Chuck Yeager: World War II Fighter Pilot

Bold, brash, and brimming with courage, Chuck Yeager burst onto the scene as an instant superstar in 1947 when he became the first to fly an airplane faster than the speed of sound. Yet before his days as America’s most famous test pilot, Yeager was a young fighter ace in the US Army Air Forces, flying a P-51 Mustang over Nazi-occupied Europe. His story is the stuff of legend. Soon after downing his first enemy fighter, Yeager too was shot down, surviving thanks to the help of the French resistance and his own skills as a bomb maker—and earned a Bronze Star for saving the life of a fellow American. Against regulation, and only with the approval of General Eisenhower himself, Yeager returned to duty as a fighter pilot. Fiercely protecting Allied bombers, he shot down eleven enemy planes, including a rare Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter, and completed more than sixty missions. In Chuck Yeager, acclaimed author Don Keith tells the true story of the American icon during the war in which he first proved he had the right stuff.