Description
BRITISH INTER-WAR PHOTO ALBUM – ORIGINAL CHARLES LINDBERGH FIRST POST TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT
British photo album with original unpublished images of CHARLES LINDBERGH landing at Croyden England, his first stop after the world’s first NY to PARIS transatlantic flight in 1927.
After Belgium, Lindbergh traveled to the United Kingdom. He departed Brussels and arrived at Croydon Air Field in the Spirit on May 29, where a crowd of 100,000 “mobbed” him.[99][100][101] Before reaching the airfield, Lindbergh overflew London where crowds, some on roofs, “gazed at the flyer” and observers with “field glasses in the West End business district” watched him.[102] About 50 minutes before Lindbergh landed, the “roads leading toward Croydon airport were jammed.”[102] Flying into the airfield, he “appeared on the horizon” at 5:50 PM accompanied by six British military planes, but the massive crowd “swept over the guard lines” and forced Lindbergh to circle the airfield “while police battled the crowd”, and “not until 10 minutes later had they cleared a space large enough” for him to land.[102] Police reserves were sent to the airfield in “large numbers”, but it was not enough to contain the multitude. As the plane came to a stop, the crowd “waved American flags, smashed fences, and knocked down police”, while Lindbergh himself was described as “grinning and serene” amid the “seething” crowd.[102] The United Press reported that a “man’s leg was broken in the crush”, and another man fell from atop a hangar and suffered internal injuries.[102] English officials were reportedly “surprised” by the enthusiasm of the welcome.[102] A limousine pulled near the Spirit, escorting Lindbergh to a tower on the field where he responded to the cheering crowd. “All I can say is that this is worse than what happened at Le Bourget Field”, Lindbergh told them. “But all the same, I’m glad to be here.”[102] When he reached the reception room where British Secretary of State for Air Sir Samuel Hoare, U.S. Ambassador Alanson B. Houghton, and others waited, Lindbergh’s first words were: “Save my plane!”[102] Mechanics moved the Spirit to a hangar where it was placed “under a military guard.”[102] Also present at Croydon were former Secretary of State for Air Lord Thomson, Director of Civil Aviation Sir Sefton Brancker, and Brig. Gen. P. R. C. Groves.[102]
