorer, inventor, and environmentalist.

Early years[link]

Charles A. Lindbergh: son and father c. 1910

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 4, 1902, but spent most of his childhood in Little Falls, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C.. He was the only child of Swedish immigrant Charles August Lindbergh (birth name Carl Månsson) (1859–1924), and Evangeline Lodge Lindbergh (1876–1954), of Detroit.^[2] The Lindberghs separated in 1909. Lindbergh, Sr. was a U.S. Congressman (R-Minnesota (6th)) from 1907 to 1917 who gained notoriety when he opposed the entry of the U.S. into World War I.^[3] Mrs. Lindbergh was a chemistry teacher at Cass Technical High School in Detroit and later at Little Falls High School, from which Charles graduated in 1918. Lindbergh also attended over a dozen other schools from Washington, D.C., to California during his childhood and teenage years (none for more than a full year) including the Force School and Sidwell Friends School while living in Washington, D.C., with his father,^[4] and Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach, California.^[5] Lindbergh enrolled in the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the Fall of 1920, but dropped out in the middle of his sophomore year and headed for Lincoln, Nebraska, in March 1922 to begin flight training.^[6]

Early aviation career[link]

Lincoln Standard J biplane

From an early age Charles Lindbergh had exhibited an interest in the mechanics of motorized transportation including his family's Saxon Six automobile, and later his Excelsior motorbike. By the time he started college as a mechanical engineering student, he had also become fascinated with flying even though he "had never been close enough to a plane to touch it."^[7] After quitting college in February 1922, Lindbergh enrolled as a student at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation's flying school two months later and flew for the first time in his life on April 9, 1922, when he took to the air as a passenger in a two-seat Lincoln Standard "Tourabout" biplane trainer piloted by Otto Timm.^[8]

Lindbergh flight gear at Cradle of Aviation Museum in New York State.

A few days later Lindbergh took his first formal flying lesson in that same machine with instructor-pilot Ira O. Biffle although the then 20-year-old student pilot would not be permitted to "solo" during his time at the school because he could not afford to post a bond which the company President Ray Page,^[9] insisted upon in the event the novice flyer were to damage the school's only trainer in the process.^[10] In order to both gain some needed flight experience and earn money for additional instruction, Lindbergh left Lincoln in June to spend the summer and early fall barnstorming across Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana as a wing walker and parachutist with E.G. Bahl and later H.L. Lynch. During this time he also briefly held a job as an airplane mechanic in Billings, Montana, working at the Billings Municipal Airport (later renamed Billings Logan International Airport).^[11][12] When winter came, however, Lindbergh returned to his father's home in Minnesota and did not fly again for over six months.^[13]

"Daredevil Lindbergh" in his Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" in 1923.

Lindbergh's first solo flight did not come until May 1923 at Souther Field in Americus, Georgia, a former Army flight training field where he had come to buy a World War I surplus Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplane. Even though Lindbergh had not flown in more than six months, he had already secretly decided that he was ready to take to the air by himself. After just half an hour of dual time with a pilot who was visiting the field to pick up another surplus JN-4, Lindbergh flew solo for the first time in the Jenny that he had just purchased for $500.^[14][15] After spending another week or so at the field to "practice" (thereby acquiring five hours of "pilot in command" time), Lindbergh took off from Americus for Montgomery, Alabama, on his first solo cross country flight, and went on to spend much of the rest of 1923 engaged in virtually nonstop barnstorming under the name of "Daredevil Lindbergh". Unlike the previous year, however, this time Lindbergh did so in his "own ship"—and as a pilot.^[16][17] A few weeks after leaving Americus, the young airman achieved another key aviation milestone when he made his first nighttime flight near Lake Village, Arkansas.^[18]

Lindbergh damaged his "Jenny" on several occasions over the summer, often breaking the prop on landing (which happened on May 18, 1923 outside Maben, Mississippi). His most serious accident came when he ran into a ditch in a farm field in Glencoe, Minnesota, on June 3, 1923, while flying his father (who was then running for the U.S. Senate) to a campaign stop. The accident grounded him for a week until he could repair his plane. In October, Lindbergh flew his Jenny to Iowa where he sold it to a flying student. (Found stored in a barn in Iowa almost half a century later, Lindbergh's dismantled Jenny was carefully restored in the early 1970s and is now on display at the Cradle of Aviation Museum located in Garden City, New York, adjacent to the site once occupied by Roosevelt Field from which Lindbergh took off on his flight to Paris in 1927).^[19] After selling the Jenny, Lindbergh returned to Lincoln by train where he joined up with Leon Klink and continued to barnstorm through the South for the next few months in Klink's Curtiss JN-4C "Canuck" (the Canadian version of the Jenny). Lindbergh also "cracked up" this aircraft once when his engine failed shortly after take off in Pensacola, Florida, but again he managed to repair the damage himself.^[20]

2nd Lt. Charles A. Lindbergh, USASRC March 1925

Following a few months of barnstorming through the South, the two pilots parted company in San Antonio, Texas, where Lindbergh had been ordered to report to Brooks Field on March 19, 1924, to begin a year of military flight training with the United States Army Air Service both there and later at nearby Kelly Field.^[21] Late in his training Lindbergh experienced his most serious flying accident on March 5, 1925, eight days before graduation. He was involved in a midair collision with another Army S.E.5 while practicing aerial combat maneuvers and was forced to bail out.^[22] Only 18 of the 104 cadets who started flight training remained when Lindbergh graduated first overall in his class in March 1925 thereby earning his Army pilot's wings and a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Service Reserve Corps.^[23]

Lindbergh later noted in "WE", his best selling book published in July 1927, just two months after making his historic flight to Paris, that he considered this year of Army flight training to be the critically important one in his development as both a focused, goal oriented individual, as well as a skillful and resourceful aviator.

With the Army not then in need of additional active duty pilots, however, following graduation Lindbergh immediately returned to civilian aviation as a barnstormer and flight instructor, although as a reserve officer he also continued to do some part-time military flying by joining the 110th Observation Squadron, 35th Division, Missouri National Guard, in St. Louis in November 1925. He was soon promoted to 1st Lieutenant.^[25]

Air Mail pilot and pioneer[link]

Robertson Aircraft Corporation and CAM-2[link]

In October 1925, Lindbergh was hired by the Robertson Aircraft Corporation (RAC) in St. Louis (where he had been working as a flight instructor) to first lay out, and then serve as chief pilot for the newly designated 278-mile (447 km) Contract Air Mail Route #2 (CAM-2) to provide service between St. Louis and Chicago (Maywood Field) with two intermediate stops in Springfield and Peoria, Illinois.^[26] Operating from Robertson's home base at the Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field in Anglum, Missouri, Lindbergh and three other RAC pilots, Philip R. Love, Thomas P. Nelson, and Harlan A. "Bud" Gurney, flew the mail over CAM-2 in a fleet of four modified war surplus de Havilland DH-4 biplanes. Two days before he opened service on the route on April 15, 1926, with its first early morning southbound flight from Chicago to St. Louis, Lindbergh officially became authorized to be entrusted with the "care, custody, and conveyance" of U.S. Mails by formally subscribing and swearing to the Post Office Department's 1874 Oath of Mail Messengers.^[27] It would not take long for him to be presented with the circumstances to prove how seriously he took this obligation.

Twice during the 10 months that he flew CAM-2, Lindbergh temporarily lost "custody and control" of mails that he was transporting when he was forced to bail out of his mail plane owing to bad weather, equipment problems, and/or fuel exhaustion. In the two incidents, which both occurred while he was approaching Chicago at night, Lindbergh landed by parachute near small farming communities in northeastern Illinois. On September 16, 1926, he came down about 60 miles (97 km) southwest of Chicago near the town of Wedron,^[28] while six weeks later, on November 3, 1926, Lindbergh bailed out again about 70 miles (110 km) further south hitting the ground in another farm field located just west of the city of Bloomington near the town of Covell.^[29] After landing without serious injury on both occasions, Lindbergh's first concern was to immediately locate the wreckage of his crashed mail planes, make sure that the bags of mail were promptly secured and salvaged, and then to see that they were entrained or trucked on to Chicago with as little delay as possible. Lindbergh continued on as chief pilot of CAM-2 until mid-February 1927, when he left for San Diego, California, to oversee the design and construction of the Spirit of St. Louis.^[30]

Air Mail advocate[link]

Although Lindbergh never returned to service as a regular U.S. Air Mail pilot, he used the immense fame that his exploits had brought him to help promote the use of the U.S. Air Mail Service. He did this by giving many speeches on its behalf, and by carrying souvenir mail on both special promotional domestic flights as well as on a number of international flights over routes in Latin America and the Caribbean which he had laid out as a consultant to Pan American Airways to be then flown under contract to the Post Office Department as Foreign Air Mail (FAM) routes. At the request of Capt. Basil L. Rowe, the owner and chief pilot of West Indian Aerial Express (later Pan Am's chief pilot as well) and a fellow Air Mail pioneer and advocate, in February 1928, Lindbergh also carried a small amount of special souvenir mail between Santo Domingo, R.D., Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Havana, Cuba in the Spirit of St. Louis.^[31]

Autographed USPOD penalty cover with C-10 flown northbound by Charles Lindbergh over CAM-2 on February 21, 1928, and southbound on February 22

Those cities were the last three stops that he and the Spirit made during their 7,800-mile (12,600 km) "Good Will Tour" of Latin America and the Caribbean between December 13, 1927 and February 8, 1928, during which he flew to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba, spending 125 hours in the air.^[32] The final two legs of the 48-day tour were also the only flights on which officially sanctioned, postally franked mail was ever carried in the Spirit of St. Louis. Exactly two weeks later, Lindbergh also "returned" to flying CAM-2 for two days so that he could pilot a series of special flights (northbound on February 20; southbound on February 21) on which tens of thousands of self-addressed souvenir covers sent in from all over the nation and the world were cacheted, flown, backstamped, and then returned to their senders as a further means to promote awareness and the use of the Air Mail Service. Souvenir covers and other artifacts associated with or carried on flights piloted by Lindbergh are still actively collected under the general designation of "Lindberghiana."^[33]

Pursuing the Orteig Prize[link]

Charles Lindbergh (left) accepted his prize from Raymond Orteig (right) in New York on June 14, 1927

Designated to be awarded to the pilot of the first successful nonstop flight made in either direction between New York City and Paris within five years after its establishment, the $25,000 Orteig Prize was first offered by the French-born New York hotelier (Lafayette Hotel) Raymond Orteig on May 19, 1919. Although that initial time limit lapsed without a serious challenger, the state of aviation technology had advanced sufficiently by 1924 to prompt Orteig to extend his offer for another five years, and this time it began to attract an impressive grouping of well known, highly experienced, and well financed contenders. Ironically, the one exception among these competitors was the still boyish Charles Lindbergh, a 25-year-old relative latecomer to the race, who, in relation to the others, was virtually anonymous to the public as an aviation figure, who had considerably less overall flying experience, and was being primarily financed by just a $15,000 bank loan and his own modest savings.^[34]

The first of the well-known challengers to actually attempt a flight was famed World War I French flying ace René Fonck who on September 21, 1926, planned to fly eastbound from Roosevelt Airfield in New York in a three-engine Sikorsky S-35. Fonck never got off the ground, however, as his grossly overloaded (by 10,000 lbs) transport biplane crashed and burned on takeoff when its landing gear collapsed. (While Fonck escaped the flames, his two crew members, Charles N. Clavier and Jacob Islaroff, died in the fire.) U.S. Naval aviators LCDR Noel Davis and LT Stanton H. Wooster were also killed in a takeoff accident at Langley Field, Virginia, on April 26, 1927, while testing the three-engine Keystone Pathfinder biplane, American Legion, that they intended to use for the flight. Less than two weeks later, the first contenders to actually get airborne were French war heroes Captain Charles Nungesser and his navigator, François Coli, who departed from Paris – Le Bourget Airport on May 8, 1927, on a westbound flight in the Levasseur PL 8, The White Bird (L'Oiseau Blanc). Contact was lost with them after crossing the coast of Ireland and they were never seen nor heard from again.^[35]

American air racer Clarence D. Chamberlin and Arctic explorer CDR (later RADM) Richard E. Byrd were also in the race. Although he did not win, Chamberlin and his passenger, Charles A. Levine, made the far less well remembered second successful nonstop single-pilot flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean in the single engine Wright-Bellanca WB-2 Miss Columbia (N-X-237), leaving Roosevelt Field on June 4, 1927, two weeks after Lindbergh's flight and landing in Eisleben, Germany 43 hours and 31 minutes later on June 6, 1927. (Ironically, the Chamberlin monoplane was the same one that the Lindbergh group had originally intended to purchase for his attempt but passed on when the manufacturer insisted on selecting the pilot.) Byrd followed suit in the Fokker F.VII tri-motor, America, flying with three others from Roosevelt Field on June 29, 1927. Although they reached Paris on July 1, 1927, Byrd was unable to land due to poor weather and was forced to return to the Normandy coast where he ditched the tri-motor high-wing monoplane near the French village of Ver-sur-Mer.^[36]

Lindbergh's flight to Paris[link]

Six well known aviators had thus already lost their lives in pursuit of the Orteig Prize when Lindbergh took off on his successful attempt in the early morning of Friday, May 20, 1927. Dubbed the Spirit of St. Louis, his "partner" was a fabric covered, single-seat, single-engine "Ryan NYP" high-wing monoplane (CAB registration: N-X-211) designed by Donald Hall and custom built by B.F. Mahoney's Ryan Aircraft Company of San Diego, California. The primary source of funding for the purchase of the Spirit and other expenses related to the overall New York to Paris effort came from a $15,000 State National Bank of St. Louis loan made on February 18, 1927, to St. Louis businessmen Harry H. Knight and Harold M. Bixby, the project's two principal trustees,^{[N 2]} and another $1,000 donated by Frank Robertson of RAC on the same day. Lindbergh himself also personally contributed $2,000 of his own money from both his savings and his earnings from the 10 months that he flew the U.S. Air Mail for RAC.^[37]

Sample of the fine linen fabric that covered the Spirit of St. Louis

Burdened by its heavy load of 450 U.S. gallons (1,704 liters) of gasoline weighing approximately 2,710 lbs (1,230 kg), and hampered by a muddy, rain soaked runway, Lindbergh's Wright Whirlwind powered monoplane gained speed very slowly as it made its 7:52 AM takeoff run from Roosevelt Field, but its J-5C radial engine still proved powerful enough to allow the Spirit to clear the telephone lines at the far end of the field "by about twenty feet with a fair reserve of flying speed."^[38] Over the next 33.5 hours he and the "Spirit"—which Lindbergh always jointly referred to simply as "WE"—faced many challenges including skimming over both storm clouds at 10,000 feet (3,000 m) and wave tops at as low at 10 ft (3.0 m), fighting icing, flying blind through fog for several hours, and navigating only by the stars (whenever visible) and "dead reckoning" before landing at Le Bourget Airport at 10:22 PM on Saturday, May 21.^[39] A crowd estimated at 150,000 spectators stormed the field, dragged Lindbergh out of the cockpit, and literally carried him around above their heads for "nearly half an hour." While some damage was done to the Spirit (especially to the fabric covering on the fuselage) by souvenir hunters, both Lindbergh and the Spirit were eventually "rescued" from the mob by a group of French military fliers, soldiers, and police who took them both to safety in a nearby hangar.^[40] From that moment on, however, life would never again be the same for the previously little known former U.S. Air Mail pilot who, by his successful flight, had just achieved virtually instantaneous—and lifelong—world fame.

Charles Lindbergh with the Spirit of St. Louis – 1927

Although Lindbergh was the first to fly nonstop from New York to Paris, he was not the first aviator to complete a transatlantic flight in a heavier-than-air aircraft. That had been done first in stages between May 8 and May 31, 1919, by the crew of the Navy-Curtiss NC-4 flying boat which took 24 days to complete its journey from Jamaica Bay at Far Rockaway, Queens, New York, to Plymouth, England, via Halifax, Nova Scotia, Trepassey Bay (Newfoundland), Horta (Azores) and Lisbon, Portugal. The lighter-than-air (LTA) U.S. Navy airship USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) made a non-stop crossing from the Zeppelin Company works in Friedrichshafen, Germany to the U.S. Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey from October 12 to 15, 1924.^[41]

The world's first non-stop transatlantic flight (albeit over a route far shorter than Lindbergh's, 1,890 miles (3,040 km) vs. 3,600 statute miles (5,800 km)) was achieved nearly eight years earlier on June 14–15, 1919. Two British aviators, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, flew a modified Vickers Vimy IV bomber from Lester's Field near St. John's, Newfoundland on June 14 and arrived at Clifden, Ireland, the following day.^[42] Both men were knighted at Buckingham Palace by King George V, in recognition of their pioneering achievement.^[43]

Aftermath of the flight[link]

The Spirit's flight from Paris to Belgium

The French Foreign Office flew the American flag, the first time it had saluted someone not a head of state.^[44] Lindbergh made a series of flights in Europe using the Spirit before returning to the United States. Gaston Doumergue, the President of France, bestowed the French Légion d'honneur on the young Capt. Lindbergh, and on his arrival back in the United States aboard the United States Navy cruiser USS Memphis (CL-13) on June 11, 1927, a fleet of warships and multiple flights of military aircraft including pursuit planes, bombers and the rigid airship USS Los Angeles (ZR-3), escorted him up the Potomac River to Washington, D.C. where President Calvin Coolidge awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross.^[45][46]

"Lindbergh Air Mail" Stamp (C-10) issued June 11, 1927

On that same day that Lindbergh and the Spirit arrived in Washington, the U.S. Post Office Department issued a 10-Cent Air Mail stamp (Scott C-10) depicting the Spirit of St. Louis and a map of the flight. On June 13, 1927, a ticker-tape parade was held for him down 5th Avenue in New York City.^[47] The following night the City of New York further honored Capt. Lindbergh with a grand banquet at the Hotel Commodore attended by some 3,700 people.^[48]

After the flight, Lindbergh became an important voice on behalf of aviation activities, including the central committee of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), an appointment made by President Herbert Hoover.^[49] He embarked on a three-month cross country tour on behalf of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. The 1927 "Lindbergh Tour" culminated with visits to 48 states and 92 cities, where he delivered 147 speeches, and rode 1,290 miles (2,080 km) in parades.^[25] At the conclusion of the tour, Lindbergh spent a month at Falaise, Guggenheim's Sands Point mansion, where he wrote the acclaimed "We", a book about his transatlantic flight published by George P. Putnam.

The massive publicity surrounding him and his flight boosted the aviation industry and made a skeptical public take air travel seriously. Within a year of his flight, a quarter of Americans (an estimated thirty million) personally saw Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis. Over the remainder of 1927 applications for pilot's licenses in the U.S. tripled, the number of licensed aircraft quadrupled, and U.S. Airline passengers grew between 1926 and 1929 by 3,000% from 5,782 to 173,405.^[50] Lindbergh later charted both polar and South American air routes, developed techniques for high altitude flying, and during World War II demonstrated how to increase flying range by developing techniques of refining flight attitudes and leaning fuel mixture to decrease the rate of gasoline consumption and improving efficiency.

The winner of the 1930 Best Woman Aviator of the Year Award, Elinor Smith Sullivan, said that before Lindbergh's flight, "people seemed to think we [aviators] were from outer space or something. But after Charles Lindbergh's flight, we could do no wrong. It's hard to describe the impact Lindbergh had on people. Even the first walk on the moon doesn't come close. The twenties was such an innocent time, and people were still so religious—I think they felt like this man was sent by God to do this. And it changed aviation forever because all of a sudden the Wall Streeters were banging on doors looking for airplanes to invest in. We'd been standing on our heads trying to get them to notice us but after Lindbergh, suddenly everyone wanted to fly, and there weren't enough planes to carry them."^[51]

Marriage and children[link]

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) was the daughter of diplomat Dwight Morrow whom he met in Mexico City in December 1927, where her father was serving as the U.S. Ambassador. According to a Biography Channel profile on Lindbergh, she was the only woman that he had ever asked out on a date. In Lindbergh's autobiography, he derides womanizing pilots he met as "barnstormers", and Army cadets for their "facile" approach to relationships. For Lindbergh, the ideal romance was stable and long term, with a woman with keen intellect, good health, and strong genes.^[52] Lindbergh said his "experience in breeding animals on our farm had taught me the importance of good heredity."^[53]

The couple were married on May 27, 1929, and eventually had six children: Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. (1930–1932); Jon Morrow Lindbergh (b. August 16, 1932); Land Morrow Lindbergh (b. 1937), who studied anthropology at Stanford University and married Susan Miller in San Diego; Anne Lindbergh (1940–1993); Scott Lindbergh (b. 1942); and Reeve Lindbergh (b. 1945), a writer. Lindbergh also taught his wife how to fly and did much of his exploring and charting of air routes with her.

"The Crime of the Century"[link]

The "wanted" poster

In what came to be referred to sensationally by the press of the time as "The Crime of the Century", on the evening of March 1, 1932, 20-month old Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., was abducted by an intruder from his crib in the second story nursery of his family's rural home in East Amwell, New Jersey near the town of Hopewell.^{[N 3]} While a 10-week nationwide search for the child was being undertaken, ransom negotiations were also conducted simultaneously with a self-identified kidnapper by a volunteer intermediary, Dr. John F. Condon (aka "Jafsie").^[55] These resulted in the payment on April 2 of $50,000 in cash, part of which was made in soon-to-be withdrawn (and thus more easily traceable) Gold certificates, in exchange for information about the child's whereabouts which proved to be false. The child's remains were eventually found by chance by a passing truckdriver six weeks later on May 12 in roadside woodlands near Mount Rose, NJ.