I read Rickenbacker's autobiography way back when. He drove cars at Indy, was an ace in WWI, later president of Eastern Airlines (and survived a crash of one of Eastern's aircraft), and survived crashing into the Pacific and being adrift for over a month in WWII. Quite a man.
Absolutely. Rickenbacker’s injuries in the crash outside of Atlanta were horrific, and he spent the night crushed in the cold, soaked wreckage, his face smashed tightly against the back of the dead pilot, one eyeball hanging out of its socket down on his cheek, compound fractures of limbs and ribs poking out the side of his chest, broken pelvis, hip, arm, etc. It is a miracle he survived.
When they finally cut him free, they laid him out with the bodies of the dead because they thought he had no chance for survival, he heard them say so, and mustered the strength to vigorously curse them.
In WWII, when he crashed in the Pacific, the other survivors grew to hate him with a white hot burning passion because he simply would not allow them to surrender and die.
Most of them survived because they came to hate him so much they wanted to live to spite him!
And all this was about a year after his horrific crash.
What a man.