Home > World War I > Eddie Rickenbacker Biography

October 8, 1890
Columbus, Ohio
July 23, 1973
Miami, Florida

Aviator and businessman

Eddie Rickenbacker is perhaps best remembered as the young World War I flying ace, pictured leaning against a plane in coveralls and a leather helmet, smiling with cocky self-assurance. Though he had countless brushes with death and may have seemed the kind of hero likely to die young, Rickenbacker survived two wars and lived to be eighty-two years old. During his lifetime, he saw the birth of the automobile and the airplane. He fell in love with those technologies, worked in the industries that produced them, and played a major part in making both automobile and airplane travel accessible to the average American.

First-Generation American

Edward Rickenbacher was born in Columbus, Ohio, on October 8, 1890, and spent his early life hard at work in the American Midwest. His...