Eddie Rickenbacker and Six Other People Survive a B-17 Crash and Three Weeks Lost in the Pacific Ocean

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A quick inventory of possessions showed they had a first-aid kit, a Very pistol with 18 flares, two hand pumps for bailing water and pumping air into the rafts, two sheath knives, a pair of pliers, a small compass, two collapsible bailing buckets, some patching gear for each raft, pencils and Rickenbacker’s map. Reynolds had grabbed two fishing lines, but there was no bait. The pilots had also kept their pistols.

The men were exhausted, and several were also violently seasick. Adamson’s back injury was very painful, while the others suffered from a variety of cuts and bruises. Sergeant Kaczmarczyk, who had been out of the hospital only a couple of weeks, was in serious trouble. He had swallowed a lot of seawater and needed more help than the others could provide. As the sun set, the temperature plunged. A three-quarter moon, although beautiful to look at, signaled the start of a long and lonely night. The men held an organizational meeting and set a series of two-hour watches, to keep alert for any serious problems and to be aware of any approaching ship or plane. It turned out there was little need for such sentinels — few if any of the men actually slept that night. Although the winds had subsided by midnight, waves continued to slosh icy-cold water into the boats, and the tired men spent most of the night bailing. Sharks followed the boats constantly.

On the second day the men slowly recovered from the chill of night until midmorning, when the hot sun began its torture. The men decided to eat one of Cherry’s oranges. Voted the ‘orange custodian,’ Rickenbacker cut and doled them out. Each man’s eighth of an orange was the only food he would have for two days. Some ate peel and all, but Cherry and Rickenbacker saved their peels for fish bait.

The next six or seven days proved excruciating, as a glassy calm brought intolerable heat that blistered every inch of exposed flesh from the tops of their heads to the soles of their feet. Salt water soaked into skin that cracked open and then dried, only to be soaked again. When the men developed runny sores on their mouths, they folded Rickenbacker’s handkerchiefs into triangles and placed them over nose and mouth ‘bandit fashion.’

During daytime the men looked forward to the coolness of the nights, and at night they craved the heat of the days. Given a choice of the two, most preferred the days because they could see their companions and sea gulls and watch the movement of waves. The nights were fearful, filled with frequent moans, cries and prayers.

Unable to stretch out at night, Rickenbacker later remarked that if he ever met the man who proclaimed those rafts held two and five men apiece he would demand that he prove his theory on a lengthy voyage under similar circumstances. In his five-man raft, Rickenbacker’s 185-pound frame, Adamson’s 200 pounds and Bartek were wedged into a usable area measuring 9 feet by 5 feet. The two-man raft had an inside measurement the size of a small, shallow bathtub.

As Rickenbacker put it: ‘Whenever you turned or twisted, you forced the others to turn or twist. It took days to learn how to make the most of the space, at an incalculable price in misery. A foot or hand or shoulder, moved in sleep or restlessness, was bound to take the raw flesh of a companion. With the flesh, tempers turned raw and many things said in the night had best be forgotten.’

The second orange was divided and distributed on the fourth morning, the second time the men had eaten in 72 hours. The sharks and hundreds of small fish swimming around the rafts ignored the bare hooks as well as those baited with orange rinds. Whittaker fashioned a spear out of one of the oars, but one attempt at impaling dinner did more damage to the spear than to the shark, so that project was abandoned.

At first Cherry and Adamson sat all day with loaded revolvers, hoping to spot a sea gull, but none came close enough for a shot. After a few days, however, the salt water had rusted the pistols so badly that the men tossed them overboard.

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