Charles Lindbergh in WWII

Tojo72

Was totally fascinated to find out that Linbergh flew 50 missions as a civilian in P-38's and even has one victory.Never heard that till today until I saw a Smithsonian Channel show on the P-38

Read that somewhere in the '70s...probably in Edward Jablonski's epic Airwar.

Apparently when the news 'leaked' up the chain of command, the squadron CO of the unit involved was told in no uncertain terms that "Mister" Lindberg would fly no more 'demonstration flights' in the combat zone.

Understandably, nobody wanted to be the one to try to explain to the American people how 'Lucky Lindy' might have gotten himself shot down as a nominal civilian.

Tojo72

Was totally fascinated to find out that Linbergh flew 50 missions as a civilian in P-38's and even has one victory.Never heard that till today until I saw a Smithsonian Channel show on the P-38

 

Don't have cable, so didn't see show.  My understanding is that he was there to show them how to increase range with proper control of the mixture control on the -38s.

I think he also helped adapt Marine F4U's for ground attack.  He experimented with lifting bigger and bigger bombs.  I'll check my references, but I think they got them lifting loads similar to a B-17 (though with a lot less range)!

He seemed to partake in a lot of strafing attacks.

Learn something new every day.....never would have thought that with his stance on staying out of "Europe's War" prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.  

He had his beliefs, but once we got into it, he did his part to assure sucess.

Yup, never knew he flew actual combat missions. Long ago I read that Lindey was sent to various locations to develope performance efficiency improvements, extending range by combinations of RPM, manifold pressures and mixture settings. Quite a sophisticated and complex arrangement. It seems to have made really measurable results.

Patrick

On July 28th, Lindbergh was flying with the 433rd FS on an escort mission when they heard over the radio a fellow squadron was tangling with some Japanese fighters and were running low on ammo.  Led by Colonel Charles MacDonald, the 433rd along with Charles Lindbergh, entered the dogfight.  Lindbergh found himself meeting head on with a Ki-51 "Sonia" flown by Captain Saburo Shimada.  Lindbergh's bullets found their mark and the Ki-51 crashed into the ocean.

For a more detailed account, find "Aces High" by Bill Yenne, Chapter 30 "July 1944: The Lone Eagle on His Wing".

I don't know:

    My family, All refugees from that War felt differently. That Man's name was NEVER to be mentioned in front the Elders! After studying about him I changed my views. After All, everyone makes Mistakes! Even National Heros ! 

Cdn Colin

I think he also helped adapt Marine F4U's for ground attack.  He experimented with lifting bigger and bigger bombs.  I'll check my references, but I think they got them lifting loads similar to a B-17 (though with a lot less range)!

 

According to biographies on Joe Foss, that was how he ended up in the Pacific.  He was a test pilot on the Corsair transition project in the States and was requested by Foss to come into the field to get the Marines updated on the latest techniques on safely flying the F4U.  Foss was tired to losing pilots to landing and take off quirks.  As a bonus, Lindberg got to work with Foss on combat tactics, and of coarse, the only way to do that was fly combat.

Even though Foss got it originally approved for Lindberg to fly combat, the brass got pressure from higher up that it wasn't in the US best interest to risk Lindberg getting killed or captured in combat and pulled Lindberg from the project, until he was again sent out to evaluate flight performance and tactics for the Army and again, ended up in combat, and again, had his wings clipped, I think by Roosevelt himself, but I have to check.  

I had read this before and found it very interesting. Does anyone know what training Lindberg had that made him uniquely qualified to do this? In other words, why would he be better at it than the military guys that flew the plane?

There is an amazing book (I listened to the audiobook....used to have long daily commutes...) called 'The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh and the Epic Age of Flight' that goes into detail about this as well as the history of all three becoming famous in the air.  I highly recommend it!

Compressorman

I had read this before and found it very interesting. Does anyone know what training Lindberg had that made him uniquely qualified to do this? In other words, why would he be better at it than the military guys that flew the plane?

Dating back to his earliest flying days...well before his trans-Atlantic solo flight, and continuing well after...Lindberg had extensive theoretical and practical experience with getting the most range from a given quantity of fuel. Altering throttle settings and altitude to extend your operating range was something few 'new' pilots -- and even precious few engineers -- had much of a feel for. He'd made a 'science' of it.

Joe Potts, a P-47 pilot escorted many flights of bombers and they frequently ran out of gas or were running on fumes on the way home. Lindberg stopped at their base one day and gave them the talk about increasing flying time. Joe said after that there was no more running out of gas in their group. He had an autographed photo of him with Lindberg. It's still in the family.

Jim  

Hello!

This thread made me read Lindbergh's wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh

Other than his racist point of view, the most fascinating thing that I found there is the info about how he managed to have children with three separate German women - of course his family in the USA didn't have any clue about that... And his German chcildren didn't know that their father was famous, neither - now it takes some talent to pull something like that off, but unfortunately I can't say it's all right...

All that doesn't change the fact what a great aviator he was. Just that being an authority on fuel consumption doesn't automatically make you a moral authority - I guess we all know that, but tent to forget...

Have a nice day

Paweł