F4U and Charles Lindbergh

[Viking1]

This seems to be where we are sharing historical records. We could use a History section here. Meanwhile...

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On 2 September 1944, Charles Lindbergh climbed into an F4U Corsair carrying a 1,000-pound bomb and headed for a Japanese-held island in the Marshall Islands.

Yes, that Charles Lindbergh.

Seventeen years after becoming the first person to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic, Lindbergh was in the Pacific as a civilian technical representative for United Aircraft Corporation, Vought's parent company. He had resigned his Army Air Corps commission in 1941 amid controversy over his outspoken opposition to American entry into World War II.

Lindbergh's prewar record remains one of the darker and more complicated parts of his legacy. He had visited Nazi Germany repeatedly, accepted a German decoration from Hermann Göring in 1938, became a leading spokesman for the isolationist America First Committee, and drew widespread condemnation for a 1941 speech blaming, among others, "the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration" for pushing America toward war.

Pearl Harbor changed the question. Lindbergh supported the war effort after the United States was attacked and attempted to return to military service, but the Roosevelt administration would not restore his commission. Instead, he went to the Pacific as a civilian adviser, ostensibly to help improve aircraft performance and operating techniques. Remarkably, he also flew combat missions.

By September 1944, Lindbergh was at Roi with Marine Air Group 31, whose Corsairs were attacking bypassed Japanese positions in the Marshalls. On September 2, he joined 19 Marine F4Us on a strike against Taroa in Maloelap Atoll. Each carried a 1,000-pound bomb, with Lindbergh flying last so he could observe the Marines' techniques.

The Corsairs climbed to about 8,000 feet and made roughly 60-degree diving attacks, releasing around 3,000 feet. Lindbergh recorded that most of the bombs struck in or near the target area and one started a fuel fire. Despite accurate Japanese anti-aircraft fire, he returned safely to Roi.

The mission itself wasn't revolutionary. Marines had already been using Corsairs as fighter-bombers for months.

What followed was.

The next day, Lindbergh demonstrated that a Corsair could take off carrying three 1,000-pound bombs. Working with Marine personnel, particularly Maj. Francis Clark, he then helped push the idea further. On September 8, Lindbergh dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on Wotje.

Within days they reached the extreme: one 2,000-pound bomb under the fuselage and a 1,000-pound bomb beneath each wing. Four thousand pounds of bombs carried by a single-engine fighter.

Lindbergh didn't invent the Corsair fighter-bomber, but his experiments helped demonstrate just how much offensive capability could be wrung from the big F4U.

And there is an extraordinary contradiction in the man at the center of the story: one of America's most controversial prewar isolationists, barred from returning to military service, nevertheless flying combat missions against the Axis as a civilian.