Eddie Rickenbacker Adrift at Sea
The first newspaper report that Rickenbacker was missing was on Saturday, October 24, 1942, after the War Department announced that the plane, a B-17D Flying Fortress, was overdue on a flight between Oahu island, Hawaii and another Pacific Island. The last message from the plane was that it had one hour of fuel left.
Rickenbacker was making an inspection trip of personnel and equipment for Lieutenant General H. H. Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Force. He previously had made a similar trip to England. The official announcement issued by the War Department was, “Capt. E. V. Rickenbacker, confidential adviser to the secretary of war on aircraft, and nationally known aviation expert is overdue on a flight between Oahu and another island in the Pacific.”
John Bartek was on the flight with Rickenbacker and told the story at Auburn University which has multiple Rickenbacker scrapbooks and other memorabilia. He first caught sight of Rickenbacker in Hawaii. He was standing up in the Flying Fortress readying the plane for the trip when he first spotted “A man with a business suit with a fedora on top of his head and a cane in his hand.” He wondered, “Why were they bringing this cripple aboard the plane? ” When they came aboard, he was introduced to Eddie Rickenbacker, one of his childhood heroes.
The plane attempted to take off that evening. Captain William T. Cherry, Jr. refused to fly the plane they were assigned. The morning after taking off in a different plane, Captain Cherry asked Rickenbacker if he would like to fly the plane for a while. How could America’s Ace of Aces with 26 kills during World War I refuse? Rickenbacker took the controls for about an hour.
The situation in which they were lost at sea is a combination of errors. Captain Cherry decided to turn on the directional finder which is described as “a little loop on the outside of the airplane.” The directional finder will then give the direction of the island. Only problem was the directional finder was jammed.
Captain Cherry then called the island to ask for the lost plane procedure. The men on the island responded that they had had the equipment for a couple of weeks but had not set it up. The next option was to use radar. The radar operator spotted the plane on his screen and directed them to turn 90 degrees to the right. At the time, the plane carrying Rickenbacker was about 90 miles out. That was when the Captain in charge of the radar looked at the screen and believed that Japanese planes were zeroing in on them. Captain Cherry was instructed to “Get off the target.” Captain Cherry asked that the island fire anti-aircraft shells at 8,000 feet but they didn’t see any shells bursting. Captain Cherry then decided to fly in a “square.” While doing this procedure, they couldn’t see anything but the Pacific Ocean. Running out of fuel, they made plans to ditch the plane.
The men threw everything overboard to lighten the weight somewhat. After they crash landed, they deployed the three life rafts, two larger ones which could hold three people and a third, described as the size of the bathtub for two. Rickenbacker injured his back when the plane hit the water. All that they were able to take from the plane were four oranges. While they had some fishing hooks and some rotted fishing line, they had no bait. The second day on the raft, each of the men had an eighth of an orange.
The Army launched a search for the overdue plane by air and sea.[9] On board were six members of the crew, and Rickenbacker, Colonel Hans Adamson of the air corps.[10] It was hoped that the plane had either landed on an island and had been unable to establish contact or that the men were in a bright yellow life raft. Sixty hours after they went missing, hope was dimming that they would be found. There had been some incidents of navy pilots drifting for a month in a life raft before being found.
On the sixth day lost at sea, a seagull landed on Rickenbacker’s head. Not wanting to scare the seagull, Rickenbacker slowly reached his hand up and grabbed the bird. Bartek states that Rickenbacker wanted the bird for bait. After defeathering it, it was cut in pieces, and each man was given a little to eat. A couple of hours later, a rain squall came up, and they used the fresh water to get the salt out of their clothes and captured some in a bucket for dinking. With the seagull meat, they were able to capture fish, and each man had perhaps a couple of ounces of raw fish per day.
On the 18th day, they spotted an airplane and the next day, they spotted two airplanes. But the airplanes didn’t see them. On the 19th day, Captain Cherry cut his raft loose from the others and was soon followed by the smallest raft. Rickenbacker, Bartek and Colonel Adamson were in the third raft. On the 22nd day, Bartek heard two airplanes and they were spotted from the air. A storm intervened in their rescue.
The next day, a little two-seater Kingfisher seaplane landed and pulled up next to Rickenbacker’s raft. They put Colonel Adamson in the back of the seaplane and lashed Rickenbacker to the left wing and Bartek to the right wing. They attached the two men with ropes around their waist and tied them both through the cockpit. They taxied for about thirty minutes when a PT boat drew alongside and Rickenbacker and Bartek were transferred for the remainder of the trip to shore.
The crew was rescued on November 13, except for one man who died and was buried at sea. They survived for twenty-four days. The men in the two other rafts were rescued the day before. They had spotted land, and rowed. The natives spotted them and they notified a radio operator on the island which led to their rescue.
The survivors were found about 600 miles north of Samoa.
Frequently, Rickenbacker was seen at the Miami Beach oceanfront feeding shrimp to the seagulls on Friday evenings. This ritual was in thankfulness to the seagulls for giving them sustenance during the long days and night at sea.