Edward Vernon Rickenbacker -- Eddie to everyone who knew him -- was already a living legend when World War II began. He had been the United States' top fighter ace in the Great War, shooting down 26 German aircraft and earning the Medal of Honor. He had founded the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and driven in the first Indy 500. He had built an airline, Eastern Air Lines, and served as its president. He was one of the most famous Americans alive in 1941.
On October 21, 1942, Rickenbacker was aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress traveling to inspect American troops in the Pacific theater. The aircraft, overloaded with supplies and carrying a crew of six plus two passengers, developed mechanical problems shortly after takeoff from an airfield in Noumea, New Caledonia. The pilot attempted to turn back but could not reach land. The B-17 ditched in the Pacific Ocean approximately 840 miles southeast of the Gilbert Islands.
Twenty-two people survived the ditching. They managed to inflate two life rafts and secured as much water, chocolate, and equipment as they could from the wreckage before it sank. What followed was an ordeal of almost biblical duration.
The rafts drifted for twenty-one days. Rickenbacker, then 52 years old, took charge of one raft while the captain commanded the other. They agreed to stay together if possible but the currents were relentless. Rickenbacker rationed the water with surgical precision, limiting himself and his raftmates to ounces per day. He fashioned a sail from a life jacket to catch whatever breeze they could find. He kept the morale of his group up through sheer force of personality -- telling stories, singing songs, keeping the conversation going when the sun was brutal, and maintaining silence when the nights were cold.
On the eighth day, a Japanese bomber passed overhead and strafed the rafts. One man was killed. The others played dead in the water until the bomber left. The next day, another man died of injuries sustained in the ditching.
By the twelfth day, fresh water was gone. Rickenbacker -- whose iron constitution had been forged by decades of racing cars -- rationed seawater in tiny drops to those who begged for it, knowing it would kill them faster if they drank too much. He caught rainwater with his bare hands during a brief tropical storm.
On the eighteenth day, a Navy plane spotted them. On the twentieth day, a rescue ship reached them. Of the twenty-two who had ditched, eleven had died. Rickenbacker was severely dehydrated, sunburned, and had lost more than twenty pounds. He had kept the other eleven alive through his leadership.
He was back at his desk at Eastern Air Lines within six weeks. He went on to survive a near-fatal car accident in 1945 and lived until 1973, reaching 82 years of age. He never spoke publicly about the ordeal -- not out of trauma, he explained, but because he felt it would be disrespectful to those who did not survive.