The Yeager Tapes: General Chuck Yeager in His Own Words

Chuck Yeager, American Hero, the Original Right Stuff, tells his own story. Hear Glennis Yeager, Chuck Yeager's first wife tell stories, too. Here it is in General Yeager’s and Glennis Yeager’s own words.

If WWII hadn’t come along when it did, Chuck Yeager probably would have been content to stay in the hills of West Virginia.

But the war in Europe intervened. Yeager enlisted because it was the patriotic thing to do and became an airplane mechanic because he told authorities he understood engines. Lucky for him and us too, he had all the ingredients for making a superb fighter pilot when the US badly needed them. The rest is history.

By the time he retired in 1975, Chuck Yeager had logged 10,000 hours in 212 different military aircraft and attained the rank of Brigadier General.

On October 14, 1947, over Edwards AFB in the Mojave Desert, (then) Captain Yeager took the Bell X-1 and broke through the sound barrier and into our history books. Unknown to the general public, Yeager had been making history long before that. He was a fighter-jock legend during WWII, being the first to become an ace in a single mission, the first to return to combat flying after being shot down over enemy territory.

There are dozens more such exploits, and the honors and awards that accompanied them, but rather than discuss them in print, listen for yourself and you hear General Yeager and his wife, Glennis, tell you about their lives and times.