Colt Improved Model New Service Double Action Revolver
.45 Colt, 71/2" Barrel, SN 136039 made in 1917
Backstrap inscribed in two lines
"Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker"
"1st Pursuit Group 94th Aero Sqdn"
Eddie Rickenbacker was born October 8, 1890, in Columbus, Ohio. With little formal schooling and a succession of jobs behind that, he began working for a railroad car manufacturing firm in 1905. There he developed a deep interest in internal-combustion engines and engine-powered vehicles. He began driving racing cars at sixteen (he became a regular at the Indianapolis 500 from its first year, 1911). By the time the United States entered World War I he was internationally famous as a daredevil speed driver and held a world speed record of 134 miles per hour.
In 1917 he enlisted in the army and went to France as a member of Gen. John J. Pershing's motor car staff. With help from Col. William Mitchell, he secured a transfer to the Air Service in August, took pilot's training, and early in 1918, with rank of captain, was assigned to the 94th Aero Pursuit Squadron. The 94th, which adopted the famous hat-in-the-ring insignia, was the first U.S. flying unit to participate actively at the front, fighting the “flying circus” commanded by the German ace, Baron Manfred von Ricthofen. In May 1918 Rickenbacker succeeded to command the 94th in the temporary rank of major. By the end of the war the 94th had downed 69 enemy craft, of which Rickenbacker, the “ace of aces” accounted for 26 (22 airplanes, 4 observation balloons). He earned every decoration possible, including the Medal of Honor, awarded in 1931 for his lone attack on seven German planes, two of which he downed, on September 25, 1918.
His Fighting the Flying Circus appeared in 1919. Returning to the United States a hero, he organized in Detroit the Rickenbacker Motor Company. The company was dissolved in 1926, and the next year he bought a controlling interest in the Indianapolis Speedway, which he returned until 1945. He later worked for the Cadillac division of General Motors Corporation and then was associated with a number of aircraft manufacturers and airlines. In 1935 he became general manager and vice president of Eastern Airlines. Three years later he became president and director of the line. His experience and technical knowledge prompted his appointment as special representative of Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War, to inspect air bases in the Pacific theater of war in 1942. In October 1942, on his second mission over the Pacific, his B-17, crashed some 600 miles north of Samoa, and he and seven men (one of whom died) were et adrift on rubber rafts with only fish and rain water to sustain them. After 23 days he was rescued, and after a two-week rest, he resumed his tour. After the war he returned to Eastern Airlines, where he remained, from 1954 as chairman of the board, until his retirement in 1963. He died in Zurich, Switzerland, on July 23, 1973.
His twenty-six aerial victories came in only two months of combat flying, a spectacular achievement.
His family name was originally spelled "Reichenbacher," anglicized to its more familiar form when the U.S. entered World War One. His father died when Eddie was twelve, and the youngster quit school to help support his mother. He found a job with the Frayer Miller Aircooled Car Company, one of the thousands of automobile companies that emerged in the early 1900's.
From his job road-testing cars for Frayer-Miller, he made his way into automobile racing, racing for Fred Deusenberg, among others. He raced three times in the Indianapolis 500 and set a speed record of 134 MPH in a Blitzen Benz. He became one of the most successful race car drivers, earning $40,000 per year (in incredible sum at that time).
When the United States entered the war, Rickenbacker proposed a flying squadron staffed by race car drivers. The Army didn't accept his suggestion, but did accept his personal services; he became a driver for the Army general staff (but not chauffeur to General John "Black Jack" Pershing as frequently claimed). Once in France, he hoped to transfer into aviation.
Rickenbacker got a break one day when he had a chance to fix a motorcar carrying Colonel Billy Mitchell, then chief of the Army's Air Service. He made his interests known to Mitchell, and Rickenbacker, then at the advanced age of twenty-seven, entered pilot training. Because of his mechanical skills, he was first made engineering officer at the Issoudun aerodrome, but he flew whenever he could.
In March, 1918, he was assigned to the newly formed 94th Pursuit Squadron, which included: James Norman Hall (of the
Lafayette Escadrille), Hamilton Coolidge, James Meissner, Reed
Chambers, and Harvey Cook. But no airplanes! Once they secured some cast-off Nieuports, they moved up to the front.
Before April 3, 1918, only the 94th, commanded by Major John Huffer, (one of the old Lafayette flyers), and Captain James Miller's squadron, the 95th, were at the front. Both squadrons had been at
Villeneuve and together had moved to Epiez. None of the pilots of either squadron had been able to do any fighting, owing to the lack of airplane guns. In fact the pilots of Squadron 95 had not yet
been instructed in the use of airplane guns. The 94 Squadron pilots however had been diverted to the Aerial Gunnery School at Cazeau for a month early in the year and were ready to try their luck in
actual combat fighting over the lines. But they had no guns on their machines before April 3. Then suddenly guns arrived! All sorts of wonderful new equipment began pouring in. Instruments for the
aeroplanes, suits of warm clothing for the pilots, extra spares for the machines. Shortly, they moved up to an aerodrome at Toul. Here, they unpacked, organized the squadron, and selected the famous
"Hat-in-the-Ring" insignia.
On the 6th, Major Raoul Lufbery, selected "Rick" and Douglas Campbell for the squadron's first flight over German lines. As he eyed the trenches and desolation of war from 15,000 feet up, suddenly "Archy," German anti-aircraft fire opened up. Carefully shepherded by Lufbery, it was an uneventful flight, but back on the ground the experienced Lufbery chided the two novices for failing to notice other planes that he had seen. And for a good measure he casually poked his fingers into several shrapnel holes in Rickenbacker's Nieuport.
On the 14th, a patrol of Rickenbacker, Captain Peterson, and Lieutenant Reed Chambers was ordered to fly from Pont-à-Mousson to St. Mihiel at 16,000 feet. Lieutenants Douglas Campbell and Alan Winslow were directed to stand by on the alert at the hangar from six o'clock until ten the same morning. Rickenbacker's patrol got separated in fog and didn't accomplish too much, but as they returned, the "alert" pilots, Campbell and Winslow, intercepted two Boche airplanes and sent them both down. The newspapers made a huge fuss over the first "American" victories of the war.
For ten weeks Rickenbacker flew strafing missions and fruitless sorties before shooting down his first enemy plane. One day he encounterered a Spad with French markings that almost shot him down, a lesson well-learned. He made several mistakes in this early period: getting lost, mistaking friends for foes, falling into German aerial ambushes, etc.. He later reflected that these early disappointments and lessons gave him enormous benefits in his subsequent flying.
April 29th was a wet day; he and Capt. James Norman Hall had the afternoon alert. At five o'clock Captain Hall received a telephone call from the French headquarters at Beaumont stating that an enemy two-seater machine had just crossed the lines, flying south.
Hall and Rickenbacker had been on the field with their flying clothes on and their machines ready. They jumped into their seats and the mechanics twirled the propellers. Just then the telephone sergeant told Captain Hall to wait for the Major, who would be on the field in two minutes. "Rick" scanned the northern heavens and spotted a tiny speck against the clouds above the Forêt de la Reine; it was the enemy plane. The Major was not yet in sight. Their motors were smoothly turning over and everything was ready.
Deciding not to wait for the Major, Captain Hall ordered the blocks pulled away from the wheels. His motor roared as he opened up his throttle and in a twinkling both machines ran rapidly over the field. Side by side they arose and climbing swiftly, soared after the distant Boche. In five minutes they were above the observation balloon line which stretched along two miles behind the front. Rickenbacker could still distinguish their unsuspecting quarry off toward Pont-à-Mousson. He briefly left Hall to pursue a French three-seater, but recognized the ally before firing, and rejoined Capt. Hall.
Hall led them up sun, gaining an advantageous position over the new Pfalz fighter that he had spotted. Coordinating skillfully, Rickenbacker cut off the German's retreat while Hall dived at him, from out of the sun. As the German tried to escape eastward, Rickenbacker opened his throttle and was on him. At 150 yards he pressed the triggers. The tracer bullets cut a streak of living fire into the Pfalz's tail. Raising the nose of his aeroplane slightly the fiery streak gradually settled into the pilot's seat. The Pfalz swerved, out of control. At 2000 feet, Rickenbacker pulled up and watched the enemy machine continuing on its course. Curving slightly to the left the Pfalz circled and crashed at the edge of the woods a mile inside the German lines.
Lt. Eddie Rickenbacker had brought down his first enemy airplane without taking a single shot! He and Hall did aerobatics all the way back to their field, where they received the hearty congratulations of their mates, on the squadron's third victory.
While April's rainy weather inhibited flying, the 94th saw more action in May. On the 2nd, James Meissner outmaneuvered an Albatros, sent it into a spin, and dived after it. Firing until the German plane spouted flames, Meissner didn't immediately notice the fabric peeling off his left upper wing. With careful flying, he made it back the the 94th, with the squadron's fourth victory confirmed by a French observation post. That same day, the 94th suffered its first casualty when Charley Chapman's Nieuport was flamed by a two-seater. On the 7th, while dogfighting four Germans with Rickenbacker and Green, the wing of Hall's Nieuport stripped; he crash-landed and was captured. Rickenbacker replaced Hall as commander of the squadron's Number 1 Flight.
Rickenbacker scored his second victory while flying with Reed Chambers. On the morning of the 17th, he and Chambers took off before dawn in an effort to catch some German planes unawares. After fruitless circling at 18,000 feet, Rickenbacker headed for the German stronghold of Metz, losing Chambers in the process. Finding no Hun air activity over Metz, he then flew over an airdrome at Thiaucourt, where he noticed three Albatroses taking off. He eased down lower, unnoticed by the enemy airplanes until "Archy" gave him away. Diving at 200(?) MPH, he fired a long ten-second burst, until, at 50 yards, the Albatros pilot was hit. When Rickenbacker pulled out of his dive, the Nieuport cracked and the upper wing covering came off. He spun down, apparently a certain casualty, but managed to re-start his engine and pull out at about 2,000 feet. He landed safely, and even had his victory confirmed.
On May 30, 1918, Rickenbacker claimed two German airplanes, to become an ace. Once again, Jimmy Meissner lost the upper wing of his Nieuport. By then, the American pilots were anxious to discard the Nieuports, for the heavier, stronger Spads, as the French had already done.
Rickenbacker continued to prowl the skies, looking for victories and learning more. On the 4th of June, he cornered a Rumpler, two-seater observation plane with number '16' painted on its fuselage. His gun promptly jammed, and number '16' escaped. The next day, flying Lt. Smyth's plane while the guns in his plane were being repaired, he chanced upon Rumpler number '16' again! This time the Rumpler pilot evaded by zooming upward and giving Rickenbacker a taste of its floor-mounted machine gun. Its skillful pilot kept him at bay for over half and hour, working his way back over German lines. "Rick" regretfully turned home, and his engine froze up; he had exhausted its oil supply in his two-and-a-half hours of combat flying. Once again, he squeaked through to a safe landing. For the next two days, he stalked the predictable number '16' which easily evaded him by seeking higher altitudes, even when he used the Nieuport in the squadron reputed to have the highest ceiling. Some wags suggested that he could gain some extra altitude by leaving his guns behind, or perhaps even more by omitting that heavy fuel!
After this useless exercise, he took a leave in Paris. He didn't fly much in June, due to a persistent ear infection. But late in month, he did participate in an early American effort to emulate the large organized formations of fighters that the Germans used so effectively. The three U.S. squadrons got hopelessly mixed up. Early one morning he, Reed Chambers, Jimmy Meissner, Thorn Taylor, and Lt. Loomis organized an early morning attack on German observation balloons, Drachen, which was depressingly unsuccessful. On June 27, all four of the U.S. Pursuit Squadrons in France (the 94th, 95th, 27th, and 147th) moved from the Toul to Chateau-Thierry sector, to "an old French aerodrome at Touquin, a small and miserable village some twenty-five miles south of Château-Thierry and the Marne River."
July was not much better; little flying an no victories. He was briefly hospitalized with pneumonia and then visited Paris on the 4th of July. He dropped in at the U.S. supply depot at Orly, found some new Spads there, and flew a "borrowed" one back to the 94th.
By August 8, the 94th received newer, faster Spads to replace their Nieuports, promising even greater results. But Rickenbacker's ear infection grounded him for much of August, as well.
On that day, He went up with 11 Spads of the 94th, escorting a pair of French two-seater photo planes over Vailly. When two small groups of Fokkers attacked, the 94th pilots successfully protected the photo planes. Rickenbacker and Chambers both believed they had downed Fokker, but their claims were unconfirmed, as the combat took place well over German lines. On a similar mission on the 10th, when escorting some Salmson photo machines over the Vesle and Aisne rivers, they met some Fokker D.VII's, but all Rickenbacker got was three bullet holes in the fuselage of his Spad. He spent late August in the hospital, returning on Sept. 3, when the 94th Squadron moved back to the Verdun sector, to a little town named Erize-la-Petite.
This month, he scored four more victories and rose to command the 94th Squadron.
He assumed command on Sept 24; the first thing he did was check the operations records and he found that the 27th Squadron was leading the 94th in victories, largely due to Frank Luke's balloon-busting spree. By the end of the month, the 94th had recaptured the lead.
While flying over Etain on the 25th, Rickenbacker picked up a pair of L.V.G. two-seater machines, escorted by four Fokkers. He climbed into the sun unnoticed, got well in their rear, and made a bee line for the nearest Fokker. With one long burst, he sent it down. The other Fokkers scattered, and he took the oportunity to make a pass at the LVG's. After several maneuvers, he flamed one of those, too.
Sept. 26, 1918 was a big day. Forty thousand American doughboys were going over the top, in an offensive from the Meuse River to the Argonne forest. In support of this, the 94th Pursuit Squadron was charged with destroying German observation balloons. He and five of the 94th's best pilots, Lieutenants Cook, Chambers, Taylor, Coolidge and Palmer; gathered for an early breakfast, and went over their plans. Two balloons assigned to the 94th, and three pilots were delegated to each balloon. Both lay along the Meuse between Brabant and Dun. They eluded the Archy fire to bring down both balloons; and "Rick" downed a Fokker
As commander of the 94th, nicknamed the "Hat in the Ring" Squadron, he displayed the managerial skills that served him so well in later endeavors. He drove his men hard and demanded results. They rose early for calisthenics; inspections were frequent and detailed; waste was not permitted. Rickenbacker insisted:
Every plane must be ready to take-off any moment, day or night, guns loaded, gassed, engine tuned. [If all was not correct] the war could be lost.
He also spent as much time as possible leading patrols in the air, delegating operational issues to different officers. Billy Mitchell was delighted at his protege's success. His reports glowed with both Rickenbacker's aerial and organizational successes.
He and Reed Chambers shared a victory over a Hanover recon plane on the 2nd, this on a day when they were flying low-level ground-support patrols. Within a few minutes of this action, a flight of Fokkers appeared, chasing Rickenbacker down toward the ground. Reed Chambers and other Spads arrived in the nick of time, and the whole circus was soon climbing to gain the shelter of some low-hanging clouds. Recovering from his dive, Rickenbacker and Chambers sought a place between the Fokkers and their lines where they might be expected to issue out and make for home. They caught them and promptly sent two of them crashing inside the American lines. All three of their victories were promptly confirmed.
Twelve years after the war ended, he was belatedly awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his accomplishments.
In the early 1920's, he secured backing for a new automobile company under his name. It was a well-designed, even advanced car featuring four wheel brakes, but offered at the wrong time. Soon, his new company was bankrupt.
Starting in the early 1930's, he owned or managed various commercial airlines, notably Eastern Airlines, which had its roots as a division of General Motors. He became General Manager of Eastern in 1933, and in 1938, with a group of investors, he bought it and became its president. Starting with an aggressively low bid ($0!) for a government air mail contract, he managed the company profitably for twenty years.
During WW2, he carried out special assignments for Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War. In October, 1942, flying in a B-17 over the Pacific, on such a mission to Douglas MacArthur, the plane went down in the Pacific. In a horrifying ordeal, Rickenbacker and seven other men, rode a raft for twenty-two days before they were rescued. One man died; Rickenbacker, the oldest man in the raft, lost 54 pounds.
He became a spokesman and advocate for conservative causes, convinced that government "socialist" programs were ruining the country. He died in 1973
In 1967, Eddie Rickenbacker, then 77, wrote his autobiography. My Dad, a World War One aviation buff, stood in line at the old Hartford, Connecticut department store, G. Fox, to get "Captain Eddie's" autograph on a couple books. I still have my copy, inscribed with my name, Rickenbacker's signature, and the date - with an an extra '6' in the year "19668."
It's a good book, well-written, but quite immodest. Of course, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, Rickenbacker "was a man with a lot to be immodest about." To read Rickenbacker's book, he had always been right about everything, had seen everything coming, and had generally "known it all." Among his less persuasive claims was that he first recommended to North American Aviation that they mate the Mustang airframe with the powerful Merlin engine. He also saw World War Two coming, and proposed the "Rickenbacker Plan for World Peace," in 1925!
Sources:
This late variant of Nieuport’s biplanes was used mainly by American pilots, notably
Eddie Rickenbacker, the French having switched over to Spads.
The Type 28 looked quite different from the earlier Nieuports: it had a longer, rounded fuselage; it dispensed with the sesquiplane configuration (and the associated V struts); and it had rounded, not angular wingtips. A very distinctive feature was pair of machine guns mounted on the port side cowling, the only aircraft so equipped by any country. (Detail photo from Airminded.net.)
Top Speed: 122 m.p.h.
Manufacturer: Nieuport
Year: 1917
Engine: 160 h.p. Gnome Monosoupape 9-cylinder rotary
Wingspan: 26 feet 9 inches
Weight: 1,627 lb.
Armament: 2 machine guns
On April 14, 1918, a year after the United States had declared war, the first two German planes fell to Nieuport 28’s of the American Air Service, flown by Lieutenant Alan F. Winslow, later shot down and held prisoner in Germany, and Lieutenant Douglas Campbell, later America’s first ace.
On Sunday morning April 14th, Winslow was waiting in the alert tent, playing cards with Lt. Douglas Campbell. Their airplanees were outside, ready at a moment’s notice. At 8:45 the phone rang, and he was told that two German airplanes were about two thousand meters above the city, only a mile away. They were rushed down to their Nieuport 28s in side cars, and in another minute were off in the air. Doug Chambers started first, as Winslow was to meet him above a certain point at five hundred meters, and then take the lead. He gave Chambers about forty-five seconds’ start, and then took off, climbing steeply in a left-hand spiral to save time. He had not made a complete half turn, and was at about two hundred and fifty meters, when straight above and ahead of him in the mist of the early morning, and not more than a hundred meters away, Winslow saw a plane coming toward him with huge black crosses on its wings and tail. He was so furious to see a Hun directly over his own field that he swore out loud and opened fire.
At the same time, to avoid the bullets, the German slipped into a left-hand reversement, and came down, firing. Winslow climbed, however, in a right-hand spiral, and slipped off, coming down directly on his tail. Again he opened up with his twin machine guns. He had his opponent at a great disadvantage, due to the greater speed and maneuverability of the Nieuport. Winslow fired twenty to thirty rounds and could see the tracers entering the enemy airplane.
Then, in another moment, it went straight down in an uncontrolled nose-dive, engine out of commission. Winslow followed in a straight dive, firing all the way. Just above the ground the German tried to regain control of his machine, but could not, and crashed to earth. Winslow darted down near him, made a sharp turn by the wreck, to make sure he was out of commission, then made a victorious swoop down over him, and climbed up again to see if Chambers needed any help with the other airplane.
The fight took place only three hundred meters high, in full view of all on the ground and in the near-by town, and directly above the American airfield. Furthermore, Winslow’s victim dropped about one hundred yards to the right, and Chamber’s one hundred yards to the left of their airfield.
These was a remarkable feat, for one of their Majors, who, with the French army since 1915, had shot down seventeen machines, never had one land in France — and right off the bat, these two staged a fight over their own aerodrome and brought down two Germans right on top of it. When the two fliers landed, only their respective mechanics were left in the drome to help them out of their flying clothes.
The whole camp poured out: on foot, bicycles, side cars, automobiles; soldiers, women, children, majors, colonels, French and American — all poured out of the city. In ten minutes several thousand people gathered. Chambers and Winslow congratulated each other, and his mechanic, no longer military, jumping up and down, waving his hat, pounded Winslow on the back instead of saluting and yelled: “Damn it! That’s the stuff, old kid!” Then Campbell and Winslow rushed to their respective wrecks.
July 24, 1973
OBITUARY
Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker Is Dead at 82
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Eddie Rickenbacker, a leading fighter ace in World War I and retired chairman of Eastern Air Lines, died early yesterday in a Zurich hospital.
He was 82 years old. His health had been failing since he suffered a stroke in Miami last October, but had improved enough to permit the trip to Switzerland. He was admitted to Neumuenster Hospital with a heart ailment on July 15, four days after his arrival.
His wife said the body would be cremated privately and the ashes flown to his birthplace, Columbus, Ohio, for burial.
Edward Vernon Rickenbacker was a man whose delight in turning the tables on seemingly hopeless odds took him to the top in three distinct fields.
In the daredevil pre-World War I days of automobile racing he became one of this country's leading drivers, although he had a profound dislike for taking unnecessary risks. He had entered the auto industry as a trainee mechanic and made his first mark servicing the cranky machines of that day.
In World War I he became the nation's "Ace of Aces" as a military aviator despite the fact that he had joined the Army as a sergeant-driver on Gen. John J. Pershing's staff.
He was named by Gen. William Mitchell to be chief engineering officer of the fledgling Army Air Corps. His transfer to actual combat flying--in which he shot down 22 German planes and four observation balloons--was complicated not only by his being two years over the pilot age limit of 25, but also because he was neither a college man nor a "gentleman" such as then made up the aristocratic fighter squadrons of the air service.
In the highly competitive airline business, Mr. Rickenbacker was the first man to prove that airlines could be made profitable, and then the first to prove that they could be run without a Government subsidy and kept profitable. This, despite a previous venture in the automobile manufacturing business that fell victim to the competition of bigger companies and failed.
While his successes came in fields that were developed in the 20th century, his philosophy seemed to many a carryover from the 19th century.
Opposed to Interference
Mr. Rickenbacker, or Captain Eddie as he preferred to be known (he was a colonel in the reserve but insisted that the title of captain was the only one he had earned), was an individualist of the old empire-building school. In any kind of fight he neither asked for nor gave quarter. His opposition to Government "interference" was widely known, as were his outspoken objections to subsidies for industries or individuals. He was also an intransigent foe of trade unionism and liberal democratic concepts.
Mr. Rickenbacker was fond of saying that the greatest privilege this country had to offer was the "freedom to go broke," and that "a chance" was the only "favor" needed to succeed in the United States.
In recent years, he had identified himself more and more closely with ultra-conservative and right-wing causes. In 1963, when he retired as board chairman of Eastern Air Lines he announced that he would devote himself to "awakening the American public to the grave problems facing them."
In frequent speeches during the years that followed, Mr. Rickenbacker predicted that the American people someday would erect a monument to the memory of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, and he urged United States withdrawal from the United Nations, the severance of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and repeal of the 16th Amendment, which authorized a personal income tax.
"I am going to expand my crusade to save the American way of life for future generations," he wrote in his letter of resignation from Eastern Air Lines, "as I want our children, our grandchildren, and those who follow them to enjoy the American opportunities which have been mine for 73 years."
A self-made man whose formal education ended with the sixth grade, Mr. Rickenbacker was a driving leader. He put the stamp of his dominant personality on everything he touched. His relations with his employes were on a personal basis that was heavily larded with paternalism. He frequently referred to his employes as "the boys and girls," but he devoted much of his time to pushing, prodding and cajoling them into making the same efforts to rise that he had made.
But in the long run it will not be his material successes that will be remembered. Rather, he will be recalled as a larger-than-life figure cast in the same mold as legendary folk heroes of the past.
Part of this heroism was in the military field. When he was given command of a fighter squadron on Sept. 24, 1918, he wrote in his diary:
"Just been promoted to command of 94th Squadron. I shall never ask any pilot to go on a mission that I won't go on. I must work now harder than I did before."
He did not delay suiting action to the words. The next day, while leading a patrol before breakfast, he spotted a flight of five German Fokker pursuit planes escorting two observation craft near Billy, France. He slammed his Spad fighter into a power dive, coming down out of the sun onto the unsuspecting enemy. Closing fast, he fired a long burst and saw one of the Fokkers fall away and crash.
Taking advantage of the momentary confusion of the German fighter pilots, he plunged through their formation and went after the two-seater observation planes, which were then streaking back toward enemy territory. He made several unsuccessful passes at the heavier craft while their rear gunners were firing at him and the entire dogfight moved behind the German lines.
When he saw that the Fokkers had regrouped and were closing fast at higher altitude, he decided to make one final try. Sideslipping his Spad between the two observation planes, which were flying about 50 feet apart, he sent one down in flames before streaking for home.
This double-header, as he called it, earned him the Medal of Honor, but at the time Mr. Rickenbacker had other things on his mind. "I was glad it had come this morning [MISSING TEXT] effect it would have on the other pilots," he said.
His determination to set a good example did not end with the twin killing. He went on to achieve 18 of his 26 victories between taking command of the Squadron and the end of the war--a matter of 48 days in all. Much of his combat was against the "flying circus" of Baron Manfred von Richtofen, the "Red Baron."
For 41 years, Mr. Rickenbacker was officially credited with shooting down 21 planes and four balloons, although he maintained he had downed 22 planes and four balloons. In 1960, the Air Force approved his request for correction of the official record and granted him his 26th kill.
While Mr. Rickenbacker's wartime exploits may have been the result of what he described as "planned recklessness" and "taking all the breaks," he was later to exhibit courage of a steelier kind.
B-17 Crash-Landed
On a foggy night in February, 1941, one of his own Eastern Air Lines planes, on which he was a passenger, crashed into a hill as it approached Atlanta. Although he was pinned to the body of a dead steward by the wreckage and had a shattered pelvic bone, half a dozen broken ribs, a broken leg and one eyelid torn away, he remained conscious for nine hours until he was taken to a hospital.
During that time he took command of the plane. He reassured survivors, sent some of the walking injured for help and shouted warnings against lighting matches in the gasoline- filled cabin.
Sixteen months later, fully recovered except for a limp, he was to have a still greater test of his courage.
That came when a B-17, on which he was making an inspection tour of World War II bases in the Pacific, had to make a crash landing in the ocean, 12 hours out from Honolulu. In minutes the plane sank and its eight passengers and crewman took to rubber rafts.
For the next 22 days, Mr. Rickenbacker, the only civilian in the group, gave the orders. He divided the four oranges that made up the initial food supply. When a seagull landed on his head, he captured the bird smoothly. Then, when fish were caught, he divided the catch. After eight days it rained and he took charge of the water distribution.
Cursing one man who prayed for death, dragging back another who tried to drown himself to make more room for the others, the grim, indomitable figure taunted his comrades to stay alive. Hating him every minute, six of these seven survived to be rescued by a patrolling plane that found them almost by chance. Most of them came to believe that they owed their lives to Mr. Rickenbacker's iron will.
As for the commander of the rafts he continued his trip after two weeks of rest. He was then 52 years old.
Mr. Rickenbacker was born of a German-Swiss father and a French-Swiss mother in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 8, 1890. His name originally was Edward Reichenbacher, but he modified the spelling of the family name during World War I to make it less Germanic, and added the middle name Vernon for a touch of "class."
His father, a construction contractor of moderate circumstances, died when Mr. Rickenbacker was 12. The boy, who was the third of eight children, quit school and went to work. After a series of jobs, he entered the automobile industry as an unpaid porter in the Frayer-Miller Company in Columbus.
Took Engineering Course
He received a job for wages when Lee Frayer, head of the company, learned that his voluntary helper had taken a correspondence course in mechanical engineering. When Mr. Frayer moved a short time later to the Columbus Buggy Company, just beginning the manufacture of automobiles, Mr. Rickenbacker was taken along.
The young man, then 16 and a crack mechanic, developed a local reputation as a driver-- although he never held a driver's license nor did he ever [MISSING TEXT] Frayer, who advertised his cars by racing them, gave his aide his next chance by making him a combination racing driver-salesman. For the next six years he traveled all over the country, racing cars one day and selling them the next.
In 1912, when he was 22, Mr. Rickenbacker dropped the dual role and devoted his full time to racing. It was a hard, dangerous life, but he had less than his share of accidents and walked away from those he had.
He said of this phase of his life that it taught him to "scheme."
"You didn't win races because you had more guts. You won because you knew how to take the turns and baby your engine. It wasn't all just shut your eyes and grit your teeth."
The "scheming" paid off. Mr. Rickenbacker set a world record of 134 miles an hour in a Blitzen-Benz at Daytona Beach, Fla., and in 1916, the last full year of his active racing career, he earned $80,000.
He was in England in 1917, buying motors for a racing team, when the United States entered the war. He hurried home and tried to interest the War Department in organizing an air squadron of former racing drivers. Failing this, he enlisted on May 27, 1917, as a sergeant in the Signal Corps and sailed for France as General Pershing's chauffeur.
Transferred to the Air Corps shortly afterward, he was made a first lieutenant on Aug. 20 and put in charge of engineering of the American air training center at Issoudon.
Attended Gunnery School
Transferred again at his own request, he attended gunnery school and then was assigned to French units for flight training.
His assignment to the 94th Squadron was not pleasing to the other airmen of the unit. They resented his civilian fame and his undeniable cockiness about it. In addition, he was regarded as uncouth, domineering and profane. To top it off, he insisted on checking his plane engine before every flight and personally supervised the loading of machine- gun bullets in his ammunition belts, instead of relying on the fortunes of war as gallantry dictated.
The first Rickenbacker victory came on April 29, 1918, while on a patrol with the squadron commander, the late Capt. James Norman Hall, who later wrote "Mutiny on the Bounty" with Charles Nordhoff. He dived his Nieuport to within 150 yards of a German Albatross before opening fire.
His squadron mates, whose earlier iciness slowly changed to respect and then fondness, have said that he was never a fancy flier, but always a ferocious fighter. And when Captain Hall was shot down and captured by the Germans, Captain Rickenbacker, who by then was an ace with seven confirmed kills, was promoted to command the 94th.
After the war, he went on a lecture tour, but turned down an offer to appear in a movie. Instead, in 1922, he accepted the proposal of a group of financiers to lend his name and talents to the manufacture of an automobile.
The Rickenbacker Motor Company, which produced the first car with four-wheel brakes in this country, failed in 1927, leaving Mr. Rickenbacker $200,000 in debt and with no job.
He said subsequently, the business had failed because he had forgotten the importance of proper timing in making his moves. "We were just too early with four-wheel brakes," he said of the equipment that is now standard on all American cars. He kept as prized souvenirs the advertisements of rival concerns of the time that scored the four-wheel brakes as un-[MISSING TEXT].
He resolved to pay off the big debt, and then raised $700,000 more. With this he bought the Indianapolis Speedway, which he ran until 1945, when he sold out to devote his full time to aviation.
In 1928 Mr. Rickenbacker became a $12,000-a-year assistant sales manager of the Cadillac division of the General Motors Corporation. He then was transferred to the big company's various aviation divisions.
In 1934 he was sent as a trouble-shooter to salvage what he could of General Motors' Eastern Air Transport Division, which then owned Eastern Air Lines jointly with North American Aviation.
The companies had sunk about $6-million into Eastern, but while the line had little competition on its choice New York-Miami routes, it was called the ugly duckling of an industry not then notable for successes. Mr. Rickenbacker's job was to shore up the failing line so the owners could sell it for their $1-million asking price.
In its first year under his management, Eastern turned in a net gain of $350,000--the first profit in the history of the airline industry. The second year he doubled the profits. By the third year, when the Government ordered G. M. to sell its airlines or get out of aircraft manufacturing, a banking syndicate offered more than $3-million for Eastern.
Mr. Rickenbacker pleaded with his employers for an equal chance to "save the airline for the boys and girls who helped build it." He received 60 days to raise the money and was told the company would be his for $3.5-million. The night before the option expired he got his final commitment, and the next day, March 2, 1938, he owned Eastern Air Lines.
Mr. Rickenbacker ran his company in much the same manner he had commanded the 94th Squadron in World War I. He set impossible goals, and then went out and achieved them himself before complaints got out of hand. He also applied other early lessons to the airlines. He was never the first to buy a new plane. Only when other companies had tested a new type and proved it satisfactory did he place his order.
He had homes in New York and Key Biscayne, Fla.
Under Mr. Rickenbacker's dominance, Eastern was considered an efficient and profitable airline, but somewhat austere compared with many of its competitors. In the eyes of many travelers, its lack of emphasis on in-flight service and other frills gave it a spartan image.
Nevertheless, the airline prospered. For 25 years under Mr. Rickenbacker's guidance-- from 1935 to 1960--it earned a profit every year. Then, along with many other lines that were jolted by the financial headwinds accompanying the introduction of jet airliners, it experienced losses during the early sixties.
In 1959, Mr. Rickenbacker resigned as president of Eastern, and four years later, on Dec. 31, 1963, he retired as director and chairman of the board.