Enduring Courage
Ace Pilot Eddie Rickenbacker and the Dawn of the Age of Speed
St. Martin's Press, May 2014
Eddie Rickenbacker was an American archetype: our greatest World War I hero, and the quintessential flying ace. As a boy from the wrong side of the tracks in Columbus, Ohio, Eddie was smitten at the sight of his first automobile. He became a superb mechanic and a leading racecar driver; in wartime, he applied his mechanical skills to airplanes, and broke the class barrier to become a pilot. Eventually, he would become America’s best.
It was a unique moment in American history. What so captivated Rickenbacker, and the nation, was speed. New technologies were making it possible to travel faster than ever imagined, and putting speed in the hands of the masses. The auto, the race car, the airplane, aerial combat and dogfighting: all were in their infancy as Eddie Rickenbacker came of age, and here was a young man ready to jump right in, with a fiercely competitive spirit, a mastery of mechanics and with real leadership skills. Rickenbacker was there to invent these worlds, often literally on the fly, able to write the rules and then break them.
Rickenbacker was fearless, determined and saw obstacles as opportunity, and once given command of the 94th Squadron, he brought all he had to bear, leading the fledging unit to victory against the legendary German air corps and breaking the back of the German army. For the first time in history, aerial warfare had been decisive in battle, and it was Eddie Rickenbacker who led the way.
Whether it’s the Indianapolis 500, a World War I dogfight, or a struggle for survival on a life raft in the Pacific, John Ross puts you there in the midst of the turbulent, often unbelievable life of Eddie Rickenbacker – the irascible, death-defying hero who helped set the dizzying pace of our modern, machine-driven age. As Ross says in the Introduction to Enduring Courage, ‘Hold onto your seats.’
—Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In The Heart of the Sea, Bunker Hill, and more