The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight
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b Göring was a prisoner and committed suicide by cyanide in order to escape the hangman after his conviction for war crimes by the Allied court.
NOTES
2: The King of Dirt
1 Sources for Rickenbacker’s air action are taken from Rickenbacker’s Fighting the Flying Circus and Rickenbacker: An Autobiography and from transcriptions of taped interviews by Booton Herndon.
2 Details of Rickenbacker’s childhood are taken from the Herndon transcripts; Rickenbacker; Finis Farr, Rickenbacker’s Luck: An American Life; W. David Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker: An American Hero in the Twentieth Century; and the Isabel Leighton transcripts.
3 Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker.
4 For Rickenbacker’s early career in the automotive business I relied principally on the transcripts from Herndon; a fifty-page transcript of an interview with Rickenbacker by an “unidentified interviewer,” which is contained in the Rickenbacker Papers at Auburn University, Alabama; Rickenbacker’s own published autobiography; and Lewis’s Eddie Rickenbacker.
5 Details of Rickenbacker’s racing career were gleaned from the Herndon transcripts; in two lengthy “unidentified interviewer” transcripts (Reel No. 4, side 2 and Reel No. 5, side 1) contained in the Rickenbacker Papers; Farr, Rickenbacker’s Luck; New York Times, August 24, 1914; and published materials of the Sioux City (Iowa) Public Museum.
6 Hans Christian Adamson, Eddie Rickenbacker.
7 The varying details of Rickenbacker’s epiphany are found in the Herndon transcripts; the “unidentified interviewer” transcripts; the Rickenbacker autobiography; Adamson, Eddie Rickenbacker; and Farr, Rickenbacker’s Luck.
8 These details of Rickenbacker’s personal life are included in Adamson’s Eddie Rickenbacker.
9 Eddie’s encounters with Glenn Martin and T. F. Dodd are chronicled in the Herndon transcripts, and by Adamson, Farr, and Lewis.
3: The Man with the Outside Loop
1 Details of Doolittle’s youth and army life were guided principally by his autobiography, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again, which I cite as a general source rather than clutter the notes with ibids and op cits.
2 Quentin Reynolds, The Amazing Mr. Doolittle.
3 Sources for Mitchell and his famous court-martial are derived from the autobiographies of Doolittle and Rickenbacker and from Rebecca Maksel, “The Billy Mitchell Court-Martial,” Air and Space (July 2009).
4 Reynolds, The Amazing Mr. Doolittle.
5 Information on Harry Guggenheim and the Guggenheim funds comes from the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission.
4: Can Those Be Stars?
1 Lindbergh’s flight to Paris is taken principally from his autobiographical Spirit of St. Louis and an earlier account by him published right after the flight, called We.
2 Lindbergh, Lindbergh Looks Back: A Boyhood Reminiscence. For the facts surrounding Lindbergh’s youth and early flying experiences I relied on this and on earlier biographies by Ross, Mosley, Gill, Giblin, and Berg as well as Lindbergh’s own passages in his Autobiography of Values and Of Flight and Life.
3 Various of the Lindbergh biographies and Autobiography of Values.
5: Air Combat Is Not Sport, It Is Scientific Murder
1 The original story of Rickenbacker’s good-luck charms is included in Eddie Rickenbacker by Hans Christian Adamson.
2 Sources for the spy episode include Booton Herndon and the Herndon transcripts; Adamson, Eddie Rickenbacker; W. David Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker: An American Hero in the Twentieth Century; Rickenbacker’s autobiography; and the typewritten version of a story by Los Angeles Times auto racing writer Al G. Waddell, “Shadowed by Scotland Yard,” published in Radco Automotive Review in September 1929. Each of these versions diverges from the other in some fashion; I tried to make the best sense of it as I could.
3 Adamson, Eddie Rickenbacker.
4 The British agent is sourced in Herndon’s transcripts; Rickenbacker’s autobiography; Adamson, Eddie Rickenbacker; and H. Paul Jeffers, Ace of Aces: The Life of Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker..
5 Gunnery school details come from Herndon’s transcripts and Rickenbacker himself.
6 Quentin Reynolds, They Fought for the Sky.
7 Hat in the Ring emblem creation comes from Rickenbacker’s autobiography.
8 Kenneth Sydney Davis, The Hero: Charles A. Lindbergh, the Man and the Legend.
9 Rickenbacker’s first combat patrol is documented in the Herndon tapes; Rickenbacker’s autobiography; Davis; and Rickenbacker’s Fighting the Flying Circus. Understandably, over time stories differ—stories even get better, as is their wont. I have tried here, where there are differences, to present the most likely scenario.
10 Rickenbacker’s autobiography.
11 Lufbery’s crash from ibid.
12 The account of the shooting down of Hall is taken from the Herndon transcripts; Rickenbacker’s Fighting the Flying Circus; Rickenbacker’s autobiography; Davis; and Finis Farr, Rickenbacker’s Luck.
13 Rickenbacker, Fighting the Flying Circus.
14 Reynolds, They Fought for the Sky.
15 Rickenbacker and the Spad from Rickenbacker, Fighting the Flying Circus.
16 History of the 93rd’s insignia by H. H. Wynne, Cross & Cockade (Spring 1960).
6: New York to Paris
1 A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Lindbergh, We, The Spirit of St. Louis.
5 Lindbergh’s dealings with the St. Louis business community and the airplane makers are detailed in his two autobiographies We and The Spirit of St. Louis; Berg, Lindbergh; and Walter Ross, The Last Hero.
6 The story of the building of the Spirit of St. Louis and its subsequent flight across the Atlantic is contained in Lindbergh’s The Spirit of St. Louis and We.
7 The details of Lindbergh’s acquisition of the Spirit of St. Louis and outfitting for his flight are contained in his autobiographical The Spirit of St. Louis.
8 The building and testing of the Spirit is contained in Lindbergh’s autobiography and The Spirit of St. Louis; Berg, Lindbergh; and Ross, The Last Hero. Lindbergh’s self-image is contained in his autobiographical Of Flight and Life.
9 New England’s plentiful stones and rocks and boulders are the remains of the last ice age, debris that was pushed forward by the great glacier and known as a terminal moraine.
7: Man’s Greatest Enemy in the Air
1 The source for this section, unless otherwise noted, is Doolittle’s autobiography, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again.
2 Quentin Reynolds, The Amazing Mr. Doolittle.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Lowell Thomas and Edward Jablonski, Doolittle.
7 Ibid.
8 Dik Alan Daso, Doolittle: Aerospace Visionary.
9 Ibid.
10 Charles Lindbergh, Autobiography of Values.
11 W. David Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker: An American Hero in the Twentieth Century.
12 A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh.
13 Doolittle, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again.
8: I Was Saved for Some Good Purpose
1 W. David Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker: An American Hero in the Twentieth Century.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Finis Farr, Rickenbacker’s Luck.
5 Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker.
6 Quoted in ibid.
7 Farr, Rickenbacker’s Luck.
8 Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker.
9 H. Paul Jeffers, Ace of Aces: The Life of Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker.
10 Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker.
11 Ibid.
12 Jeffers, Ace of Aces.
13 Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker.
14 Ibid.
15 Cited from Motor Age (1923) in ibid.
16 Farr, Rickenbacker’s Luck.
17 Dominic A. Pisano, “The Crash that Killed Knute Rockne,” Air and Space/Smithsonian 6 (December 1991).
18 Quoted in Smithsonian (Apri
l 2013).
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 New York Times, June 26, 1941; Rickenbacker’s autobiography; Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker.
9: An Inspiration in a Grubby World
1 Leonard Mosley, Lindbergh.
2 New York Times, May 23, 1927.
3 Mosley, Lindbergh.
4 A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh.
5 Charles A. Lindbergh and Fitzhugh Green, We.
6 Ibid.
7 Mosley, Lindbergh.
8 Unpublished material from the diaries of Harold Nicolson, quoted in Mosley, Lindbergh.
9 Berg, Lindbergh.
10 Mosley, Lindbergh.
11 Betty Rogers, Will Rogers (University of Oklahoma Press, reprint [1941]).
12 Quoted in John Ward, The Meaning of Lindbergh’s Flight.
13 All quotes here from ibid.
14 Berg, Lindbergh.
15 Ibid.
16 Charles Lindbergh, The Spirit of St. Louis, appendix.
17 Mosley, Lindbergh.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Berg, Lindbergh.
22 Ibid.
23 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Bring Me a Unicorn.
24 Ibid.
25 Berg, Lindbergh.
26 Ibid; also Mosley, Lindbergh.
27 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Unicorn.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.; Berg, Lindbergh; Mosley, Lindbergh.
34 Berg, Lindbergh.
35 Ibid.
36 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Hour of Gold.
37 George Waller, Kidnap (Dial Press, 1961); Berg, Lindbergh; Mosley, Lindbergh; and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Hour of Gold.
38 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Hour of Gold.
39 Walter S. Ross, The Last Hero; Berg, Lindbergh; Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Hour of Gold.
40 Mosley, Lindbergh.
10: His Halo Turned into a Noose
1 William Hoffman, The Doric Column, University of Minnesota, November 1998.
2 Susan Hertog, Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
3 Ibid; A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh; Edna Ferber, New York Times, January 28, 1935.
4 The account of threats is from Lindbergh’s Autobiography of Values.
5 Berg, Lindbergh.
6 Lindbergh, Autobiography of Values.
7 The gist of the Lindberghs’ trip to Germany is from Autobiography of Values.
8 Ibid.
9 Berg, Lindbergh.
10 Ibid.
11 Lindbergh, Autobiography of Values.
12 Ibid.
13 Air Intelligence Activities, Office of the Military Attaché, American Embassy, Berlin, German, August 1935–April 1939.
14 Max Wallace, The American Axis; Berg, Lindbergh.
15 Berg, Lindbergh.
16 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, War Within and Without.
17 Berg, Lindbergh; James P. Duffy, Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt.
18 Ibid.
19 Lindbergh, War Within and Without.
20 Duffy, Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt.
21 Leonard Mosley, Lindbergh.
11: The Raid
1 Quentin Reynolds, The Amazing Mr. Doolittle.
2 Duane Schultz, The Doolittle Raid.
3 Reynolds, The Amazing Mr. Doolittle.
4 Craig Nelson, The First Heroes.
5 Doolittle recounts this in I Could Never Be So Lucky Again.
6 Schultz, Doolittle Raid.
7 Lowell Thomas and Edward Jablonski, Doolittle.
8 Ted W. Lawson, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo; transcript of interview with Edgar McElroy, Pacific Aviation Museum, Ford Island, Oahu, Hawaii, April 2011.
9 Joseph C. Grew, Ten Years in Japan; Schultz, Doolittle Raid.
10 Schultz, Doolittle Raid.
11 Ibid.
12 Lawson, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.
13 Edgar McElroy interview.
14 The official Web site of the Doolittle Raiders, www.doolittleraider.com.
15 Nelson, The First Heroes.
16 Lt. Col. Robert G. Emmens, Guests of the Kremlin (New York, 1949).
17 Thomas and Jablonski, Doolittle.
18 Schultz, Doolittle Raid.
19 Thomas and Jablonski, Doolittle.
20 Winston Groom, 1942 (New York, 2004).
21 David Kahn, The Codebreakers (New York, 1967).
12: We Were Slowly Rotting Away
1 Rickenbacker, Rickenbacker.
2 New York Times obituary, September 12, 1968.
3 W. David Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker: An American Hero in the Twentieth Century.
4 Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker; Finis Farr, Rickenbacker’s Luck.
5 Hans Christian Adamson, Eddie Rickenbacker.
6 Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker; interview with John Bartek; Booton Herndon transcripts, Special Collections and Archives, Auburn University.
7 James C. Whittaker, We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing; Adamson, Eddie Rickenbacker.
8 Adamson, Eddie Rickenbacker; Rickenbacker, Seven Came Through.
9 Rickenbacker, Seven Came Through.
10 Ibid; Booton Herndon transcripts.
11 Whittaker, Angels Sing.
12 Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker; interview with Rickenbacker’s son William.
13 Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker.
14 Adamson, Eddie Rickenbacker; Booton Herndon transcripts.
15 Lewis conversation with William Rickenbacker.
16 Ibid.
13: The Lone Eagle Goes to War
1 Max Wallace, The American Axis.
2 A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh.
3 Charles Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh.
4 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, War Within and Without.
5 Lindbergh, Of Flight and Life.
6 Berg, Lindbergh.
7 Ibid.
8 Stephen Birmingham, The Late John Marquand (Philadelphia, 1972).
9 Charles MacDonald, “Lindbergh in Battle,” Collier’s (February 16, 1946).
10 Ibid.
11 http://www.charleslindbergh.com (Lightning Strikes, Ronald Yoshino).
12 MacDonald, “Lindbergh in Battle.”
13 Ibid.
14 Yoshino, Lightning Strikes.
15 Lindbergh, Wartime Journals.
16 Leonard Mosley, Lindbergh.
14: Masters of the Sky
1 Paul W. Tibbets, The Tibbets Story (New York, 1978).
2 W. David Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker: An American Hero in the Twentieth Century.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Finis Farr, Rickenbacker’s Luck.
6 Charles Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh.
7 Lindbergh, Autobiography of Values.
8 A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh.
9 Esquire magazine (March 1971), cited in Berg, Lindbergh.
10 Berg, Lindbergh.
11 Reeve Lindbergh, Forward from Here.
12 Lowell Thomas and Edward Jablonski, Doolittle; Jonna Doolittle Hoppes, Calculated Risk.
13 Rickenbacker interview with Kincaid.
NOTES ON SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ALL THREE SUBJECTS OF THIS BOOK are no longer living so I felt fortunate that each in his lifetime had written an autobiography. It is often said that autobiographies are skewed to be self-serving, which is probably true, but a similar argument could be made about anything the subject says to an interviewer. I consulted a great many sources in the process of writing this book, which are listed in the bibliography.
In Rickenbacker’s case I owe a debt of gratitude to Dwayne Cox, head of Special Collections and Archives at Auburn University, who was kind enough to provide me access to several thousand pages of Rickenbacker interviews over the years. These cover practically every aspect of his life, from his early racing days to World War I, the Rickenbacker Motor Company fiasco, Eastern Air Lines, his h
orrible airplane crack-up in Atlanta, and of course his ordeal in the Pacific. These papers constitute the basis for his 1967 autobiography Rickenbacker, written in collaboration with Booten Herndon. They were also central to the most comprehensive biography of Rickenbacker, written by the late W. David Lewis, history professor at Auburn University, and published in 2005. A 1979 biography of Rickenbacker by Finis Farr was also useful. On the Pacific ordeal, James C. Whittaker’s account We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing, published in 1943, provides an interesting contrast to Rickenbacker’s Seven Came Through, issued the same year.
Two years before his death in 1993, Jimmy Doolittle published an exhaustive autobiography, I Could Never Be So Lucky Again, in collaboration with the retired air force colonel Carroll V. Glines, who had previously written five books on the Doolittle raid and Doolittle himself. There is also a useful 1976 biography, called simply Doolittle, by the well-known broadcaster Lowell Thomas, a friend of Doolittle’s, coauthored by Edward Jablonski. A fine little gem is Doolittle: Aerospace Visionary published in 2003 by Dik Alan Daso. The raid itself has been covered extensively, most recently by Craig Nelson in The First Heroes, published in 2002, and by Duane Schultz in The Doolittle Raid, from 1988. Another very good read is the famous first-person account Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo by raider pilot Ted Lawson.
Unlike Doolittle and Rickenbacker, Charles Lindbergh did not collaborate with anyone but his editor on his autobiography and many other books. He was an amazingly facile writer, perceptive, sensitive, and incredibly observant. The Spirit of St. Louis, his almost stream-of-consciousness account of the 1927 Atlantic crossing, published in 1953, is riveting. As well, his Wartime Journals makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in the workings of Lindbergh’s complicated mind. Here he gives a good account of his service in the Pacific flying U.S. fighter aircraft against the Japanese. Filling in the Lindbergh story were his books We (1927), Of Flight and Life (1948), Lindbergh Looks Back: A Boyhood Reminiscence (1972), and his Autobiography of Values (1976). Also highly literate, insightful, and useful to this story were the diaries of Anne Morrow Lindbergh covering the period from their meeting and marriage, in 1929, and ending five volumes later in 1986.
I have relied heavily on these various autobiographies, biographies, journals, interviews, and more to construct the narrative of this story but have chosen not to footnote every usage, which would clutter the notations in the individual chapters with a blizzard of ibids. Instead, I have annotated important direct quotes and also events that seemed so extraordinary they begged to be sourced. Fortunately there are many such events emanating from the extraordinary characters in this tale.