Yeager was born February 13, 1923, to farming parents Susie Mae and Albert Hal Yeager in Myra, West Virginia. He served in World War II as a private in the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1941. He initially trained as a fighter pilot, flying Bell P-39 Airacobras. He gained one victory before he was shot down over France in his first aircraft on March 5, 1944, on his eighth mission.
About Chuck Yeager in brief
Charles Elwood Yeager was a United States Air Force officer, flying ace, and record-setting test pilot. Yeager’s three-war active-duty flying career spanned more than 30 years and took him to many parts of the world, including the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. In 1947, Yeager became the first pilot in history confirmed to have exceeded the speed of sound in level flight. He later commanded fighter squadrons and wings in Germany, as well as in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. He was a cousin of former baseball catcher Steve Yeager.Yeager was born February 13, 1923, to farming parents Susie Mae and Albert Hal Yeager in Myra, West Virginia. He attended Hamlin High School, where he played basketball and football, receiving his best grades in geometry and typing. He married Glennis Dickhouse, and the couple had four children. He died on March 1, 1975, at the age of 80. He is buried in West Virginia, near Hamlin, with his wife, Glennis, and their four children, including a son, Charles, and a daughter, Mary, who died in 2010. He also is survived by his wife and two daughters, Mary and Mary, and daughter-in-law, Mary Ann Yeager, and grandson, Charles Elwood, Jr. The Yeager family is now living in Virginia, where Yeager lives with his son and his daughter- in-law Mary Ann and their two sons, Charles and Charles, Jr., and their three daughters, Michael and Mary Ann, respectively.
He has four grandchildren and one great-grandchild, who was born in 1998. He served in World War II as a private in the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1941. After the war, he became a test pilot and flew many types of aircraft, including experimental rocket-powered aircraft for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. He won both the Collier and Mackay trophies in 1948 for breaking the speed and altitude records in his Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 feet. He received his pilot wings and a promotion to flight officer at Luke Field, Arizona, on March 10, 1943. He initially trained as a fighter pilot, flying Bell P-39 Airacobras, and shipped overseas with the group on November 23, 1943, in combat with the 363d Fighter Squadron. He gained one victory before he was shot down over France in his first aircraft on March 5, 1944, on his eighth mission. He escaped to Spain on March 30 with the help of the Maquis and returned to England on May 15, 1944. Despite a regulation prohibiting him from flying over enemy territory again, he helped a navigator construct bombs to cross the Pyrenees to prevent resistance groups from being compromised by a capture. He joined another evader, Lt. Fred Glover, in speaking directly to the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, on June 12, 1944,. General Eisenhower finally let me go back to combat because he cleared me for combat.
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This page is based on the article Chuck Yeager published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
