Yeager: An Autobiography

I saw that night-what I could see of it, which was mostly the white contrails from Chuck's engine exhaust streaking up in the sky. I didn't hear the sonic boom when he flew at Mach 1 because that happened over Victorville, I think, about forty miles away, so I had no idea that anything special had happened. I recall he drove up in the fire chief's truck, got out, and flopped in our car. "I'm beat," he said. "Let's go home." I turned on the ignition and was about to drive off, when Dick Frost and Bob Hoover came running over and began clapping him on the back and making a big fuss. And that's how I found out that Chuck had broken the sound barrier.

Dick Frost

I didn't learn that Chuck had broken his ribs until a long time later, but it was so typical of him to be matter-of-fact. He was going to go home with Glennis but we said, "No way." I remember grabbing him and jumping up and down. We were one happy bunch. We went over to the operations office, where I called Larry Bell at the plant to tell him the news. Chuck and Ridley called Colonel Boyd. Then we went over to the officers' club to eat and drink a toast. We planned a big party that night out at Pancho's. Meanwhile, Colonel Boyd's office called back and informed us that the tightest possible security lid had been clamped on the flight. It was not to be discussed or disclosed to anyone. Well, Muroc was a small base, and here we were, rowdy and celebrating in the officers' club-the word was definitely out. But orders were orders, so we decided against holding a party at Pancho's. Instead, we drove out to Chuck's house about thirty-five miles away. It was about four-thirty in the afternoon, and by then none of us was feeling any pain.

Chuck fixed us a pitcher of martinis. Then Ridley took off to go back and write the flight report that had to be sent out to Wright by telex. Around six or so, we decided to go on to my house and continue partying. It really was bizarre being forced to celebrate in secret the most historic flight of the age.

Hoover left his car at Chuck's and drove with me. Chuck had an old motorcycle that Pancho Barnes had given to him-a beat up old thing without a headlight. He cranked up the motorcycle and led the way. We were so damned excited and happy for what we had accomplished that we sat around cackling like geese, insulting the hell out of each other, and by eight or nine o'clock we were definitely pickled.

No one was in any condition to drive, but certainly not to drive a damned motorcycle. Hoover and I urged Chuck to leave his bike at my house and drive back to his place with us in my car. He said, "Aw, shit, I can manage. No sweat." Needless to say, he prevailed. It was decided that I would provide his headlights. It was a moonless night, and he had no illumination on that damned thing. He said, "Yeah, well, I'll keep right in front of you all."

He got on the bike and cranked it up. RRRRRRRRRRRRR-RRRRRRR. It sounded louder than the X1, and right then I should've known we were in trouble. He roared away. Hoover and I followed in my Chevy coupe. By the time we got on the road, Yeager was way ahead, blazing off in the dark. Now, this is a road out in the boonies, not much traffic, nothing but desert on either side, so the darkness is total. Only somebody with Yeager's incredible eyesight would have dared to drive it without headlights. And he didn't just drive it. That son of a bitch was racing it. He was nowhere in sight.

But just as we approached a right angle turn in the road, Hoover and I saw a big cloud of dust. You never saw two guys sober up any faster than we did. There was Chuck stretched out on the road, underneath that damned motorcycle. He had skidded on sand making his turn. We ran to him, certain that Yeager was dead. And it was sheer terror, because he was the man of the hour who had just broken the sound barrier, and Hoover and I could be held accountable for the death of an American hero.

So, we pulled that bike off him, and saw he was not only still alive, but giggling like a loon. He wasn't even scratched.

Hoover, who was a big guy, had no difficulty picturing what would have happened to the two of us if Chuck had had a fatal accident. I had to restrain Bob by grabbing him around the arms and pulling him away. Chuck got to his feet, still laughing. But he put up his hands in surrender. He said, "Okay okay, you guys are right. I'll take it easy. I'm sober now." And he started to get back on that bike. "Bullshit," I said. "No way. Get your ass in my car." He shook his head. "No, really. I'm fine now. I'll stay in your lights." Off he went. Hoover and I ran back to my car and took off after him. But there he was, still going balls-out in the pitch dark. We had a brief glimpse of him crouched low over the handlebars and then he just zoomed out of sight. By the time we pulled up at his house, he was already in the kitchen fixing us one more pitcher for the road.

Maj. Gen. Fred J. Ascani

Colonel Boyd came into my office. "Well, they did it," he said, and from the grin on his face I didn't have to wonder what he was talking about. Coincidentally, only a few days before Chuck's historic flight, President Truman declared the Army Air Force to be a separate branch of the service. We were now officially the U.S. Air Force. What better way to celebrate than to crow about this flight? In fact, we had planned to go after every aviation record on the books as soon as the speed of sound was achieved and really give the Navy a run for its money. The Navy always seemed to get all the publicity. So, we were shocked when orders came down from the highest levels in Washington to clamp the security lid on this flight. And it stayed clamped more than eight months. The reason, I suppose, was to give our supersonic fighter production a real leg up over the Russians. But most of us thought Washington had severely overreacted.

The public was kept in the dark, but official Washington knew all about it and everybody wanted to meet the intrepid hero who broke the awesome sound barrier. I recall General Vandenberg getting the word back to us at Wright to "keep that damned hillbilly, Yeager, out of Washington." The general was very Ivy League. But he was whistling in the dark. Everyone wanted to meet Yeager. About a week after he made the flight, we flew him back to Wright and had a top-secret ceremony in the commanding general's office, where he received another Distinguished Flying Cross. I remember him whispering to me afterwards, "I needed that like a hole in the head." But that was only the beginning.

I never gave him English lessons. Hell, as it turned out, he gave all of us lessons. He played his new fame perfectly and knocked Washington on its ear. Very modest, very matter-of-fact, an easygoing, likable country boy with more bravery than Prince Valiant. The Secretary of Defense and the senators who met him were just in awe. They shook their heads in wonder, patted him on the back, and asked him to autograph the pictures he took with them. Chuck wasn't playacting, he was just being himself. But he was also astute and knew the impact he was making. I don't think any of us had a true appreciation for the contacts he established during those years. He was held in awe by the most powerful people in America. He had big balls and he knew it. But he played the hillbilly to the hilt. "Aw, shucks, I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. It was no big deal. Just another job."

Whether the other test pilots in the flight test division would admit it (and none of them ever would), Chuck was now number one. Their jealousy was immediate. I'd hear comments like, "What's all the fuss? He only did what he was supposed to do. Why be placed on a pedestal for doing your job?" Chuck would be the first to agree, but he wasn't the one making all the fuss. One senior pilot, who prayed that Yeager would fall on his ass, finally got a chance to fly the X-1 and collapsed the nosewheel on landing. Bovd got him out of there, pronto. But the old man was adamant that Chuck would not benefit in promotions or money from that flight. And Chuck agreed wholeheartedly. It took him seven years to be promoted from captain to major.

Boyd thought the world of him as a man and pilot and assigned him very choice testing programs, simply because he believed that Chuck was the best pilot he had. Well, the knives were really sharpened to get Yeager. A lot of test flight people badly underestimated him, fooled by that West Virginia drawl. Their bodies were strewn across the landscape.

When the news finally did get out about his flight, Chuck turned down several lucrative offers for his story. One day he came to see me. He knew Boyd's orders against accepting remuneration, because any pilot worth his salt would've given the world to fly the X-1, and no one should profit that way. "Colonel Fred," he said, "I agree with Colonel Boyd about that. I don't want a damned thing for myself. Not a cent. But what I do want is to buy Glennis a fur coat. Goddamn it, she's earned that much. You've been out to our place and seen how we got to live because the Air Force won't give us any housing. I've saved the government a hundred and fifty thousand dollars by taking over the flights from Slick Goodlin. I don't think it's asking too much to let me make a few bucks from a Hollywood studio to do my story-just enough to get my wife a coat."

He wanted me to take his case to the old man But I told him he'd lose the esteem of his colleagues in Flight Test if the word ever got out that he took any money. I said, "Hell, Chuck, you're famous. What more do you want?" He replied, "I want to buy Glennis a fur coat."

I was sympathetic. "Glamorous Glennis" she was: a beautiful woman who could've been the double for Vivien Leigh, and a fine, lovely woman as well. But I had to turn him down. I could only imagine how he felt, several years later, when the astronauts signed a lucrative financial deal for their stories with Life magazine.