Charles Elwood Yeager, says
Chuck Yeager was born on February 13, 1923 in Myra, West Virginia, into a very rural family. Charles Elwood Yeager, known as Chuck Yeager, was born on February 13, 1923 in Myra, West Virginia, into a very rural family.
In 1941, at the age of 19, Chuck Yeager joined the US Air Force as a mechanic, a trade he learned from his father. He was trained as a pilot from July 1942 to March 1943, and immediately sent to England to prepare for operational missions.
On March 5, 1944, on his eighth mission aboard a North American P-51 Mustang fighter, he and several other airmen were shot down by a German fighter over Nérac (Lot-et-Garonne) in occupied France. Chuck Yeager parachuted to safety, only to land badly wounded in the branches of a tree.
The French Resistance, via the Buckmaster network, smuggled them from Nérac (Lot-et-Garonne) to Mazères-de-Neste, where the Mensencal-Dufaza group took the airmen in, fed them and hid them in the DUFAZA family home.
Chuck Yeager was then exfiltrated by Paul Dufaza and two smugglers, the Crampé brothers, who were very involved despite their young age (17 and 24).
On March 25, 1944, they took Chuck Yeager on a route from the village of Mayrègne in the Oueil valley to Castillon de Larboust, then around Bagnères de Luchon through the state-owned Superbagnères woods, crossing the River Pique at Pont de Ravi and reaching the Spanish border at the Col du Portillon by discreet, steep paths.
This was the only route left after the shorter routes had been discovered by the Germans. This passage from March 25 to 28 was the penultimate. During the following passage, dozens of people were massacred by German forces.
Paul and Marie Dufaza were arrested by the Toulouse Gestapo and militiamen on May 29, 1944. Paul was deported to the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau until the end of the war.
Chuck Yeager returned to England, where he recovered from his wounds in a military hospital.
Chuck Yeager's return to combat, unusual in the US Air Force for pilots already wounded in action, was marked by epic air battles over Germany in October and November 1944.
After the war, Yeager was chosen to fly the Bell X-1 "Glamourous Glennis", which
the first to reach the sound barrier in December 1947. Under the title "The stuff of heroes", his epic was the subject of a story by Tom Wolfe in 1979, then a film in 1983, directed by Philip Kaufman, with Sam Shepard in the role of Chuck Yeager.
In December 1953, General Yeager flew the Bell X-1A at almost two and a half times the speed of sound, setting a new world speed record.
In 1962, Chuck Yeager became commander of the Edwards School, which trains future astronauts; he then commanded a fighter squadron during the Vietnam War with the rank of colonel. After serving as chief of aerospace security for the Air Force, he retired as a brigadier general in 1975.
In May 2018, Chuck Yeager returned to pay his respects to the French Resistance fighters, in particular the Dufaza and Crampé families.
He is
deceased in 2020...
Chuck Yaeger