The Art of Manliness - #305： Lessons from the Epic Age of Flight

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:18.480 While the first manned flight took place in 1903, it wouldn't be until World War I that

00:00:23.080 aeronautical advances were made that would turn aviation into more than just a county fair

00:00:27.200 spectacle. While many men contributed to moving manned flight forward and many men lost their

00:00:31.400 lives in the process, during this period there were three men in particular who stood out.

00:00:35.300 Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, and Charles Lindbergh. All three men made important contributions

00:00:40.340 to aviation before, during, and after World War I, and all three men became financially successful,

00:00:45.660 world-famous celebrities. When World War II erupted, all three men were middle-aged and wealthy. They

00:00:51.040 could have easily sat out the war while younger men fought, but they all answered the call to duty

00:00:54.900 and provided their talents as ace aviators to the allied cause. My guest today on the podcast wrote

00:00:59.900 a history of Rickenbacker, Doolittle, and Lindbergh. His name is Winston Groom. He's authored numerous

00:01:04.520 history and historical fiction books, including Forrest Gump, probably heard of that one, as well

00:01:09.160 as the subject of today's show, The Aviators, in which he details the engaging history of these

00:01:13.180 three pioneers of flight and their service to their country. Today on the show, we discuss each of

00:01:17.480 these men and their respective heroics, from Lindbergh's famous flight across the Atlantic, to Doolittle's

00:01:21.560 legendary raid on the Japanese, and to Rickenbacker's survival at sea for 23 days during World War II.

00:01:27.480 We also dig into their complex characters, and specifically Lindbergh's testy relationship

00:01:31.140 with the press, and how his initial opposition to the U.S. entering World War II got him labeled

00:01:35.540 a traitor by FDR. Winston is a masterful storyteller, so you're in for a real treat today. You're going

00:01:40.280 to be left both entertained and inspired by these three men. After the show's over, check out the show

00:01:44.420 notes at aom.is slash aviators, where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:01:51.560 Winston Groom, welcome to the show.

00:02:05.600 Thank you. Thanks for having me.

00:02:07.120 So you are a prolific writer of history, historical fiction. I'm sure our listeners are familiar with

00:02:14.060 Forrest Gump. One that I just read just walked away blown away, because I knew very little about this

00:02:19.760 part of American history. The book is The Aviators, where you focus on three pioneers of aviation,

00:02:26.840 James Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and Edward Rickenbacker. Before we get into these, the lives of these

00:02:32.680 men, their contributions to aviation, I think it's important for our listeners to have a little bit of

00:02:37.460 background to what aviation was like before they came on the scene during World War I. What was flying like

00:02:43.580 before World War I? And I mean, did it serve any practical purpose?

00:02:46.440 It was the kiss of death.

00:02:47.420 It was the kiss of death. Okay.

00:02:49.680 Yeah. Well, they were learning by doing. You know, there wasn't really, there was no aeronautics or anything.

00:02:57.360 And, you know, once you get up in three dimensions, you're in a whole different scale of things.

00:03:03.420 And there's a lot of things that go on up there that don't go on here on Earth, you know, four-wheel car.

00:03:11.740 And so they had to learn this stuff literally seat of the pants, what to do and what not to do.

00:03:18.780 And so a great many of these people perished. I mean, one that comes to mind that I wrote about in my

00:03:26.120 novel El Paso is that I can't remember her name now, great aviatrix. And she died because she wasn't

00:03:33.100 wearing a seat belt because of an argument at that point. I'm guessing around, what, 1910.

00:03:39.640 One of the seat belts were dangerous because if you crashed and burned, you couldn't get out of the

00:03:45.460 plane. She was an exhibition over Boston Harbor and the plane turned and both she and her passenger

00:03:53.820 fell out, you know, three or four thousand feet into the harbor and died. So that was that kind of

00:04:01.820 thing. It was just, it was learning by doing. Yeah. And it seems like a lot of the early

00:04:05.380 years of aviation, a lot of it was just like barnstorming. It was just like shows. It was

00:04:09.480 more just entertainment purposes, really. Aircraft was not reliable enough. And this,

00:04:15.640 this actually went for after World War I as well, but it just wasn't reliable enough for passenger

00:04:21.220 service. Uh, because you, uh, the, the, the, the weather was, it was a deciding factor and things

00:04:30.000 like fog, it caused the pilot simply to bail out. I mean, there was no, you know, you've

00:04:35.660 gone into a fog, you know, tell her what you're going to find because your instruments weren't,

00:04:40.160 weren't, uh, actually enough. And did a little solve that problem. But, uh, that, that was much

00:04:47.220 later. And so, uh, you, you know, you couldn't have to say a flight from even the Cleveland to,

00:04:55.500 uh, Chicago because you couldn't say it with any kind of regularity, uh, whether it would get there

00:05:03.400 or not. Um, the mail was the first, uh, test of this, uh, the U S, uh, air mail. And a lot of the

00:05:13.540 pilots, as a matter of fact, they said it was basically a suicide club, uh, about, oh, I think

00:05:20.400 70% of all the air mail pilots, uh, they had back in the 1920s died in crashes. So it was, it was a

00:05:30.360 very risky business. Yeah. And because it was risky, did it draw a certain type of person?

00:05:34.820 Oh God. Yes. You know, you know, they're devils, which there were many, you know, they, they, uh,

00:05:41.380 uh, they, they, they were fearless people, obviously. And they, they had put aside that

00:05:48.180 notion of self-preservation for the privilege of, you know, being up in the air like Batman

00:05:56.100 or something. It seems like a lot of them came, they were like race car drivers. A lot of them

00:05:59.900 were race car drivers before they got into it. Yeah. That, well, of course, certainly Rickenbacker

00:06:04.480 was, he was the greatest race car driver, one of the greatest, uh, before he, he took to flying,

00:06:10.100 uh, as a matter of fact, he owned the Indianapolis 500 speedway at one point.

00:06:15.360 Yeah, that's right. We'll get into a little more detail about these, these guys, Rickenbacker

00:06:18.960 and Lindbergh and Doolittle, and they all contributed to aviation in different ways. And we'll talk

00:06:23.020 about the different ways they did that. But as you researched and you wrote about them,

00:06:27.500 what, what do you think they all had in common? I mean, I'm sure fearlessness was one, but anything

00:06:32.640 other attributes they all had in common?

00:06:34.300 Yeah. They had a drive to not just be better, but be the best in it, that, uh, it, it sort

00:06:42.720 of snowballed, uh, along the way as they, as they got better, they, they strive to become

00:06:49.940 the very best and they were the very best in, in, in what they did. And I think that that

00:06:56.360 is something that doesn't limit itself just to say aviation, but it's, uh, in, in all

00:07:03.300 things, all matters excellence. I was just talking to having dinner with a pilot last night. He's

00:07:10.140 a Colonel in the air force and now flies private planes. And he, he wondered about Einstein and

00:07:16.460 what propelled him. And we started talking about it over dinner and, you know, he, he just,

00:07:22.860 he, he, he had an obvious aptitude, I understand it for mathematics, but he wanted to, he could

00:07:30.300 see into the future. He literally could do that and see into outer space where the rules

00:07:36.700 don't apply. There's no Newtonian physics don't apply in outer space because there's no gravity.

00:07:43.160 And it's, it's, it's a very special thing, uh, when you find such men, such people.

00:07:49.460 And I thought it was interesting too, like they all, they all came from relatively humble

00:07:52.880 beginnings as well. I mean, I guess Lindbergh might've been middle-class, but they were

00:07:57.040 humble.

00:07:57.900 Certainly. Uh, well, they were, they were. And, and matter of fact, they were, uh, well,

00:08:04.220 it was exceptional Lindbergh. They were lower middle-class. Uh, Doolittle was from California

00:08:10.540 in Los Angeles area. And his father abandoned the family when he was very, very young. And he's

00:08:17.200 raised by his mother in almost impoverished circumstances. He made his way as a boxer. He

00:08:23.240 was a, he was a small guy. He was only about five, six, but he was a very good boxer. He actually

00:08:30.240 turned pro pro professional boxer in California after winning the state championship. But, uh,

00:08:37.320 he then applied himself at the university of California and got a degree in, in, uh,

00:08:44.280 engineering. And ultimately he got a degree, he got a PhD degree in aeronautical engineering

00:08:52.280 from MIT, which is one of the best schools, you know, engineering school, probably is the best

00:08:57.760 engineering school in the world. And so he knew where of he spoke. Uh, Eddie Rickenbacker is very

00:09:06.820 similar. He came from, he was from Columbus, Ohio, and his family had immigrated. The parents

00:09:14.240 from, uh, Switzerland, they were poor German Swiss who in those times, back in the 1890s,

00:09:22.920 I think they, they, they, they could never get out of their class, which was essentially a farmer,

00:09:28.200 a peasants class, uh, that, that, that, that, that in Europe, that ability didn't exist. And so they

00:09:35.540 immigrated to the United States. I think his mother came with a, with a note pinned on her,

00:09:40.220 um, saying who she was and where she's going. She didn't speak English, but, uh, Rickenbacker's

00:09:47.720 father was, he was killed early on in a, in a fight again, raised by the mother. I think that, 0.99

00:09:54.440 that if I'm not mistaken, Columbus was where the original soapbox derby was run or it was

00:10:01.280 somewhere there in Ohio. And he entered that and he won that. And then he, he took the car

00:10:06.340 racing. He, he was fascinated with the automobile. And as we talked about a minute ago, he, he

00:10:13.260 became, uh, I think he was third in the, in the world somewhere along the way. They measured

00:10:21.140 that he, in, in world war one, he, he wanted to get into the war. They, he was very famous

00:10:28.320 by then as a race car driver, somehow finagled his way into becoming a driver. They made him

00:10:37.740 a sergeant and he was a driver of Billy Mitchell. He was a famous aviator who was court martial

00:10:44.360 for promoting aviation too strongly. And, uh, through Billy Mitchell, he, he got to be a,

00:10:51.720 a pilot, um, and, and then wind up shooting down more German planes than any, any other

00:10:57.820 American at least and became the ace of aces. And Lindbergh was probably raised in a more

00:11:04.920 financially secure position. His father was a congressman and had actually done very well,

00:11:11.260 but then he, he lost his money. I think his father did in some agricultural adventure and

00:11:16.760 he lost his seat in Congress and the father sort of abandoned the family. He managed to

00:11:21.800 get a little bit of college training, but again, he, he wanted to fly. He, he watched

00:11:26.660 these air in Minnesota or Wisconsin. I can't remember which, but he was out in the woods and

00:11:32.040 look up in there and see an airplane and think, I want to do that. And he scraped up $500 to

00:11:38.720 buy a, a used training plane, one of those Curtis Jennings from World War I and learn how to fly

00:11:46.260 it himself. I mean, without any training, he just thought he knew how to do it. That's how these

00:11:52.000 guys grew up.

00:11:52.780 That's how, and that's how they got into flying. Well, let's talk about Rickenbacker. So he was an

00:11:56.720 ace of ace, but he, in the process, he made a lot of contributions to aviation and was able to

00:12:03.580 propel the force. Like what, what exactly was Rickenbacker's role in promoting or making advances

00:12:10.460 in aeronautics during World War I? Well, I don't know that he made a lot of advances in aeronautics

00:12:17.640 in the, in, in the first world war, but he, he certainly pushed the envelope so far as being a

00:12:25.340 fighter pilot. He had a, if I'm not mistaken, 21 victories, which means he, he shot down 21

00:12:33.980 enemy planes. And, uh, I remember one time he tore into a squadron of seven enemy fighter planes

00:12:42.360 just by himself. He so terrified these people, they all, they all flew off in the other direction

00:12:49.160 just because he was bold, but he had a, he had a way of suppressing his fears to the extent that

00:12:57.560 he said he'd never was afraid when he was there. It was always too many things to, to watch out for

00:13:03.560 to do. But whenever he came down and it landed, he would, uh, he was in an airdrome in France.

00:13:10.200 It was a wall that he'd go behind the wall and, and throw up. Uh, and then he started to shake

00:13:16.320 and then he'd go into the officer's lounge and have a drink. And that would kind of put him back

00:13:22.740 on, on an even keel again until the next time. But that was, you know, it was a scary thing what

00:13:28.080 he did. But then of course, afterwards, uh, you know, he became the owner and the president of

00:13:33.240 Eastern airlines and he did a huge amount of promoting, uh, promotion of, of, uh, commercial

00:13:40.820 flying. It was, it was just enormous. He, he, he was a world known worldwide known figure

00:13:47.240 in commercial aviation. Everybody knew Eddie Reckenbacher.

00:13:50.240 Yeah. I mean, that was, I, I never, this is the first time I ever heard of him, but he

00:13:53.480 was, because of his race car driving, because of his exploits during world war one, he was

00:13:57.920 this, yeah, he was a, he was world famous. He was a celebrity.

00:14:00.240 Oh God. Yeah. I've got a set of glasses that belonged. I say belonged to him. He would give

00:14:05.460 them out from Eastern airlines. And it says compliments of captain Eddie Reckenbacher.

00:14:09.960 He always wanted to be known as captain Eddie.

00:14:12.660 So he, he contributed a lot to dog fighting, like how we fight in the air and then also

00:14:17.280 commercial. Let's talk about Doolittle because unlike Reckenbacher, who was a celebrity even

00:14:22.320 before he became a native ace, Doolittle, he had to earn his celebrity after world war one.

00:14:28.200 So what was it that Doolittle did that basically made modern aviation possible that we know

00:14:33.860 today?

00:14:34.860 Well, he, he was so good as a, as a cadet, a flying cadet that they made him, they made

00:14:40.620 him a teacher, an instructor. He never got into the action. He was furious, but that was

00:14:46.200 the way it was. But he stayed in the army, stayed in the military and for, for at least

00:14:51.580 for, until the 1930s. And at one point he, of course he became, he became a household name

00:14:57.580 because of his flying abilities as a, they used to have, uh, races. I think they still

00:15:02.760 have a few of those, but these pilots would, would race around big pylons and the people 0.85

00:15:08.820 went, it was a blood sport. People went to see him crash, you know, kind of like the,

00:15:12.300 these car races they have today. But they, in fact, they did crash too much and he, he

00:15:16.740 won all of those prizes. And at last he announced that he was getting it very publicly announced

00:15:22.400 he was quitting. He said, I think the aviation, we've, we've done enough to promote the aviation

00:15:26.840 in these kinds of races, but now we need to promote aviation safety. And this isn't the

00:15:32.300 way to do it because we're losing too many people. And that was pretty much the end of

00:15:36.260 the big time plane racing. But what he did was he realized like all of them did, like

00:15:41.480 Lindbergh and Reagan back at that, that the aviation was so limited by the weather that

00:15:46.280 they needed some way, uh, to overcome it. And the only way to overcome it was instruments.

00:15:52.280 And basically what he did, what Doolittle did was he invented, because he was actually a

00:15:56.520 professor of aeronautical engineering, with the help of the government, he invented a number

00:16:01.920 of instruments, very basic instruments, but there's still, some form of these are still

00:16:07.340 used in planes today that would allow you to fly blind. And to prove it, he went out one

00:16:15.080 day on Long Island, well, out of somewhere in Long Island, when the, the big fog moved

00:16:19.580 in and he pulled a canvas hood over the cockpit of his biplane. This was back in the late

00:16:25.080 19, early 1930s. He taxied and he took off and he flew for about 20 miles and he came back

00:16:31.840 and he landed in a total, under this canopy where all he could see was his instruments.

00:16:37.440 And this was enormous. And it was the very beginning of commercial flight.

00:16:42.440 Yeah. I mean, that's, that, I mean, it's crazy that he tested it himself. Like they, he,

00:16:45.940 like I say, like he helped invent the altimeter, which allows you to know how high you are,

00:16:50.940 the artificial horizon. I love how you describe the radar, because sort of the rudimentary radar

00:16:56.440 they developed to let, let, let a pilot know.

00:16:58.940 It was a radio signal. It was simply a signal that went out and they had, you can hardly believe

00:17:05.440 the guy would risk his life on this. There were two reeds, like you have it like an oboe

00:17:10.940 or something, a reed. And the, they sent out a radio signal from a beam from the air, airdrome

00:17:19.440 airport. And you could tell how far away from the airport you were by the humming of the,

00:17:25.940 these reeds as it received the signal. And so he knew when he was getting close, when the signal was,

00:17:32.940 was louder and louder and louder. And then he'd look at his altimeter and he'd look at his horizon.

00:17:38.940 He'd look at whatever else he had. And somehow he was able to put down on a runway and that's all he had.

00:17:44.940 And it was an extremely bold thing to do, but he wanted to prove a point.

00:17:49.940 He was always pushing that envelope.

00:17:51.940 Yeah. So by conquering the fog, he paved the way for aviation that we know today.

00:17:55.940 Like we were on a jumbo jet because of Doolittle.

00:17:58.940 Yeah. They had a, well, they had a hotelier in Paris had put up a big prize.

00:18:03.940 I think it was like $50,000, which back then did translate today, maybe a half a million, something like that.

00:18:11.940 Many people had tried and many people had died. And Lindbergh decided he was going to enter this,

00:18:18.940 this contest just, just for the hell of it. See if he could do it.

00:18:21.940 He had missed World War one, but he was in the army, run into some, some army flyers,

00:18:28.940 I think during the war, toward the end of the war. And they said, well, why don't you go and, you know, get,

00:18:33.940 you know, you've got a plane, you can fly it, you know, get in the army. So he did. He joined up in the reserves

00:18:38.940 and he flew and then he decided he was going to enter this race, essentially designed his own plane

00:18:45.940 after some fits and starts were trying to buy one and took it to the, the race was from New York to Paris.

00:18:52.940 You know, it wasn't from New York to Ireland that had been done.

00:18:55.940 But New York to Paris was a, you know, much longer distance.

00:18:59.940 And just as he was getting ready to start his, his turn at it, try a handful of other planes,

00:19:06.940 probably three or four were, were trying to do it. They all died.

00:19:09.940 Well, actually some were grounded because they crashed and they didn't die, but they were hurt.

00:19:14.940 The plane was hurt and so on. And he took off and he did it.

00:19:19.940 All the characters you follow in this book, I'm sure Charles Lindbergh is the most well known.

00:19:23.940 And what, what's interesting is, you know, he's the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic.

00:19:27.940 But I didn't, I didn't realize this, or I should have realized this, that there was actually a race.

00:19:31.940 Like there was multiple people trying to achieve this goal.

00:19:34.940 How were the other pilots going about this?

00:19:36.940 I think most important, the fact that he was going to do it solo.

00:19:40.940 That the, the, the, the bet didn't say anything about solo.

00:19:44.940 And people didn't think you could do it solo.

00:19:47.940 Because he said, you fall asleep hours over the ocean and just that monotony of it.

00:19:53.940 He decided that what he was going to do is have a modern plane.

00:19:56.940 Everybody else said, no, you got to have a, at least a biplane in case one of the engines conked out,

00:20:01.940 because that was very common back then.

00:20:04.940 So one of the engines would stop and, you know, probably put down a field or something.

00:20:08.940 But if you're in the middle of the Atlantic, that's not possible.

00:20:10.940 And so he, he decided he was going to get a big, a big Curtis Wright engine and hope for the best.

00:20:16.940 And he took every bit of weight, including, he measured it down to the, like a piece of paper,

00:20:21.940 the weight of a piece of paper, just a sheet of paper that he would scribble something on,

00:20:26.940 eliminate all the excess weight and use it for gasoline, for fuel.

00:20:31.940 He, he actually couldn't even see out of the car.

00:20:33.940 He, the way he, he had fuel tanks ahead of him.

00:20:36.940 Like if you're sitting in a cockpit, normally you'd look out the front of the cockpit.

00:20:40.940 Well, he couldn't do that. He had to stick his head out the side.

00:20:43.940 But he said pilots did that anyway.

00:20:45.940 And he didn't need to see what was ahead of him because he knew it was ahead of him.

00:20:49.940 Water.

00:20:50.940 What do you think, what was the difference?

00:20:51.940 Like how was Lindbergh's approach different from these other pilots that,

00:20:55.940 and why was he successful when these other pilots failed?

00:20:58.940 Was it just luck or was it like the design of the plane?

00:21:01.940 Yeah, he was doing it without, without, without those, those kinds of instruments.

00:21:05.940 He was, and if, if he had gotten, for instance, in a, in a fog somewhere and over France,

00:21:12.940 he would have been SOL.

00:21:14.940 I mean, because, you know, fog is the most dangerous.

00:21:17.940 I mean, I, I'm a sailor and I can tell you the fog is the most hated thing,

00:21:21.940 anybody on the water, because you simply can't see where you are.

00:21:24.940 There's no way to see.

00:21:25.940 There's just, you're, you're in a fog is where you are.

00:21:28.940 Uh, so anyway, he, his luck held out and he, he, uh, flew all the way.

00:21:32.940 He got to Paris to his consumers.

00:21:35.940 He'd forgotten his wallet.

00:21:37.940 He didn't have any money.

00:21:38.940 And he's wondering if any place was going to be open where he could get something to eat,

00:21:42.940 but how he was going to explain to some pension or somewhere cheap hotel,

00:21:46.940 he could stay that he would, he would get money in the morning through American Express.

00:21:50.940 He's, that was his big concern.

00:21:52.940 He reached England.

00:21:53.940 He could see, he looked down and he, so he knew he was probably going to make it.

00:21:57.940 But he was really worried about his circumstances where he got to Paris because he was hungry.

00:22:01.940 Anyway, he got there.

00:22:02.940 He couldn't believe his eyes.

00:22:03.940 And he saw these, he said, there must be some factory letting out.

00:22:06.940 And he saw these thousands and thousands of headlights and cars.

00:22:10.940 This is 1927.

00:22:12.940 And he looked, he went, descended to the airfield.

00:22:18.940 There were hundreds of thousands of people on the airdrome.

00:22:22.940 And he said, well, he didn't know where to land.

00:22:24.940 They were on the runway.

00:22:25.940 So he found a runway that wasn't being used and managed to land.

00:22:29.940 And he got out of the plane and all these people ran over to him and seized him.

00:22:33.940 And, and, uh, he was a fear for his life.

00:22:37.940 And they lifted him up on their shoulders and carried around for a half an hour before

00:22:41.940 some French pilots, uh, somehow rescued him and got him into a building.

00:22:46.940 And then he was then taken to the American embassy and treated like a God.

00:22:51.940 And it started there.

00:22:52.940 This, this fame began there and it never, ever ceased.

00:22:55.940 Right.

00:22:56.940 Like he was the first like modern, like worldwide mega celebrity.

00:22:59.940 Yeah.

00:23:00.940 I mean, like the biggest rock star, the biggest athlete.

00:23:04.940 And you think back then, you know, we were in between the wars, the world was at peace.

00:23:10.940 People needed heroes.

00:23:12.940 And of course, the press was big in that.

00:23:14.940 The newspapers created the heroes.

00:23:16.940 And, uh, so he, he was, uh, fed it everywhere.

00:23:21.940 He, he was, uh, because it didn't hurt that he was a tall, handsome, good looking, well-spoken

00:23:27.940 young man, uh, very humble and, uh, you know, uh, just a pretty much, uh, everybody said

00:23:36.940 a good, uh, all around good guy, but he, he was a mega hero.

00:23:40.940 But he didn't really respond well to the fame.

00:23:43.940 Well, yeah, he, he didn't like all the celebrity after a while that, that can wear thin.

00:23:52.940 And, uh, but he, he was not like these movie stars.

00:23:57.940 He won't give an autograph.

00:23:59.940 He always had time to do these things, but he, his privacy, the trouble was, he was so

00:24:06.940 famous that his very privacy was, was often, but he didn't have any privacy.

00:24:12.940 And, um, you know, of course it was a horrible tragedy with his, his infant son who was kidnapped

00:24:18.940 and murdered.

00:24:19.940 The press would, I mean, they would literally camp out wherever he was, no matter where he

00:24:24.940 went, uh, when he was going to get married, whenever the press would be camped out, uh,

00:24:28.940 by the bride's home.

00:24:31.940 And there was, he had always had to disguise when he went out, you know, he would lie in

00:24:36.940 the back seat of the car and that, you know, that, that can wear thin on you for after a

00:24:41.940 while.

00:24:42.940 Yeah, for sure.

00:24:43.940 Well, they, these, these three men in their twenties and early thirties, they made these

00:24:47.940 fantastic contributions to aviation during and around world war one.

00:24:52.940 But what's amazing about them is that when world war two broke out and the U S entered 0.92

00:24:57.940 world war two, all three of them returned to service for their country as pilots.

00:25:03.940 Yeah.

00:25:04.940 They taken it ball and gone home.

00:25:05.940 I mean, they were too old to any kind of regular military service.

00:25:10.940 And, uh, they, they were certainly, uh, well, well enough established and extremely wealthy,

00:25:17.940 all of them.

00:25:18.940 So they didn't have to do this, but they did it.

00:25:21.940 And I think that in the regular service, cause Doolittle, uh, was a regular army.

00:25:27.940 Well, at that point, uh, what they call army air court, then born to the, to the part of

00:25:32.940 the army before they had an air force.

00:25:34.940 And he was, he was at the Pentagon.

00:25:37.940 Well, it is before the Pentagon, wherever the hell the army was based.

00:25:42.940 And Roosevelt was very, very after Pearl Harbor, extremely adamant that we needed to strike

00:25:49.940 back in Japan.

00:25:50.940 And nobody knew how to do it because we had aircraft carriers, but they were like, you

00:25:55.940 know, we had fighter planes on them or fighter bombers, but they were not, they didn't have

00:26:01.940 the range to strike Japan and get back to the carrier.

00:26:05.940 And even if they had, they couldn't carry a payload of bombs.

00:26:08.940 It would be anything that would, that would make, be meaningful.

00:26:12.940 And one day, uh, a Naval captain discovered that the B-25 could fit on an aircraft carrier.

00:26:19.940 And B-25 was what they call a medium sized bomber, but it carried a payload.

00:26:24.940 It didn't make a difference.

00:26:25.940 And Hap Arnold, the head of the air force assigned Doolittle to get up a squadron of these

00:26:30.940 people and go and strike Japan. 0.84

00:26:33.940 And he did, and he trained them and he, he did all that.

00:26:36.940 And then he announced that he was going with them.

00:26:38.940 And there's no way you're too valuable to go with them.

00:26:43.940 Well, he said, well, he was going to do it.

00:26:45.940 And it was a finagling that went on there and he wound up, uh, leading this, this bunch.

00:26:50.940 And it was an extremely bold thing that they did.

00:26:54.940 Uh, he did a little himself was, uh, because he was so educated.

00:26:59.940 He was an, uh, an odds man and he gave them himself and everybody else less than 50, 50 chance

00:27:06.940 that they were going to come back alive because they had to go and get off the carrier first

00:27:12.940 of all.

00:27:13.940 And nobody had ever done that before with a full payload of bombs of that, that, that kind

00:27:17.940 of plane.

00:27:18.940 And then they had to get to Japan and it was said that Tokyo had a thousand anti-aircraft

00:27:25.940 weapons around, you know, huge thing.

00:27:28.940 And then they had to fly on from after that to airfields in China, um, which was supposed

00:27:34.940 to have been prepared and then weren't in fact.

00:27:37.940 And so everything seemed to go wrong.

00:27:40.940 They took off from the carrier under duress because they'd been spotted.

00:27:44.940 They were supposed to take off 400 miles from Japan.

00:27:47.940 They took off 700 miles from Japan.

00:27:50.940 The seas were huge.

00:27:51.940 They were just an awful storm and the waves were as high as a 30 story building.

00:27:55.940 And the deck of the carrier was pitching.

00:27:57.940 It was like a seesaw.

00:27:59.940 But anyway, they all got off somehow, performed their mission.

00:28:03.940 They, they came in so low that the Japanese were so surprised.

00:28:07.940 They didn't, they didn't expect this thing.

00:28:09.940 And by the time they got to man their, their anti-aircraft guns to get their fighters off

00:28:14.940 the ground, doodled raiders and hit their targets and gone on.

00:28:19.940 But then the, the, the biggest problem came up with the weather turn really bad.

00:28:24.940 Uh, and the night was falling.

00:28:26.940 They were supposed to have landed in daytime because it was late.

00:28:29.940 They had landed at night.

00:28:30.940 The weather was huge.

00:28:32.940 And China, of course, is the coast is lime and it's big mountain ranges.

00:28:37.940 They go way back into the interior.

00:28:38.940 Nobody even knew how, how high they were because the maps couldn't be trusted.

00:28:42.940 But they flew on and finally, uh, do a little radio there.

00:28:46.940 The planes just fly until you run out of gas and jump out.

00:28:49.940 And that's what they did.

00:28:50.940 And you imagine that wasn't scary.

00:28:52.940 Because half of China was, was occupied by the Japanese and they knew probably if they 1.00

00:28:57.940 were caught by Japanese, uh, they were going to be, uh, executed on the spot or taken to

00:29:02.940 Tokyo and executed as some were in fact.

00:29:05.940 But most of them, they jumped out and there were 16 planes and I think about 80 flyers.

00:29:11.940 And a couple of them were killed jumping out.

00:29:15.940 They landed in the wrong place.

00:29:16.940 And a couple, a half dozen more were captured by the Japanese and some of those were executed.

00:29:22.940 But the majority of them by hook or by crook, somehow with the help of the Chinese people 1.00

00:29:29.940 were taken back to the U.S. lines there and flown home.

00:29:32.940 And do a little, he, he was mortified because he thought he was going to be court marshaled

00:29:37.940 because he lost all the planes and the whole squadron.

00:29:40.940 It was crashed and burned.

00:29:42.940 And he got back to, uh, to Washington.

00:29:44.940 Finally, there's a big security route to India.

00:29:47.940 He didn't even have proper clothes on.

00:29:49.940 And general Marshall, he was the chief of staff of the army.

00:29:53.940 I called him in and he said, we're going to the white house.

00:29:56.940 And they said, what for?

00:29:58.940 He said, the president is going to give you the Congressional Medal of Honor, which he did.

00:30:02.940 So that was the story of the Doolittle Raid.

00:30:04.940 Of course, Doolittle became very, very famous after that.

00:30:07.940 Wow.

00:30:08.940 And this was Doolittle's Raid.

00:30:09.940 Well, the interesting thing about Doolittle is, and the reason I wrote this book the way I did,

00:30:15.940 I was going to do a biography of Doolittle.

00:30:17.940 Nobody had done it.

00:30:18.940 He wrote an autobiography, but I got about a third of the way into it.

00:30:24.940 And I said, now I know why nobody's done a biography of Doolittle.

00:30:27.940 Because the raid itself, which happened in 1942, was the biggest thing in the biography.

00:30:36.940 Even though, interesting enough, he became the commanding general of every air force we had in the Atlantic theater.

00:30:46.940 When we invaded North Africa, he was the commander of the 12th Air Force.

00:30:51.940 When we invaded Italy, he was the commander of the 15th Air Force.

00:30:55.940 When we invaded Normandy, the European continent, he was the commander of the 8th Air Force.

00:31:01.940 Huge, important positions.

00:31:03.940 And the problem with it was, Eisenhower had forbade him to fly because he knew about Ultra,

00:31:10.940 which was the top-secret code-breaking operation going on in Great Britain.

00:31:15.940 And they were afraid that if the Germans got him to somehow torture him and cause him to reveal this,

00:31:22.940 that that would all be blown.

00:31:24.940 And so his work was basically administrative, even though it was great work.

00:31:29.940 But then also, he lived on until he was like 95.

00:31:33.940 And so I got right, and I said, you know, this book, I can't write this book.

00:31:37.940 It's going to be dull.

00:31:38.940 I said, I wish the heck he had crashed in the Pacific like Eddie Rickenbacker had.

00:31:43.940 And then I thought, wait a minute, I started having an epiphany.

00:31:46.940 And I said, wait a minute, how about if I write about Doolittle and Rickenbacker?

00:31:49.940 And then I had another epiphany right on top of that.

00:31:52.940 I said, wait a minute.

00:31:53.940 If I had Lindbergh, I got the three greatest flyers of the 20th century.

00:31:56.940 I would take all three of them.

00:31:58.940 They all knew each other.

00:31:59.940 They were all World War I products one way or the other.

00:32:02.940 And they all did, you know, their thing early on in their 20s.

00:32:07.940 Well, except for Doolittle, but he did, he raised and did all that then.

00:32:11.940 And then they all went on to World War II.

00:32:13.940 I said, this is a really good story here.

00:32:15.940 So that's how I came to write the book.

00:32:17.940 I'm going to start off with Doolittle.

00:32:18.940 Yeah.

00:32:19.940 And like going to Rickenbacker, like that was phenomenal too.

00:32:22.940 Like he was this celebrity, hero, wealthy, went back and he got shot down in the Pacific.

00:32:28.940 And he was a castaway, like in the middle of the ocean in a lifeboat.

00:32:32.940 This guy, he wasn't actually shot down.

00:32:34.940 He was in a B-17 and they were going to, he had some special message to tell General MacArthur,

00:32:40.940 who was in New Guinea and they took off on his B-17.

00:32:45.940 And, um, for a variety of reasons, including some, some navigational problems, they ran out of gas.

00:32:51.940 And they had to put a B-17 down in an ocean with 12 foot seas.

00:32:56.940 It was never been done before successfully anyway.

00:32:58.940 And they did.

00:32:59.940 And they got out in these little life rafts and the plane sunk almost immediately.

00:33:03.940 And they had three life rafts.

00:33:05.940 And this was early on in the war before the air corps realized what they needed to put in the life rafts.

00:33:11.940 And so they had like, they had some fishing poles and hooks, but no bait.

00:33:15.940 They had no water, no food, no, just the best stuff.

00:33:21.940 And they, it was kind of a life raft where one guy has to turn over, everybody's going to turn over.

00:33:25.940 And so they went for like a week with no food, no water.

00:33:28.940 People were literally dying.

00:33:30.940 And then all of a sudden Rookerback is sitting there and a seagull landed on his head.

00:33:34.940 And because everybody stared, they're looking at that seagull, that's lunch.

00:33:38.940 And he slowly, slowly reached back as carefully as he could.

00:33:43.940 He seized that bird and blowing its neck and they, they divided it up.

00:33:48.940 He had a good sense, though, to keep the entrails for bait.

00:33:51.940 And so they then began to catch some fish and that got them through.

00:33:55.940 But on they went for week after week until the Air Force was going to give up the search

00:34:02.940 because they don't, they have a certain amount of time.

00:34:04.940 That's two weeks, I think is it.

00:34:06.940 And Mrs. Rickenbacker stormed down from New York to Washington 1.00

00:34:10.940 and stormed into Hap Arnold's office.

00:34:12.940 She's the head of the Air Force and don't you dare give up this search.

00:34:15.940 And so they put it on for another week or however long it was.

00:34:19.940 And suddenly one of these search planes looked down and he saw the, saw these life rafts.

00:34:24.940 I saw one of the life rafts anyway.

00:34:26.940 They, they, they, they got them.

00:34:27.940 Finally, they, you know, emaciated and sunburned,

00:34:30.940 horribly sunburned and water, you know,

00:34:32.940 the sores that you get when you're in that kind of situation.

00:34:35.940 But Rickenbacker spent a week putting himself back together.

00:34:38.940 And then he flew on back to New, out to New Guinea to give MacArthur his message.

00:34:43.940 He was tough.

00:34:44.940 So again, it's that tenacity, tenacity that he, they had from the get go.

00:34:48.940 And he was, again, he was in his forties when this was going on too.

00:34:51.940 Oh, he was in his fifties.

00:34:52.940 Fifties.

00:34:53.940 Okay.

00:34:54.940 I believe, I believe he was in his fifties.

00:34:55.940 In his fifties.

00:34:56.940 Early fifties.

00:34:57.940 Right.

00:34:58.940 If I'm not mistaken.

00:34:59.940 He didn't have to do this.

00:35:00.940 He could have been just enjoying the high life.

00:35:02.940 Oh no, he didn't have to do it.

00:35:03.940 Right.

00:35:04.940 He kept on going and he would go out to North Africa.

00:35:08.940 His solid job, they offered him a rank of Lieutenant General.

00:35:13.940 And he said, no, I don't want that.

00:35:15.940 He said, I'm going to be Captain Eddie.

00:35:16.940 He said, I don't want to get in the military with all that hierarchy.

00:35:19.940 People, even Lieutenant General said, people tell him what to do.

00:35:23.940 He said, I'm going to do it my way.

00:35:25.940 And his job was, he would go out to these various pilots units and these were all young

00:35:30.940 pilots.

00:35:31.940 I mean, they weren't professional pilots.

00:35:33.940 They were young men in their twenties who had taken a pilot training, but he was, you

00:35:38.940 know, Rickenbacker was, he was one of the gods, like a little in Lindbergh.

00:35:42.940 And he would go there to various bases and he knew how to give a pep talk.

00:35:48.940 He was very adept at that.

00:35:50.940 Well, let's talk about Lindbergh because he is an interesting case because it took him a

00:35:53.940 while to come to his country service during World War II, both Rickenbacker and Doolittle,

00:35:59.940 even before World War II, were making a big push for aviation in the military, which kind

00:36:03.940 of fell on deaf ears until Pearl Harbor.

00:36:06.940 So can you talk a little bit about Lindbergh and why it took him a bit to come to his country's

00:36:11.940 aid?

00:36:12.940 Yeah.

00:36:13.940 He, well, you know, he was a Colonel by that time in the, in the, the army and he was

00:36:18.940 on the reserve list.

00:36:20.940 He wasn't active.

00:36:21.940 He, he was very much opposed to the U S entry into World War II.

00:36:26.940 And I think some of that was a product of his upbringing as essentially an isolationist.

00:36:32.940 And that sprang from World War one, where we sent, you know, two or 3 million troops to

00:36:38.940 France or to Europe.

00:36:40.940 And at 50,000 of them killed.

00:36:42.940 And what, 20 years later, they're at it again.

00:36:44.940 And the isolationist movement was very strong.

00:36:47.940 Lindbergh's father was a great isolationist.

00:36:49.940 Um, he just said, is that the Europe have its own problems.

00:36:52.940 We don't need it.

00:36:53.940 And so he joined an organization called America first.

00:36:57.940 Rickenbacker was in the same organization for a long time.

00:37:00.940 And it said, basically it's America first.

00:37:03.940 And what, what that meant was that they said, spend their defense money, but spend it on

00:37:08.940 defense of this country.

00:37:10.940 So that if Germany does, in fact, which it appeared, this, uh, do you look now?

00:37:15.940 We're talking 1939, 40, 41.

00:37:18.940 It appeared that Germany was going to take over all of Europe. 0.94

00:37:22.940 From 39 on, early 40 on, Great Britain was the only ally there was.

00:37:29.940 It all, the rest of them had been conquered.

00:37:31.940 France and all the lowland countries and Scandinavia.

00:37:35.940 Everybody was under the thumb of the Germans except for the Soviet Union.

00:37:39.940 And Lindbergh had been there a number of times, been to Germany, been to, to Great Britain.

00:37:45.940 And he was of the opinion looking at the German air force that they were far superior to anything

00:37:52.940 Great Britain had.

00:37:53.940 He became one of the major spokesmen for this America first, which infuriated Roosevelt, President Roosevelt.

00:38:03.940 And Roosevelt had cast doubts on his loyalty because, of course, he was of German extraction.

00:38:10.940 And that caused Lindbergh to renounce his colonelcy in the army.

00:38:15.940 He said, I can't serve for a man who thinks I'm disloyal.

00:38:18.940 And, of course, he wasn't disloyal.

00:38:21.940 In any case, when the war came, when we got in the war at Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt had a long memory.

00:38:28.940 And Lindbergh had gone back and begged.

00:38:31.940 I wouldn't say begged, but he asked very politely.

00:38:34.940 He'd like to have his commission back.

00:38:36.940 And the word came everywhere, no.

00:38:39.940 And it not only came his commission, but even where he worked.

00:38:42.940 He wanted to work in aviation.

00:38:44.940 And wherever he worked, the Roosevelt administration had threatened to pull the government contracts from these companies.

00:38:51.940 And the only person that Roosevelt couldn't stand up to was Henry Ford, who at that point had the largest aircraft manufacturing operation in the world at Willow Run, making warplanes.

00:39:05.940 And so they hired Lindbergh on, as he was a technician.

00:39:11.940 He was essentially a test pilot.

00:39:13.940 And he did things that very few pilots, with the exception to say, would have done.

00:39:19.940 I mean, high-altitude stuff and pushing the limits on planes.

00:39:24.940 And finally, in 1943, I believe it was, he went to Henry Ford and said, look, I've done all I can do here with testing these aircraft.

00:39:36.940 He said, I need to go and test them under the conditions on which they were designed, meaning combat conditions.

00:39:43.940 And in particular, he wanted to test two airplanes they did.

00:39:48.940 The Navy had a single-engine fighter plane that they used off aircraft carriers and off the islands with the Marine Corps.

00:39:57.940 And the Army was using a twin-engine plane, a P-40, two booms, and it's a funny-looking thing.

00:40:04.940 But that's what the Army was using in MacArthur.

00:40:07.940 And so, indeed, he did.

00:40:09.940 He went out and they gave him a, there was a special kind of designation.

00:40:14.940 He gave me what, he was neither fish nor fowl.

00:40:16.940 He was, he dressed up with an officer's uniform.

00:40:19.940 And he ate the officer's mess.

00:40:21.940 And he was recorded, you know, officer's privileges, very much like a newspaper reporter.

00:40:26.940 But he was essentially a technician.

00:40:28.940 And so he went to, of all places, Guala Canal, and studied planes.

00:40:35.940 And these were Navy planes.

00:40:37.940 And he then went up Island to Bougainville and all those places.

00:40:43.940 He flew with some of, with Foss, who was the most famous Marine Corps ace in World War II.

00:40:48.940 And he started flying combat missions with them.

00:40:51.940 And they all liked him.

00:40:52.940 So he's a good guy.

00:40:53.940 And he gave them a lot of good tips and things.

00:40:57.940 So he was, again, the most famous aviator of his age.

00:41:00.940 Not to be outdone, he then went to New Guinea.

00:41:04.940 And he started flying with these guys.

00:41:06.940 And they flew with the best known air group that was, I can't remember the name of it, 434th or something like that.

00:41:13.940 But he, he walked into the pilot shack there.

00:41:16.940 And there was the commander who was probably in his twenties.

00:41:20.940 He was a colonel.

00:41:21.940 And he said who he was.

00:41:23.940 And the guy was playing checkers.

00:41:25.940 He walked in behind him.

00:41:27.940 He said who he was.

00:41:28.940 And what he wanted.

00:41:29.940 He said, I want to fly with your group and study your aircraft.

00:41:32.940 And the guy sort of waved him off.

00:41:35.940 And so he waited for about four, five, six minutes.

00:41:38.940 And finally, the colonel said, now, what do you say your name was?

00:41:42.940 And what did you want?

00:41:43.940 Again.

00:41:44.940 And he told him his name.

00:41:46.940 And he told him what he wanted.

00:41:48.940 And the guy turned around.

00:41:49.940 He said, not Charles Lindbergh.

00:41:52.940 My God.

00:41:53.940 And so he became ingratiated with this group.

00:41:56.940 And he began flying these combat missions.

00:42:00.940 And he showed them something that they didn't know.

00:42:03.940 How to change the mixture of the fuel that would give them an extra 600-mile range.

00:42:09.940 Everybody was extremely appreciative of this because that was part of the problem with these islands being distant.

00:42:15.940 You know, MacArthur was moving up from New Guinea toward the Philippines and later Japan.

00:42:20.940 In order to send his bombers, his B-17 bombers, they needed escorts.

00:42:25.940 And the fighters just didn't have the fuel range.

00:42:28.940 Well, suddenly, Lindbergh had given him a range.

00:42:31.940 And then one day, a notice comes to him to immediately report to MacArthur's headquarters.

00:42:37.940 And he figures he's in for it.

00:42:40.940 Because he's not supposed to be flying with these people.

00:42:43.940 He's a technician.

00:42:45.940 And certainly, he's also Lindbergh.

00:42:46.940 He was anathema Roosevelt.

00:42:48.940 So he goes to MacArthur's headquarters.

00:42:51.940 And MacArthur greets him like a long-lost brother.

00:42:54.940 And he told him he's given him this enormous range that they get 600 more miles.

00:43:00.940 That's coming and going.

00:43:01.940 300-mile range, I guess.

00:43:03.940 And they could fly there and fly back there.

00:43:05.940 600 miles of flying time, I meant to say.

00:43:08.940 But anyway, he continued to do that and actually flew more missions.

00:43:13.940 And he shot down a Jap Zero and almost got shot down himself. 1.00

00:43:17.940 And he flew more than was required by the Army.

00:43:20.940 And then he came home.

00:43:23.940 So he'd done his duty.

00:43:24.940 That's funny.

00:43:25.940 He found a way to serve.

00:43:26.940 Yeah.

00:43:27.940 So I'm curious.

00:43:28.940 As you were researching and writing about these men, did you pick up any life lessons

00:43:31.940 that you think men today can take from?

00:43:34.940 Well, yeah.

00:43:35.940 And you do it in all the histories that I've written.

00:43:37.940 I mean, it's perseverance.

00:43:39.940 It's somehow the ability to put your own life on the line.

00:43:45.940 The ability to somehow conquer fear, put the fear, compartmentalize it, put it somewhere else.

00:43:50.940 Because all these things require a certain amount of fortitude.

00:43:55.940 And once you conquer that, once you get that under control, then it's perseverance.

00:44:00.940 It's because none of these things are easy that these guys did.

00:44:03.940 I mean, do you think it do a little putting himself in that situation?

00:44:08.940 When he's got a canvas cover over his cockpit, he can't see anything but the instrument panel is looking right at him.

00:44:17.940 That's all he can see.

00:44:18.940 And he's going to take that thing up in the air that way?

00:44:21.940 And that required a lot of fortitude, but also it took him years.

00:44:26.940 I can't remember many, many years because he had a lot of help from the Bureau of Standards and other things.

00:44:33.940 But they perfected these instruments.

00:44:35.940 I mean, he went out to the finest watchmakers and other people who knew how to do precision instruments

00:44:42.940 and make them small and precise.

00:44:45.940 It was a big risk, but it was also the years that it took him to get those things just right.

00:44:51.940 And the same thing was true for Lindbergh.

00:44:54.940 All these guys, there's a very thin margin in aviation between life and death.

00:45:00.940 My conversation with my friend, the fighter pilot, last night, he'd just been in Afghanistan.

00:45:06.940 And it's very thin.

00:45:09.940 And a lot of unknowables, like, who's going to shoot at you?

00:45:14.940 You know, and when, but those are risks that you take.

00:45:18.940 It goes with the territory.

00:45:19.940 These guys were willing to take the risk and willing to put their lives on the line,

00:45:23.940 but they were also very smart guys who had great instincts for self-preservation,

00:45:30.940 but also great instincts as to what it took to be an American.

00:45:35.940 And I think that that is a trait that is not necessarily unique to this country,

00:45:41.940 but it's unique to a lot more people in this country, and it seems to be any other place in the world.

00:45:46.940 And that's all I'm going to say about that.

00:45:48.940 Well, Winston Groom, this has been a fantastic conversation.

00:45:51.940 Thank you so much for your time.

00:45:52.940 It's been a pleasure.

00:45:53.940 My guest today was Winston Groom.

00:45:54.940 He's the author of several books.

00:45:56.940 Go to Amazon.com, search Winston Groom.

00:45:58.940 You're going to find all sorts of great books.

00:45:59.940 He's got a ton of them on there, including history books and historical fiction.

00:46:02.940 You can find more information about his work at winstongroom.com.

00:46:05.940 The book we talked about today was Aviators, and his latest historical fiction book is El Paso.

00:46:10.940 So go check that out.

00:46:11.940 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash aviators,

00:46:14.940 where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:46:17.940 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:46:27.940 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com.

00:46:31.940 If you enjoy this show, I'd appreciate if you take one or two minutes to give us a review on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Cat,

00:46:36.940 whatever it is you usually listen to podcasts, please give us a review.

00:46:38.940 That helps us out a lot.

00:46:39.940 As always, thank you for your continued support.

00:46:40.940 And until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

00:46:47.940 We'll see you next time.

The Art of Manliness - May 18, 2017

#305： Lessons from the Epic Age of Flight

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