Rickenbacker was on a morale tour and headed for the South Pacific I believe. They were at sea for 24 days but I can’t imagine how horrible that would be.
What puzzles me is how an air traffic controller could give them vectors out to sea and they flew far enough to run out of fuel (40 miles southwest of Kauai I believe). Navigators were pretty skilled back then, like those that put the Catalina right on target after fighting the waves for three hours, 500 miles from home. The island was blacked-out and it was night time when the B-17 flew out to sea on the wrong heading. I imagine that what primitive navigational aids they had in January 1942 were probably limited or turned off altogether at that time to keep the Japanese from homing in on them again. But it would be interesting to see how the crew got so turned around.
I don’t remember the details but his 1963 autobiography, Rickenbacher spends quite a bit of time on that chapter in his life.
Speaking of Rickenbacher, he was the second owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Yesterday, Roger Penske just completed the sale to become only the fourth owner.