Description:

Eddie Rickenbacker
Garden City, NY, ca. 1943
Eddie Rickenbacker Signed 1st Ed. "Seven Came Through" About His Experience Lost at Sea
Signed First Edition

A signed First Edition copy of "Seven Came Through" by flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1943. First Edition. Large twelvemo, 5.75" x 8", 118pp with 8 pages of black and white images. Signed and inscribed on the front free end page: "To our good friends 'Helen & Happy Hodgkins' with every best wish Capt Eddie Rickenbacker 1943." Blue cloth bound boards with titling at the spine and an illustration of a plane on the front cover. Deckled edges. Accompanied by two newspaper clippings. One is a poem entitled "Rick" by Grantland Rice, ca. November 1942. The other is entitled "The Strange Case of Eddie Rickenbacker" from the Daily News, dated October 12, 1943. The book has sunning and yellowing to the covers. Light bumping and wear to the corners and edges. Light toning to the internal pages, with uneven toning to the signed page. Toning, folds, chipping, and loss to the clippings. Boldly signed by Rickenbacker.

In October 1942, Rickenbacker was sent on a tour of air bases in the Pacific Theater of Operations to review living conditions and operations. In addition, he was to deliver a secret message from the president to General Douglas MacArthur. After visiting several air and sea bases in Hawaii, Rickenbacker was provided with a B-17D Flying Fortress as transportation to the South Pacific. Due to faulty navigation equipment, the bomber strayed hundreds of miles off course while on its way to a refueling stop on Canton Island. When the airplane ran out of fuel, the pilot, Captain William T. Cherry Jr., was forced to ditch or water land the airplane in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.

For 24 days, Rickenbacker, Army Captain Hans C. Adamson (his friend and business partner), and six crewmen drifted for thousands of miles at sea in life rafts. Adamson sustained serious injuries during the ditching. The other crewmen - John Bartek, William Cherry, John De Angelis, Alexander Kaczmarczyk, James Reynolds, and James Whittaker - were hurt to varying degrees. They survived on sporadic rainwater and small fish that they caught with their bare hands. While suffering from dehydration, Kaczmarczyk drank seawater; he died after two weeks adrift and was buried at sea. The surviving men were rescued on November 13, 1942. All were suffering from exposure, sunburn, dehydration, and near starvation. Rickenbacker had lost 40 pounds, but after a few days of rest, he completed his assignment and delivered his message to General MacArthur.

In 1943, Rickenbacker wrote "Seven Came Through" about his experience, saying he was lost for 21 days. He corrected the number to 24 days in his 1967 autobiography. Rickenbacker's experience resulted in every Navy life raft being equipped with an emergency fishing kit, as well as the development of better survival gear for the air crewmen.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 5.75" x 8"
  • Medium: Signed First Edition

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