CHAPTER ELEVEN

A Lone Eagle Sets the Standard

Among the aviation phenomena of the late 1920’s was the outbreak of glorified stunt flying. Barnstormers and wing walkers of the earlier half of the decade now began vying with one another on a world-wide scale, competing for rich prizes offered by various personalities, and for assorted motives. Some courageous souls, quite unprepared, took off in the direction of the wide blue yonder and never came back; others, more successful, returned to bask for a while in the pitiless glare of publicity and then faded out.

But one day, while the whole world seemed to hold its breath and to offer up a little prayer for him, a lone eagle soared out over the broad Atlantic and, after thirty-three hours, let down through the murk over Le Bourget, outside Paris. And after taxiing toward a milling throng so dense he had to cut his engine to avoid injuring someone with his propeller, he remarked, “I am Charles A. Lindbergh.”

Perhaps one measure of the character of this performance is the fact that, to this day, in spite of all the strides in airplane development, no person has sought to duplicate a solo flight from New York to Paris.

The impact of Lindbergh’s flight on the progress of American aviation is well known; it started an upsurge that carried aviation over a dead center and started it spinning on its way. What is not so well known is the underlying character of the man himself and its influence on American air power. For, just as a community or an enterprise mirrors the character of its pioneers, so has aviation taken on some of the personalities of its immortals.

In BUAERO we were at first inclined to look at this last stunt as more or less a lucky break, until Guy Vaughan came down to tell us about the night take-off. Since Lindbergh was flying a Wright Whirlwind engine, Guy had invited him to dinner. And while he and his wife, Helen, sat talking with Lindbergh, word came from Dr. Kimball, the weather wizard, that things were clearing over the Atlantic. The party drove out to the flying field and when the men had pushed their way into the hangar to look for the _Spirit of St. Louis_, the tiny ship was lighted by a single, dim carbon-filament bulb—“so dim,” according to Guy Vaughan, “you had to strike a match to see if it was burning.”

Outside the hangar, Dick Byrd, aided by his ample staff, had also been making preparations. But Guy Vaughan and Charles Lindbergh, using their own hands, topped off the fuel tanks of the _Spirit of St. Louis_ and started her rolling out onto the ramp. Guy ascribed Lindbergh’s achievement to three things: he was the best pilot in the world, he trusted nothing to anyone but himself, and he took no unintelligent chances.

Admiral Moffett hailed Lindbergh’s accomplishment, but feared the Army might make capital of it by persuading Lindbergh, an Army Reserve officer, to say that his feat had obsoleted all navies. Jerry Land, now our assistant chief, got a big kick out of the whole thing; Lindbergh was his nephew. And then, as the flight proved to be far more than just a seven days’ wonder and Lindbergh’s popularity increased rather than diminished with the passage of time, all sorts of people began getting into the act. When the word was passed around that Lindbergh was coming home on the cruiser _Memphis_ and that he was writing a book to be called _We_, the Navy began to take him very seriously. The Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Curtis D. Wilbur, radioed Lindbergh on the _Memphis_, offering to assign a naval officer as his technical advisor in the preparation of the book. Lindbergh accepted the offer with alacrity, and I found myself assigned to the detail. My job was to see that his book didn’t sink the Navy with a fragmentation bomb.

On the day of Lindbergh’s arrival at the Navy Yard in Washington, all the naval aviators in the vicinity were tolled off to act as a guard of honor for him. I walked through the part, but was so little interested that I neglected to attend the ceremonies at the foot of the Washington Monument, and went home as usual for lunch. But after Lindbergh’s tour of the provinces, we began to take notice; not only did his popularity increase, but he developed a knack of being exactly on time for all ceremonies. I had noted, during the time the _Spirit of St. Louis_ had been in the hangar at Anacostia, that Lindbergh himself had never failed to check every detail of her preparations. Now his incredible on-time performance, under trying conditions, seemed to bear out Guy Vaughan’s estimate; he trusted no one but himself and was the best pilot in the country. Then came the day when Charles Lindbergh returned to Washington.

Jerry Land sent for me to tell me that Secretary Wilbur had placed his yacht _Sylph_ at Lindbergh’s disposal for a cruise down the Potomac as far as Mount Vernon. A number of dignitaries, including Bill McCracken, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Air; F. Trubee Davison, Assistant Secretary of War for Air; Ed Warner, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air; and a number of Slim Lindbergh’s St. Louis backers, were to make the trip. The idea was to give Lindbergh a lot of good advice on his future conduct and afterward we would all adjourn to the house of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover on S Street, where we would meet an agent of George Palmer Putnam, prospective publisher of the book _We_. I was to go along on the _Sylph_ and then do my duty at the Hoover house.

On the junket down the river that day, I sat well out toward the rail, watching Glenn Martin’s first T4M torpedoplane overhead with its new Pratt and Whitney Hornet going through its one-hour, full-throttle endurance trial. It was oppressively hot and I was nervous about that engine; we thought Glenn had cowled it too close, trying to get speed at the cost of cooling. Lindbergh sat inboard near a cabin skylight, surrounded by important personages and looking very boyish. And while I watched the T4M, listening to every engine throb, I found myself beginning to take notice of the conversation in which I had expected to find no interest.

The older, more experienced men agreed that Lindbergh had done a swell job so far, but they reminded him that fame was fleeting; if he expected to capitalize on his achievement, he must strike while the iron was hot. Of course he shouldn’t try anything dizzy; his job was to prove how safe aviation is. It seemed likely that he might do a good motion picture, a sort of educational movie. He could act out the early history of the flight: the meeting with his backers, the days spent building his plane with Claude Ryan in San Diego, his trials and tribulations, and finally the take-off and landing at Le Bourget. It could be conservative and refined.

To this suggestion Lindbergh replied to the effect that he hated to seem ungrateful, but he had no intention of going into the movies. If he were to go into the movies, someone would try to make a sheik out of him and he didn’t think he would make much of a sheik. At this comment, I moved a little closer to the cabin skylight.

His advisors now shifted over to the possibilities of Slim’s becoming interested in the air lines. After all, he’d had experience as a mail pilot and could easily take over something big. Maybe Bill Boeing of Seattle would be interested in taking him on—think of all the publicity it would bring.

Lindbergh’s reply to this was again that he disliked appearing ungrateful. It was true he had had some experience in air transport, but he wasn’t too proud of the fact that he had had to parachute from two of his planes and had lost them both. He didn’t know anything much about transportation, and if he went into something he didn’t know about he would likely make a fool of himself. He hoped that from here on he might not make any bigger fool of himself than he had made already.

It now began to appear that a lot more sense was coming from the advised than from the advisors; I moved over and sat down near Jerry Land, who grinned proudly at me. Overhead the Martin T4M seemed to be droning along with confidence.

The third suggestion offered Lindbergh had to do with aircraft manufacture. It was suggested that after all the publicity on the _Spirit of St. Louis_, a lot of craft of that model might be sold. Perhaps the men from St. Louis who had backed Lindbergh on the flight to Paris might finance an aircraft manufacturing company in St. Louis of which the young pilot might become the president.

Lindbergh shook his head quickly. He had a crazy idea that he would like to have his Paris flight redound to the benefit of aviation as a whole. If he went into manufacture, that would put him in competition with others in the business; he didn’t want to compete with them but rather to help the whole aviation game along. If the flight was worth anything at all, he would like to see it advance aviation. He didn’t appear to be interested in trying to make money out of it.

By the time Charles Lindbergh had received his friends’ advice, the Martin T4M had finished its run successfully and landed at Anacostia. Soon the _Sylph_ put back to the Navy Yard and we all got into cars to ride up to Mr. Hoover’s house. Mrs. Hoover met us at the door and showed most of the group out onto the porch. Four of us remained behind to sit down around a table and hear a report from the agent of Mr. George Palmer Putnam.

Charles Lindbergh took his seat at the head of a table. On his right sat a keen young Army pilot, Lt. Robert Douglas, who had been a student aviator with Lindbergh at Kelly Field. I sat down at Lindbergh’s left while Mr. Putnam’s representative stood at the end of the table opposite him. The man from Putnam’s held the galley proof in his hand and displayed considerable pride over it. The galley had been struck off in record time.

It seemed that the book really divided into three parts: the first had to do with Lindbergh’s early life; the second part reviewed his flight training, his barnstorming, and his experience as an air-mail pilot; the third part, which covered the technical aspects of the New York-Paris flight, had been prepared by someone in the publicity department of the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, makers of the engine of the _Spirit of St. Louis_.

The first part had been written by a journalist who had accompanied Lindbergh on the trip home in the cruiser _Memphis_. This section of the book was considered to be the meat of the cocoanut and had been well advertised. It was the part of Lindbergh’s life not already widely publicized. Mr. Putnam’s representative hoped Colonel Lindbergh would not find it necessary to make changes in it; its author would be disappointed. Of course, corrections of typographical errors were in order but extensive revisions would delay publication, and time was of the essence. Some parts of this section might sound a little overdone to the colonel, but, after all, that was what sold books and the publisher had already committed himself to the public in forecasting a few sensations.

Lindbergh sat silent during this discourse and when the galley was handed him, divided it into the three parts. The section on his flying experience he handed to Bob Douglas; the technical section he passed to me; his “early life” he kept to himself. There was a long silence while we three scanned copy. I thumbed through a collection of clichés designed to glorify the Wright Whirlwind, until I found what I had been sent to look for. Sure enough, someone had put into Lindbergh’s mouth a quote to the effect that his flight had clearly shown that armies and navies might now be done away with, and the moneys previously wasted devoted to an air force. After a while Lindbergh glanced at Bob Douglas.

“How about your part, Bob?” he asked.

Bob Douglas saw nothing out of line in his section. It had been developed largely from Lindbergh’s own reports of his parachute drops from the mail planes in soupy weather, and was quite factual. Lindbergh looked my way.

“To be wholly honest with you,” I said, “I was planted here to see that you didn’t sink the whole Navy with one little bomb, and here it all is, in quotes.” Lindbergh grinned. Some years later I was to learn from a naval officer who accompanied Lindbergh home on the _Memphis_ that the young pilot had even then been disturbed by the trend his book was taking and had accepted Secretary Wilbur’s offer of technical assistance as a possible way out of his dilemma. Now he listened as I read that part.

“If you think that is crazy,” he grinned, “just listen to this.” So saying, he began to read aloud from his “early life.” As I recall what he read, it stressed Lindbergh’s qualities as a daredevil, something that certainly did not coincide with my own estimate of him. He was bold, yes, courageous, undoubtedly, but he was the most painstakingly accurate and precise young pilot I had yet encountered, and these qualities, combined with his unique flying skill, had made it possible for him to undertake the impossible, without being a daredevil. Now as he read the passages, Mr. Putnam’s representative nervously interrupted him to interpose the publisher’s point of view; this treatment was all just a part of the publisher’s job; you had to do it, or the book just would not sell. Lindbergh turned his clear eyes on me.

“If you were in my place, Commander,” he inquired, “what would you do?” The room was still as I pondered this question. We could hear voices and laughter from the others of the party as they enjoyed their lemonade out on the porch.

“Colonel Lindbergh,” I replied, “I don’t believe anyone but you yourself can write _We_.”

Without a moment’s hesitation he turned to the man from Putnam’s. “That confirms a decision I had already taken on the _Memphis_,” he said simply. “I’m sorry about all the work that has been done, but it just can’t be helped.”

And Lindbergh did go off to Harry Guggenheim’s place on Long Island, and he did write _We_, all except the final portion which was clearly set apart as the work of Fitzhugh Green. And if fewer copies were sold because the book did not set the world on fire, at least its character was consistent with that of its author. I understand that Lindbergh saw that the journalist, who had done his best under trying circumstances, received full compensation for his unused work.

Meanwhile, Charles A. Lindbergh had become for me the personification of the spirit of aviation. Young, courageous, daring, yet painstaking, competent, and proficient in his art, he had integrity and that quality so rare in this era of rampant materialism, Christian unselfishness.