The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh (76 page)

13
Lewis,
Eddie Rickenbacker
.

14
Adamson,
Eddie Rickenbacker;
Booton Herndon transcripts.

15
Lewis conversation with William Rickenbacker.

16
Ibid.

13: The Lone Eagle Goes to War

1
Max Wallace,
The American Axis
.

2
A. Scott Berg,
Lindbergh
.

3
Charles Lindbergh,
The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh
.

4
Anne Morrow Lindbergh,
War Within and Without
.

5
Lindbergh,
Of Flight and Life
.

6
Berg,
Lindbergh
.

7
Ibid.

8
Stephen Birmingham,
The Late John Marquand
(Philadelphia, 1972).

9
Charles MacDonald, “Lindbergh in Battle,”
Collier’s
(February 16, 1946).

10
Ibid.

11
http://www.charleslindbergh.com
(
Lightning Strikes
, Ronald Yoshino).

12
MacDonald, “Lindbergh in Battle.”

13
Ibid.

14
Yoshino,
Lightning Strikes
.

15
Lindbergh,
Wartime Journals
.

16
Leonard Mosley,
Lindbergh
.

14: Masters of the Sky

1
Paul W. Tibbets,
The Tibbets Story
(New York, 1978).

2
W. David Lewis,
Eddie Rickenbacker: An American Hero in the Twentieth Century
.

3
Ibid.

4
Ibid.

5
Finis Farr,
Rickenbacker’s Luck
.

6
Charles Lindbergh,
The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh
.

7
Lindbergh,
Autobiography of Values
.

8
A. Scott Berg,
Lindbergh
.

9
Esquire
magazine (March 1971), cited in Berg,
Lindbergh
.

10
Berg,
Lindbergh
.

11
Reeve Lindbergh,
Forward from Here
.

12
Lowell Thomas and Edward Jablonski,
Doolittle;
Jonna Doolittle Hoppes,
Calculated Risk
.

13
Rickenbacker interview with Kincaid.

N
OTES ON
S
OURCES AND
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

A
LL THREE SUBJECTS OF THIS BOOK
are no longer living so I felt fortunate that each in his lifetime had written an autobiography. It is often said that autobiographies are skewed to be self-serving, which is probably true, but a similar argument could be made about anything the subject says to an interviewer. I consulted a great many sources in the process of writing this book, which are listed in the bibliography.

In Rickenbacker’s case I owe a debt of gratitude to Dwayne Cox, head of Special Collections and Archives at Auburn University, who was kind enough to provide me access to several thousand pages of Rickenbacker interviews over the years. These cover practically every aspect of his life, from his early racing days to World War I, the Rickenbacker Motor Company fiasco, Eastern Air Lines, his horrible airplane crack-up in Atlanta, and of course his ordeal in the Pacific. These papers constitute the basis for his 1967 autobiography
Rickenbacker
, written in collaboration with Booten Herndon. They were also central to the most comprehensive biography of Rickenbacker, written by the late W. David Lewis, history professor at Auburn University, and published in 2005. A 1979 biography of Rickenbacker by Finis Farr was also useful. On the Pacific ordeal, James C. Whittaker’s account
We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing
, published in 1943, provides an interesting contrast to Rickenbacker’s
Seven Came Through
, issued the same year.

Two years before his death in 1993, Jimmy Doolittle published an exhaustive autobiography,
I Could Never Be So Lucky Again
, in collaboration with the retired air force colonel Carroll V. Glines, who had previously written five books on the Doolittle raid and Doolittle himself. There is also a useful 1976 biography, called simply
Doolittle
, by the well-known broadcaster Lowell Thomas, a friend of Doolittle’s, coauthored by Edward Jablonski. A fine little gem is
Doolittle: Aerospace Visionary
published in 2003 by Dik Alan Daso. The raid itself has been covered extensively, most recently by Craig Nelson in
The First Heroes
, published in 2002, and by Duane Schultz in
The Doolittle Raid
, from 1988. Another very good read is the famous first-person account
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
by raider pilot Ted Lawson.

Unlike Doolittle and Rickenbacker, Charles Lindbergh did not collaborate with anyone but his editor on his autobiography and many other books. He was an amazingly facile writer, perceptive, sensitive, and incredibly observant.
The Spirit of St. Louis
, his almost stream-of-consciousness account of the 1927 Atlantic crossing, published in 1953, is riveting. As well, his
Wartime Journals
makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in the workings of Lindbergh’s complicated mind. Here he gives a good account of his service in the Pacific flying U.S. fighter aircraft against the Japanese. Filling in the Lindbergh story were his books
We
(1927),
Of Flight and Life
(1948),
Lindbergh Looks Back: A Boyhood Reminiscence
(1972), and his
Autobiography of Values
(1976). Also highly literate, insightful, and useful to this story were the diaries of Anne Morrow Lindbergh covering the period from their meeting and marriage, in 1929, and ending five volumes later in 1986.

I have relied heavily on these various autobiographies, biographies, journals, interviews, and more to construct the narrative of this story but have chosen not to footnote every usage, which would clutter the notations in the individual chapters with a blizzard of
ibids
. Instead, I have annotated important direct quotes and also events that seemed so extraordinary they begged to be sourced. Fortunately there are many such events emanating from the extraordinary characters in this tale.

The Internet today provides a wealth of information if you are sufficiently versed in separating the wheat from the chaff. Back issues of many periodicals and newspapers, notably the
New York Times
, are available online for a fee and proved immensely helpful in framing the stories of these men.

I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my late literary agent Theron Raines, who died as this book was being finished. He read every word, as I wrote, up to his death. In the thirty-five years I was with him, Theron was a guide, inspiration, mentor, and friend. I shall miss him terribly. Theron’s son Keith, who took over from his father, has been a comfort and a friend through it all.

My editor at National Geographic Books, Lisa Thomas, has been a whirlwind of editing, encouragement, and support and deserves a colossal note of thanks, as well as an all-expenses-paid two-month vacation wherever she wants to go. Line editor Andrew Michael Carlson proved himself again to be positively brilliant with the pencil, and Don Kennison, my copy editor of many years, has saved me from myself more times than I care to mention. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to stellar aviators Adam Shaw and John L. Marty, who read the manuscript and set me straight on the finer points of flying. As usual, my faithful executive assistant Dr. Wren Murphy once more organized a huge research project with skill, enthusiasm, and graciousness. Last but never least, my wife, Anne-Clinton Groom, deserves at least a Distinguished Flying Cross (with Oak Leaf Clusters) for putting up with me all these years.

W
INSTON
G
ROOM

Point Clear, Alabama, April 2013

B
IBLIOGRAPHY

Adamson, Hans Christian.
Eddie Rickenbacker
. New York: Macmillan, 1946.

“American Squadron Is Flying Near Toul.”
New York Times
, May 26, 1918.

Berg, A. Scott.
Lindbergh
. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1998.

Birmingham, Stephen.
The Late John Marquand: A Biography
. New York: Lippincott, 1972.

Burke, Kathleen. “Up and Away.”
Smithsonian
44, no. 1, April 2013.

Chang, Iris.
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II
. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.

Chun, Clayton K. S.
The Doolittle Raid 1942: America’s First Strike Back at Japan
. Oxford: Osprey, 2006.

Cole, Wayne S.
Charles A. Lindbergh and the Battle Against American Intervention in World War II
. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.

Consodine, Bob. Interviews of Rickenbacker: “Rick’s Life.” “Bob Consodine Story.” “First Flight with Martin.” “Talking Engine.” “A. G. Waddel.” “Scotland Yard.” “War Service.” Transcripts, 1965, Special Collections and Archives, Auburn University.

Copp, De Witt S.
Forged in Fire: Strategy and Decisions in the Airwar Over Europe 1940–1945
. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982.

Daso, Dik Alan.
Doolittle: Aerospace Visionary
. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2003.

Davis, Kenneth Sydney.
The Hero: Charles A. Lindbergh, the Man and the Legend
. London: Longmans, Green, 1950.

D’Olive, Charles R. History of 93rd Aero Squadron Insignia, at
http://freepages.military.rootsweb.ancestry.com
.

Doolittle, General James H., with Carroll V. Glines.
I Could Never Be So Lucky Again
. New York: Bantam Books, 1991.

Drury, David. World War I Flying Ace Raoul Lufbery, at
http://connecticuthistory.org/world-war-i-flying-ace-raoul-lufbery
.