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To: MinuteGal
How great to hear a personal connection story, MinuteGal.
14 posted on 05/02/2002 7:50:31 AM PDT by homeschool mama
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To: homeschool mama
Lindbergh & the America First Committee

"If any one of these groups--the British, the Jewish, or the administration--stops agitating for war, I believe there will be little danger of our involvement."
Charles Lindbergh- September 11, 1941

On September 11, 1941, Charles Lindbergh appeared in Des Moines, Iowa, to speak on behalf of the isolationist America First Committee. The famous aviator criticized the groups he perceived were leading America into war for acting against the country's interests. He expressed doubt that the U.S. military would achieve victory in a war against Germany, which he said had "armies stronger than our own." The Des Moines speech was met with outrage in many quarters, and Lindbergh was denounced as an anti-Semite. In his hometown of Little Falls, Minnesota, his name was even removed from the town's water tower.

Six years earlier, Lindbergh had moved to England with his wife to escape the publicity surrounding the kidnapping and murder of their infant son. In 1936, he inspected Germany's military aviation program on behalf of the U.S. government, and in August attended the Summer Olympic Games in Berlin as a guests of Nazi Hermann Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe. Impressed by German industry and society under Adolf Hitler, the Lindberghs considered moving to Berlin.

In 1938, Goering presented Lindbergh with the Service Cross of the German Eagle for his contributions to aviation. Returning to America in 1939, Lindbergh became an advocate of American isolationism, but was criticized for his Nazi sympathies and anti-Semitic beliefs.

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and debate over U.S. war policy came to an end. Lindbergh, who had resigned his military commission in 1939, asked to be reinstated, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt refused. The middle-aged Lindbergh later made it to the Pacific as an observer, and eventually ended up flying over two dozen combat missions, including one in which he downed a Japanese aircraft.

From lindbergh.com

17 posted on 05/02/2002 7:54:52 AM PDT by Pharmboy
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To: homeschool mama
My mom often commented on how good-looking the young Lindy was. I wondered if she had a crush on him, LOL.

Well, she did the next best thing. She married my dad who was also named "Charles", heheh.

Leni

18 posted on 05/02/2002 8:06:10 AM PDT by MinuteGal
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