Aviation Author, Airline CEO, and Comic Strip writer
PART II
This is the second of a two-part feature column on World War I ace fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbacker.
By Tom Morrow
Eddie Rickenbacker was a national voice to be reckoned with in the first half of the 20th century. During the 1930s, Rickenbacker was adamantly opposed to then-President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” policies, calling them little better than “socialism.” For this, the American hero drew criticism and ire from the press and the Administration. Roosevelt tried to muffle him by ordering NBC Radio not to allow Rickenbacker to broadcast opinions critical of the president’s policies.
From 1935 to 1940, Rickenbacker scripted a popular comic strip called “Ace Drummond.” He worked with aviation artist Clayton Knight, who illustrated the series. The strip followed the adventures of aviator Drummond and later was adapted into a film serial and radio program.
Rickenbacker’s most lasting business involvement was his longtime leadership of Eastern Air Lines. In the thirties he persuaded General Motors to purchase aviation assets which included Eastern Air Transport. In April 1938, after learning GM was considering selling Eastern, Rickenbacker bought the company for $3.5 million.
On a business flight Feb. 26, 1941, he was a passenger on an airliner that crashed just outside of Atlanta. Rickenbacker suffered grave injuries. In spite of his own critical wounds, Rickenbacker encouraged the other passengers who were injured or dying, and persuaded the ambulatory survivors to find help. They were rescued after spending the night at the crash site, but Rickenbacker barely survived. It wouldn’t be the last time the press prematurely announced his death.
When Rickenbacker arrived at a hospital, his injuries appeared so grotesque the emergency physicians left him for dead. Rickenbacker’s injuries included a fractured skull, other head injuries, a shattered left elbow with a crushed nerve, a paralyzed left hand, several broken ribs, a crushed hip socket, a pelvis broken in two places, a severed nerve in his left hip, and a broken left knee. Rickenbacker’s left eyeball was also blown out of its socket. It took him many months to recuperate.
But, his dance with death wasn’t over. Rickenbacker’s most famous near-death experience occurred in October 1942, when the War Department sent him to the Pacific to review both living conditions and operations of U.S. air bases, but also to personally deliver a secret message of rebuke to Gen. Douglas MacArthur from Secretary of War Henry Stimson. The message regarded negative public comments MacArthur had made about the administration and disparaging cables sent to Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall.
After visiting several air and sea bases in Hawaii, Rickenbacker was provided a B-17 bomber as transportation across the South Pacific. Out of fuel, the bomber strayed off course and was forced to ditch in a remote part of the Central Pacific, but close to Japanese-held islands. Luckily they were never spotted by enemy patrol planes.
For 23 days, Rickenbacker and nine crewmen drifted in life rafts. He was still suffering from his earlier airplane crash. Their food supply ran out after three days. On the eighth day, a seagull landed on Rickenbacker’s head, which he cautiously captured it. The survivors divided it into equal parts, but keeping a portion for fishing bait. They lived on sporadic rain water that fell and similar food “miracles”, like fingerlings caught with their bare hands.
The Army and Navy planned to abandon the search after two weeks, but Rickenbacker’s wife persuaded them to extend it another week. Once again, the newspapers and radio broadcasts reported Rickenbacker was dead. Upon rescue, the survivors were suffering from hyperthermia, sunburn, dehydration, and near-starvation, but Rickenbacker dutifully delivered his message from Stimson to MacArthur. The content has never been made public. Rickenbacker wrote a survivor’s book titled “Seven Came Through.”
Back in Washington, D.C., Rickenbacker suggested a fact-finding mission in the Soviet Union to provide the Soviets with needed technical assistance for the American aircraft sent to them via the “Lend-Lease” program but he avoided requesting help from President Roosevelt.
Rickenbacker’s trip in the spring and summer of 1943 took him along the South Atlantic air route traveling to Cairo in a plane provided by Air Corps Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold. From Egypt he traveled to India and flew a “Hump” airlift over the Himalaya Mountains into China. Rickenbacker’s mission to the USSR was successful. He learned about Soviet defense strategies, including memorizing a map showing front line Soviet unit locations. Rickenbacker also persuaded the Soviets to give him a tour of an aircraft factory. When he returned home, Rickenbacker received the Medal for Merit, the civilian equivalent to the U.S. military Legion of Merit.
For a time in the fifties Eastern was the most profitable U.S. airline, but company fortunes declined and in 1959, Rickenbacker was forced out as CEO. He died on July 23, 1973. At the memorial service the eulogy was given by U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle. At that time, Rickenbacker was the last living air corps Medal of Honor recipient of WWI.
NEXT WEEK: The ‘Spanish Flu’ Pandemic of 1918.