Eddie Rickenbacker, Twenty-Six Kills Over France, and the Twenty-Four Days on a Pacific Raft That Would Have Killed Anyone Else

Eddie Rickenbacker holds a place in aviation history that no other American can claim: ace of aces in World War I, survivor of a catastrophic airliner crash, and the man who kept seven others alive for 24 days on three inflatable life rafts in the equatorial Pacific. Each of those incidents alone would define a life. He lived through all three.

From Columbus Factory Floors to the Indianapolis 500

Rickenbacker was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1890, the son of Swiss-German immigrants. His father died when he was 12 years old, and he left school to support his mother and five siblings - sweeping floors, working in a glass factory, taking whatever work was in front of him.

Machines saved him. He had an instinct for how engines breathed and what they were telling you when something was wrong. That gift carried him to the Indianapolis 500 in 1914, 1915, and 1916, where he competed against the fastest drivers in the country.

How a Race Car Driver Became America’s Top Fighter Ace

When America entered World War I in 1917, Rickenbacker went to France - not as a pilot, but as a driver for General Pershing’s staff. Every airplane that crossed overhead pulled his attention away from the road. He negotiated his way into flight training at 27 years old, an age that made his instructors skeptical.

They were wrong to be.

He joined the 94th Aero Pursuit Squadron - the famous “Hat in the Ring” unit, the first American fighter squadron to enter combat on the Western Front. He flew the SPAD XIII, a French-built aircraft powered by a 220-horsepower Hispano-Suiza engine. Open cockpit, castor oil smell, goggles down, scanning the sky for anything that moved wrong.

26 Aerial Victories: The Method Behind the Score

Rickenbacker’s approach in the air was discipline, not recklessness. He climbed for altitude before committing to an attack. He studied opponents. He broke off engagements when the geometry was wrong and came back when it wasn’t. In an environment where young pilots were dying because aggression had outrun their skill, that patience kept him alive.

His first aerial victory came on April 29, 1918. Over the following seven months, he shot down 26 enemy aircraft - 22 airplanes and 4 observation balloons - against Fokker D-VIIs, Halberstadts, and some of the finest pilots Germany could put in the air.

On September 25, 1918, he flew alone into a formation of seven German aircraft, picked his angle, shot down two before the formation could respond effectively, and broke away clean. That action was among those recognized by the Medal of Honor - awarded in 1930, twelve years after the fact, because the original paperwork had been lost.

Eastern Air Lines and the 1941 Crash That Should Have Killed Him

After the war, Rickenbacker launched the Rickenbacker Motor Company, made quality automobiles, and watched the market collapse at exactly the wrong moment. What recovered him was aviation. He acquired Eastern Air Lines in 1938 and ran it for two decades. His pilots called him The Captain - and sometimes things less complimentary. But they flew for a man who had trusted his life to machines more times than most could count.

In February 1941, Rickenbacker was a passenger on one of his own airline’s Douglas DC-3s, on a routine overnight flight into Atlanta Municipal Airport. Low visibility. The approach went wrong. The aircraft struck trees on a ridge short of the runway.

Rescuers reached him uncertain there was a point in hurrying. Broken pelvis. Shattered hip. Fractured knee. One eye partially displaced from its socket. Surgeons spent hours cataloguing the internal injuries. A priest administered last rites.

He was unconscious for weeks. Eight months later, he was moving again.

The Pacific: 24 Days on Three Rafts With Four Oranges

In October 1942, Secretary of War Henry Stimson sent Rickenbacker - then 52 years old, still limping from Atlanta - on a classified inspection tour of American installations in the Pacific. Guadalcanal was desperate. His combination of credibility and firsthand knowledge made him the right man.

They boarded a Boeing B-17 with the call sign Old Eight Ball, routing from Hickam Field in Hawaii southwest toward Canton Island, a coral atoll serving as a refueling stop in the central Pacific.

They never found it. A navigation error sent them past Canton without a sighting, then past where it should have been. The fuel gauges moved steadily toward zero.

On October 21, 1942, Captain William Cherry ditched Old Eight Ball in the Pacific. Eight survivors got clear before the aircraft sank. Three small orange rafts, each five feet long, tied together. Their total food supply: four oranges.

Rickenbacker divided them equally from the first hour - no exceptions. He understood that discipline was the difference between eight men pulling together and eight men pulling apart.

The Seagull on the Fedora

For days they fished with torn clothing and bootlaces as line. They caught nothing.

On day eight, a seagull landed on Rickenbacker’s hat. He was the civilian among the military men - 52 years old, sitting in a canvas raft in the open Pacific, wearing a fedora. He raised his hands the way you reach for something on a high shelf when you don’t want to knock it over. No sudden motion. And he caught that bird with his bare hands.

They killed it, divided the meat among all eight men, and used the entrails as bait. That bait caught fish.

The patience required to catch that bird - to hold absolutely still in the moment that mattered - was the same quality that kept him alive over the Western Front in 1918. He had a consistent gift for not moving until the time was exactly right, then committing everything.

Sergeant Alex Kaczmarczyk died on day eight, weakened by recent surgery before they ever went into the water. Two more men would die before rescue came. Colonel Hans Adamson, Rickenbacker’s military aide, came very close to joining them.

They caught rain twice in 24 days, scraping it off the raft walls and squeezing it from their clothing. Rickenbacker organized morning and evening prayers. He kept men talking when they could still talk. He argued with them when silence started feeling like surrender.

Rescue on Day Twenty-Four

On day twenty-four - November 13, 1942 - a Navy search aircraft out of the Ellice Islands extended its patrol pattern past its calculated limit. They spotted the rafts.

Rickenbacker had lost more than 30 pounds. He was 52 years old and looked older. He could barely stand.

He was back at his desk at Eastern within weeks.

When reporters pressed him for the full account, he gave them enough and not a word more, then redirected the conversation toward what still needed to be done to win the war. He did not wear his own survival like a decoration.

The Legacy of an Unmatched Career

Rickenbacker retired from Eastern Air Lines in 1963. He died in Zurich in 1973, at 82 years old, having outlived most of his contemporaries by a decade or more.

What his life demonstrates is a specific and transferable capability: remaining as calm in crisis as in ordinary circumstances. Observing before acting. Waiting for the right moment and then not hesitating when it arrives. That quality operated the same way in the cockpit of a SPAD XIII, in a wrecked DC-3 on an Atlanta ridge, and in an inflatable raft in the equatorial Pacific.

Key Takeaways

Rickenbacker scored 26 aerial victories in WWI - 22 aircraft and 4 balloons - earning the Medal of Honor for a solo attack on a 7-plane German formation on September 25, 1918
He survived a Douglas DC-3 crash in February 1941 with catastrophic injuries, including a broken pelvis, shattered hip, and displaced eye socket; a priest administered last rites
He and seven others survived 24 days adrift in the Pacific (October 21–November 13, 1942) after their B-17 ditched following a navigation error en route to Canton Island
His discipline - dividing four oranges among eight men, organizing prayers, refusing to allow surrender - was the direct reason most of the group survived
The same quality that made him an ace - patience, stillness, commitment at exactly the right moment - is what he applied identically in every crisis of his life