ecause it was the first time that Anne Lindbergh was able to shake herself out of the lethargy and sadness she had felt since the death of the baby. As an expert radio operator Anne was an enormous help to Charles, and she later chronicled their experiences in a book titled Listen! The Wind.On December 22, 1935 Charles and Anne moved to Europe. While there Charles made three visits to Nazi Germany, flight-tested Luftwaffe aircraft, and received a medal from Hermann Goering. After returning to the United States in 1939, Lindbergh became a prominent advocate of American isolationism and was a member of the America First Committee. He laid full blame for the war on big business, and argued that the strife was none of America's business. He was criticized as being pro-German and was forced to resign his commission in the air corps reserve and his membership in the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Ironically, an America First Rally was taking place the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. During World War II Lindbergh was a civilian consultant to aircraft manufacturers and was sent on overseas missions for the U.S. Army Air Force. By the end of the war, he had secretly flown fifty combat missions in the Far East, and shot down a Japanese fighter; he also proved that the combat radius and bomb-load capacity of several U.S. fighter aircraft could be increased. While on a trip to Kenya in 1964Lindbergh said this: Lying under an acacia tree, with sounds of dawn around me, I realized more clearly, in fact, what man should never overlook: that the construction of an airplane, for instance, is simple when compared with the evolutionary achievement of a bird; that airplanes depend upon advanced civilization; and that where civilization is most advanced, few birds exist.I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes. I began to question the definition of assigned progress. Lindbergh had been in New York, m...
