The Flight: Charles Lindbergh's

Hampton (The Hunter Killers) writes a painstaking account of Charles Lindbergh's remarkable 1927 flight from Long Island, NY, to Paris. Significant aspects of the aviator's early years, character, and adulthood are defined, but Hampton does not intend to provide a detailed assessment of Lindbergh's life. Instead, he succeeds in placing readers in the cockpit of the Spirit of St. Louis during Lindbergh's more than 33-hour aerial sojourn on May 20–21, 1927. This notable voyage ended with victory celebrations in Paris, Brussels, London, and the United States. Also addressed is Lindbergh's prewar isolationist involvement in the America First Committee, voluntary exile in Europe, later feud with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and World War II years as a technical advisor and combat pilot. The aviator's main contribution to history came in the late 1920s, insists Hampton, when "America realized that innocence was not totally lost nor honor dead, and through Charles Lindbergh they [its citizens] finally had something, and someone, to believe in again."