The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh (74 page)

*
He knew as well about Magic, the American project that broke the Japanese naval code.

†
Unlike the arrangement with England in which the British traded U.S. war aid in exchange for long-term leases of British military bases around the world, with the Soviets there was U.S.-lend but no corresponding leases or repayment.

‡
Later, when both the Soviets and the Chinese began acting aggressively toward the United States and other democracies, Rickenbacker admitted he’d been wrong and resumed his abiding hatred of communism.

§
One bane for Rickenbacker was the question of stewards versus stewardesses. He preferred the men because, he said, the women soon marry, have children, and quit. However, since flying catered largely to businessmen, who preferred stewardesses, by the 1950s all of the airlines used (“the girls”) women.

‖
It has been said that his drinking was partially a cause of his leaving Eastern.

a
Even after the unconditional surrender there were reports of sniping and German “werewolves”—bitter Nazis who vowed sabotage even after losing the war.

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.

N
OTES

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
.