Hans Christian Adamson (July 20, 1890 – September 11, 1968)''Eugene Register''
/ref> was a Danish-born American writer, who, along with

Eddie Rickenbacker Edward Vernon Rickenbacker or Eddie Rickenbacker (October 8, 1890 – July 23, 1973) was an American fighter pilot in World War I and a Medal of Honor recipient.Varde Varde is a Danish city in southwestern Jutland and is the primary city in the municipality of Varde, in Region of Southern Denmark. In 2015 municipality changed its motto to "We in nature" to emphasize its rural atmosphere. The town has an old ma ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

Adrift at sea

In October 1942, Eddie Rickenbacker was sent on a tour of air bases in the Pacific Theater of Operations.Thomas Fleming
"Lost at Sea for 24 Days," ''American Heritage'', Fall 2008. After visiting several air and sea bases in Hawaii, Rickenbacker was provided an older

B-17D Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

(s/n 40-3089) as transportation to the South Pacific. The bomber strayed hundreds of miles off course while on its way to a refueling stop on

Canton Island Canton Island (also known as Kanton or Abariringa), previously known as Mary Island, Mary Balcout's Island or Swallow Island, is the largest, northernmost, and , the sole inhabited island of the Phoenix Islands, in the Republic of Kiribati. It i ...

and was forced to ditch in a remote and little-traveled part of the Central Pacific Ocean. For 24 days, Rickenbacker, his friend and business partner Hans Christian Adamson (then an Army Captain), and the rest of the crewmen drifted in life rafts at sea. Rickenbacker was still suffering somewhat from his earlier airplane crash, and Capt. Adamson sustained serious injuries during the ditching. The other crewmen in the B-17 were hurt to varying degrees. The crewmen's food supply ran out after three days. They lived on sporadic rain water and food such as seagulls. A US Navy patrol OS2U-3 Kingfisher float-plane spotted and rescued the survivors on November 13, off the coast of

Nukufetau Nukufetau is an atoll that is part of the nation of Tuvalu. The atoll was claimed by the US under the Guano Islands Act some time in the 19th century and was ceded in a treaty of friendship concluded in 1979 and coming into force in 1983. It has ...

Tuvalu Tuvalu ( or ; formerly known as the Ellice Islands) is an island country and microstate in the Polynesian subregion of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. Its islands are situated about midway between Hawaii and Australia. They lie east-nor ...

. All were suffering from

hyperthermia Hyperthermia, also known simply as overheating, is a condition in which an individual's body temperature is elevated beyond normal due to failed thermoregulation. The person's body produces or absorbs more heat than it dissipates. When extreme ...

sunburn Sunburn is a form of radiation burn that affects living tissue, such as skin, that results from an overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation, usually from the Sun. Common symptoms in humans and animals include: red or reddish skin that is h ...

dehydration In physiology, dehydration is a lack of total body water, with an accompanying disruption of metabolic processes. It occurs when free water loss exceeds free water intake, usually due to exercise, disease, or high environmental temperature. Mil ...

, and near- starvation.

Writing

After retiring from the US Air Force as a full colonel, Adamson wrote a number of radio drama scripts and books, including: * * * * * * * , a non-fiction work later fictionalized and filmed as

Hellcats of the Navy ''Hellcats of the Navy'' is a 1957 American black-and-white World War II submarine film drama from Columbia Pictures, produced by Charles H. Schneer and directed by Nathan Juran. The film stars Ronald Reagan and his wife, billed under her scre ...

in 1957 * *

References

External links

*
Death Notice, Eugene Register
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Adamson, Hans Christian 1890 births 1968 deaths American aviators United States Army personnel of World War I Danish emigrants to the United States Survivors of aviation accidents or incidents People from Varde Municipality United States Army Air Forces officers United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II Burials at Arlington National Cemetery 20th-century American male writers United States Air Force colonels