Jon Morrow Lindbergh (August 16, 1932 – July 29, 2021) was an American underwater diver. He worked as a

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

demolition expert and as a commercial diver, and was one of the world's earliest

aquanaut An aquanaut is any person who remains underwater, breathing at the ambient pressure for long enough for the concentration of the inert components of the breathing gas dissolved in the body tissues to reach equilibrium, in a state known as sat ...

s in the 1960s. He was also a pioneer in

cave diving Cave-diving is underwater diving in water-filled caves. It may be done as an extreme sport, a way of exploring flooded caves for scientific investigation, or for the underwater search and recovery, search for and recovery of divers or, as in th ...

, and one of the children of aviators

Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, and author. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York (state), New York to Paris, a distance of . His aircra ...

and

Anne Morrow Lindbergh Anne Spencer Morrow Lindbergh (June 22, 1906 – February 7, 2001) was an American writer and aviator. She was the wife of decorated pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh, with whom she made many exploratory flights. Raised in Englewood, New Jerse ...

Early life

Lindbergh was born on August 16, 1932, five months after the kidnapping and death of his older brother, Charles Lindbergh Jr. Jon's parents had discovered the name "Jon" in a book about Scandinavian history.Hertog
p. 220 During his mother's pregnancy with him, his parents received large numbers of letters and phone calls threatening his life.Hertog
p. 212 In 1935, photographers forced a car in which one of Jon's teachers was driving him home off the road in order to take pictures of him. Jon then began to be protected by a detective with a sawed-off shotgun. The Lindberghs soon decided to leave the United States and traveled to the United Kingdom.Berg, pp. 339-341Hertog
pp. 278-280 Lindbergh's father tried to teach him how to swim when he was three years old by repeatedly throwing him into the deep end of a swimming pool. In spring 1940 (when he was seven), his father placed him in a pasture with a butting ram in order to learn to protect himself from it.Hertog
p. 377 As a teenager, Lindbergh was allowed to make a solo three-day boat trip.Milton, p. 426 He also learned to fly before leaving for college, but his father advised him not to pursue aviation as a career.Berg, p. 504

Cave diver, U.S. Navy and commercial diver

In March 1953, when Lindbergh was a

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and ...

student at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, he made the first successful cave dive in the United States at Bower Cave in California. The dive was part of an expedition organized by speleologist Raymond de Saussure. Lindbergh discovered a hidden chamber inside the cave, confirming Saussure's theory that the nearby swimming spa was fed from such a chamber. Lindbergh returned the next month to photograph the underwater lake from a rubber raft. Lindbergh also took up mountain climbing and skydiving while in college. After his second year, he moved out of his dormitory into a tent in the foothills of the Coast Range. As a senior at Stanford, Lindbergh took part in an expedition to

Mount Shasta Mount Shasta ( ; Shasta people, Shasta: ''Waka-nunee-Tuki-wuki''; Karuk language, Karuk: ''Úytaahkoo'') is a Volcano#Volcanic activity, potentially active stratovolcano at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California. A ...

in California, during which Werner Hopf, a 30-year-old electronics engineer from the

Stanford Research Institute SRI International (SRI) is a nonprofit organization, nonprofit scientific research, scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California, United States. It was established in 1946 by trustees of Stanford Univer ...

, fell and was seriously injured. Hopf died despite the efforts of Lindbergh and his other companions to save him. Lindbergh graduated from Stanford, where he had been a member of the Navy ROTC, and did postgraduate work at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

. He served for three years as a

frogman A frogman is someone who is trained in scuba diving or swimming underwater. The term often applies more to professional rather than recreational divers, especially those working in a tactical capacity that includes military, and in some Europea ...

with the

Underwater Demolition Team The Underwater Demolition Team (UDT), or frogmen, were amphibious units created by the United States Navy during World War II with specialized missions. They were predecessors of the Navy's current United States Navy SEAL, SEAL teams. Their pri ...

(UDT), reaching the rank of

Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...

. He then became a commercial diver, working for Offshore Divers, Inc. in

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara (, meaning ) is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States excepting A ...

, and making dives from offshore oil rigs on the

West Coast of the United States The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast and the Western Seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the Contiguous United States, contig ...

at depths between 230 and 400 feet. In 1966, as part of a team from Ocean Systems, Inc., Jon Lindbergh participated in the recovery efforts when a hydrogen bomb was lost off the coast of Spain.

Man in Sea project

In June–July 1964, Lindbergh participated in Edwin Link's second Man in Sea experiment, conducted in the Berry Islands (a chain in the

Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of its population. ...

). Lindbergh's fellow diver for this venture was Robert Sténuit, who had become the world's first

in 1962. Sténuit and Lindbergh stayed in Link's SPID

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

(Submersible, Portable, Inflatable Dwelling) for 49 hours underwater at a depth of 432 feet, breathing a helium-oxygen mixture.''The Deepest Days'' (Sténuit), ''passim''

Personal life

Lindbergh married Barbara Robbins on March 20, 1954, in

Northfield, Illinois Northfield is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, located approximately north of downtown Chicago. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the village's population was 5,751. It is part of a collection of upscale reside ...

. They were the parents of six children, including aviator and artist Erik Lindbergh (born in 1965).Hertog
pp. 439, 489. His second marriage was to Karen Pryor, daughter of author

Philip Wylie Philip Gordon Wylie (May 12, 1902 – October 25, 1971) was an American writer of works ranging from pulp science fiction, mysteries, social diatribes and satire to ecology and the threat of nuclear holocaust. Early life and career Born in Bever ...

; they divorced in 1997. Lindbergh was married to Maura Jansen, with whom he had two daughters. When his father was dying, Lindbergh took charge of transporting him from New York City to

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

to die, and helped build his father's grave.Berg, pp. 554, 557. Lindbergh's elder brother, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the first of six children born to Charles and Anne Lindbergh, died in 1932 in the infamous kidnapping — what many termed at the time "the crime of the century". Jon's other Lindbergh siblings are: Land Morrow Lindbergh (born 1937), writer Anne Spencer Lindbergh (1940–1993), conservationist Scott Lindbergh (born 1942), and writer Reeve Lindbergh (born 1945). He died from renal cancer in

Lewisburg, West Virginia Lewisburg is a city in and the county seat of Greenbrier County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 3,930 at the 2020 census. History Lewisburg is named after Andrew Lewis (American general), Andrew Lewis. In 1751 Lewis, as a youn ...

, on July 29, 2021, at the age of 88.Jon Lindbergh obituary
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindbergh, Jon 1932 births 2021 deaths American aviators American cavers American people of Swedish descent American underwater divers Aquanauts Cave diving explorers Charles Lindbergh Deaths from cancer in West Virginia Deaths from kidney cancer in the United States Engineers from California Jon Morrow Military personnel from New York City People from Lewisburg, West Virginia Stanford University alumni United States Navy officers University of California, San Diego alumni