Chuck Yeager (born Charles Elwood Yeager on February 13, 1923) is best known for being the first pilot to break the sound barrier. As a decorated Air Force officer and a record-setting test pilot, Yeager is considered an icon of early aviation.
Early Life
Chuck Yeager was born in the small farming community of Myra, West Virginia. He grew up in nearby Hamlin, the middle of Albert Hal and Susie May Yeager's five children.
By adolescence, he was skilled as both a hunter and mechanic. An indifferent student, he had no thought of going to college when he graduated from Hamlin High School in the spring of 1941. Instead, he enlisted for a two-year stint with the US Army Air Force in September 1941 and was sent to George Air Force Base in Victorville, California. He spent the next 34 years in the military.
