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Charles Lindbergh, racist & Nazi sympathizer



 
 
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  #2  
Old July 6th 03, 01:19 PM
JDupre5762
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"codefy" wrote
Some American hero.

When Lindbergh died in Hawaii did he consider the people there with
any more maturity than when he made his racist comments or did he just
consider them his coolies ?


Lindbergh died in what 1973? There had been a lot of change in Americans views
toward race by that time. I think above all Lindbergh was an American and
while he probably echoed the prevalent racial and isolationist views of the
1920's and 1930's in his heyday, ultimately he would be swayed by performance
and character. By the end of his life he could not have been ignorant of the
Tuskegee Airmen, Chappie James and Jesse Brown let alone Jackie Robinson. I
can't prove it but I dare say he would have rather forgotten any racist remarks
he might have made. Don't forget that after Pearl Harbor Lindbergh volunteered
for active duty and was denied several times by Roosevelt who harbored a grudge
over Lindbergh's comments on the superiority of the Luftwaffe in the late
1930's. A superiority that was as much Roosevelt's responsibility as it was
Hitler's.
Lindbergh's comments in those days were that the German's were so superior to
us and we were so hopelessly outclassed we could not possibly affect the
outcome of a modern war in Europe so why bother. He was right of course the US
Army was not even in the top ten in size in the world. Bulgaria had a larger
standing army. A single Luftflotte in 1940 had more aicraft than the entire US
Army Air Corps.

Lindbergh was guilty more of naivete' than Nazism. Lindbergh was taken in in
many ways by such ruses as the only handful of a bomber type being flown from
factory to factory and put back in the "production line" for him to examine all
over again.

John Dupre'
  #3  
Old July 6th 03, 02:51 PM
Gooneybird
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"JDupre5762" wrote in message
...
"codefy" wrote


(Snip)

.....Don't forget that after Pearl Harbor Lindbergh volunteered
for active duty and was denied several times by Roosevelt who harbored a

grudge
over Lindbergh's comments on the superiority of the Luftwaffe in the late
1930's. A superiority that was as much Roosevelt's responsibility as it was
Hitler's.


Your biases are showing. Roosevelt took office in the middle of a roaring
depression and was elected not to build a war machine, but to resuscitate the
moribund economy. The public would not have tolerated a rebuilding and
expansion of our military while masses of Americans were still out of work.

Lindbergh's comments in those days were that the German's were so superior to
us and we were so hopelessly outclassed we could not possibly affect the
outcome of a modern war in Europe so why bother. He was right of course.....


He was wrong of course. He had never envisioned that an "arsenal of democracy",
as Roosevelt called it, was even vaguely possible....one that could produce
50,000 warplanes in a year. He may have been right at the time he made that
statement, but he was clearly wrong in the final analysis.


.....the US Army was not even in the top ten in size in the world. Bulgaria

had a larger
standing army. A single Luftflotte in 1940 had more aicraft than the entire

US
Army Air Corps.

Lindbergh was guilty more of naivete' than Nazism. Lindbergh was taken in in
many ways by such ruses as the only handful of a bomber type being flown from
factory to factory and put back in the "production line" for him to examine

all
over again.


At the time he was invited to Germany to be given the wining and dining and
propaganda tour, he went as a private citizen and allowed himself and his good
name to be used by the Nazi Government for their own purposes. He should have
been able to foresee that his involvement with them could not help but rub off
on him, but he went anyway, without our government's blessings. The tarnishing
of his name was the price he paid for his folly.

George Z.

John Dupre'



  #4  
Old July 6th 03, 03:00 PM
James Linn
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"S. Sampson" wrote in message
...
"codefy" wrote
Some American hero.

When Lindbergh died in Hawaii did he consider the people there with
any more maturity than when he made his racist comments or did he just
consider them his coolies ?

If there's a Hell I'm sure Lindbergh is roasting there for his racism
& Nazi sympathies.

You have to wonder how Lindbergh's grandson deals with that nasty part
of the legend that he's living off of.


Lindbergh's been dead longer than you've been alive. Only a red-neck
would equate pacifism with sympathism.


Just watched A&E Biography on the man - he was more than sympathetic - he
admired Hitler. At one point he was going to move to Germany(1938), but
Kristallnacht disturbed him and his wife, so he never bought the house and
did move back to America.

I'd have to say that while he was a mechanical genius and great aviator, he
wasn't a great intellectual. He seems to have absorbed the views of some of
his friends and made them his own. While his views on eugenics and Jews were
and are abhorrent, I'm not sure they came from his heart either. He was
caught up in hero worship - of Hitler and others. And he seemed also to be
a contrarians - whatever Roosevelt said was bad. It cost him his Army Air
Corps Career.

And yes he was snowed by the Nazis about the power of the Luftwaffe - they
played him - and he delivered the message the Nazi's wanted -that the
Luftwaffe was invincible. Lindbergh passed the message on to Ambassador
Kennedy - who was more than ready to believe it, being anti British. More
discerning people in the state department took it with a grain of salt.

I'm sure someone here has read a decent biography of the man which covers
this stuff.

James Linn


  #5  
Old July 6th 03, 03:12 PM
Cecil Turner
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James Linn wrote:

"S. Sampson" wrote in message
...
"codefy" wrote
Some American hero.

When Lindbergh died in Hawaii did he consider the people there with
any more maturity than when he made his racist comments or did he just
consider them his coolies ?

If there's a Hell I'm sure Lindbergh is roasting there for his racism
& Nazi sympathies.

You have to wonder how Lindbergh's grandson deals with that nasty part
of the legend that he's living off of.


Lindbergh's been dead longer than you've been alive. Only a red-neck
would equate pacifism with sympathism.


Just watched A&E Biography on the man - he was more than sympathetic - he
admired Hitler. At one point he was going to move to Germany(1938), but
Kristallnacht disturbed him and his wife, so he never bought the house and
did move back to America.

I'd have to say that while he was a mechanical genius and great aviator, he
wasn't a great intellectual. He seems to have absorbed the views of some of
his friends and made them his own. While his views on eugenics and Jews were
and are abhorrent, I'm not sure they came from his heart either. He was
caught up in hero worship - of Hitler and others. And he seemed also to be
a contrarians - whatever Roosevelt said was bad. It cost him his Army Air
Corps Career.

And yes he was snowed by the Nazis about the power of the Luftwaffe - they
played him - and he delivered the message the Nazi's wanted -that the
Luftwaffe was invincible. Lindbergh passed the message on to Ambassador
Kennedy - who was more than ready to believe it, being anti British. More
discerning people in the state department took it with a grain of salt.

I'm sure someone here has read a decent biography of the man which covers
this stuff.

Make sure it also covers his work in the Pacific during WWII as a civilian tech rep in
front-line units (flight test and profiling P-38s that resulted in nearly double
operational range). Provides a bit of balance.

rgds,
KTF
  #6  
Old July 6th 03, 04:27 PM
Cecil Turner
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"George R. Gonzalez" wrote:

"Cecil Turner" wrote in message
...

Make sure it also covers his work in the Pacific during WWII as a civilian

tech rep in
front-line units (flight test and profiling P-38s that resulted in nearly

double
operational range). Provides a bit of balance.

rgds,
KTF


I've always wondered about this..... I first read abot his range-enhancing
exploits in reader's Digest when I was about 13 yrs old, and it greatly
impressed me at the time.

Since then, I've picked up a few old airplane tech manuals, and at least in
the B-17, B-29, B-24, P-51 ones I've seen, they ALL have charts in the back
with all kinds of airspeed-vs-manifold pressure vs rpm vs range curves.
The B-24 manual IIRC even goes to great lengths explaining the right way to
lean out the engines, and several scary stories about the crews that never
made it back to base because they forgot to go to lean-running mode.

So did the P-38 go out to the pilots without any range vs airspeed vs rpm vs
mixture charts??

Or did the pilots ignore the charts, or what?

Methinks the Linberg story is a bit too neat to be totally correct.

No expert here, but I just saw a special on the History Channel where they covered it at
length. Apparently the settings normally used were fuel rich to avoid damaging the
engines (if they supplied the specifics I missed 'em). Lindbergh tested new profiles,
followed by a teardown inspection of the engines to look for damage (there wasn't any),
followed by charting same. Numerous interviews of pilots and mechanics who were there,
all gave glowing endorsements, and said he effectively doubled their range. Followed by
coverage of some long-range raids that were impossible before. It was convincing to me.

rgds,
KTF
  #7  
Old July 6th 03, 04:34 PM
Lawrence Dillard
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"George R. Gonzalez" wrote in message
t...

"Cecil Turner" wrote in message
...

Make sure it also covers his work in the Pacific during WWII as a

civilian
tech rep in
front-line units (flight test and profiling P-38s that resulted in

nearly
double
operational range). Provides a bit of balance.

rgds,
KTF


I've always wondered about this..... I first read abot his

range-enhancing
exploits in reader's Digest when I was about 13 yrs old, and it greatly
impressed me at the time.

Since then, I've picked up a few old airplane tech manuals, and at least

in
the B-17, B-29, B-24, P-51 ones I've seen, they ALL have charts in the

back
with all kinds of airspeed-vs-manifold pressure vs rpm vs range curves.
The B-24 manual IIRC even goes to great lengths explaining the right way

to
lean out the engines, and several scary stories about the crews that never
made it back to base because they forgot to go to lean-running mode.

So did the P-38 go out to the pilots without any range vs airspeed vs rpm

vs
mixture charts??

Or did the pilots ignore the charts, or what?


It may have been a combination of both. "You can tell a fighter pilot, but
you can't tell him very much" is an old saying. Proper understanding of
m.p. vs prop rpm vs airpeed vs range might have saved quite a few engines
and pilots' lives.


Methinks the Linberg story is a bit too neat to be totally correct.


I second your apparent reservations on this matter. The idea of improving
range by appropriate engine manipulation was not at all new. Experienced
transport (including airliner) pilots had known prior to the onset of WWII
that the best economy in the use of fuel involved the cruise regimen.

By dint of trial and error, it became obvious to pilots that if while in
cruise, the a/c were trimmed properly (and due attention paid to this during
the flight), then best fuel economy, and hence the best range, was obtained
by using a combination of high manifold pressure, low prop rpm, and a lean
fuel mixture.

For the P-38, the pilot was supposed to use his drop tanks after takeoff and
forming up, and to employ a high enough manifold pressure as to assure a
swift spin-up to max turbosupercharger speed, in combination with low prop
rpm and auto-lean. The Allison featured a so-called "pent-roof" combustion
chamber, which was supposed to allow for both large power production and
efficient combustion with lean mixtures. When nearing the combat arena, the
P-38 pilot was supposed to switch to internal fuel, drop wing tanks, go from
auto-lean to rich mixture and increase prop rpms; given that the manifold
pressure already was high, the turbosupercharger would spin up to max speed
quickly under the circumstances, the pilot would quickly have max power to
utilize, and he would have the speedy acceleration to combat speed he
desired..

Apparently, many P-38 pilots had been operating under the assumption that a
rather different combination of manifold pressure and rpms (i.e., a somewhat
lower m.p. and higher rpm combination) would give them the fuel economy they
desired and yet allow for swift conversion to combat-ready status; however,
in most cases, the manifold pressure used proved to be too low to allow for
a quick spool-up of the turbosuperchargers (at the very time when more power
was needed Right Now), which was the limiting factor in power production,
and at the same time the prop rpms selected led to too many engine rpms
during cruise, damaging to fuel economy. So the pilot would find both that
he'd used a lot of precious fuel before the fight was on, and that too much
time was needed to accelerate to combat speeds.

Conversely, when a P-38 pilot operated at high m.p. and low prop rpm in lean
mixture, the steps he needed to take (auto-rich, increase prop rpms) would
give him the power and acceleration he wanted faster than if he operated his
engines otherwise, and he would also have burned less fuel prior to entering
combat.

As you note, the tables (if available) would have spelled all this out.
Alternatively, practically any transport pilot could have cleared up any
confusion in a few minutes (if a fighter pilot would have deigned to
listen).




Regards,


George





  #8  
Old July 6th 03, 05:06 PM
Chris Mark
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Lindbergh gets a little more attention than he deserves; the fate of the pop
celebrity, I suppose. Many more deserving intellectuals espoused isolationism,
though they are long-forgotten now.

Lindbergh's fate is, however, a reminder of how dangerous it can be to go
against the political tides.
Another, more significant and serious example of this is the poet Robinson
Jeffers, once vastly popular, but condemned to obscurity by his opposition to
US foreign policy. He could write about incest and bestiality and make the
cover of Time magazine, but once he wrote, in his poem "Pearl Harbor," such
lines as, ".... The men who have conspired and labored to embroil this republic
in the wreck of Europe have got their bargain--and a bushel more...." and
"....The war that we have carefully for years provoked Catches us unprepared,
amazed and indignant. Our warships are shot Like sitting ducks and our planes
like nest-birds, both our coasts ridiculously panicked, And our leaders make
orations...." he was professionally dead and his popularity crashed, never to
fully recover.
Like Lindbergh, he hovered around the edges of the culture after the war, a
figure from a past era whose continued presence seems to have made people
uncomfortable.

Jeffers was compared by Freeman Dyson to Einstein, not just because of his
political and social vision but also his desire to discover a broader, truer
sense of the universe and our place in it. Environmentalists like David Brower
were drawn to him, and scientists like Loren Eisley; great historians of
religion like Joseph Campbell and Huston Smith were avid students of Jeffers;
and the photographers Ansel Adams and Edward Weston rooted their understanding
of the sublime in nature, which they tried to capture in their art, in their
reading of Jeffers. Of Tor House, the home in Carmel that Jeffers built for his
strikingly beautiful wife Una with his own hands, stone by stone, incorporating
such things as a meteor fragment and a stone from Ossian's grave, Stewart
Brand, who wrote the classic "How Buildings Learn," said it was "the most
intelligent building per square inch ever built in America."

None of that mattered once Jeffers raised his voice against US foreign policy.
I don't expect A&E, that citadel of intellectualism, to ever run a story on
Robinson Jeffers, but he and Lindbergh seem to have had a lot in common, at
least in their political views (I believe Lindbergh was also a
proto-environmentalist like Jeffers). And they shared a common fate as losers
in a vastly important debate on the position the US should play in the world.

None of this is ancient history as the US is at a strikingly similar crossroads
as it redefines its place in the world post 9-11. In Lindbergh's time, the
opposition was a branch of the Republican party. This time the opposition is a
branch of the Democratic party. That's about all that has changed.


Chris Mark
  #9  
Old July 6th 03, 06:25 PM
suckthis.com
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Another freakin liberal trying to defame and change historic figures..........
  #10  
Old July 6th 03, 10:01 PM
Tiger
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Mr. Codefy,
Don't take things out of context. Lindbergh was not any more
racist than anybody else in 1940's America. He thought the Germans had a
good air force and they gave him the red carpet treatment when he was
over there. He was a pro neutrality guy, but later flew some combat in
the Pacific in P38's ( unofficially got 2 kills). Your venom is really
off target here.

codefy wrote:

Some American hero.

When Lindbergh died in Hawaii did he consider the people there with
any more maturity than when he made his racist comments or did he just
consider them his coolies ?

If there's a Hell I'm sure Lindbergh is roasting there for his racism
& Nazi sympathies.

You have to wonder how Lindbergh's grandson deals with that nasty part
of the legend that he's living off of.


 




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