The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh Read Free

impossible he found a farm field to land in—or tried to. Luckily, the relatively slow aircraft speeds of the day allowed many pilots to survive crashes.
    There was no aeronautics board to investigate the causes of accidents and regulate improvements. Nevertheless, every experience of danger or crashing, or aerial uncertainty, was passed on from pilot to pilot or from mechanic to pilot. The accident rate, however, remained such that the actuarial life of an aviator was depressingly short.
    In these early years three American boys would be among the many thousands who marveled at the spectacle of flight. They almost certainly would have followed the day-to-day flying travails of Cal Rodgers, as his cross-country flight was big news in most papers. They could not have known, as crowds cheered to stunts like the barrel roll or figure-eight loop, that one day crowds would roar for them, catapulting them to the highest levels of aviation proficiency in the twentieth century, to a point where they weren’t merely great pilots but visionaries, gurus, entrepreneurs, and ultimately heroes of the highest order. They would become masters of the sky and hold a place in history that was never before and may never again be equaled.
    Their names were James H. Doolittle, Edward V. Rickenbacker, and Charles A. Lindbergh. In their time no one received the sort of frenzied admiration bestowed on these three men. In 1918 Rickenbacker was America’s number one World War I airman—known as the Ace of Aces; Lindbergh, a captain in the U.S. Army, electrified the world in 1927 when he flew alone nonstop across the Atlantic; Doolittle, then a lieutenant in the army, paved the way for modern airpower in 1929 by flying a plane completely “blind”—on instruments alone. In addition to their other accolades each was awarded the Medal of Honor.
    This story is about those worthy feats and how these men affected America, but their stories do not end there. When World War II erupted all three were middle-aged, married with families, rich, and highly accomplished, having earned the right to rest on their laurels. The amazing thing is that instead they volunteered to put their lives on the line once more and took to the air on what would be their most dangerous missions ever.
    They had vastly different personalities, these three, but strikingly similar backgrounds. Each was raised on the edge of poverty (Lindbergh’s family, the most well-off, was middle class at best). Each was estranged from his father early on and each formed a lifelong attachment to his mother. All were attracted at a young age to the notion of flight, and each in his own way became a pioneer of aeronautical science.
    All three visited Hitler’s Germany during the late 1930s and warned American military authorities of the menacing buildup of German airpower. As experienced military pilots they were acutely aware of the growing danger from Nazi Germany’s air superiority. Yet their admonitions seemed to fall on deaf ears. Airpower had not been a significant factor in the First World War, and most people, including world leaders and politicians, saw no reason why it should present a threat in the escalating crisis between Germany and the Western democracies.
    England, for instance, was particularly vulnerable, but these American experts were unable to convince British leaders that, even though they lived on an island protected by the world’s most powerful navy, long-range enemy aircraft—unlike anything seen in the First World War—could now destroy their cities and industrial complexes. It was nearly as difficult to persuade American politicians. The nation remained at the time in the throes of the Great Depression, and in Washington, Congress and the bureaucracy were in no mood to spend money to keep up with Germany’s growing dominance in airpower.
    The definitive shift toward aviation, both military and civilian in the first part of the twentieth century, and its tremendous