Program Information

His auto racing exploits earned him the name "Fast Eddie." He participated in the 1912, 1914, 1915 and 1916 Indianapolis 500 and ended up, years later, buying the racetrack and running it until 1945. Yet, it was in the air that Edward Vernon Rickenbacker revealed true genius, courage and skill.

A Moment in Time is a brief, exciting and compelling journey into the past. Created to excite and enlighten the public about the past, its relevance to the present and its impact on the future, A Moment In Time is a captivating historical narrative that is currently broadcast worldwide.

Transcript

Lead: For 400 years service men and women have fought to carve out and defend freedom and the civilization we know as America. This series on A Moment in Time is dedicated to the memory of those warriors whose devotion gave, in the words of Lincoln at Gettysburg, "the last full measure."

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: His auto racing exploits earned him the name "Fast Eddie." He participated in the 1912, 1914, 1915 and 1916 Indianapolis 500 and ended up, years later, buying the racetrack and running it until 1945. Yet, it was in the air that Edward Vernon Rickenbacker revealed true genius, courage and skill.

Born the third child of eight to William and Elizabeth Rickenbacher of Columbus, Ohio in 1890, Edward revealed a daring spirit almost from the beginning. His years as a racecar driver provided a lucrative income and also brought him into contact with pilots of those newfangled air machines. An intensely patriotic man, Rickenbacker changed the spelling of his name during World War I, removing the Germanic "h" and substituting a second old-fashioned Anglicized "k."

Soon after the war began, he volunteered for service. At first he was assigned as a driver to Gen. John J. Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Force, and later was asked to apply his mechanical skills to the car of Col. Billy Mitchell, Chief of the U.S. Army Air Service. Soon he was training for air combat and after being assigned to the famed 94th Aero Squadron, on April 6, 1918, he brought down his first enemy airplane. By the following October, Rickenbacker had downed 26 German aircraft. He was America's “Ace of Aces.”

Between the wars he got involved in business, starting his own automobile company where he hoped to bring technological advances to the industry, such as four-wheel braking, but his company was soon swallowed up by the big boys. In 1938, Fast Eddie bought tiny Eastern Airlines and turned it into one of the most prosperous major national carriers of the postwar era. He ran the airline until he was forced out during a major business downturn in the late 1950s.

During World War II, Rickenbacker volunteered again but, instead of fighting, he worked directly for Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, surveying the worldwide needs and capabilities of Allied air forces. While on a mission in the Pacific in October 1942 his plane, a B-17, went down. Though he and the crew endured 23 days floating at sea, only one man died. Rickenbacker, the oldest man in the group, came away 54 pounds lighter.

For his exploits in World War I, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1930. He died in 1973.

Research assistance by Tenzin Tsayang, at the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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