[Illustration: ©_Wide World Photos_ “WE”] “WE” BY CHARLES A. LINDBERGH THE FAMOUS FLIER’S OWN STORY OF HIS LIFE AND HIS TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT, TOGETHER WITH HIS VIEWS ON THE FUTURE OF AVIATION WITH A FOREWORD BY MYRON T. HERRICK U. S. AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE [Illustration] FULLY ILLUSTRATED G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS NEW YORK--LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1927 Copyright, 1927 by Charles A. Lindbergh This is a copy of the First Edition of “WE” [Illustration: G.P. Putnam’s Sons] July, 1927 [Illustration: The Knickerbocker Press New York] Made in the United States of America DEDICATED TO MY MOTHER AND TO THE MEN WHOSE CONFIDENCE AND FORESIGHT MADE POSSIBLE THE FLIGHT OF THE “SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS” MR. HARRY H. KNIGHT MAJOR WILLIAM B. ROBERTSON MAJOR ALBERT BOND LAMBERT MR. J. D. WOOSTER LAMBERT MR. HAROLD M. BIXBY MR. EARL C. THOMPSON MR. HARRY F. KNIGHT MR. E. LANSING RAY FOREWORD When Joan of Arc crowned her King at Rheims she became immortal. When Lafayette risked his all to help the struggling Americans he wrote his memory forever across a mighty continent. Shepherd boy David in five minutes achieved with his sling a place in history which has defied all time. These three shining names represent the triumph of the idealism of youth, and we would not speak of them with such reverence today had their motives been less pure or had they ever for an instant thought of themselves or their place in history. So it was with Lindbergh, and all the praise awarded him, judged by the rigid standards of history and precedent, he has merited. He was the instrument of a great ideal and one need not be fanatically religious to see in his success the guiding hand of providence. For he was needed and he came at the moment which seemed exactly prëordained. He was needed by France and needed by America, and had his arrival been merely the triumph of a great adventure the influence of his act would have gone no further than have other great sporting and commercial achievements. There have been moments here in France when all that my eye could reach or my intelligence fathom appeared dark and foreboding and yet, in spite of all, my soul would be warmed as by invisible sunshine. At such times when all human efforts had apparently failed, suddenly the affairs of nations seemed to be taken from out of the hands of men and directed by an unseen power on high. Just before the Battle of the Marne I was standing on the Seine embankment.