Uncategorized – Page 3 – The Chuck Yeager Foundation

Yeager! Can’t you do anything right?

By Victoria Yeager / May 5, 2015

In General Yeager’s own words: After returning from being shot down, to return to combat, I had to go all the way up the chain of command until I found myself before General Eisenhower, The problem was if I was shot down again, the Germans might find me, torture me, and get information re the…

WWII: March 5, 1944 -Unteroffizier Irmfred Klotz Shot me Down – Chuck Yeager

By Victoria Yeager / January 11, 2015

The generally accepted research shows that 22 year old Unteroffizier Irmfred Klotz flying a Focke Wulf 190 shot my airplane down on March 5, 1944. I was 21, thinking I was Sierra Hotel just the day before, now this guy is thinking he’s Sierra Hotel. The day after I shot down his first two enemy aircraft, although…

Broken Ribs Before Breaking the Sound Barrier

By Victoria Yeager / October 13, 2014

October 12-13, 1947: In Chuck Yeager’s own words: Sunday night (October 12, 1947), after eating dinner at Pancho’s, Glennis and I decided to go riding. Glennis suggested a race back to the corral. As I got very close, in the lead, I saw someone had closed the gate. My horse and I pulled about 3…

World War II: Waiting Orders to Go Back on Combat

By Victoria Yeager / May 15, 2014

While waiting to get back on combat, after returning from being shot down, I was doing some maintenance and training the new guys. I was up in the air mock dogfighting with a couple of new guys when Base Ops called: Are your guns hot? Me: Yes. BO: Go out over the North Sea, there’s…

Tiede Refuses to I.D. me and Almost Gets US Both Court-martialed.

By Victoria Yeager / May 15, 2014

After returning to England from being shot down, working with the Maquis and French Underground, escaping over the Pyrenees full of snow, I was taken to a panel of three colonels whose job is to determine if I am who I say I am and not a spy. They brought a guy from my squadron…

March 1944 – Escaping the Germans – Pyrenees – Slow Going

By Victoria Yeager / April 19, 2014

Exhausted from climbing for 2 days and a night in three foot thick snow, close in trees, not much to eat, we fell asleep in a hut we came upon. It seemed like minutes later when we heard gunfire. The Germans had spotted the other guys socks he had hung out to dry. Shoot, then…

March 1944: Escaping the Germans over the Pyrenees

By Victoria Yeager / April 6, 2014

By the first light, we set out in the rain, deciding to at least start out together and see how it goes. By noon, two of us have made it to the timberline in gale winds. The others are not even in sight. The French have provided bread, cheese, and chocolate in our knapsacks. The…

March 26, 1944: Pyrenees Foothills: AVOID border Spanish-might sell us to Gestapo

By Victoria Yeager / April 2, 2014

The moment I hop in the back, the truck takes off. There are four or five other guys seated on the benches, and nobody says a word. mainly because they are too busy hanging on while the driver barrels down twisting backstreets, doing fifty or better. I hear the guy seated next to me mutter,…

March 25, 1944: Maquis Kick Me Out

By Victoria Yeager / April 1, 2014

The Maquis live off the villages, not off the woods. The villages are dangerous, crawling with Germans and Vichy police, but guys slip into town to buy food, cigarettes, and medicine, using phony ration stamps and money. I’m amazed that no one is ever caught, or if they are, maybe I’m not told about it.…

March 24, 1944, Maquis’ Moon-face

By Victoria Yeager / March 31, 2014

I’m the first American pilot they’ve encountered and they’re curious about what I think of the German air force. I tell them that the FockeWuld 190 is a damned good fighter, probably on a part iwth our own P-51 Mustang: but the Mustang using 108 gallon wing tanks, can escort bombers and dogfight deep into…

March 23, 1944: In the woods with Maquis

By Victoria Yeager / March 30, 2014

The Fiesler Storches (German spotter planes) haven’t found us….yet. We’re well-armed – British Sten guns, Spanish .38 Llama automatics – and I’d love to fire off a couple of bursts at one of those damned Storches, hit the radiator in its belly, and bring it down. But if the pilot radioed our location, we’d have…

March 22, 1944: Hiding from German Air Patrols

By Victoria Yeager / March 29, 2014

March 22, 1944. We are in the woods, eating. It’s early morning. We hear the German patrol airplane. Everyone stops still. We listen. It’s fairly close. We check our surroundings. We are under good cover but…recently a few of the guys had gone off and ambushed a German patrol. The Germans are very angry. No…