Following enlisted service in the Navy and one term at the Naval Academy, Captain Erickson enlisted in the Coast Guard and subsequently was graduated from the Coast Guard Academy w 1931. After three years of line duty, he went to Pensacola for flight training and was designated Coast Guard aviator number 32. Later, following the events described in this article, he was designated Coast Guard helicopter pilot number 1. In January 1944, he flew the first lifesaving mission involving a helicopter by delivering blood plasma to a stricken destroyer when fixed-wing aircraft were grounded by bad weather. Much of his postwar duty involved helicopters, and in 1955 he retired from active Coast Guard service in order to become a commercial helicopter test pilot. Captain Erickson died in December 1978 at the age of 71.
