Huntin’ for Bear – 1947

From General Yeager: “Pancho’s was the scene of many a wild night. And it was also the staging area for many great adventures. One of the most memorable was during the sound barrier flights. At 2am on a Saturday night, and a bunch of us were still at the bar, when Russ Schleeh, a great guy and a good pilot (even though he was not only a damned bomber pilot, he was also Chief of Test for the Bomber Division), suggested we go out on a bear hunt.

I had an old Mauser rifle that my Uncle Bill, a gunsmith in Hamlin, had made for me. Russ had a .38 calibre automatic. Bob Hoover and Jack Ridley had .22s. The four of us piled into Bob Hoover’s Roadmaster convertible and took off for Johnsondale, a logging camp up on the Kern River.

We arrived 2 hours later. It was cold and we ended up parked near the dump – we figured that’s where the bears would hand out. Hoover shined his headlights on the dump. We only had 2 sleeping bags so we flipped for them. Hoover and Schleeh won the bags so slept outside the car.

Ridley had the front seat in the convertible and I had the back seat – cold, leather upholstery, in our summer suits, trying to stay warm drinking Pancho’s Mexican sauce. Every so often Ridley would turn on the headlights and yell, You guys seen any bears yet”; but they were dead to the world.

We must have fallen asleep because I was abruptly awakened by a scream. We jumped up – Schleeh was standing up in his sleeping bag, looking down into the garbage pit, waxing his smoking gun shouting: “Jesus, I saw a bear and I think I got him!”

Then we heard a shout from the pit: “Hey you SOB, what are you doing?” Hoover, still in his sleeping bag, was down in the pit.

The zipper tassel on Hoover’s sleeping bag had tickled him causing Hoover to dream a bear was licking his face. He forgot that he was in a sleeping bag and about the embankment, rolled down it, screaming.

In the dark, he looked like a bear to Schleeh who emptied his bear at Hoover.

Ridley, at his best, said; “There ain’t no future bear-huntin’ with this sorry outfit.”

From Mrs. Yeager: When Gen Yeager told this story at a lunch with Russ a few years before he died, Russ looked at me and defended his honor: “If I had been shooting at him, I woulda hit him!”

“Russ, I’ve no doubt,” I replied and smiled.