LOST AT SEA

The final heroic episode in a hero’s life.

Throughout his life, Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973) regularly occupied the front pages. A famous race car driver before World War I, he ended the war as America’s greatest fighter ace, won the Medal of Honor, thrilled the nation with aviation records during the 1920s, and retired to turn Eastern Air Lines into a profitable company. Military historian Wukovits, author of Pacific Alamo, Hell From the Heavens, and other books, delivers a compelling account of Rickenbacker’s early years, dominated by auto racing and flying. Though he was successful in both ventures, he also seemed to be accident-prone. This was partly owing to primitive machines, but he also experienced a February 1941 crash as a passenger on one of his Eastern Air Lines planes. Horribly injured with multiple fractures, he spent four months in the hospital and never entirely recovered. During World War II, the middle-aged Rickenbacker toured the world as an inspirational speaker and adviser. In October 1942, he flew from Hawaii toward Australia, but defective navigation caused the plane to miss its first stop, run out of fuel, and ditch. Rickenbacker and a few others escaped on three tiny rubber rafts with few tools, no fresh water or protection from the elements, and little food. It took 24 days for them to be rescued, and Wukovits delivers a detailed account of their suffering from maddening thirst, starvation, burning sun during the day, bitter-cold, wet nights, and painful injuries from the crash. In interviews and books that followed, Rickenbacker took credit for their survival. Wukovits and many other historians (but not all) agree, and the author shows how Rickenbacker refused to lose hope, encouraging and often bullying the others to maintain morale. All added their gratitude to God, and Wukovits pays close attention to their religious backgrounds and emphasizes that the doubters and atheists among them admitted their errors.

A gripping survival story.