Winston Groom - The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight

A LSO BY W INSTON G ROOM

Nonfiction

Conversations with the Enemy , (1982, with Duncan Spencer)

Shrouds of Glory (1995)

The Crimson Tide (2002)

A Storm in Flanders (2002)

1942 (2004)

Patriotic Fire (2006)

Vicksburg, 1863 (2009)

Kearnys March (2011)

Shiloh, 1862 (2012)

Fiction

Better Times Than These (1978)

As Summers Die (1980)

Only (1984)

Forrest Gump (1986)

Gone the Sun (1988)

Gump and Co . (1995)

Such a Pretty, Pretty Girl (1998)

Published by the National Geographic Society

1145 17th Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

Copyright 2013 Winston Groom. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or part of the contents without written permission is strictly prohibited.

E-book ISBN: 978-1-4262-1157-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Groom, Winston, 1944-

The aviators : Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the epic age of flight / Winston Groom.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4262-1156-0 (hardback : alkaline paper)

1. Rickenbacker, Eddie, 1890-1973. 2. Doolittle, James Harold, 1896-1993. 3. Lindbergh, Charles A. (Charles Augustus), 1902-1974. 4. Air pilotsUnited StatesBiography. 5. Air pilots, MilitaryUnited StatesBiography. 6. HeroesUnited StatesBiography. 7. Adventure and adventurersUnited StatesBiography. 8. AeronauticsUnited StatesHistory20th century. 9. Aeronautics, MilitaryUnited StatesHistory20th century. 10. United StatesHistory, Military20th century. I. Title.

TL539.G73 2013

629.13092273dc23

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Interior design: Melissa Farris

13/QGF-CML/1

v3.1

For Theron Raines (19252012),

authors representative.

For thirty-five years, a mentor, confidant,

business partner, and friend: Well done.

Oh Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won .

W ALT W HITMAN (1865)

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there raind a ghastly dew

From the nations airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,

With the standards of the peoples plunging thro the thunder-storm

A LFRED , L ORD T ENNYSON (18091892)

We loop in the purple twilight

We spin in the silvery dawn

With a trail of smoke behind us

To show where our comrades have gone.

So stand to your glasses steady,

This world is a world full of lies.

Heres a toast to those dead already,

And heres to the next man to die.

W ORLD W AR I ERA AVIATOR S TOAST

In flyings Hall of Fame

Theres a special breed of men,

The Old Gray Eagle

Is among the best of them.

You see him totter on his cane

As he goes walking to his plane

So old you wouldnt think theyd let him fly.

But when he gets into the air,

And if you ever meet him there

Youll know that hes a master of the sky.

His snowy hair is so much whiter

Than all the rest of them,

The Old Gray Eagle

Among the best of men.

COMBAT PILOT S DRINKING SONG
( SUNG TO THE TUNE OF T HE O LD L AMPLIGHTER )

CONTENTS

Eddie Rickenbacker, known as Captain Eddie, 1918, stands beside his plane emblazoned with the Hat in the Ring squadron emblem .

Rickenbacker ca. 1903, approximately the time he quit school to help support his family .

The Rickenbacker home, built by Eddies father on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio .

Eddie Rickenbacker ca. 1915. By age twenty-one he was one of the top race car drivers in the United States .

Eddie and his future wife, Adelaide, in 1922 .

In 1938 Rickenbacker bought Eastern Air Lines, which flew the innovative DC-3 and the Lockheed Electra pictured here .

Following a 1941 plane crash Rickenbacker was initially given up for dead .

Jimmy Doolittle as a young boy .