We are the children of heroes. These are the stories of seven men whose courage, determination and skill are so remarkable that it is nearly impossible to credit them as true. But the stories are true. These men were real. These things actually happened. Writer and series host Bill Whittle peels away the history, the colorless and drab recitation of dates and events, to reveal the actual human beings beneath the legend. Many of these men were national celebrities in their day, although a few of them never got the recognition that they deserved in their own time. The one thing that all seven have in common is the tragic fact that almost no one today can even recognize their names, let alone tell you anything about the actions that made those names worth remembering.
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July 7, 2021
<p>By the mid 1980s, all of the aviation records that had so challenged the imaginations of pilots and the public alike had been achieved… except for one. Lindbergh had crossed the Atlantic. Aircraft had flown to both poles. Even the vast Pacific had been conquered. American jet bombers had flown around the world, but only after multiple refueling events. The only thing left to do that had not been done was to fly around the world, non-stop, on a single tank of gas. Dick Rutan had been a fighter pilot over Vietnam. He and his friend Mike Melville, who would go on to become the first private citizen in space, had flown around the world in the starkly original, otherworldly aircraft designed by his younger brother, Burt Rutan. Together with a relatively inexperienced pilot named Jenna Yeager, Dick Rutan started to plan for this impossible flight, assuming that his legendary younger brother could design a plane that could do it. The result was a bizarre, insect-like creation named Voyager; a flying fuel tank with about as much interior space as a telephone booth. At 8:01 am Pacific on the morning of December 14th, 1986, Dick Rutan and Jenna Yeager sealed themselves into Voyager and took off from Edwards Air Force base in California’s Mojave Desert and headed west. The plan was for each pilot to fly three hour legs, but it immediately became clear that Voyager was so fragile and unstable that Dick would do virtually all of the flying. The world had marveled at Charles Lindbergh for remaining awake for his 33 hour flight, but when Voyager, which had taken off into the west, arrived over Mojave coming in from the east, Dick Rutan had been flying for 216 hours pretty much non-stop. The last of the great aviation records had fallen due to the courage, endurance and persistence of Dick Rutan and the design genius of his brilliant younger brother, Burt.</p><p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p>
July 6, 2021
<p><strong>Frank Luke</strong> was America’s second highest scoring ace in World War One. Over the course of twelve furious days, he shot down 17 enemy aircraft, many of them observation balloons, by far the most important, the most difficult and the most heavily defended targets of the war. He had been a fullback on his undefeated state champion high school football team in Phoenix, Arizona, before taking a job in the copper mines. An altercation with a professional fighter got him into the bare-knuckle boxing circuit, and when he tired of this he opened a dance hall and, wearing a dress, taught tough and lonely miners how to dance. He learned aerobatics while showing off over his fiancée’s house, and on his first combat training flight he thoroughly thrashed his veteran instructor. Desperate to fit in, he became known as a loud-mouthed braggart, and later a coward, but once he partnered with another outcast from his squadron he set a record string of amazing victories never equaled in that war. Those that saw him fly said he was the best pilot they had ever seen, one who would have easily defeated Manfred Von Richthofen, the infamous Red Baron. His actions on the ground after being shot down on his final mission made him the first aviator ever to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. </p><p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p>
July 5, 2021
<p>As a young officer on an obsolete destroyer in the opening days of World War Two, <strong>Ernest Evans</strong> had watched a combined American, British and Australian fleet get decimated by the seemingly unstoppable Imperial Japanese Navy. Forced to cover the humiliating retreat, he swore if given a fighting ship of his own he would never run from enemy forces again. Made captain of a brand-new Navy destroyer, the USS Johnston, this full-blooded Cherokee drilled his crew endlessly, turning his command into a finely balanced, well-oiled fitting ship. On October 24th, 1944, Evans found himself confronted with a force of 19 Japanese battleships, heavy cruisers and destroyers. Without orders, he turned his unarmed Tin Can around and sailed directly at the Yamato, the most powerful warship ever created, any one turret of which weighed more than his entire ship. Following his example, the remainder of the unarmored destroyers and destroyer escorts guarding Task Force Three —callsign Taffy 3 — turned into utterly overwhelming odds, and fought so ferociously that the Japanese fleet abandoned their mission and turned around. For his actions that day in the Battle Off Samar Island, Ernest Evans was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and the story of Taffy 3 would enter the history books as the most amazing David vs. Goliath battles ever fought. and produce the most glorious two hours in the history of the United States Navy.</p><p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p>
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