Eddie Richenbacker

Eddie Rickenbacker

What do you think it would be like to be suspended on nothing but thin air in a small contraption of tin and metal, left there to fight for and defend the freedom and pride of your country? Eddie Rickenbacker was one such man. Eddie Rickenbacker was America’s top ace of WWI. There is a lot we can learn from his missions to succeed the enemy in the early 1900’s.

Eddie did not have an easy start. When he was young, his father passed away. When his father passed away, there was not enough money to go around so he had to drop out of school to help support the family financially. His occupation in the 1900’s was working for Fayer Miller Air-cooled Car Company. It is perhaps here that he developed his love of cars and machinery. This tragic event may have been the spark to light the fire of his aviation career.

In March of 1918 he got assigned to the 94th pursuit squadron. It wasn’t that exciting at first because they couldn’t fly due to lack of weapons and supplies. Then on April 3rd things got a little interesting. The funding kicked in and they received guns, ammunition and other central equipment that was needed to fly. On the 6th major raoul lufberry picked Douglass Campbell and Rick to survey over enemy lines. When they were surveying, heavy German Anti-Plane weapons open fired on them. Helpless they returned to base tired out from a weary but eventful day. On the twenty ninth, Captain James Norman Hall and Eddie had patrol.