Enduring Courage
Ace Pilot Eddie Rickenbacker and the Dawn of the Age of Speed
St. Martin's Press: May 13, 2014.
To say Enduring Courage is inspiring is totally inadequate praise. It is also gripping, electrifying, insightful — and full of new information about a legendary American hero. I have seldom been so glad to read a book.
The sensational true story of Eddie Rickenbacker, America's greatest flying ace.
At the turn of the twentieth century two new technologies — the car and airplane — took the nation's imagination by storm as they burst, like comets, into American life. The brave souls that leaped into these dangerous contraptions and pushed them to unexplored extremes became new American heroes: the race car driver and the flying ace.
No individual did more to create and intensify these raw new roles than the tall, gangly Eddie Rickenbacker, who defied death over and over with such courage and pluck that a generation of Americans came to know his face better than the president's. The son of poor, German-speaking Swiss immigrants in Columbus, Ohio, Rickenbacker overcame the specter of his father's violent death, a debilitating handicap, and, later, accusations of being a German spy, to become the American military ace of aces in World War I and a Medal of Honor recipient. He and his high-spirited, all-too-short-lived pilot comrades, created a new kind of aviation warfare, as they pushed their machines to the edge of destruction — and often over it — without parachutes, radios, or radar.
Enduring Courage is the electrifying story of the beginning of America's love affair with speed — and how one man above all the rest showed a nation the way forward. No simple daredevil, he was an innovator on the racetrack, a skilled aerial dualist and squadron commander, and founder of Eastern Air Lines. Decades after his heroics against the Red Baron's Flying Circus, he again showed a war-weary nation what it took to survive against nearly insurmountable odds when he and seven others endured a harrowing three-week ordeal adrift without food or water in the Pacific during World War II.
For the first time, Enduring Courage peels back the layers of hero to reveal the man himself. With impeccable research and a gripping narrative, John F. Ross tells the unforgettable story of a man who pushed the limits of speed, endurance and courage and emerged as an American legend.
Reviews
Entertaining... Ross peppers the text with quotes that place readers right alongside the ace through nearly every moment of his life. Obviously this is exciting material to work with — after all, Rickenbacker was a man who drove in the first Indy 500 and dueled with the Red Baron's flying circus — but Ross is never fawning in this thoroughly enjoyable and downright rollicking read.
Ross has a knack for exciting, visual narrative, and the life-defining moments of race and dogfight... A highly entertaining portrait, which reveres its subject as a hero defined by his high-speed feats.
John Ross is that rare soul who writes narrative history with the verve and timing of an accomplished novelist. Enduring Courage — a heroic portrait of the aviator ace Eddie Rickenbacker of Ohio — is a bona fide page turner. The Indianapolis race car scenes and World War I dogfights ripple with excitement. I couldn't put it down.
Daring, beautiful, and masterfully told, Enduring Courage puts you shoulder-to-shoulder with one of the great American spirits of all-time, Eddie Rickenbacker, who does in each chapter what the rest of us dream to do with our lives.
Whether it's the Indianapolis 500, a World War I dogfight, or a struggle for survival on a life raft in the Pacific, John Ross puts you there in the midst of the turbulent, often unbelievable life of Eddie Rickenbacker — the irascible, death-defying hero who helped set the dizzying pace of our modern, machine-driven age. As Ross says in the Introduction to Enduring Courage, 'Hold onto your seats.'
To say Enduring Courage is inspiring is totally inadequate praise. It is also gripping, electrifying, insightful — and full of new information about a legendary American hero. I have seldom been so glad to read a book.
Before Charles Lindbergh, before Chuck Yeager, before Neil Armstrong, there was Eddie Rickenbacker, American aviation's first mega-celebrity. In Enduring Courage, John F. Ross gives readers a brilliant and compelling biography of a man who led a remarkable life, illuminating as well a more innocent and hopeful period in American history, when the common man could make for himself a very uncommon future. This is an unforgettable treasure of a book.
Richly detailed and dramatically told, Enduring Courage helps us perfectly understand how Eddie Rickenbacker became one of our greatest — if not THE greatest — aviation heroes of all time. Ross's meticulous research skillfully guides this real-life tale to a magnificent, completely satisfying landing.
Audio Excerpts
Introduction to Enduring Courage, read by Edward Hermann.
John F. Ross talks about Eddie Rickenbacker, WWI, and audiobooks, among other things.
The Early Days of Racing & Flight
