MacArthur's Airmen - Charles Augustus Lindbergh
 Charles Augustus Lindbergh was one of the most famous aviators of the 1920s and 30s, due in large part to his non-stop
solo flight in his Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris, for which he received the Medal of Honor. He then became a leading proponent of commercial aviation in the United States. “The Lone Eagle,” as Lindbergh was known, captured world attention again in 1932 when his son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped from the Lindbergh residence in New Jersey. During the late 1930s he became a leading voice in the anti-war sentiment, to keep the U.S. from becoming involved in the war in Europe. However, this stance changed after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Lindbergh had received a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Air Service Reserve Corps in 1925. However, since there was little need for extra military pilots at the time, he remained in civilian aviation. He wrote of his military training in Texas:
“Always there was some new experience, always something interesting going on to make the time spent at Brooks and Kelly one of the banner years in a pilot's life. The training is difficult and rigid but there is none better. A cadet must be willing to forget all other interest in life when he enters the Texas flying schools and he must enter with the intention of devoting every effort and all of the energy during the next 12 months towards a single goal. But when he receives the wings at Kelly a year later he has the satisfaction of knowing that he has graduated from one of the world's finest flying schools.”
During the mid-1930s, Lindbergh was sent by the U.S. military to Germany to observe and report on Germany’s Luftwaffe, or air force, even being given the chance by Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering to pilot a Messerschmitt Bf-109 – the top fighter aircraft in Germany’s arsenal at the time. He also made a similar inspection tour of the Soviet Union in 1938.
When open hostilities erupted in Europe with the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Lindbergh resigned his commission as a Colonel in the Army Air Corps and became a leading figure in the America First Committee, an organization which opposed U.S. involvement in the European conflict. His involvement in this organization led to accusations of Lindbergh being anti-Semitic, and President Roosevelt thought Lindbergh himself to be a Nazi – both charges which Lindbergh denied.
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh asked that his commission be reinstated, but the Roosevelt administration refused. He then offered his services to several aviation manufacturers as a consultant, beginning with Ford and its production of B-24 Liberators. In 1943 he joined United Aircraft as an engineering consultant, and the following year he was sent to the Pacific to study the performance of the manufacturer’s aircraft under combat conditions.
Despite his role as a civilian advisor, Lindbergh soon was flying combat missions against the Japanese. His first came on May 21, flying a Marine F-4U Corsair of VMF-222 on a bomb run against Rabaul, New Guinea. During his six-month tour in the theater, Lindbergh flew 50 combat missions, either in Marine Corsairs or Fifth Air Force P-38 Lightnings. On many of his AAF missions, he flew as wingman for Major Thomas McGuire – the second highest-scoring ace in the theater, who recorded 38 kills. Lindbergh however only amassed one kill, which came on July 28, near Ceram, a small island west of New Guinea, when he shot down a plane piloted by the commanding officer of the 73rd Independent Chuntai.
Oddly enough, Lindbergh had been in New Guinea flying missions with the 475th Fighter Group for some time before Fifth Air Force commander George Kenney or theater commander Douglas MacArthur were aware of his presence. When it was learned at General Headquarters that the “Lone Eagle” was there, Kenney summoned him to GHQ, introducing him to MacArthur, and making his presence in the theater “official” by giving him the task of figuring out how to get more fuel mileage out of the P-38s. Kenney also forbid Lindbergh from further combat missions, realizing the propaganda value for the Japanese if he were to be shot down or captured.
Staff Sergeant Teddy Hanks, a flight chief in the 475th, recalled Lindbergh’s value to Fifth Air Force:
Lindbergh contributed more to the Group, indeed the entire 5th Air Force, than did any other individual because he enabled our planes to reach targets -- and return -- that were considered too distant to reach prior to his demonstrating cruise control (stretching more miles out of the same amount of fuel)
He voluntarily flew combat missions knowing full well that should he be shot down and captured he would not be classified as a military prisoner of war but rather as a criminal. You will notice…that he was carrying a .45 caliber pistol on his left hip. More importantly, he flew combat missions in an aircraft equipped with a 20 mm cannon and four .50 caliber machine guns and was credited with shooting down a Japanese Sonia on 28 July over the island of Ceram, Dutch East Indies. One can only surmise how the enemy may have reacted if they had captured an American civilian who was bearing arms against them.
Lindbergh's one victory was nothing compared to his demonstrating how to extend the operating range of the P-38 -- and all other 5th Air Force aircraft as well. His method of reducing engine speed (revolutions per minute) and advancing the throttle to obtain a higher engine manifold pressure in order to maintain a desired air speed proved beyond doubt that greater distances were possible. The extended range enabled fighter aircraft to provide escort to heavy bombers previously considered impossible. We were indeed fortunate to have a man of such knowledge and daring choose to visit us.
Following World War II, Lindbergh remained a consultant to various aviation companies and also to the U.S. Air Force. In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower commissioned Lindbergh a Brigadier General in the USAF.
Lindbergh attended at least one reunion of the 475th Fighter Group in the decades after the war, and planned on attending their 1974 reunion in Ohio. However, Lindbergh’s health rapidly deteriorated and he died of cancer that year and is buried near the village of Hana, on Maui, HI.
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