Famous Flyers and Their Famous Flights

CHAPTER VI – More About The Eagle

It was after dinner at the Martin’s. CaptainBill, Pat, and the two boys had goneout to the garden. The Captain and Bobwere stretched out in two deck chairs, theCaptain’s long legs sticking out a long waypast the end of the low foot-rest. Pat layin the glider, swinging himself lazily, squeakingin a melancholy rhythm at each forwardand back push, Hal, who had got permissionfrom his mother to eat dinner with theMartin’s, lay on a rug thrown down on thegrass. The dusk was turning to dark, andthe Captain’s pipe was beginning to showup as a dull glow in the fading light.

For a while nobody spoke. Then Patsaid, “Well, Robert, tell us the end of yourstory.”

“I’ve been thinking of where to start. Weleft Lindy over in Europe, coming back tothe United States. He didn’t come rightback, though. He had to tour about someof the foreign countries, as an ambassadorof good will, and get decorated with aboutevery kind of medal that was ever made. Itmust have been pretty boring for him to goto banquet after banquet, and listen to allthose speeches praising him. He must haveblushed like anything at some of those flowerycompliments. But he stayed calm, anddidn’t lose his head and get all swelled upover the receptions and cheers and everything.He knew that everybody meant every wordhe said, and that they were mighty pleasedwith him. They gave him all sorts of presents.He could have started a store withthem. But I guess that most of them arein the Lindbergh museum now.

“Well, the honors they heaped on Lindyin France and England and Belgium werenothing to what was waiting for him whenhe got back to the United States. NewYork turned out, it seemed, to a man. Theyhad a parade miles long, with Lindy thechief attraction, sitting on top of an opencar, smiling at the mobs of screaming, shoutingpeople all along the way. It rained tickertape for hours, and people in offices toreup telephone books and added the bits ofpaper to the rainstorm. Nobody could doenough for the Colonel.” Bob looked aroundat the group. “He wasn’t the Captain anymore,” he explained. “He was now ColonelLindbergh. Well, anyway, there were banquetsand parties, until Lindy had to leave.St. Louis started where New York leftoff. After all it was St. Louis where Lindyhad found his backers, and naturally theywere pretty proud of him there. Slim tookit all smiling, just as modest as he’d beenfrom the beginning. There was no fussinghim. And the people loved it. Slim wasthe most talked-about hero the United Stateshas ever adopted. Why, you remember thatalmost everything from candy-bars to swimmingsuits were named after him – and awhole lot of new babies, too. All the kidsin America were crazy about him, and theyall wore aviator’s helmets and made plans tobecome aviators as soon as they were oldenough. It seems that Lindy’s plan waspretty successful. He wanted to get peopleto talking and thinking about airplanes, andbelieve me, they didn’t talk or think aboutmuch else from the time he set out fromRoosevelt field.”

“You’d think that he’d be tired and readyfor a rest after his flight, and his receptions, but even though he may have been tired,he thought he’d strike while the iron washot, and follow up his good work, thisbusiness of getting people aviation conscious.And I guess, too, he felt that he owed somethingto the people of the United States forbeing so kind to him, so Lindy set out ona trip around the country. He stopped at almostevery important city, and covered everystate in the union. He traveled almost 20,000miles. And that’s some traveling. Justthink if he’d had to travel that distancein a train! He’d be going yet. Well, everyplace that he stopped gave him three rousingcheers, and then some. You’d thinkthat by that time he’d be pretty tired. If ithad been me, I’d have turned around and bittensome of the welcoming committee. Butnot Lindy. He stuck it out, and smiled atthem all.

“And after the country-wide tour wasover, he took his Mexican and Central Americanand South American trip. It was thistrip that clinched his name of ‘Good WillAmbassador,’ although he’d been one to allof the European countries that he went to.In December, seven months after his famousflight, he pointed the nose of the old Spiritof St. Louis south, and lit out for MexicoCity.

“They were pretty anxious to see himdown there, and the Mexican National aviationfield was crowded long before Lindywas due to get there. Everybody knew thatthis was one flyer who always got placeswhen he said he’d get there. He was neveroff schedule. So imagine how everybody feltwhen the time set by him to reach MexicoCity passed, and no Lindy showed up. Well, they were all set to call out the reserves, whenSlim Lindbergh winged into sight, and madea sweet landing on the Mexican field.

“There was some cheering – more, maybethan if he’d got there on schedule, althoughyou don’t see how that could bepossible. They gave Lindy a chance to explainthat he’d been lost in the fog, and then theywent on with their entertaining and celebrating.

“Mexico City was pretty important toLindbergh, although nobody knew it then.Dwight Morrow was Ambassador to Mexicothen, and he had a daughter named Anne.Well, I don’t like to get sentimental – I guessI can’t tell romantic stories – well, anyway, that part comes later.”

Captain Bill saw fit to interrupt the storyhere. He saw that Bob was embarrassed, and saw an opportunity to rub it in. “Whatpart?” he asked, innocently, knocking theheel of ash from his pipe as he did so.

“Oh, you know, Lindy’s marrying AnneMorrow, and that.”

“Well, we certainly demand the wholething. You can’t leave anything out,” insistedBill.

“Aw, all right, but it doesn’t come innow.”

“We can wait,” said Bill, and settled backsatisfied.

“From Mexico City,” went on Bob, gratefulthat his ordeal bad been put off, “Lindyflew off down to Central America. Firsthe zig-zagged a bit to get in all of the littlecountries, and went from Guatemala Cityto Belize in British Honduras, and thenback again to San Salvador, and from thenon straight down the narrow isthmus toTeguci – Teguci – well, that place in Honduras.”

“Tegucigalpa,” said Pat.

“That’s it,” said Bob. “And from Teguci – andfrom there, he went on to Managua, and then to Costa Rica – San Jose.Now he was just about three hundred andtwenty-five miles from the Panama Canal,as the crow flies – or rather, as Lindy flies, which is much better than any crow I’veever seen. He didn’t have any trouble makingthe flight, and say that they weren’t gladto see him down there, especially in theCanal Zone, where the Americans lived.They entertained him royally, and he wentinto the jungles of Panama for a huntingtrip, which must have been great. Theyhave all sorts of wild hogs, deer and pheasants, and it must have made grand hunting.

“But after all, Lindy couldn’t stayanyplace very long. South America was waitingfor him. So he packed himself off, andflew to Cartagena, in Colombia, adding anothercontinent to his list. From Cartagenahe flew to Bogota, and then straight acrossthe top of South America to the east coast.He stayed at Maracay, Venezuela. I neverheard of it before, did any of you?” Bobpaused dramatically for a reply.

There was only a dead silence for a second, and then, since none else spoke, Halfelt called upon to confess his ignorance, “Inever did,” he said. “And gee, Bob, howdo you remember all these places that Lindberghstopped at? I never would in a hundredyears.”

“Oh, it’s easy,” said Bob airily. He didnot tell them of the long hours that he hadspent memorizing the towns and cities thatLindbergh had stopped at in his good willtour, nor the hundreds of times that he hadwished that Lindy had flown to some easyplace like Canada, where the names were allpronounceable. But then, Lindy might haveflown to Wales, and Bob, having seen Welshnames, thanked his lucky stars for suchplaces as Tegucigalpa and Bogota. Andnow, having at least impressed Hal, he wenton with renewed enthusiasm.

“Maracay,” he said, “was the jumpingoff place for the thousand-mile jump to theVirgin Islands. You see, Lindy was on hisway back to the United States. He hoppedfrom island to island in the Caribbean Sea, stopping at San Juan, Porto Rico; SantoDomingo; Port-au-Prince in Hayti; andthen to Havana. From Havana he made thebiggest hop of all, and landed smack in St.Louis without sitting down once along theway. He made some twelve hundred milesin about fifteen and a half hours.

“Somebody figured up how long he hadflown, and how long he took for the whole‘good will’ trip, and found out that he’dmade sixteen flights to fifteen countries, andhad gone 8,235 miles in one hundred and ahalf hours. Of course, that was actual flyingtime. The trip had taken him just twomonths, because he got back to St. Louis onFebruary 13th, and he’d left Boiling Field atWashington on December 13th. But inthose two months Lindy accomplished agreat deal. He’d made friends with all thelittle countries down to our south, and withMexico, too. They understood us better, and we got to understand them better. Gee, wouldn’t it be great if airplanes wouldmake people friendlier? I mean, we’re soclose to each other now, it seems as thoughwe ought to know more about each other, and like each other better. I may not besaying that so well, but you fellows knowwhat I mean, don’t you?”

“That’s a very good philosophy,” saidCaptain Bill, and Bob beamed as broadlyas the moon that had risen over the treesand was shining over the little group in thegarden. “Let’s hope that you’re right.”

“Well, Lindy palled around with his oldbuddies at St. Louis, and carried mail overhis old route to Chicago. He broke up hisflights with going to New York to get amedal from the Woodrow Wilson Foundationfor international peace and understanding, and then he went to Washington to getthe Congressional Medal of Honor. Andhe had to get a new plane, too, from theMahoney people who made the Spirit of St.Louis. I guess Lindy hated to part from theold bus. It was still in great condition, even though he’d flown 40,000 miles in it.But they wanted to put it in the SmithsonianInstitution, and he had to get another.

“It was just about this time, in Aprilof 1928, that Lindbergh had to put hisflying to a stiff test. He was in St. Louiswhen he learned that Floyd Bennett wasvery sick with pneumonia up in Quebec.Bennett was a great fellow, one of the mostpopular aviators of his time. He’d flownwith Byrd to the North Pole, you remember.And in April, although he was sick, and knew he shouldn’t have gone, he flewup to help Captain Koebl and Major Fitzmauriceand Baron von Huenefeld, who’dflown across the Atlantic, and were forceddown off the coast of Labrador. Well, helanded with pneumonia in a Quebec hospital, and they needed some serum in a hurryto save his life. Lindy offered to fly withit, and took off right away for New York.It was 500 miles from New York to Quebec, mostly through fog and snow, and blizzards, but Lindy made it in three hours andthirty-five minutes. The serum didn’t saveFloyd Bennett, though. That plucky scoutdied the day after Lindbergh got there. He’dput up a great fight, but it was no use. Thewhole country felt gloomy over his death, and Lindy especially so, although he’d donehis best to save his pal’s life.

“In June of that year, that is, in 1928,Lindy, – maybe I should call him CharlesAugustus Lindbergh, was appointed thechairman of the technical committee of theTranscontinental Air Transport, the companysending planes cross-country. Thisgave him the chance to be right in on theground – or rather right in the air – of aviationprogress. It wasn’t just an office job, either, because Lindy flew almost as muchafter his appointment as before.

“In 1929 he kept right on flying. That’snot really news. If Lindy stopped flying, that would be news. But in February of’29 he flew the first mail from Miami toColon, in the Panama Canal Zone. Thiswas the inauguration of the Pan-AmericanAirways.

“In February the Morrows announcedthe engagement of Anne Morrow to CharlesAugustus Lindbergh. From then on thereporters and photographers hung aroundin order to be in at the wedding. But Lindyand Anne fooled them. They were marriedin April, and nobody knew anything aboutit. They just got quietly married, and lefton their honeymoon in a yacht.

“From then on, whenever Lindy went ona trip, Anne Lindbergh went with him.She’s a great flyer, and helps Lindy fly onlong stretches. She pilots while he rests.

“The first long trip they took was in ’29.That was the one through Central Americato Belize, in British Honduras. That covered7,000 miles. But they didn’t stop longat Belize. They’d gone there for a reason.They headed their plane over theYucatan peninsula, looking for Mayanruins. You know, the Mayan Indians hada wonderful civilization all built up longbefore the white men came to Yucatan.They had a huge empire, and big cities withbuildings as large as ours. Scientists are alwaysdigging around down there to uncoverthe ruins, so that they can find outabout the Indians, and how they lived, andall that. But it’s hard to find the placeswhere the Maya Indians had their cities.The jungle has grown up so thickly allabout them that it takes days and monthsto get to them. And those that aren’t onrivers are almost impossible to get to.

“So Lindy proved once more that the airplanewas a help to science, and flew overthe old Mayan hang-outs, looking for ruins.He skimmed his plane over the tops of thejungles, so low that it seemed he might almostreach out his hand and grab a branchof one of those giant trees that grow downthere, and he flew slowly, too, so that thescientists that were with him could takepictures.

“They found what they were after, threecities that hadn’t ever been discovered before.And it took only four days, whereit might have taken a party on foot monthsto do the same thing. Anne Lindberghhelped pilot the plane, and take pictures, too.

“There weren’t any more exciting flightsthat year, but early the next year, that is,in 1930, Lindy ordered a new plane. Itwas a Lockheed-Sirius, a monoplane with aWasp motor. It had a flattish-looking nose, but it was graceful just the same. It hadsomething new that Lindy had designedhimself. That was two covers that couldbe slid over the cockpits, so that the pilotswould be protected in bad weather.

“Lindy and Anne had a use for the planeand the cockpit covers very soon. Theyflew across the country one day and brokethe cross-country speed record that existedthen.

“Hardly anybody knew what they wereup to, and there were just a few people atthe Glendale airport, where they startedfrom. It was a terrible day, cold and rainy, and the sun hadn’t come up yet to dry thingsout. But the Lindberghs didn’t care. Theyhad on suits heated by electricity, becausethey knew that it was going to be evencolder where they were going.

“A basket of sandwiches, 400 gallons ofgas, and they were ready. It was hard takingoff, because the load was heavy, butLindy got his flat-nosed Sirius into the airbeautifully, and they disappeared fromsight. Disappeared is the word, because forhours nobody saw them. They were lookingfor them, too, because you can bet onit that as soon as the Lindberghs took off, everybody knew about it. All over the westthe cowboys and Indians were gaping up tosee the blunt-nosed plane, but nobody sawit.

“Then suddenly Anne and Lindy droppedout of the sky at Wichita, Kansas, said hello, they’d like some gas, they’d be in NewYork about eleven, and sailed off.

“They were in New York around eleven, too, and New York was waiting for them, with auto horns, and whistles, and all theother noise that it can make for people whohave gone out and done things. The Lindberghscertainly had done just that. They’dcome across the country with one stop in 14hours and twenty-three minutes and someseconds, and had clipped two and a halfhours off the record then standing.”

“But what happened out’ west?” askedHal. “Why hadn’t anybody seen them?”

“Because you can’t see 10,000 feet into theair, and that’s where the Lindberghs wereflying. Way above the clouds, from 10,000to 15,000 feet high, flying blind, withthe cockpits closed to keep out the cold. It’smighty cold 15,000 feet up in the air. Flyingblind that way, they had to depend upontheir sextant to keep their course, andAnne Lindbergh did her part by using this.She did all the navigating from the backcockpit, and took the controls part of thetime when Lindy rested.

“Lindy and Anne hadn’t intended to seta record. At least, that wasn’t what theyset out to do. They wanted to test out flyingat high altitudes, because Lindy believesthat planes in the future will fly high toavoid storms and wind, and that blind flyingshould be encouraged. That’s why theyflew so high up, out of sight of all landmarks.

“There was no flying for Anne and Lindyafter that for a while, because in June thatyear little Lindy was born. It seems awfullysad now to talk about all the excitementnot only in this country, but all overthe world when that baby was born. Lindywas the world’s hero, and his baby wasadopted by everybody just as Lindy hadbeen. Nobody could have dreamed what aterrible end the Lindbergh baby would cometo.”

Bob paused. The events of the Lindberghbaby’s kidnapping, and the finding ofits body a few months later, after the wholeworld had searched for it, were still fresh.In fact, they were too fresh for Bob to talkabout then, and with the silent consent of allthe men there, he passed over the horribledetails of the case, and in a few momentswent on with his story.

“The Lindberghs have another baby boynow and everybody in the country will protectthis child. People all over the worldwere heartbroken at the death of their firstbaby.

“It was when the baby was a year old, and didn’t require so much attention, thatAnne and Lindy started out on their longesttrip, the flight across the Pacific to China andJapan. That was in July of 1931. Therewas some delay in choosing the route, becausethey had to consider all sorts of things, like chances for refueling, and over-waterflying distances, but finally they decidedthat they’d fly across Canada to Point Barrow,in Alaska, and from there to Nome; then across the Ocean to Karaginsk, fromthere to Nemuro, and on to Tokyo.”

Captain Bill broke in. “Good for youfor remembering that. Did you memorizethe route?”

“I did,” said Bob proudly. “I even drewa map of it. They flew roughly northwest, and then south again, making the two sidesof a triangle, with the point up at the topof Alaska.

“Well, the Lindberghs made their usualcareful preparations. They needed morethan a ham sandwich for this trip. Theplane they chose was a low-winged LockheedSirius with a Wright Whirlwind motor.It was a blunt-nosed ship, painted reddishorange and black. And since they weretraveling over water, it had to be equippedwith floats. These were a new kind of Edofloat, which were grooved on at the bottomto make for less resistance of the water.

“In the tail of the plane they had a prettycomplete emergency kit, which would popout automatically if the plane went under.It had a folding life boat in it, that theycould fill from a bottle of compressed air.It was pretty smooth, with a mast and sailand everything, and though they didn’t; have to use it, it was a mighty nice thing tohave along in case they sat down in themiddle of the ocean. Then, of course, theyhad food and water, and an emergencyradio set, besides the one that AnneLindbergh was going to use. This emergencyone was ready for anything. You couldn’thurt it by getting it wet, or by dropping it.In fact, they tested it by dropping it from ahangar, and then soaking it in water for 24hours. I wouldn’t want anybody to do thatto my radio set, but I guess nothing muchhappened, because the tough radio survivedits tests, and went along with the Lindberghsto China. The rest of their equipmentincluded fifty pounds of food, fivecanteens of water, blankets, and all that sortof thing.

“On July 27th, Anne and Lindy startedout. Washington was their first stop, tomake the first leg official. From there theywent to New York, bound for Maine, to saygoodbye to the baby. But there was troubleright at the start. About two hours afterthey had left New York, the Lindberghs hadto turn back again. Somebody had tamperedwith their radio, and put it out ofworking order. But this was fixed up allright, and they started out again. They gotto North Haven, Maine, in about three anda half hours.

“After spending some time at NorthHaven with Anne’s parents and the baby, theyleft for Ottawa, and from Ottawa forMoose Factory. Just out of Ontario, though, they disappeared. The newspapersran big headlines, ‘Lindberghs Missing.’ Butthey weren’t really missing. That is, theLindberghs knew all along where they were, but their radio was out of order, and theycouldn’t tell anybody else. Pilots were sentout to search for them, and Pilot Cleggfound them in Moose Factory, safe andsound.

“Moose Factory sounds awfully funny, doesn’t it? I’d never heard of it, before theLindberghs landed there, but it’s quite aplace. All one hundred of its people cameout to cheer the flyers.

“On Sunday morning they left MooseFactory, for their 750 mile jump to ChurchillHarbor, in Manitoba. The weatherwasn’t very good for flying – gray andstormy, and the country was gray and flat.All in all, it wasn’t a very pleasant leg oftheir journey, and there was almost ninehours of it. I’ll bet they were glad whenthey flew into Churchill Harbor, and saw thewhole town waiting for them. There wereonly 2,000 people in the town, but then, that probably looked like a pretty big crowdafter all that flying over country withoutseeing anybody or anything. And those2,000 made up for it by being awfullynoisy.

“Baker Lake is 375 miles from Churchill, and that was the next stop. Just three anda quarter hours after they’d left ChurchillHarbor, they got into Baker Lake. Everybodywas waiting for them, and everybodyin this case was made up of Eskimos. Thereare only about six white people in the wholeplace, but they were out, too, and tookcharge of the Lindberghs when they landedthat night. So far so good.

“The Lockheed up to now was workingperfectly – the trip was going off as scheduled – justas all of Slim’s trips go off asscheduled. From Baker Lake the going wasto be harder. The next stop was Aklavik,on the MacKenzie River. Aklavik is prettyfar north, just about 130 miles within theArctic Circle, and the route called for ajump of over 1,000 miles across this coldcountry. But Slim and Anne made it. Theydid that 1,000 miles in eleven and a halfhours, which was some going. They hadthe Aurora Borealis with them, because thefarther north they went, the brighter thelights grew, and flying at night was as easyas flying by day.