Talk:Eddie Rickenbacker

driver

according to: http://www.historynet.com/ahi/blcaptaineddie/ "Contrary to legend, he was not assigned to General John J. Pershing but did wangle an assignment driving Colonel William "Billy" Mitchell's flashy twin-six Packard" Pibwl 15:14, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

movie

he was played by Fred MacMurray in a move, any truth to the story of him almost running over fred as a kid?

Did Eddie run over Fred?

Unlikely. Rickenbacker grew up in Ohio; MacMurray was born in Illinois and apparently lived in Wisconsin as a youngster. Though EVR certainly got around as a race driver, when he joined the army in 1917 FM would've been 8 or 9 years old.

Fred and Eddie

Seems that the story goes that Fred MacMurray strayed out, away from his parents, onto a race track that Rickenbacker was driving. To avoid hitting the child, Rickenbacker steered away, crashing into the wall, saving the life of FM... true? Fiftysevenandy (talk) 10:24, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Eddie sold the Indy Speedway in '45, not '47

Rickenbacker sold the Speedway in 1945, not 1947. The first race under Tony Hulman and President Wilbur Shaw was in 1946 and was won by George Robeson.

Mark Dill

One reader's comments

I came to this article knowing nothing about Eddie Rickenbacker except that he was a pilot, and have these thoughts for the contributors: The article, while informative, seems to be based too much on Rickenbacker's autobiography; perhaps not coincidentally, it paints him as a virtual saint. I have no doubt that he did great things, but the article seems to go beyond encyclopedic (NPOV) retelling of his endeavors into outright praise of the man. Even the failure of his car company is passed off as being the fault of his competitors (which, I see on another site, was his version of the story).

Also, the article has too many subheadings. As one example, the section titled Historic view of armistice consists of a single sentence. Surely that one event could be integrated into another section. emw 05:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, I've been trying to tone it down. --AW 08:10, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Race Status?

What does that section mean? Rod, intake valve etc? It doesn't make any sense. --AW 08:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I've added a confusing tag to this section in hopes that a racing enthusiast can write an explanation of the included chart. Shsilver 16:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Those are the listed reasons for not finishing the race. Click one of the years and you'll see that on the finishing order, a status is given for each driver.--Senna27 (talk) 03:54, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. It's actually perfectly clear, if you read the table headings. Trekphiler (talk) 04:31, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Adrift At Sea section very one-sided

I thought that the Adrift At Sea section, like much of this article was very one-sided.

One book that may be another good source for this article is We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing by James C. Whittaker. It is a great book to get another perspective on his time in the raft, and how Rickenbacker was viewed by the others.

I am not going to add anything about it on Wikipedia as this is both my first post (read: I don't know what I am doing), and James Whittaker is a relative making me inherently biased, but it is definitely another place to look.

Several books came out of this incident, and I think it would greatly improve this article to add those accounts as well.

Tropicofwhitaker 17:28, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Date of Death?

The page for July 23 says that he died on July 23, 1973, but this page says he died on July 27th.

In his sights

Can somebody clarify? Did he get 26 kills, or 9? Or what? Trekphiler (talk) 04:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The term "kill" is used extremely loosely in aviation circles. A far more accurate statement is: "Every kill is a victory but not every victory is a kill." If you look at Rickenbacker's actual victory credits (well documented in Dr. Frank Olynyk's privately published 1991 listing for all US Air Service pilots) you find that EVR had 11 credited "destroyed" (including 4 balloons) and 12 "out of control" plus assorted categories such as "dived east." It has been noted that as squadron commander, EVR could confirm his own claims but I do not know if that was done. At any rate, his "kill" record is overstated.

B Tillman Feb 18, 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.223.73.46 (talk) 01:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

  All of the "kill" records are overstated. That includes the British, French, German, and Canadian claims.

Collegiate pilots/

As someone who has researched and written or expanded dozens of articles on World War I aces, I am suspicious of the statement that most pilot candidates were college educated. While I admit I have been writing on non-American pilots, I would estimate that about half lacked college education. A much more common career path was service on the ground, followed by transfer to pilot training, service in two seaters, and retraining as a fighter pilot. Education was secondary to aggressiveness and tenacity.

So, either the statement is suspect, or American pilots were exceptionally well educated. Perhaps the author was blinded by the collegiates who became the Lafayette Escadrille and ignored the many Americans who joined the RFC or French air force.

In summary, this statement needs clarifying before a citation is found.

````George J. Dorner, 7 September 2008, 2028 hours PST```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by Georgejdorner (talk • contribs) 03:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Mile a minute

Not sure where the comment about Rickenbacker being the first to drive a car at a mile a minute, but it is simply not true. People were driving a mile a minute before the turn of the century. Of the top of my head, I can point to William K. Vanderbilt Jrs' 1904 land speed record run at Ormond-Daytona Beach at over 92 mph. Barney Oldfield was the first to run a mile in a minute on an oval track at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in June of 1903. Rickenbacker did first appear in a race car at age 16 in the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup, but only as a riding mechanic, not driver.

24.136.160.247 (talk) 18:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Retrospective scoring

Why all the gobbledy-gook on fractional scoring as an after-thought of World War I?

Aerial combat has always--repeat always--been subject to error and exaggerated claims. No matter what rules are set, or what technological means are invented to verify aerial victory, verifying victory claims was and is an imperfect process. Fractionate the victories, use the most stringent means of verification, and cross-collate the casualty reports in the aftermath--and you are still probably wrong.

History credits Eddie Rickenbacker with 26 victories, and the count is probably wrong, along with the score of just about every other ace who ever lived. Live with it.

The article would be better if this section were excised.

Georgejdorner (talk) 05:15, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Took my own suggestion.

Georgejdorner (talk) 06:51, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Nine Distinguished Service Cross Awards

The article lists only 7 Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) awards for Rickenbacker in WWI, however my copy of his autobiography "Rickenbacker" (1967) lists 9 (nine) DSC's--there were two more, on Sept. 25 and Sept.26, in 1918 near Billy, France. Also, can anyone confirm that Rickenbacker fired the last shot of WWI? Apparently, one minute before the war ended he pressed down the trigger on his machine guns while flying over the front and continued firing until the exact second the war ended.

I'm finding all sorts of numbers. Some say seven, others nine, still others nine plus a tenth later upgraded to the Medal of Honor. Yikes! As for the last shot, I seem to recall from his autobiography, he said he flew over the lines and listened(?) to the jubilant infantry below. Certainly no mention of firing his guns. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:51, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I've found confirmation of his 9/26/15 DSC citation (Auburn University collection), which isn't listed in the article. Scratch that. The U.S. wasn't involved in the fighting in 1915. Could be a typo for 1918 though. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:15, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Interesting Items About Rickenbacker

The average lifespan of an Allied fighter pilot on the Western front in WWI was only 11 days. However, once you became proficient, you would live longer. If you were new and inexperienced you would get shot out of the sky. I have an autographed copy of Rickenbacker's "Fighting The Flying Circus", by the way! It's quite a trip to read a book that he actually had in his hands! Aircraft engines lasted only an average of 18 hours in WWI before they needed an overhaul. However, because Rickenbacker was a mechanic, he got 100 hours out of his engine. Guns would jam at altitude in the cold air because the machine work on the machine guns was rough and the grease would coagulate, so Rickenbacker would spend off hours sanding his gun parts to make them slide smoothly. He would also visually inspect his bullets for uniformity so they wouldn't jam the guns, since precision manufacturing methods weren't necessarily available in those days. He was afraid of heights but this didn't affect him in an airplane because there was no point of reference such as a building. He would originally get airsick and throw up in corkscrew manouvres so he just practiced corkscrews until finally one day he didn't throw up anymore. He was not a driver for General "Blackjack" Pershing as has been so often reported, but he was a driver for Billy Mitchell. (Pershing's nickname was actually not "Blackjack", it was "Ni--er Jack" because he was such a martinette at West Point but the press couldn't use that nickname even in those days so the press came up with "Blackjack"). Billy Mitchell liked the prestige of having a famous race car driver for his chauffeur and would constantly have Rickenbacker drive fast in the Packard or Hudson to pass everything on the road. Rickenbacker never got a pilot's license nor a driver's license in his entire lifetime. He was so famous he didn't need to. At 27, he was too old to be a pilot in WWI but the doctor who examined him turned out to be an old friend and racing fan so the doc wrote down Rickenbacker's age as 25, which let him fly. Rickenbacker, because of his German name and erroneous press stories about him when a racecar driver, was thought to be a German spy in WWI and was under surveillance. However, the head of the Secret Service, William S. Nye, was a friend of Rickenbacker's and told Eddie he was being watched so Rickenbacker just had fun with the notion. Rickenbacker's mother, concerned for her son's safety, wrote him and told him to fly slow and close to the ground. I could go on, there's a tremendous amount of fascinating stuff about Rickenbacker, but I thought I'd just mention a few items in case Wiki editors want to use them. I refer them to his autobiography "Rickenbacker" and his "Fighting The Flying Circus" for further info. 63.198.19.168 (talk) 09:28, 7 March 2010 (UTC)Sgt. Rock

Note about reference 21...

In reference 21, Jefferson County, Louisiana is mentioned, however the state of Louisiana has no counties, but rather "parishes", a hold over from the era of Napoleonic rule.

John.m.horn (talk) 20:54, 12 July 2010 (UTC)