Lindbergh's Flight to Paris

On the evening of May 20th, 1927 Charles Lindbergh learned that the weather had begun to clear and returned to Roosevelt Field to make preparations for a dawn departure. The weather over the field remained poor all night, but this didn't worry an experienced airmail pilot like Lindbergh, though he hoped it would deter his two rivals Commander Byrd and Clarence Chamberlin.

At dawn it was still drizzling. Lindbergh's plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, was carrying a thousand pounds more than it ever had and the moisture on the fuselage made it even heavier. As he reached the start of the sodden runway, the wind changed direction from ahead to behind. He started off down the runway, the wheels sluggish on the saturated ground and halfway along the wheels became airborne briefly, then dropped back into the wet, lifted again, lifted a third time, rose a little higher and cleared the telephone wires at the end of the runway by twenty feet.

Thirty-three hours later he landed at Le Bourget airport in Paris to the delight of the throngs of people there to greet him. Life as Lindbergh had known it ended the moment the Spirit of St. Louis touched French ground. Almost at once the honors began. The French President decorated him with the Cross of the Legion d'Honneur and the Mayor of Paris with the city's Gold Medal.

At Buckinghman Palace the King asked him how he'd managed to pee during the flight, and Lindbergh told him in an aluminum container which he ditched just before he landed. By this time the American people were growing impatient to honor him themselves and President Coolidge sent an admiral and a cruiser to get him.

In New York three to four million people watched a ticker tape parade that ended with a speech by the mayor "Colonel Lindbergh, New York City is yours, I give it to you." He received the first of two million fan letters and gifts, all of which he could have done without.

At the end of the year Ambassador Dwight Morrow asked Lindbergh if he would consider a flying goodwill visit to Mexico City before Christmas. Lindbergh accepted. He and Morrow drove in a motorcade through cheering crowds. Lindbergh then met Morrow's wife Elizabeth, and Constance, the youngest of his three daughters. His two older daughters Elisabeth and Anne would be home for Christmas in a week.