Adventures with Chuck – Page 2 – The Chuck Yeager Foundation

General Yeager’s Bronze Star Medal

By Victoria Yeager / August 9, 2021

General Yeager received a Bronze Star Medal with valor device (for carrying a wounded airman over the steepest part of the Pyrenees in 3 foot snow and saving his life in the Spring of 1944.) The Bronze Star Medal with the “V” device to denote heroism in combat is the fourth highest military decoration for valor.…

Captain Chuck Yeager’s 1st flight in XS-1

By Victoria Yeager / August 3, 2021

August 6, 1947 After undergoing training on the X-1, then called the XS-1, and all of its systems at Muroc Army Air Base, CA (later – September 18, 1947 Edwards Air Force Base), he went up for his first unpowered flight, and to everyone’s surprise, almost immediately after dropping from the B-29, he nonchalantly performed…

Glennis Dickhouse Sees Chuck Yeager for the 1st Time

By Victoria Yeager / June 19, 2021

Today is Sauntering Day. When Chuck Yeager met Glennis Dickhouse, his first wife, he was a United States Army Air Corps pilot, with the lowly rank of flight officer. The two flight officers, Chuck and Mac McKee, his best friend, were tasked with going to the USO and arranging a dance for the men. Glennis…

General Eisenhower meets Flight Officer Yeager

By Victoria Yeager / May 24, 2021

In General Yeager’s words: “The brass kept trying to send me home after I got back to England after being shot down and evaded. I got pretty brassy and worked my way all the way up to General Eisenhower. There we were; Glover, a college boy, and me, a high school graduate standing in front…

Chuck Yeager, Escaping Nazis, Makes it to Gibraltar May 15, 1944

By Victoria Yeager / May 16, 2021

In General Yeager’s own words: “After 1. being shot down on March 5, 1944 and hiding out, sometimes in plain sight, from the Nazis, Gestapo, Germans, and French Milice (German controlled French police, sometimes much worse than the Gestapo), 2. escaping over the Pyrenees carrying a wounded airman, and 3. spending a few weeks at…

General Yeager Interned in Spain 1944 (from an interview)

By Victoria Yeager / April 16, 2021

General Yeager: After being shot down on my 9th mission during World War II, evading Germans, helping the French underground. who protected me, blow up bridges, carrying a wounded man over the Pyrenees, I spent Easter in 1944 interned in Spain. Interviewer: Taking a wounded man across the Pyrenees rather complicated matters a bit, though. General…

Escaping the Gestapo over the Pyrenees Part 2

By Victoria Yeager / March 28, 2021

Chuck Yeager’s words: Having been shot down March 5, 1944 and hidden for several weeks, we pick up the story close to the Spanish border in the Pyrenees. We found a dead sheep part of which we ate. Later, we found a hut and took some refuge from the snow and cold. The other airman made…

Escaping the Gestapo – Climbing the Pyrenees Part 1

By Victoria Yeager / March 27, 2021

Chuck Yeager: Having been shot down March 5, 1944 and hidden for several weeks, we pick up the story at the foothills of the Pyrenees. We leave the house when night falls. After a few hours we arrive at what is basically a hut to spend the day resting and sleeping for the next day…

March 1944: Evading Germans – Heading to the Pyrenees to Escape Occupied France

By Victoria Yeager / March 22, 2021

Chuck Yeager, in his own words: “After being shot down on March 5, 1944 and evading Germans for a few weeks, I find myself at the Bianco farm in hiding. The farm is off the main road by a couple kilometers and hidden behind some stone walls, trees. Those and the barn keep people and…

Chuck Yeager and Helicopters – Hint: Not his Fave

By Victoria Yeager / March 16, 2021

General Yeager was not a fan of helicopters. One reason was that most pilots hung out in the dead man’s curve. Another reason: While in the High Sierras, as a passenger, he was in a terrible helicopter crash. In his own words: General Chuck Yeager: “I took General Branch up to Rocky Basin Lakes, about…

Gestapo is Coming

By Victoria Yeager / March 15, 2021

Raoul ultimately takes me back to Gabriel. We ride bikes at night from Ambrus to get there. Gabriel was a larger-than-life man. I will never forget how he protected me. He was the leader of the Maquis in Nerac, the mayor, and was friends with the Germans in town. The Germans knew that the Maquis…

Gabriel, head of French Underground Threatens F/O Yeager With his Life

By Victoria Yeager / March 12, 2021

I stay at Gabriel’s house in Nerac, hiding from the Nazis in his shed out back. The first day, I’m bored so I leave the shed and sit under the tree in his yard. I remain outwardly calm as a small platoon of Germans march by. After they are completely gone, Gabriel calls me in.…