page_title: Charles Lindbergh
section_title: In Europe (1936–1939)
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Lindbergh / Personal life / In Europe (1936–1939)
caption_attribution_description: English: Charles Lindbergh and his 3-year old son, Jon, arriving in self exile at Liverpool, England on the United States Lines freighter S.S. American Importer, December 31, 1935. (Universal Newsreel)
context_page_description: Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. At the age of 25 in 1927, he went from obscurity as a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame by winning the Orteig Prize for making a nonstop flight from New York City to Paris. Lindbergh covered the ​33 ¹⁄₂-hour, 3,600-statute-mile flight alone in a purpose-built, single-engine Ryan monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis. Although not the first non-stop transatlantic flight, this was the first solo transatlantic flight, the first transatlantic flight between two major city hubs, and the longest transatlantic flight by almost 2,000 miles, thus it is widely considered a turning point in the development of aviation.
  Lindbergh was an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve, and he received the United States' highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his transatlantic flight. His achievement spurred interest in both commercial aviation and air mail, which revolutionized the aviation industry, and he devoted much time and effort to promoting such activity.
context_section_description: An intensely private man, Lindbergh became exasperated by the unrelenting public attention in the wake of the kidnapping and Hauptmann trial, and was concerned for the safety of his three-year-old second son, Jon. Consequently, in the predawn hours of Sunday, December 22, 1935, the family "sailed furtively" from Manhattan for Liverpool, the only three passengers aboard the United States Lines freighter SS American Importer. They traveled under assumed names and with diplomatic passports issued through the personal intervention of Treasury Secretary Ogden L. Mills.
  News of the Lindberghs' "flight to Europe" did not become public until a full day later, and even after the identity of their ship became known radiograms addressed to Lindbergh on it were returned as "Addressee not aboard".
  They arrived in Liverpool on December 31, then departed for South Wales to stay with relatives.
  The family eventually rented "Long Barn" in Sevenoaks Weald, Kent. In 1938, the family moved to Île Illiec, a small four-acre island Lindbergh purchased off the Breton coast of France.
  Except for a brief visit to the U.S. in December 1937, the family (including a third son, Land, born May 1937 in London) lived and traveled extensively in Europe before returning to the U.S. in April 1939, settling in a rented seaside estate at Lloyd Neck, Long Island, New York. The return was prompted by a personal request by General H. H. ("Hap") Arnold, the chief of the United States Army Air Corps in which Lindbergh was a reserve colonel, for him to accept a temporary return to active duty to help evaluate the Air Corp's readiness for war. His duties included evaluating new aircraft types in development, recruitment procedures, and finding a site for a new air force research institute and other potential air bases. Assigned a Curtiss P-36 fighter, he toured various facilities, reporting back to Wright Field. Lindbergh's brief four-month tour was also his first period of active military service since his graduation from the Army's Flight School fourteen years earlier in 1925.
caption: Newsreel still of Lindbergh family arrival in England, December 31, 1935
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