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The Man Behind “The Right Stuff”
In 1941, a young man from West Virginia enlisted in the Army Air Corps. To the outward gaze, he was nobody special, with average grades, but he had spent his teenage years working in his dad’s natural gas drilling business…as a mechanic.
In other words, just another small town boy joining the military in a time of war.
Except that this young man wasn’t ordinary at all. His name was Chuck Yeager.
Ace in a Day
Yeager didn’t join the Army Air Corps as a pilot. He joined as a mechanic, but his imagination was apparently caught. He signed up for flight school and in 1943 became a reserve flight officer; then a pilot assigned to fighter command in England.
Most of his compatriots didn’t even make it through training. Yeager soared.
On October 12, 1944, Yeager shot down five German planes in a single mission, entering the rarified strata of the “ace-in-a-day.” He repeated the feat on November 27.
This achievement came after what had to be the lowest moment in his war; the day in March 5, 1944, when he was shot down over occupied France. He was smuggled to Gibraltar by the resistance (where’s the movie? There needs to be a movie).
After the war, Yeager could have left the military. He didn’t. There was no way…