Lost at Sea, page 2
Rickenbacker’s intrepid style, in which he all but taunted the Grim Reaper, reaffirmed his belief in his invulnerability to death. He said, “It came to me that I could control that machine with my mind, that I could hold it together with my mind, and that if it finally collapsed, I could run it with my mind. It was a feeling of mastery, of supreme confidence.” He added, “I believe that if you think disaster, you will get it. Brood about death, and you will hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life will be more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience.”[9]
His racing days brought Rickenbacker fame and money, but a more imposing test—flight—would soon command his attention.
“Slid to a Stop in a Cloud of Dust”
In November 1916 Rickenbacker traveled to California to participate in a series of West Coast races. As he drove to Riverside during one free afternoon, a single aircraft resting on a grass runway grabbed his attention. Since he had never seen an airplane up close, he stopped to examine the machine. When he neared the hangar, a man about his age ambled out and introduced himself as Glenn Martin, the designer and builder of the aircraft. Martin recognized Eddie from newspaper photographs and asked if he would like to go for a ride. Though afraid of heights, Rickenbacker accepted the invitation and hopped into the tandem seat for a thirty-minute flight above the California countryside.
An entire new realm opened to him that day, one in which he was no longer bound by gravity or the inconveniences of traveling America’s roads. When Martin, a former student of aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright, asked if Rickenbacker would like to take the controls, Eddie readily agreed and quickly veered the aircraft into a smooth bank. That moment hooked the young man, and Rickenbacker decided that his future lay in the air rather than with auto racing.
The next year, with his nation now embroiled in a European war, Eddie volunteered for air service, but the military informed the twenty-seven-year-old that he was too old for the rigors of the skies and that he lacked the necessary college degree to join its air arm. Taking note of his skill as a racer, however, in May 1917 they swore him in as an Army sergeant and agreed to ship him overseas to serve as a chauffeur for high-ranking officers. His prospects for aerial service brightened when Colonel William “Billy” Mitchell, an ardent advocate of air power, asked to have the car racer as his chauffeur.
While strolling along the Champs-Élysées in Paris one day, Rickenbacker met New York banker James E. Miller, a fan of his and a captain in the Army’s Aviation Section. Miller, who commanded a flying school in Issoudun, near Tours, France, offered Eddie a post, and after passing the required physical with the help of a doctor who ignored his eye injury and advanced age, Rickenbacker assumed his new position as an engineering officer.
Rickenbacker received his commission as a first lieutenant in the Army Signal Corps and left for Issoudun. After a brief stint there, in March 1918 he received orders to join the 94th Aero Squadron, a unit of American fliers formed in Texas the previous August. Along with Rickenbacker, the squadron arrived at the front in April to support American and French forces operating near Toul, close to the German border. With this assignment, the 94th became the first American pursuit squadron to operate at the front and engage in combat.
Eddie found that German fliers posed only one of numerous menaces to his safety. Since the United States had not yet built its own air arm, the military had purchased the outdated French Nieuport 28 aircraft, a plane so badly outclassed by German fighters that the French had rejected it. Once in the air, pilots feared for their lives. Fabric ripped from the wings during steep dives, guns frequently jammed, oil lines ruptured during hard landings, and enemy bullets ignited exposed fuel tanks. The unreliable, poorly constructed Nieuports, fashioned from wood and cotton fabric treated with a highly combustible fluid applied to tighten the fabric, burst into flames at the slightest spark, forcing airmen into making the hideous choice of death by fire or by leaping from the burning aircraft.
Eddie Rickenbacker stands beside his airplane in France in October 1918. The “Hat in the Ring” emblem of his famed 94th Aero Squadron is visible on the aircraft’s side.
National Archives Photo #50126
A parachute could have solved the dilemma, but military superiors condemned their use as cowardly and concluded that the life-saving devices made pilots more likely to abandon an aircraft they might otherwise be able to fly back to base. Understandably, Rickenbacker and his fellow fliers held a contrary opinion. He mentioned that for aviators, “Death by burning was the death we dreaded more than any other,” but superior officers forced them to face an impossible quandary. “It was absolutely criminal for our higher command to withhold parachutes from us.”[10]
At least Rickenbacker had a good luck charm. Eddie was not a deeply religious individual, but he never went anywhere without making certain that his Catholic crucifix—safely inserted in a leather case—rested in his pocket. The ten-year-old daughter of a racing friend from Detroit had given it to Rickenbacker shortly before he left for the war. If he kept that crucifix with him, the girl told Eddie, he would never be harmed. Whether storming into aerial combat or walking the city streets back home, Eddie Rickenbacker made a constant companion of that crucifix for the rest of his life.
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Rickenbacker downed his first plane one month after joining the squadron and bagged three more within the next few weeks. First Lieutenant Reed M. Chambers, another talented flier in the 94th, credited Eddie’s success to the former car racer’s coolness under fire and his ability to focus on the task at hand. According to Chambers, Rickenbacker “wasn’t the best pilot in the world. He couldn’t put as many holes in the target that was being towed [in gunnery practice] as I could, but he could put more holes in a target that was shooting at him than I could.”[11]
By late May 1918, only one month into his tenure over France, newspapers in the United States trumpeted the feat that Rickenbacker registered his fifth kill, making him one of America’s aces. “Rickenbacker Gets Fifth Hun Plane” and “Daredevil Racer Is New Ace,” proclaimed headlines, and the Chicago Tribune reported that “America’s daredevil auto race driver and now an aviator with the American armies has become America’s second ace.”[12]
On May 17, when he and Chambers lifted off to patrol enemy lines northwest of Toul, Rickenbacker spotted three German planes at lower altitudes. He dove toward the trio, positioned his plane behind one of the targets, and with an accurate volley sent one German spiraling to his death. He next maneuvered his aircraft to evade his two pursuers, but the severe twists and turns ripped the fabric of his upper right wing from the frame. As his plane twirled toward the ground, the fabric flapping in the wind, Rickenbacker utilized every trick he could think of to regain control.
Eddie Rickenbacker relied on keen instincts and accurate aim to become the nation’s top World War I ace. Pictured here in his Spad aircraft near Rembercourt, France, in 1918, he is standing behind his plane’s machine guns, which helped bring down twenty-six enemy aircraft during the war.
National Archives Photo #50127
Eddie Rickenbacker often skirted dangers in the European skies during World War I. His Nieuport 28 sustained damage during a May 1918 dogfight with three German planes. Here he stands beside a wing that had broken off his plane moments after he had landed.
Auburn University, Special Collections & Archives
“It was death,” he later wrote. “I had not lost my willingness to fight to live, but in that situation there was not much that I could do. Even birds need two wings to fly.” He said “the good things I had done and the bad things” flashed through his mind, and he wondered if his Nieuport would hit the ground and shatter into a hundred pieces, or if he would plummet toward a cluster of trees and be impaled on their branches. More poignantly, he thought of his mother receiving word of his death. With the plane only a few hundred feet above the ground, Rickenbacker, certain he was about to die, muttered a quiet prayer. Seconds later, in desperation, “Without thinking, almost as though I were moved by something bigger than myself, I pulled open the throttle.” The last-ditch maneuver having halted his downward momentum, Rickenbacker pulled on the joystick and reversed the rudder, a combination he guessed had no more than a million-to-one chance of success. His Nieuport suddenly coughed and sparked to life.
When Eddie finally regained control, he still had to navigate a deadly two-mile gauntlet bristling with German antiaircraft batteries, machine guns, and rifle fire standing between his crippled plane and friendly lines. With his plane groaning to remain above the treetops and sputtering toward his airfield, Rickenbacker miraculously evaded a torrent of enemy shells and bullets. “I grazed the top of the hangar, pancaked down on the ground, and slid to a stop in a cloud of dust,”[13] he recounted. Eddie whispered a short prayer of thanks, then leapt from the bullet-riddled Nieuport and strutted toward the hangar, grateful that he had once again outfoxed the Grim Reaper.
In the European skies, the daredevil of the racetrack was further embellishing his record and solidifying his spot as one of the United States’ most popular heroes.
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His performance had so impressed his superiors that when the post as commander of the 94th Aero Squadron opened, on September 24 they handed the promotion to Rickenbacker. Many of the college-educated men barely concealed their disdain for someone with little education and often snidely commented about Eddie’s poor grammar and his German-sounding name. Undeterred, the new commander warned his pilots that he would brook no foolishness in the air, and he dictated a list of actions he expected all to follow: aggressiveness in seeking out the enemy, thorough knowledge of every strength and weakness of both their aircraft and the enemy’s, readiness to fly at every opportunity, and the understanding that while he demanded the utmost from them, they could expect the best from him.
In the coming months, Rickenbacker logged more hours in the air than anyone in his squadron, frequently returning from one mission only to lift off for another following a brief rest and a coffee break. On his first day as commander, Eddie hopped into his Nieuport for a solo flight over German-held territory. He flew near Verdun when tracers from seven German aircraft ripped into his plane. Despite damage to his propeller, Rickenbacker turned to attack and dove directly through the enemy formation, shooting down two before eluding the other five and limping back to the airfield. When he landed, mechanics stared at the splintered propeller and twenty-seven bullet holes that riddled his Nieuport, each within six feet of Rickenbacker’s seat. “Eddie Rickenbacker Has Narrow Escape,”[14] proclaimed the Akron Beacon Journal’s headline two days later. His exploits that day earned Rickenbacker the French Croix de Guerre, and twelve years later the United States belatedly awarded him the Medal of Honor for the same attack.
Eddie’s example in the air, combined with his firm leadership, brought cohesiveness to the 94th Aero Squadron, which soon posted more kills than any other American unit. One of his fliers, Lieutenant J. L. Maloney, said of Rickenbacker that “he cheered his pilots, and he cussed them. In his quiet, yet forceful and incisive talks to us by candlelight at the mess table, before the big map in the operations room, and on the field before the takeoff on patrol, he inspired us.” According to Maloney, Eddie frequently told his men, “Follow my order and advice, profit by my experience, and I will take you back with me in victory to see the Statue of Liberty.”[15]
Reed Chambers, as talented a flier as any man Rickenbacker commanded, said that as the days and missions piled up, the squadron’s loathing of their new commander turned to open admiration. Chambers explained that, at first, “he was just an uneducated, tough bastard who threw his weight around the wrong way,” but through actions and words, “he developed into the most natural leader I ever saw.”[16]
In 1930 Eddie Rickenbacker proudly displays the Medal of Honor he received for his exploits during a September 1918 melee in which he shot down two of the seven German planes that attacked him.
Auburn University, Special Collections & Archives
Just before dawn on November 11, 1918, Germany acceded to an armistice with the Allies and agreed that a ceasefire would take effect at eleven o’clock that morning. Rickenbacker, because of his prominent standing, was given the honor—dubious though it might have been because of the inherent risks—of making the final flight over German lines. He had flown 300 combat hours, more than any other American aviator, and had survived 134 encounters in the air. Rickenbacker received the Distinguished Service Medal with nine oak leaf clusters—each cluster representing an episode in which the flier exhibited outstanding courage in moments of extreme peril—the French Croix de Guerre on five separate occasions, and the Medal of Honor.
The press compared Rickenbacker and other daring aviators to knights of yore, and the public showered the same adulation on the cocky fliers as they did on the president or a beloved baseball star. Since he had earned the designation of “Ace of Aces” by notching twenty-six kills, more than any American flier, an adoring nation bestowed the most acclaim on Rickenbacker. Combined with his exploits as a car racer, Eddie’s military success earned him widespread fame throughout the United States as a bona fide hero. He had become the most celebrated American aviator since the Wright Brothers ushered in the age of flight fifteen years earlier—a status unsurpassed until Charles Lindbergh’s solo transatlantic flight aboard the Spirit of St. Louis a decade later.
“One of the Truest Knights Our Country Has Ever Known”
A festive public greeted Rickenbacker on January 31, 1919, upon his return to the United States. New York City’s automobile plants blew their whistles, and the city’s journalists flocked to the ship to scribble down the hero’s words.
In the first week of February the American Automobile Association feted Rickenbacker at a lavish dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Renowned people from the worlds of politics, racing, and the military attended, including former president William Howard Taft and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, who in a speech called Rickenbacker “one of the truest knights our country has ever known.” After Baker’s rousing tribute, the association gifted Rickenbacker, called by the Los Angeles Times the “beloved American ‘ace of aces,’ ”[17] a sparkling pair of platinum and gold wings sporting more than two hundred diamonds and sapphires.
The following week he appeared at the Capitol in Washington, DC, where Congress gave him a standing ovation. He then boarded a train for his hometown, signing autographs along the route for the lengthy line of passengers seeking to get near the hero. In Columbus, people stood along the tracks to greet the local boy who had added luster to an already-established national reputation, and when he stepped from the train, men cheered and women kissed him on the cheeks. A parade through packed city streets ended in a meeting with the governor and other top officials.
In the coming months, cities across the nation honored Rickenbacker with similar welcomes and gifts. In June he traveled to Los Angeles for a three-day gala in his honor. More than 300,000 people jammed city sidewalks to get a glimpse of the war hero. As bands played patriotic tunes and trucks packed with war veterans slowly passed by, aircraft from Rockwell Field in San Diego flew over and dropped flowers on the spectators. “Eddie Rickenbacker is in Southern California again after two years spent in accumulating Hun scalps and Allied war medals,” blared the Los Angeles Times of the man who was now “feted and honored more than any one man who has ever visited Los Angeles.” Comic actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin attended the festivities, and on the final day, popular actor Douglas Fairbanks honored Rickenbacker with a lavish luncheon at his Beverly Hills home, followed by a tour of the star’s film studio. “That Los Angeles celebration outdid them all,” Rickenbacker wrote in his autobiography. “The official program had full-page advertisements from all the movie stars.”[18]
A song titled “I’m Glad to Be Back in the USA,” with Rickenbacker’s image on the cover of the sheet music, amassed astounding sales figures, with 10,000 copies sold in the flier’s hometown alone. Promoters begged him to endorse commercial products, star in movies, or embark as a speaker on a vaudeville tour, but he declined every offer because he felt they were simply trying to take advantage of his war heroics. The sole exception, meant to augment his depleted finances, was his consent to publish a memoir. Titled Fighting the Flying Circus and written for Rickenbacker by a ghostwriter, the book enhanced Rickenbacker’s image, provided financial stability, and cemented his role as America’s number one hero. He had already triumphed on the ground during his racing days; he now earned additional fame for doing the same in the air.
Once the warm receptions ended, Rickenbacker shifted his focus to more sedate occupations. He was ready to conquer new worlds, realms that offered financial security and a comfortable life, but inevitably contained dangers both familiar and new.
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While the United States turned to flappers, bootleg gin, gangster Al Capone, and the Great Depression, the 1920s and 1930s offered Rickenbacker a time of triumphs and setbacks. Once home from the war, Eddie rejected financially lucrative offers to return to the racetrack, and instead concentrated on promoting aviation in his country. He embarked on a series of cross-country flights, stopping in various cities to talk to crowds about aviation while simultaneously trying to establish speed records along the way.
