Eddie Rickenbacker and the seagull

[RappyMan]

Here's a story about Eddie Rickenbacker that I had never heard of before today. I though it was pretty special & wanted to pass it on:



In W.W.1, as a fighter pilot, he shot down 22 enemy aircraft and was awarded the Congressional Medal Of Honor. In W.W.2 he served as a civilian advisor whose plane went down with a crew of seven while flying over the Pacific.

For you youngsters who were born after W.W.2, this is a short story of Eddie and his crew's miracle, taken from Charles Swindoll's book "The Darkness And The Dawn."

" On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his seven member crew went down. Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of the plane, and climbed into life rafts.

Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger. By the eighth day their rations ran out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew where they were. They needed a miracle.

That afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. Then they tried to nap. Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged. All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft.

Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap.

It was a seagull! Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a meal - a very slight meal for eight men - of it. Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more bait...and the cycle continued. With that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued.

Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull. And he never stopped saying, "Thank You." That’s why almost every Friday night he would walk out to the end of a pier with a bucket full of shrimp, and feed the seagulls with a heart full of gratitude. "

Eddie and his crew spent 24 days in the rafts before being sighted by American airplanes. Eddie went from 180 to 126 pounds during that ordeal. He lived about another 30 years after that and died in 1973.




Here's a different bit of the story from another site:

Taking on the role of civilian advisor, Rickenbacker accepted assignments from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to visit our forces throughout the world.His travels took him to England and North Africa, and to China, and Russia, where he observed the use made of Lend Lease equipment

While serving in this capacity, Rickenbacker was asked by Stimson to deliver a personal message to Gen. Douglas MacArthur.On the second leg of the trip, he was to fly from Hawaii to Canton Island, some 1,800 miles to the southeast. The flight was to be in a B-17D bomber.
The tail wind was greater than they had been predicted for the flight and, unknown to the eight men on board, the B-17 passed the small Canton Island without it being seen.
The plane had to ditch at sea because of lack of fuel. The men on board ended up in two “five-man” and one“ two-man” life rafts. They had left their water and most of their food aboard the airplane, which sank.
The men had three oranges, which they divided and ate. The nights were cold and the equatorial sun in the daytime burned the flesh of the men.Sharks circled around their rafts.
Rickenbacker led the men in prayer services, encouraging their will to survive. One day after such a service, he felt something on the gray hat he wore. He cautiously reached up and grabbed the legs of a seagull that had landed on his head.
The men ate the bird and saved the innards for bait to catch a few fish. The fishing ended when the sharks stole the lines.
A few rainsqualls were seen at sea and the men paddled to get in them. They collected rainwater in their clothes and squeezed the water out into bailing buckets.
One of the eight men died at sea. Rickenbacker believed it was because he drank seawater in an effort to quench his thirst.
It was believed that all the men had died. They remained in the rafts for 24 days before being sighted by American airplanes as they floated near the Ellice Islands, 500 miles southwest of Canton.
Rickenbacker had gone from 180 to 126 pounds, but after a few days of treatment he continued his mission to visit MacAuthur at Port Moresby, New Guinea.
Rickenbacker didn’t know what his reception would be. He had opposed MacAuthur , who was against Billy Mitchell’s plan to establish a separate Air Force.
Rickenbacker reported that MacAuthur greeted him with,” God, Eddie, I’m glad to see you.”

[mikeyj86]

thats a really neat story, its amazing how the Lord will provide in a time of need

[50%plane]

cool!

[ShortBus]

cool story!