The American Fighter Aces Association Oral Interviews The Museum of Flight Seattle, Washington
Edward V. “Eddie” Rickenbacker (Part 1 of 2)
Interviewed by: Eugene A. Valencia, M. Jones, and others
Interview Date: May 28, 1966
2
Abstract: In this two-part oral history, fighter ace Edward V. “Eddie” Rickenbacker is interviewed about his life and his military service during World War I. In part one, he shares stories from his racing, military, and business careers. Topics discussed include his time with the 94th Aero Squadron in France, the evolution of aviation technology and aerial warfare, and stories about fellow servicemen and other colleagues.
The interview is conducted by fighter ace Eugene A. Valencia, a woman identified in the container notes as M. Jones, and several other individuals. All speakers not identifiable as Valencia, Jones, or Rickenbacker are labeled as “unidentified.”
Biography:
Edward V. “Eddie” Rickenbacker was born on October 8, 1890 in Columbus, Ohio. When he joined the United States Army in 1917, he was already a well-known race car driver and, at 27 years of age, was older than most cadets entering the Air Service. Rickenbacker was deployed to France in June 1917 and served first at the 3rd Aviation Instruction Center in Issoudun before joining the 94th Aero Squadron. During his combat tour, he scored 26 aerial victories against aircraft and balloons, making him the top-scoring American fighter ace in the war. Rickenbacker left the military after World War I and embarked on a number of business ventures, including founding the Rickenbacker Motor Company and managing Eastern Air Lines. During World War II, he made several tours of military bases in support of the war effort. On one such tour in the South Pacific, he and the crew of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress had to ditch the aircraft near Japanese-held islands. The group spent several weeks adrift at sea before being rescued. Rickenbacker passed away in 1973.
Biographical information courtesy of: Boyce, Ward J., ed., American fighter aces album. Mesa, Ariz: American Fighter Aces Association, 1996.
Restrictions:
Permission to publish material from the American Fighter Aces Association Oral Interviews must be obtained from The Museum of Flight Archives.
Transcript:
Transcribed by Pioneer Transcription Services 3
Index:
Introduction ...... 4
Thoughts on the evolution of aviation technology and aerial warfare...... 5
World War I service, part one ...... 6
The future of aviation...... 9
Current activities ...... 10
Personal background and sociopolitical beliefs ...... 11
Casual conversation with others ...... 14
Importance of teamwork ...... 15
Compiling materials for his memoir ...... 17
Stories about licenses ...... 19
Racing career ...... 21
Fighter pilot characteristics ...... 23
Memorable combat flights ...... 24
Good luck charms ...... 26
Thoughts on German pilots ...... 27
Equipment challenges in wartime ...... 28
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Edward V. “Eddie” Rickenbacker (Part 1 of 2)
[START OF INTERVIEW]
00:00:00
[Introduction]
EDWARD V. RICKENBACKER: [audio distortion]—then broke a connecting rod. Out.
UNITENIFIED MAN: How many miles or—
EVR: It was a three-hundred-and-some mile race.
UM: Where did they race?
EVR: Oh, all over the hills out there. Up and down. Yeah.
UM: What were you racing in?
EUGENE A. VALENCIA: There it is right here.
UM: Right. What kind of a car is that?
EVR: Peugeot. French Peugeot.
UM: Is that the same thing they call a Persho—or Peugeot today, that same make?
EVR: Yeah. Yeah. Matter of fact, it’s still in business, but they—
UM: Right. I think they’re making those [unintelligible 00:00:36] smaller.
EVR: Yes.
UM: Model cars, you know.
EVR: Trick cars, they called them.
UM: Have you spent much time in San Diego through your career?
EVR: No, no, no.
UM: Not too much, huh? Primarily—
EVR: Well, I’ve been coming here off and on since 1909.
UM: Because you said when you came here first in 1909, it was small town of 25,000. 5
00:00:55
EVR: Yeah.
EAV: Captain, would you like some refreshments, sir?
EVR: No. A Coca-Cola, if you’ve got one. Cold.
[Thoughts on the evolution of aviation technology and aerial warfare]
UM: Kind of warm, isn’t it? How would you—how would you compare the pilot of the first—of course, there is no comparison. That’s what [unintelligible 00:01:13]. The pilot of World War I, the fighter pilot of World War I, with the fighter pilot of today.
EVR: Well, the—
UM: Cite some of the differences. Of course, there are—
EVR: Number one, there is a—the early days, planes only had about 120-mile-an-hour speed. You had to go downhill a little bit to get that. Then maneuvering was very practical, and it was an easy thing to do at that speed. Maneuverability was important because it was all out of doors—in a combat, they’re called dogfight.
UM: Right.
EVR: I got it. And then along came World War II. Speed had jumped, multiplied. Then there was the mass formations that they didn’t have in World War I—
UM: Planes went out individually in World War I—
EVR: Well, a lot of them did. I did a lot of that alone because I didn’t have the obligation of protecting a formation behind me. That’s always a hazard. But in World War II, Spitfires and whatnot, Messerschmitts came into their own. They were much faster and usually there was a limited amount of dogfighting. Very limited. Along came Korea, and they jumped to the point where the speed was so great all you could do was get a second or two sight and let go of the burst and go straight up or go straight down to get away.
And today, you’ve got the speed doubled again over Korea and got so fast that they’d run into their own machine gun bullets. The velocity of the machine gun bullets weren’t as fast as the plane. So they had to get rid of the machine guns, and they are loaded at a nose full of rockets today. And they—in addition, you’ve got the fact that air-to-air missile that, once you get a radar on him, why, you don’t even see the enemies so far away, anywhere from—start shooting two to ten miles away. And that thing is acoustically—and heat. It picks up the heat of the other fellow 6
and runs into the tail skid, so to speak, into the tailpipe—
00:04:24
UM: How about the pilots themselves, their attitude—
EVR: They don’t get a chance to see the other fellows.
UM: Right. No, I mean the pilots of today compared with the early day pilots. I would gather that, when you were [unintelligible 00:04:35]—
EVR: Well, that’s—
UM: …you were a lot more loose than these guys are today.
EVR: Your pilot today doesn’t see the results. He mostly [unintelligible 00:04:43] bombing into the jungle. They don’t know what they’re hitting and—there are no combat planes. If there were a lot of them, why, it would give the boys a chance to really go out and fight a combat in the air. But that isn’t—doesn’t exist, though it’s really a scientific artillery battle in the air, so to speak. About all there is. But as far as the pilots are concerned, why—
UM: You said something—
EVR: …they’re better today than they ever were because they got to be.
UM: You said something in the car that interested me. You were talking about the instrumentation in the early planes. The altimeter that wasn’t worth a darn. The gas and oil meters were the only things that really—
EVR: Really counted. Today you’ve got a cockpit full of hundreds of instruments, and you’ve got to be a scientist almost to be a pilot. Got to know what you’re doing. Otherwise—today a pilot’s—he wouldn’t go into war without 400 or 500 hours of training.
[World War I service, part one]
UM: How was it when you first started? How much—
EVR: In World War I, I had 17 hours, and I was on the front with 35. [laughter]
M. JONES: You were there with no gunners [unintelligible 00:06:12].
UM: Were you?
EVR: Huh? 7
UM: Yes?
UM: Was your first flight—combat flight without weapons, without a machine gun?
EVR: Oh, no. No. We had machine gun to start with. The French and Germans didn’t have. They used rifles and dropped bombs and hand grenades. Tried to, you know. Bombed at the other fellow.
EAV: Captain Eddie, in your book, you said that on your first combat missions that the planes did not have guns. They hadn’t arrived with the airplanes as yet. That’s what I think—
EVR: We—it was just a case of supply. Airplanes came in, no guns on them. But it gave us a chance to fool around, get some air time.
UM: When did you make you first flight? What—do you remember the date?
EVR: Well, that—it was April 29th, was the first—[sound of recorder being adjusted]—first combat.
UM: 29th of what? ’17? Or before that?
EVR: No, no. It was 1918.
UM: 1918.
EVR: Yeah.
00:07:15
UM: That was your first combat flight—
EVR: They’re all in the back end in—
UM: Oh, I see. I can take a look at that later. The personal attitude of the pilots, were they pretty much devil-may-care? Were they pretty loose fellows?
EVR: No, no, no. That’s a misnomer.
UM: Well, that’s maybe something that you can tell me about.
EVR: Elliott Springs with a diary got that out. Talked about the carousing and drinking and whatnot and that—then raised so much hell with the wives and the sisters and mothers. New York News [unintelligible 00:07:55] pilots and had to quit it. In fact, tried to get me to combat it with a series of articles.
UM: I see. So this wasn’t the case at all. Serious-minded young men [unintelligible 8
00:08:03]—
EVR: Oh, very. Very serious. And very able kids. Rosy cheeks and 18 to 22s. Now, the first reunion we had at Dayton, most of them I haven’t seen in 45 years. They’re fat and gray, bald, and wrinkled. No more likeliness to those rosy cheeks of 40 years ago, you know.
EAV: You find the record? The first flight?
MJ: I found the first [unintelligible 00:08:40] flight.
UM: April 29th, 1918?
MJ: April 15th, 1918.
EAV: And this was an amazing flight. Captain Eddie took off in a three-plane flight.
UM: A three-plane formation type of thing?
EVR: No. I was with Norman Hall, the writer, author of Mutiny on the Bounty. He was a very good writer. He was a member of the Lafayette Squadron and was transferred into our squadron as sort of a builder of morale, like Lufbery [Gervais Raoul Lufbery] was, who also came from the Lafayette. Because they’d had experience out there and Lufbery had 17 victories to his credit. But they were flying under the French.
UM: I see.
EVR: It was a voluntary organization.
UM: He was flying with you in the same plane? Or was he in another plane?
EVR: Oh, no, no, no. Fighter plane never had anything but the pilot.
UM: Oh, I see. It wasn’t two seats at all.
EVR: Yeah. Two-man job was an observation or a bomber.
00:09:41
UM: On this flight—you started to say something, but—
EAV: On this one flight it was an overcast, and when Captain Eddie—your book—climbed up, the leader turned back, assuming that the other two would also turn back. But Captain Eddie and his wingman went on out. [Margareite? Margery?], you know the story better than that.
MJ: He knows it better than either one of us. [laughs]
UM: [unintelligible 00:10:06]. 9
EVR: You’ve got it all right there. All right in the book.
UM: That’s okay. What—
EVR: Because I kept a daily diary, and that was [unintelligible 00:10:16].
[The future of aviation]
UM: What are you thinking aviation’s coming to? Is there any—
EVR: Coming to? Where has it gone?
UM: Where has it gone? Where’s it—
EVR: There’s no limit to it. No place to go but up. Your highways are jammed. You’re killing 50,000, 60,000 a year and maiming and injuring another 300,000 or 400,000, many of them for life and many of them that don’t—as a result of the accident, premature death. So that you really don’t get the facts, you see.
UM: Do you think the time will come when highways will be completely passé and—
00:10:57
EVR: Oh, no, no, no, no. No. You’re never going to do that. But as far as going from here to there any distance, why, there’s only one place and that’s the air. Nothing else available. Over the oceans, why, steamships are nothing but cruise ships today. Not on a regular schedule, very few of them. Simply because it takes three or four times as long to get anywhere you want to go.
UM: I found a clipping in our files that, in 1947, you said that if we want aviation—I don’t know if it’s the right one here. Oh, the—I guess I didn’t write it down. You, at that time, forecast the supersonic flights that we have today. Thought it was interesting.
EVR: Well—
UM: You were just about on the button when the time that commercial jets came—
EVR: I was way out ahead of—and whether you get them or not, that’s problematical because everything’s got to be new. The metals have got to be new, different. Aluminum can’t be used anymore because friction melts the skin. That’s all got to be stainless steel with nickel in it. Those things just didn’t develop. Still some of them haven’t yet. The philosophies have all got to change. Because when you go 2,000 miles an hour, why, you’ve got something on your hands. And you’ve got to keep in mind that they’re trying to build them to fit the present airports, 8,000, 10,000-mile runways—uh, feet. 10
UM: I read something the other day—
EVR: Instead of miles. Huh?
UM: I read something the other day—I think it was in the newspaper—that—whoever was being quoted expects—well, the regional airports, maybe an airport in Los Angeles, that can handle these 2,000-miles-an-hour planes—
EVR: Well, what will happen is that—you won’t take until he’s got a niche in New York. A couple of minutes to get in. He’s got to be there or he is brushed off. And the fact that he is brushed off and has to go another 500 miles to somewhere to get down, he’s going to be there.
UM: Yeah.
MJ: What’s your impression of our local airport?
EVR: Huh?
MJ: What’s your impression of our local airport?
EVR: Oh, well, it’s normal development that’s going on—forward with the progress of the airplane.
00:13:34
UM: This a—[unintelligible 00:13:34].
EVR: You’ve got a 10,000-foot runway here, I think. We used to have a cow pasture, and that was the airport. Yeah. There weren’t any runways.
[Current activities]
UM: You’re going to stay in San Diego just through today? You’re leaving tomorrow morning?
EVR: Huh?
UM: You’re leaving tomorrow morning, sir?
EVR: Yes. I have a—
UM: Going back to—is your home New York?
EVR: I’m going back to L.A. because I got a sister and two brothers living up there. And so we’re having an early dinner in the hotel with them, and I’m getting away in the morning— 11
Monday morning back home because I’ve got a meeting Monday night.
UM: Where’s your home? New York?
EVR: New York.
UM: New York. I thought so. What are your activities—
EVR: It’s in that little bag, mostly.
UM: What are your activities nowadays? What do you—
00:14:32
EVR: I’m doing a lot of consulting still for Eastern Air Lines. I’ve gotten away from the grind, back to management. And I’m—the last year, practically, I’ve been combining my biographical memoirs and diary notes and speeches and photographs that I’ve accumulated over a lifetime. I’ve got a world of them.
MJ: You didn’t exactly—
EVR: I’ve already taped 1,600,000 words. So if you want something to do, try that.
[Personal background and sociopolitical beliefs]
MJ: You didn’t exactly have an easy childhood, did you?
EVR: Huh?
MJ: You didn’t have an easy childhood with all the advantages?
EVR: No. I had to work like the devil. I went to work when I was 12 years of age. Father died, and I had to help keep the other seven kids. My first job was at the Federal Glass Works. That was Ohio. Twelve hours a night, six nights a week, three-dollars-and-a-half a week. But that three-dollars-and-a-half bought something then. It don’t today.
MJ: Do you think that helped make you what you are?
EVR: Oh, no question about it. No question about it. I mean, I had an excess of the force. I’ve got nothing but a pressure life all my life.
MJ: Well, what takes the pressure of necessity for the children of today?
EVR: Huh? 12
MJ: How can we replace necessity with the children of today? How can—
EVR: Take them off of relief. Take them off of relief. Put them to work.
MJ: You don’t believe in the Great Society?
EVR: Eh, inclusive. You’ve got a welfare state now, if you stop and think of it.
MJ: Well, I agree.
EVR: Yeah. And then the Great Society is nothing but a vote-catching philosophy. It’s one of those things. Degeneration of the people. Degradation of that spirit of America that made American. Basically, the incentive in the individual.
MJ: Well—
EVR: There was pride in accomplishing something. No more.
MJ: That’s right, but—
EVR: No more.
MJ: …what’s going to happen now—
EVR: Because they can get it the easy way.
MJ: What’s going to happen to young men growing up?
EAV: They don’t have that spirit. They don’t have that spark.
UM: What can we do to re-instill this? I’d like—I have kids.
00:17:18
EVR: There is only one answer, and that’s suffering. Everybody’s got to suffer. No other way in the world to learn. You got to pay a penalty. The good with the bad.
MJ: But how can you make a child of today pay the penalty? How do you make a child— how—someone might—
UM: [unintelligible 00:17:36].
EVR: Take everybody off of relief because there’ll be no money for relief. Don’t forget that. You’ve got a $340 billion debt, $30 billion today and—$24 billion, and they just asked for another $8 billion. Now, that’ll go up before the year ‘67 is out, fiscal year. The $40 billion, well, that’s got $12, $13 billion in interest annually. That’s why the dollar isn’t worth much anymore. The last honest dollar you had was in 1933, before Roosevelt devaluated it in ‘34 from 100-cent 13
dollar to a 59-cent dollar by raising the price of gold. In the meantime, you’ve had automatic inflation. This year it’ll run around three percent, and that compounds, you know, as you go along.
00:18:36
UM: There’s something else that was in the news yesterday that I caught sight of in some clippings we have that you had commented on before. I can’t think of the general’s name. General made a speech and said that there were some Vietnamese gathering on the borders of Cambodia—
EVR: Oh—
UM: …the Defense Department said that—
EVR: General Larsen [likely Stanley R. Larsen].
UM: …the General’s wrong. General said, “By golly, I’m wrong.” Now, like I said, I recall in some clippings that you commented earlier on censorship and—
EVR: You’ve got a censorship that’s worse than anything we’ve ever had in the history of this country.
UM: Is it necessary to some extent?
EVR: Huh?
UM: Is it necessary to have some of this censorship for—
EVR: Well, some of it, yes, but not to the degree by any means that you’ve got today. Because you don’t dare say anything if you’re in uniform about communism. You don’t dare say anything about the leaders. They blue-pencil it on before you even get to mention it. Well, I’m free—I’m freelance. I’m a free man. I owe no one anything, have anything in the world I want. So it’s pretty hard to put your finger on me. They try. The key to it is the apathy of the American people. I’ve done an awful lot of public speaking to all types of people across the continent. Hundreds of thousands of them. They give a rising ovation 20, 30 times during the speech. Give you a rising ovation when you quit. Go out the door and it goes out the ear—the other ear, and that’s the end of it. That’s the sad part about it.
MJ: Do you think you reach the people?
EVR: Hmm?
MJ: Do you think when you give a speech, the people who come to hear you are the people who agree with you? 14
EVR: Not necessarily, no. By no means because I usually throw the meeting open after.
UM: You speak of Americanism and anti-communism primarily, don’t you, in your—
EVR: Well, it depends on the crowd and what angles are—those girls that came down there on the plane, they were here for a banker’s convention—Richmond, Virginia [unintelligible 00:21:10]—they’re going to make a speech.
[Casual conversation with others]
[background conversation with newcomers]
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: How do you do, Captain Rickenbacker? I’m delighted to meet you.
EVR: [unintelligible 00:21:31] a parachute big enough to carry you.
UW: [laughs] Well, I had many of them, and I enjoyed them very much. And my pleasure is to bring you a letter from a very old friend. And his name is inside. And a little note [unintelligible 00:21:47]. You can read it at your leisure or you can read it now. It’s—this is the gentleman that—he was [unintelligible 00:21:58] down in the hometown that your folks were in. And he’s a very wonderful man. He helped raise my transportation up here when I couldn’t get it any other place. Everything’s so crowded.
EVR: Well, that’s the trouble. I was an idol and an old man when he was a boy.
UW: Now, you are to keep that. And he wants you to keep that.
EVR: I’ll drop him a note when I get home.
UW: And you don’t know what an honor this is for me to meet you.
EVR: I appreciate it.
UW: And I’ll see you—
EVR: How old are you now? Don’t tell me.
UW: Seventy-three. And I got a big family.
EVR: Oh. You’re a debutante. [laughter] Yeah.
EAV: It’s sure been a pleasure meeting you.
UW: Thank you. 15
EVR: You don’t show it anyway.
UW: Thank you so much.
EVR: Good.
UW: Bye.
EVR: Bye-bye. Thank you for the letter.
UM: I think I should go now so maybe he can get a lot of tourists—
EAV: [unintelligible 00:22:55].
UM: Yeah. Is Captain Eddie supposed to sign it or—
EAV: Oh, yes. As I explained, Captain Eddie, this is an emblem that they present to the outstanding Boy Scouts, and your signature, when you add—yes, sir—when you add to it will be—will count for 2,000 aircrafts.
UM: By “2,000 aircraft,” I’m not too sure what you—
EAV: Two thousand airplanes shot down by aces.
UM: Ah, I see.
EAV: This is—Joe Foss presented the last one, sir. We mount it in a plaque.
UM: I’ll go back in there right now—
EVR: Any room for the—name of mine.
[background talk between interviewers]
EAV: Thank you, sir.
[Importance of teamwork]
UM: Tools and parts—
EAV: Parts—you had everything out there, didn’t you, Captain?
UM: I guess that’s—those are just tools.
EAV: Tools. 16
UM: Yeah, I don’t see any parts.
MJ: There’s a wheel. I’d call that a part.
UM: I was looking at all this stuff here. Pipe wrenches and box wrenches and open end wrenches. Holy cow.
00:24:32
EVR: Oh, yeah. We had to carry a [unintelligible 00:24:33].
UM: Each car had its own set of tools, didn’t it? Tools were not standardized—
EVR: Oh, yes. Had their own mechanics. No two cars alike.
UM: Yeah.
EVR: That was a great car.
EAV: Well, when you were racing in those days, Captain, is that where you found that teamwork paid off? We notice that in your racing teams you demanded the same thing you demanded with your squadron when you commanded the 94th. Did everyone work as a team, work together?
EVR: Same thing on building Eastern Air Lines. Teamwork [unintelligible 00:25:10].
UM: I look at it again. I don’t know what it is.
EVR: Because no one man can do it alone. He’s got to have help. But you’ve got to make it possible for the help to be happy and satisfied and interested.
EAV: At one point—it was very interesting—where two majors reported in to Captain Eddie’s squadron to become indoctrinated over the front lines. Captain Eddie, tell them—
EVR: Well, the story’s very simple. To keep the spirit, the devout spirit, I refused to let the officers—the pilots salute the mechanics or the ground personnel every time—they’re mad at me, you know.
00:25:50
UM: Oh, really? Was that the—is that what happened in those days?
EVR: Oh, sure.
UM Why was that? Why would the officers salute the mechanic?
EVR: Oh, they did every time they’d meet them. So— 17
UM: They were afraid the mechanic would offend them—
EVR: No, it was a matter of rank.
UM: Well, I’ll be darned. The mechanics outranked the pilots in many—
EVR: No, no. The pilots outranked the mechanics, but I wouldn’t let them salute the mechanics to make the mechanics salute back, you see. And they had other things to do besides saluting. So two of these majors—Tooey Spaatz [Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz] was one of them— came up to get some experience on the front. Came to my squadron. I said—I told him the story, and I said, “You’re not going to be happy here. Your boys are not going to be happy, saluting every time we turn around.” Tooey said, “Well, we’ll take our leaves off.” I said, “That’ll make you a friend for life,” you see. “They’ll take you in now and I [unintelligible 00:26:55].” And they did.
UM: [unintelligible 00:27:01]—it was all part of a team. You couldn’t let rank get in the way—
EAV: Team. This started way back in those days.
EVR: Way back. I used to have a Victrola. We had to work day and night and sometimes work all night on a car before the race started. And the boys get tired. I got a Victrola with a lot of march music and current music, and when things started to slow up I’d get the Victrola out.
UM: We’d start working in time with the music. Four-four time.
EVR: Automatically it’d stimulate, you see. As music always does.
UM: Well, I’ll let you get on with possibly—I hope he gets a chance to see the—
[overlapping voices/unintelligible 00:27:41]
[Compiling materials for his memoir]
UM: Captain Eddie, it was a pleasure meeting you, sir.
EVR: Took me a long time to get 1,600,000 words out of my brain. [laughter]
00:27:51
UM: I assume once you get all that stuff compiled, are you going to put it down yourself?
EVR: Then I’ve got to [unintelligible 00:27:57] real trouble— 18
UM: Then you’re going to have a big, fat book or maybe an encyclopedia full of—
MJ: How many books have you written already?
EAV: Two.
EVR: Two.
MJ: Two.
EVR: But the sad part is that there’ll be a lot of stuff that I’ll say, “No, that’s got to stay in.” The publishers will say, “No, this is more important,” you know.
UM: So you’ll be arguing with publishers, and they’ll be arguing with you.
EVR: It’s got to be cut back to about 200,000 words. That’s a hell of a big book with 100 pictures in it on top of it. I’ve got some wonderful photographs. I ran into one that—this car right here. We used to have trouble communicating between the mechanic and the driver.
UM: He was a French mechanic—
EVR: And I—huh?
UM: Was he a French mechanic?
EVR: No, no, no, no.
UM: [unintelligible 00:28:45] being a French mechanic.
EVR: Fred McCarthy, Irish. And I had built a facemask and a helmet and had a mouthpiece and a tube, about a half-inch tube, that the mechanic split them down here. And he had the same thing. I couldn’t find that picture to save my life. Used it at Corona just before I came down here and—Corona, California—and finally, in the clipping bureau, it came in. The [Peugeot?] people had found it, New York agency, and sent it out. “Spaceman of 1914.” [laughter]
00:29:38
UM: Wonderful.
EVR: And it went all over the country. It was printed right here. And it’s like I got a bunch of photographs, accumulation from a friend of mine, George Healy, the publishing owner of the New Orleans Times-Picayune—
UM: Hm-hmm [affirmative]. I’ve heard of it.
EVR: …and a little note with it saying that he decided that he’d—cleaned out the morgue and 19
decided they’d be more valuable to me than to him. And all through my accumulation, it took them saving a few in case when they wanted to use—
UM: You [unintelligible 00:30:24] at all?
EVR: I wrote him and thanked him, and I said, “Yeah, I don’t blame you. You save one for my obituary.” I said, “Egotistically speaking, why, save a good looking—” [laughs]
[Stories about licenses]
UM: Do you still do any flying personally?
EVR: Oh, I—when I get on the road, I insist I get in the cockpit for a moment [unintelligible 00:30:45].
UM: So keep your hand in a little bit—
EVR: Keep my hand in—instrumentation. Keep it in that.
UM: Are you still properly licensed to fly anything that’s [unintelligible 00:30:52]—
EVR: No. I never had a license in my life. Never had a driver’s license—
MJ: You what?
UM: Is that right?
EVR: …automobile.
UM: Really?
EVR: I was driving before they had them. I was flying before they had them.
UM: Right.
MJ: And you just kept on?
EVR: Just kept on.
MJ: Can you do that?
UM: [unintelligible 00:31:06].
MJ: [unintelligible 00:31:12].
00:31:12 20
EVR: I get picked up occasionally. Very, very funny experiences.
UM: That’s another reason—that’s a whole new—that’s a whole new story, I guess.
EVR: In the Rickenbacker Motorcar days, I was driving out [to] the apartment on East Jefferson Avenue in Detroit. I heard this screaming behind me, and so I got into the streetcar tracks—the rest of the street was jammed. Every time they got a little closer, I’d go a little faster and finally got up to the point where I had to turn off to go down to park on the river. I ducked in a hole up at the curb and stopped. Two cops came up in a flivver. One of them came back, “Where in the hell do you think you’re going?” I said, “Round the corner, down there. I live there. Momma’s waiting for me for dinner. I’m late.” “Well, what’s your name?” I said, “Rickenbacker.” “Yeah, yeah. I know you’re driving a Rickenbacker. Prove it.” I pulled out a [unintelligible 00:32:25] gold charm of life membership that the Elks 99 at Glendale, California gave me, and so he said, “God, I’m glad to know you, Eddie. How are you?” Said, “Do you mind if I get my pal back and come to meet you?” I said, “No, if you don’t go down with me and have a highball and mix things up with Momma” [laughter]
But I had all sorts of things like that. When I was going out one time on the Queensboro Bridge, going down to Mitchel Field with a friend of mine—he was driving, and we were in a hurry. And I heard the screeching siren, and I said, “Just let me handle it. You keep your mouth shut.” So he came up, and he wanted to know where the hell we were going. And I said, “Mitchel Field. I’m way late. I’ve got to go down there. I’m testing an airplane.” He said, “Well, who are you?” Told him. Finally pulled out my gold charm and [unintelligible 00:33:36], said, “Eddie, you follow me.” [laughs] We went all the way to Mitchel Field [unintelligible 00:33:44].
MJ: May I borrow your name? And your charm?
UM: That’s a license to, well—
EVR: I finally put the charm in a safety deposit box because I was afraid I might lose it. It’s got a lot of history connected with it.
UM: That’s great. Well, again, I’ll let you go, and I—
UM: See you tonight.
UM: I’ll probably be down there tonight. But let me see if I got everything I need from the both of you.
EVR: If you can get one of those—can you get that duplicated and send me—
EAV: Their yours, sir.
MJ: Those are for you. 21
EAV: They’re for you. I got them for you, sir.
EVR: Oh, wonderful.
[overlapping voices/unintelligible 00:34:21]
UM: These are World War I aces?
EAV: World War I, II, Korea, Flying Tigers.
EVR: [unintelligible 00:34:49].
00:34:52
MJ: Title Insurance Company here has a historical collection of photographs of San Diego. It was apparently a hobby of one of the founders. And they’re just wonderful about digging up old pictures of early San Diego. So when we found out he raced here, why, we raced down—
[overlapping voices/unintelligible 00:35:15]
UM: Goodbye, sir. Thank you again.
EVR: Goodbye. Thank you. Yeah.
[background conversation about ordering sodas]
EAV: Those were the days.
[Racing career]
MJ: Of course, racing developed a lot of character, didn’t it?
00:36:37
EVR: Oh, definitely because it’s a dangerous business. They—the fact that it is so dangerous, [unintelligible 00:36:58]. No one has every truly raced to my knowledge. Too much respect for each other, [unintelligible 00:36:56], knowing the hazards that go with it. And they were very cooperative. One has trouble and the other gets something you can use, give it to him. That happened in Indianapolis. Boy broke up his engine. Louis Meyer had an extra block, cylinder block. This happened the day before the race. They gave it to this boy, and he went out and won the race. And Louis Meyer broke up during the race and—
EAV: Captain—
EVR: …other things have happened. Race Monday is going to be awfully fast and dangerous. 22
They’re like bullets now, you know.
MJ: Is that something—are you going to Indianapolis?
EVR: No. Scares the hell out of me now. [laughter]
MJ: How fast do they go now?
EVR: Oh, they’ll average around 160 mile an hour.
MJ: And what did you average?
EVR: Well, in 1911—that’s over 50 years ago—the winner averaged 74.
EAV: Isn’t that something?
EVR: That’s the winner. Of course, I owned the track for 18 years. Bought it and rebuilt it, increased the speed about 35 miles an hour. And then the cars developed the power, center of gravity, and as I say, they’re just like bullets now. They got to do an average 160 around that track. They got to do 200 or better on the straightaway.
MJ: That’s pretty fast.
EVR: Particularly when you’re in a groove.
MJ: Do the cars hold up any—
EVR: Only 50 feet wide. You got to stay there, and you’ve got 30 of them in that groove, passing and going into the turn together.
EAV: Did your driving help you later on, Captain, as a fighter pilot?
EVR: Huh?
00:39:09
EAV: Did the—your driving, did it help you as a fighter pilot?
EVR: Oh, tremendously so. Because I knew how to judge distance, anticipate, see things coming before they happened. I had to. Yes, sir.
EAV: It was amazing that the War Department—or Aviation Department turned down your suggestion that a group of race pilots—
EVR: I had—I tried to organize and had the race starters organized. Tried to sell it to the board, so you fought the devils that Aviation was under. 23
MJ: Signal car, wasn’t it?
EVR: Huh?
MJ: A signal car?
EVR: A signal car, yeah. And just peanuts, you know. They laughed at me. [sound of recorder being adjusted]
MJ: Did they consider you just a bunch of wild Indians?
EVR: No. They said not too much about the engine. If they think something’s wrong, why, they’ll come back and [unintelligible 00:40:24] and just the opposite.
EAV: Ridiculous.
EVR: By day, being on engine, knowing something about them, how [unintelligible 00:40:33], save it for emergency, and they didn’t throw it open. I got 100 hours out of my Hispano-Suiza for about a top overhaul. The average for the squadron—kids that knew nothing about mechanics—was 14 hours for an engine.
EAV: Amazing.
EVR: Fourteen hours. That’s an awful lot of time, you know, changing engines. Makes a big difference.
[Fighter pilot characteristics]
EAV: Captain Eddie, could you tell who would be a successful pilot or a fighter ace and who wouldn’t by looking at a man? Or how long did it you take to evaluate—
EVR: No, you couldn’t tell by looking at him. You could tell that he had the qualifications to become one—possible, if he didn’t get shot down. All the good ones got shot down.
EAV: What were those qualifications, sir, in your opinion?
00:41:28
EVR: Well, fundamentally, there’s knowledge, speed, ability to project your vision—that’s very important. To be able to see something that’s between you and the ground. Stop before your vision stops. Projected vision, that’s what they call it. Then there was a quality of character, and a clean liver was essential. I never let any of my boys take a cocktail short of 24 hours before they went out on a mission, if they were going to go out over the front. One cocktail changes 24
their whole metal gyration, set-up—
EAV: Also, we noticed that you didn’t drink or smoke while you were racing.
EVR: Hmm?
EAV: You did not drink or smoke during your racing days.
EVR: Never. No. Queen of Sheba couldn’t keep me out after 10:00 at night.
MJ: [laughs] Did she try?
EVR: [unintelligible 00:42:40].
EAV: You also mentioned—pardon me, Captain Eddie. You mentioned that you thought that Lufbery was probably one of the greatest fighter pilots. Is that still—
EVR: Cold-blooded. You had to be cold-blooded. No emotion. Emotions don’t fit. You got to keep your mind down on the butt. And you got one job to do, and you got to concentrate on it. Can’t get upset because you lose your best friend, which I [unintelligible 00:43:27] at dinnertime. You had to carry on. That’s what’s happening in Vietnam today. [unintelligible 00:43:36]. Yeah. How about this Coca-Cola?
EAV: It’s on its way up, sir. Yes, sir.
00:43:47
EVR: Is he going to bring that?
[Memorable combat flights]
EAV: Captain Eddie, what do you think was the most memorable of your fights that you can recall? The one where you singlehandedly attacked the—
EVR: Oh, I think—
EAV: … Richthofen Boys?
EVR: One of them—really, the worse one was—you could calculate and measure—was zero hour on the Argonne front—the Battle of the Argonne. The last real battle of World War I. I had sold Billy Mitchell on the idea: if we could knock down these observation balloons, it would automatically stunt their artillerymen. Well, he agreed, took two pilots, and gave them a balloon to watch for days. Watch when it came up, and watch when it went down. Take a good look at it while it was in its nest. I saved one for myself. I was the last man off. I had to see them all 25
aloft—[telephone rings]—at 4:00 morning.
EAV: Excuse me. [answers telephone and returns] Excuse me, sir.
EVR: And I got out over the front, hell broke loose. Everything on both sides, millions of guns and the like. Dark, [unintelligible 00:45:44] were flashing. 75s, like a mammoth switchboard that [unintelligible 00:45:50]. Howitzers and then the big 16-inch guns, railroad guns. And I was only up about 1,500 feet. A big shell went by, and my tail went in the air—the suction, you know. That woke me up. I started looking for my balloon. While I was headed for it [unintelligible 00:46:17] the planes [unintelligible 00:46:19]. So nothing headed for that.
I didn’t expect any enemy pilots out that morning—that hour—fighter pilots. All of a sudden, two streams of fire ahead of me, incendiary ammunition. He was out doing the same thing I was. I had nothing but incendiary ammunitions. I started to shoot. They were closing that gap, and this millionth of a second decision, I was on the verge of it. I didn’t want to get killed by him running into me. That would have been the end. I didn’t want to run into him and get killed. It would have been the end. I was on the verge of ducking when he ducked. I went over and back behind him and got him. And suddenly my engine started to try to jump out of my fuselage. Vibrations—terrible, horrible. I slowed it down the best I could but kind of half-glided and half- pulled back to Verdun, [unintelligible 00:47:35] airport. I worked my way in. About a third of one blade of the prop had been shot off, they said. That’s what the vibration was. And I got out front and started looking around. I counted 27 bullet holes in a radius of four feet. And I was in the middle of the damn thing, and that little [unintelligible 00:48:07] half-moon—or quarter- moon windshield was all right in the middle. Where the hell was I when that went through?
MJ: Where were you?
EVR: I was back home in Omaha, Nebraska. My kid days [unintelligible 00:48:26] –
MJ: Manager of what?
00:48:29
EVR: …Omaha, Nebraska. And I happened to be on the viaduct, over the railroad tracks at the terminal. Engine went by, and I got a hot cinder on my right eyeball. Stuck there and I finally got it [unintelligible 00:48:48], but it left a little black spot just [unintelligible 00:48:55], to blank out an airplane. And instead of using my right eye to sight, I got to using my left eye. I had—was over here. And I got them to put a little steel bar—or tube through the hole, and it could line it up with the plane and—actually, it was just an eighth of an inch.
[background conversation with waiter]
EVR: It went by right here and scorched a streak in my helmet. 26
MJ: Oh, no.
EVR: That’s how close it was that I could—the only one I could really calculate.
MJ: Then you weren’t sorry you had this black spot in front of your eye.
EVR: I forgot the black spot right there.
MJ: Right then and there. It saved you—
EVR: Didn’t worry about it anymore.
MJ: What about this—in this book that Adamson wrote. I read about some photo plane that you—some photographer—photo plane that you faced—
EVR: Oh, that’s all in the book.
00:50:23
MJ: …kept missing—
EAV: Plane number 16.
EVR: That’s in the book. Yeah.
[Good luck charms]
MJ: Were you really superstitious? Did you really carry good luck charms?
EVR: Hmm?
MJ: Did you really carry good luck charms?
EVR: Well, I did in my racing days, and then I got rid of all of them. And when I went overseas, a boy by the name of Jack Le Cain, who was a driver, had a little daughter about ten years old. She gave me a little identification card with a crucifix and a medallion.
MJ: You mean you still have—
EVR: Careful when you open it because it’ll fall apart. It’s been with me in that pocket all through World War I ever since.
MJ: You mean since 1919 you’ve had this?
EVR: 1917. Yep. 27
MJ: You think, well—
EVR: So I—
MJ: Obviously you believe in it.
EAV: Would you excuse me, Captain, if I took off my coat? The Coca-Cola was a bit hot and exploded.
EVR: Coca-Cola’s hot?
EAV: Yes, sir.
EVR: That thing has been in that pocket. Every time I change the suit, it changes with it. I’m not a religious fanatic, but I do have faith in power above. Always had that or I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.
00:52:16
MJ: I think having faith gives you courage.
EVR: Makes a lot of difference. Yep. Because a person without faith is more or less a robot.
MJ: You thought a lot of your mother, didn’t you?
EVR: Yeah, I had a great mother. A great one. What’s he going to do?
MJ: I don’t know. He’s fussing around with the Cokes, so let’s not let another one explode. [banging sound in background] Well…
[background conversation about Coca-Colas]
[Thoughts on German pilots]
EAV: Excuse me, Captain. By gosh, been waiting to be with you for—Captain, what did you think of the German pilots?
EVR: Where we going? The hell with you. [laughter] I’ve said everything about them. They were good, period. Their record showed it. Couldn’t dispute that.
EAV: Did you talk to any of them after the war, sir?
EVR: Yep. I’ve been entertained by Göring [Hermann Göring], Milch [Erhard Milch], and Udet [Ernst Udet] in Berlin at dinner, two stories down because they were warmongers at that time. They lost the war, and the people were against them. Anybody in uniform. Yep. We were 28
going to take a ride.
EAV: Yes, sir. She’s due in 15 minutes, sir.
EVR: Oh. And I knew Udet. I got him to come over to the races over in Cleveland, Ohio. [unintelligible 00:55:41] pick up a handkerchief, you know, with the tip of the wing off the ground. He’s a very wonderful acrobatic pilot, but he killed himself in World War II. He and Göring fell out. Yeah.
[Equipment challenges in wartime]
EAV: Captain Eddie, as we discussed today, why is it that we find ourselves—
EVR: What?
EAV: Why is it that we find ourself in such an unfortunate position in every war, entering the war ill-equipped? As you well said, it was criminal in World War I, the equipment we had to fly and the—
EVR: We didn’t have any.
EAV: Same thing happened in World War II.
00:56:40
EVR: We had a few D.H.4s over there at the tail end of the war, last [70?] days, but they weren’t any good. Well, it’s just the old story, lack of vision on the part of our-called statesmen. And you mustn’t forget, with our form of government—democracy, so to speak—why, different people today are against it and tomorrow they’re for it. You got to sell it.
EAV: Yes, sir.
EVR: You got that trouble in Vietnam today with all these beatniks and card-burners. Would have shot a man like that in World War I. Now the patriotic spirit is depreciating badly.
EAV: Well, the unfortunate thing in World War II, when Mr. Lindberg and even Al Williams tried to convince our respective military departments that we didn’t have equipment—we didn’t have the equipment to enter the war, we didn’t have fighters—they were—
EVR: [unintelligible 00:57:45] by comparison to what I was doing and yelling about at that time. This was 1922—I got an opener—1922, I came home after the war and started to preach the need of it. It was evident to me that—and I had to preach it. I fought Billy Mitchell’s fight for him. I was his chief witness during the court-martial and—and then ‘35, I begged Congress to— 29
[addressing someone else] I’m all right, thank you. Thank you very much. You help yourself. I said we needed 50,000 airplanes out of—take a five-year program and a billion dollars, start to work on it, because it’s going to come. I was laughed at. Roosevelt finally picked up my 50,000 airplanes. By that time, I’d gone to 200,000, and we built 300—over 300,000 during World War II. That’s what this big plant down there was part of. And so they wanted dozens, [unintelligible 00:59:25].
EAV: And again in Korea, we found ourself in the same situation.
EVR: Yep. You get men that don’t have the vision, don’t have the desire—politician. That’s the bad part about it. They’re politicians.
EAV: Well, could it well be called tunnel vision?
EVR: Yeah.
[telephone rings]
EAV: [background conversation on telephone]
EVR: I got it. I got it. Too many pockets. Got a vest—
01:00:19
[END OF INTERVIEW]