With 26 victories to his credit, 94th Aero Squadron’s Commander, Capt Eddie Rickenbacker, was the USAS top scoring ace of WWI.

The white dots on the canvas are patched bullet holes.

https://www.facebook.com/ww1incolour/photos/a.450835521726972/1573292582814588/?type=3&permPage=1

1925 Rickenbacker

http://www.shorpy.com/node/22565

the last kids of a president that joined the real military? Pres Teddy Roosevelt's kids, 5 of 6 were in WW1, even his daughter.

Bush 43 sure as hell didn't.

Texas Air National Guard my ass. That's about as real a military service as sheltering elitist politicians sons can get. What's the point of an air natl guard? Oh, did we lose the Air Force? No? Then we don't need an ANG. Regardless, if we need planes to scramble, the Navy will have more jets in the air than the air farce has office chairs.

Ike's reservist grandson married Nixon's daughter and inspired CCR's son about useless senator's sons who were sheltered stateside during Vietnam

Ike's son graduated from West Point on D-Day and served in both World War II and the Korean War. In both cases, though, the brass was so freaked out about protecting him from actual harm, you know, 'cause his dad would END them if anything happened to his son, so it's not his fault really that he wasn't really given a chance. Read what he has to say about it http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/opinion/28eisenhower.html  it's interesting.

FDRs son flew 300 recon missions, and witnessed JFKs older brother Joe Jr kia

LBJ's son-in-law was a Marine and earned a Bronze Star during his two Vietnam tours,

One of Biden's son was in the Army Natl Guard as a lawyer and had to spend a year in Iraq, so, whatever. Lawyer. Nuf said. The other was also a lawyer, but was kicked out of the Navy Reserves for using cocaine (deliberate get me outta here move) a month after getting commissioned... again, reserves? Get a life. If you haven't served active, you don't deserve respect for going reserves. If you've been active, I got no quarrel nor complaint. You do whatever after serving real time in the military, you got my respect. But no active time and straight into reserves to dodge the draft? Pussy.

Got the feeling that you must complain about my opinion on my website? Go ahead, I need something to fill my garbage can with. I actually don't read complaints unless I need a laugh.

I blog, you don't, so pack sand. If you want to send me a link to your website telling me what a great thing the Texas Air National Guard was during Vietnam for anything other than dodging the draft by guys that couldn't muster some guts and do the shit job handed to them by the US Govt, but who wanted to run the US Govt? (George W Bush, I'm talking to you) You just send that link right to me.

I'd love to see what you've posted about the Texas Air National Guard, or the Naval Reserves, or whatever bunch of momma's boys that were hampered by purse strings from doing something useful when their country went to war, no matter what a fucking mess the country was making, or what jackasses were running the country, or for whatever reason they invaded some sandbox. We all know they got rich, and the guys drafted died. Then the rich rode the gravy train to run the country and get us into another war they were too damn stupid to do anything about, except of course, get richer and pay back campaign contributors and the corporations that get fat from the war machine.

Ask the high school grads of the class of 1969, 70, and 71 how many funerals they went to while in high school. That's some fucked up shit. That's what happens when the rich run the country to profit from the experience. Poor kids die, and the rich kids join the reserves (GW Bush, Biden, Eisenhower, etc)
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All four sons of former president Theodore Roosevelt served in the Great War. One, the youngest son, Quentin (1897-1918), was killed in it; two others, Theodore Jr. (1887-1944) and Archie (1894-1979), were badly wounded.

Not every household where the father has been governor of New York and president of the United States.

 At least three of his sons could remember when their father had been a rough-riding colonel in the Spanish American War.

All knew him as a big-game hunter. He raised his brood to be joyful Spartans, relishing the natural world, uncomplaining, ready for any duty, any hardship, and following the credo his own father had given him: “Whatever you do, enjoy it.”

There were six children all told. Roosevelt’s two daughters were Ethel, who was actually the first Roosevelt in a war zone in World War One, serving as a nurse in France (her husband was a surgeon) and Alice, who became a famous Washington hostess and wit.

 Theodore Jr., the eldest son, from a young age aspired to be his father, and their careers had modest parallels, with junior serving, as his father had done, in the New York State Assembly and (after the Great War) as undersecretary of the Navy.

Quentin was the golden boy—the hilarious juvenile terror of the White House, funny, fearless, academically gifted, mechanically brilliant, and personally charming.

With the U.S. declaration of war in April 1917, not only did Roosevelt himself try to return to the colors (only to be denied by order of President Wilson), but every one of his sons took a commission. All had taken prewar officer training as part of the Plattsburgh Movement for military preparedness, though Kermit, who had been working at a bank in Buenos Aires, had the least.

Theodore Jr. was commissioned a major, and Archie, who married shortly after the declaration of war, was commissioned a first lieutenant. They were on the first troop transport to France.

Kermit, thinking that it would take too long for American troops to go into action, used his father’s assistance to be commissioned in the British army, and did so, typically, not out of a sense of martial ardor, but of somber duty. Kermit did, however, have a dramatic role in view: he wanted to fight in the Near East and see the fall of Constantinople from the Turks to the British. To that end he became a captain in the British army and was sent to Mesopotamia. He brought his wife and son and housed his family in Spain, where his wife’s father was ambassador.

Quentin, meanwhile, dropped out of Harvard, became engaged to the great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, eluded the restrictions of an Army physical examination (by memorizing the eye chart and lying about a serious chronic back injury), and, after his Flying Corps training, was commissioned a first lieutenant.

Quentin was among the first American air officers to arrive in France, in August 1917. Like his brothers, he proved himself an extremely capable officer with a manner that inspired confidence and affection. Quentin was assigned to the 95th Air Squadron

 Eddie Rickenbacker remembered him as “Gay, hearty, and absolutely square in everything he said or did. . . . [He] was one of the most popular fellows in the group. . . . His bravery was so notorious that we all knew he would either achieve some great spectacular success or be killed in the attempt.”

Quentin, though not in action, had already broken an arm and reinjured his back crash-landing a plane and had been hospitalized for pneumonia. On 6 July 1918 he had his first dogfight and came back elated. In combat against three German planes, he had shot one down and evaded the other two.
On 14 July, during an early patrol his squad encountered seven Fokkers that outmaneuvered his squadron's relatively slower aircraft and he was shot down, dead of his wounds before the plane touched ground

Teddy Jr was the oldest man to hit the beach (Utah) on D-Day, the only general to do so, at the age of 56. He died six weeks later of a heart attack in his tent, and was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously. Thus, Ted Sr and Jr are the only president and son to be awarded the Medal Of Honor.

During WW1 Archie had an arm broken and a kneecap shattered by shrapnel. Archie, though considered 100 percent disabled from his wounds in the First World War, would not be denied an opportunity to fight in the Second. Between the wars he had been an oil and financial executive.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he employed sheer Rooseveltian gumption to be commissioned a lieutenant colonel and awarded a combat command in New Guinea from 1943 to 1944, where he proved he still had the audacious Roosevelt fighting spirit.

Archie was fearless in the face of enemy fire. He told one young soldier who was cowering while Roosevelt stood erect, “Don’t worry. You’re safe with me. I was wounded three times in the last war, and that’s a lucky charm.” It was for a while, at least, before an enemy grenade exploded into the same knee that had been hit with shrapnel in France. He was invalided out of the service, the only American soldier to be declared 100 percent disabled in two wars.

https://www.historyonthenet.com/teddy-roosevelts-sons-in-world-war-1/
http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/quentin.html
http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15131
http://www.houstonpress.com/news/presidents-sons-at-war-13-service-records-from-the-mediocre-to-the-ultimate-sacrifice-6751087

There are only 3 enlisted servicemembers with parents serving in congress

In all, about 1 percent of U.S. representatives and senators have a child in uniform. Less than 1 percent of today's graduates from Ivy League schools go on to serve in the military.

Of the 43 men who have served as President of the United States, a total of 31—or 72%--served in the military before becoming President. That was before being a lawyer or millionaire was a pre req, and Clinton and Trump dodged the draft

A Duke University study demonstrates that it matters whether civilian decision makers have military experience: A review of U.S. foreign policy over nearly two centuries shows that when we have the fewest number of veterans in leadership and staff positions in Congress and the executive branch, we are most likely to engage in aggressive (as opposed to defensive) war fighting. And we are most likely to pull out of conflicts early.

In World War I, back when personal honor and self respect still had meaning in the ivy league, one of Congress's stated reasons for proposing a draft was that without it, too many of the upper-class children would rush to service, and we'd lose the leadership class of the country.

In 1956, a majority of the graduating classes of Stanford, Harvard and Princeton joined the military, and most were not drafted. Leadership's cry of "follow me" is more convincing than "charge!" , and those who aspire to future leadership see military service as necessary to their credibility in some cases

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2270473&page=1

truck carrying Rickenbacker Brougham going down Colorado Street, Pasadena. 1924

http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15150coll2/id/2516/rec/3

World Circling Tour, 1943, with Eddie Rickenbacker

by his count, he had survived 135 brushes with death, starting at age 8

His dad died when he was 12

At age 16 he was the mechanic for the Frayer Miller race car in the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup

He raced a Duesenburg in the Sioux City 300 in 1913

He raced a Maxwell in the 1915 San Fransisco Gran Prix

When America entered the war in 1917, Rickenbacker volunteered and wanted to learn to fly, but at 27 he was overage for flight training and had no college degree.

However, because of his fame as a race car driver, he was sworn in as a sergeant and sailed for Europe as a chauffeur. He managed to wangle an assignment driving Col "Billy" Mitchell's flashy twin-six Packard. He pestered Mitchell until he was permitted to apply for flight training, claiming to be 25, the age limit for pilot trainees.

He also set a land speed record of 134 in the Blitzen Benz, a chain driven car.

He raced in the Indy 500 4 times 

Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, Ace of Aces, future President of Eastern Airlines and future owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he bought and operated the Indy speedway from 1927 to 1945.. .. and improved the track by banking the turns. 

In Jan of '43 Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was making a fast inspection tour of American War Plants for the Secretary of War, (as president of Eastern Airlines, he was very qualified to assess airplane production) and when due to look over Ford Willow Run Plant at Detroit, it was arranged for the publicity photo (top 2) moment to occur and a bit of nostalgia for the old Hat in the Ring emblem.

Not long after Rickenbacker finished the stateside tour, Secretary of War Stimson asked him to do the same thing in the Soviet Union - that is, undertake a three-month inspection tour of the aircraft factories and air defense system to see how the Lend-Lease equipment was being used.

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1111514/posts

Rickenbacker at the retiring of the last open-cockpit mailwing, 1935

U.S. AIRMAIL, 1935. The final flight of a Pitcairn Mailwing-7, the last open cockpit airplane to carry U.S. airmail on contract schedule, 16 October 1935.

The Pitcairn Mailwing was specifically designed in 1927 to be sold to contract mail carriers for night air mail runs. An immediate success, this craft which could carry 600 lbs. of mail at speeds up to 136 mph was being produced at the rate of one per week by the end of 1928. Many an airline that is world-famous today was equipped with Mailwings during this era.

Many Mailwings finished out their days as crop dusters and a handful of Mailwings are still flying today. Well preserved examples can be seen at the Tallmantz and Smithsonian Air Museums.

The prime mover in the birth of the air mail was NOT the pilot community, nor even the young aircraft industry. It was one Otto Praeger, Second Assistant Postmaster General, himself a non-flyer who simply sought to improve the speed of intercity mail shipments then carried exclusively by train.

Oblivious to the limitations of 1918 aircraft technology and performance, he convinced his boss, Postmaster General Burleson, to suggest to the President that the Secretary of War could order the Army Air Service to assume this new role, starting in just a matter of several days!

And so the executive orders were quickly passed to War Secretary Newton D. Baker, thence to Chief of the Army Air Service Col. “Hap” Arnold, who promptly summoned his Executive Officer to his desk, one Major Reuben H. Fleet. The orders were dated May 3, 1918. The orders read to initiate daily air mail service between Washington and New York on May 15, 1918. Hap Arnold and Reuben Fleet were professional soldier-pilots who knew all too well that you didn’t say “no” to the President, and they had to salute and carry out the orders as best they could, given no suitable airplanes, and no pilots with adequate cross-country navigational training in good weather or bad.

And it is in major crises that clever men rise to become great men. In this situation, Fleet needed to overcome his Air Service inadequacies in men and equipment in just twelve days to avoid embarrassing the President of the United States and the Air Service in the eyes of the news media and the American public.

 His first action was to request Col. Edwin A. Deeds, Chief of Air Service Production, to place an immediate order to the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Corporation, Garden City, Long Island, NY, for (6) new specially configured JN-4H “Jenny” training biplanes with doubled fuel tank capacity and without controls in the front cockpit, which was to be covered over as a mail pit.

This would give the mail plane Jenny twice its standard range of only 88 miles so it could in fact make the trip from DC to Philly nonstop. The “H” model Jennies were powered by the 150 hp Hispano-Suiza (“Hisso”) liquid cooled V-8 with enclosed overhead cams and automatic valve lubrication, making them far more reliable than the earlier 90 hp Curtiss OX-5 V-8s with open, hand lubricated valve actions.

Curtiss simply added a second standard terneplate fuel tank in tandem with the regular tank between the firewall and the mail pit. The airplane problem was solved in short order through this instant cooperation between the engineering-educated Fleet, his parent command staff, and the already humming production line at Curtiss.

http://www.lib.auburn.edu/archive/find-aid/101/96-066.htm
http://www.antiqueairfield.com/features/us_airmail.html
http://www.airplanesandrockets.com/airplanes/pitcairn-mailwing-aug-1968-aam.htm

the Rickenbacker of 1924 demonstrating how good those brakes were!

in 1924, the Rickenbacker car dealer in Los Angeles, demonstrated the brakes on a new 1924 Rickenbacker C6 Touring sedan by driving the car down the 2nd street steps leading from Hope street to 3rd street at the west portal of the 3rd street tunnel

http://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5192953&postcount=3134

Mannesmann, a 1920s car company in Germany I've never heard of before, built under license of Rickenbaker

Mannesmann produced about 2,000 units of its small four-cylinder engine until 1927. But realizing how many German brands opted during those years (late 20s) to create eight-cylinder motor cars, as did the Americans who entered in the German market, he also wanted to create a luxury car.

In 1927 he presented his 2.4 Liters 9/55 hp, with eight-cylinder engine of two blocks in line, manufactured entirely in Germany but under American license of Rickenbacker.

The majority of the bodies were made by Karmann

But soon, several problems with suppliers, a misjudgment of the real possibilities in the market and, above all, the arrival of the economic crisis of the late twenties, forced the German brand to stop production of its luxury dream car after having made just under 200 units, and to close its car factory in 1929. Little is known today of these vehicles.

The Büsssing consortium, which kept the factory open a little while to supply spare parts to the many Mannesmann-Mulag still in circulation.

http://www.escuderia.com/mannesmann-herramientas-automoviles-camiones/

Eddie Rickenbacker had 2 "Hat in the Ring" airplanes in WW2

In Jan of '43 Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was making a fast inspection tour of American War Plants for the Secretary of War, (as president of Eastern Airlines, he was very qualified to assess airplane production) and when due to look over Ford Willow Run Plant at Detroit, it was arranged for the publicity photo (top 2) moment to occur and a bit of nostalgia for the old Hat in the Ring emblem.

Not long after Rickenbacker finished the stateside tour, Secretary of War Stimson asked him to do the same thing in the Soviet Union - that is, undertake a three-month inspection tour of the aircraft factories and air defense system to see how the Lend-Lease equipment was being used.

Harry Hunt from Dearborn, Michigan who was an Army driver in New Jersey during the WW1, and drove Eddie Rickenbacker around on base when he returned from Europe.

Thanks to Les for sharing these photos and story, of his grand dad!

showing off Eddie’s new gizmo for allowing the driver and riding mechanic to communicate while driving. That’s just a speaking tube connecting the two masks.

This is Eddie Richenbacker and Fred McCarty at the 1914 Corona road race

http://sharonov.tumblr.com/tagged/1914

Eddie Rickenbacker and the Maxwell he raced in the 1915 San Francisco Gran Prix

Found on https://www.facebook.com/isabelle.bracquemond.7 via https://www.facebook.com/indianaracingmemorialassociation

a 100 years ago, there was racing in California streets with stock cars. Why can't we do that anymore?

There was racing in Venice California

http://autoweek.com/article/car-life/when-men-were-men-venice-grand-prix-turns-100

there was racing in San Diego (Eddie Rickenbacker)

there was racing in San Francisco! (Again, Eddie Rickenbacker, same car, both photos from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eddie_Rickenbacker_-_Maxwell)

From the first course around the Coliseum in 1903 to the present day there have been 174 race tracks in SoCal. “More than anywhere else in the world,”

I'm not talking about million dollar race cars, I'm talking about your 24 thousand dollar daily driver commuter from a dealership. In city streets, you aren't going to get going much faster than 100mph, so you won't need racing tires, or racing engines, or racing cars... just a new car with airbags, air conditioning, and the time to have fun!

Oldfield, Burman, DePalma and Rickenbacher... all in one race, the 1915 Vanderbilt Cup at the San Francisco Worlds Fair race track during the Panama-Pacific International Exposition

Bob Burman driving the #30 case

Eddie Rickenbacher in the #17 Maxwell

Ralph DePalma in the #22 Mercedes

Barney Oldfield in the #1  Maxwell

Images from http://www.vanderbiltcupraces.com/blog/article/starting_lineup_the_1915_vanderbilt_cup_race_in_san_francisco

Eddie Rickenbacker's Duesenburg race car from the Sioux City 300, about 1913

Found on https://www.facebook.com/marc.tudeau and http%3A%2F%2Fimages.conceptcarz.com%2Fimgxra%2FDuesenberg%2F14-Duesenberg-Racer-DV-12-PBC_01.jpg

1906 Vandebilt Cup competitor, the Frayer Miller... and it's 16 year old mechanic? Eddie Rickenbacker

The Frayer-Millers were the largest air-cooled auto engines yet produced at 991cuin. They intended to show the world that their system of engine cooling was the best so far devised.

 Lee Frayer was the chief designer, a graduate of Ohio State University with a Mechanical Engineering degree. He also drove one of the cars in the race. He brought along a 16 year old boy named Edd to be his riding mechanic.

 A few years later Edd was better known as Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, Ace of Aces, future President of Eastern Airlines and future owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
info from http://www.stohrdesign.com/1/post/2011/11/1906-vanderbilt-cup-part-4.html

bottom 4 images from https://www.facebook.com/marc.tudeau

A garage that has more cool stuff than most, and nothing less than cool

A tire mount and balance tool box originally

 A tool store display of taps and dies

the sign a vehicle had to display if it were being operated by a newly licensed driver, to warn all the other traffic that it's not as experienced on the road

 The above are on shelves, that are really Model T running boards. Isn't that awesome?!

Not many Rickenbackers were made

Possibly a carnival sign?

Car Nut 1 Blogspot has some cool photos!

1957 Vette barnfind

1926 Rickenbacker with Woodlight headlights, the first I've ever seen with them.

all from http://carnut1.blogspot.com