Strana 37
French civilians, who took him to a nearby farmhouse,
where they cared for him properly. They not only gave
him food but also provided him with civilian clothes.
He was then moved to a hotel near Gironde, where he
met an elderly English-speaking woman who explained
his options to him and told him he needed to trust his
rescuers. This was followed by travel by bicycle, con-
tact with other people, and hiding. After a week, he
was handed over to the Maquis, the French resistance
organization.
The following week was dierent for Chuck Yea-
ger than for many other Allied pilots cared for by the
French, Dutch, or Belgian resistance. Instead of taking
a hasty path to freedom or hiding under the care of
brave civilians, he joined the Maquis in their sabotage
operations. He taught them how to use timers and det-
onators for explosives, just as he had learned from his
father as a child.
Finally, on March 23, 1944, Chuck Yeager and sever-
al other Allied pilots were transported to the Pyrenees
to continue on to the Spanish side of the mountains,
rst accompanied by Maquis escorts and later on their
own. The crossing was extremely arduous and full of
twists and turns. Days of trekking up steep slopes in
deep snow, crossing icy streams, thickets, rocky slopes…
One of the airmen, Lt. Omar M. Patterson, a B-17 bom-
bardier from the 95th BG, was in a serious state of de-
lirium from exhaustion and was cared for by Chuck
Yeager, who, mustering his last strength, eventually
got him to the other side of the mountains, where the
airmen were detained by Spanish authorities on March
28, 1944. Although Franco’s Spain was essentially more
sympathetic to the Germans, it tried to remain neutral
during the war and served as a waystation to freedom
for many Allied airmen. After nearly two months of in-
ternment in Spain, he reached Gibraltar, from where
he was own to Great Britain on May 20, 1944 (some
sources describe this wartime episode of escape after
being shot down dierently; the information provided
here is based on interrogation records following the re-
turn to the Allies of both Chuck Yeager himself and oth-
er pilots involved).
Allied pilots who, like Chuck Yeager, had experi-
enced assistance from the resistance on the continent—
whether in France, Belgium, or the Netherlands—were
typically excluded from operational missions over the
continent. The reason was a concern that, in the event
of another shootdown and capture, they might reveal
under duress their previous experiences of help by ci-
vilians in occupied countries, thereby endangering both
those individuals and the entire system. Yet things were
dierent for Chuck Yeager. He returned to his squadron
and combat ying. He named his new Mustang ‘Glam-
orous Glenn II’. It was a P-51D-5-NA, serial number
44-13897 (though some sources state it was a P-51C).
On July 6, 1944, he was promoted to 2nd Lt (A.U.S.).
He scored his second aerial victory on September 13,
1944, and just as in the rst instance, it was south of
Kassel. Yeager’s nest hour during combat operations
came on October 12, 1944, when he claimed the down-
ing of ve Bf 109s in the area between Steinhuder Meer
and Hanover. On October 24, he was promoted to Cap-
tain.
He nearly repeated his success of October 12 on
November 27, 1944, when he claimed four Fw 190s.
He also added a dream of American ghter pilots to his
record: the downing of a Me 262 near Osnabrück during
a mission on November 6, 1944. By that time, he was
already ying his last P-51D-15-NA, s/n 44-1488 “Glam-
orous Glenn III.”
Yeager ew his nal combat mission, his 61st, on Jan-
uary 15, 1945. The day before, his group had engaged
in a major battle in which its pilots claimed 55.5 ene-
my aircraft shot down. Chuck Yeager did not partici-
pate in this mission, and according to his own memoirs,
he dealt with his frustration in an unusual way: during
his nal mission, as an “unused spare,” he ew with
one other colleague over neutral Swiss territory, where
they jettisoned their auxiliary fuel tanks and then red
at them on the ground. The insanity and frivolity of
youth sometimes know no bounds. Yeager ended his
score at an ocial 11.5 enemy aircraft destroyed.
During his combat deployment in 1944–45, F/O, later
Captain Yeager, was awarded the Silver Star with OLC,
the DFC, the Bronze Star with “V” (For Valor); the Air
Medal with 6 OLC, and the Purple Heart.
After returning to the U.S., on February 26, 1945,
Chuck Yeager married his “Glamorous Glen,” Miss Glen-
nis Faye Dickhouse.
As an experienced military ghter pilot and an ex-
cellent pilot, Chuck Yeager subsequently underwent six
months of test pilot training at Wright Field in Ohio and
participated, among other things, in the development
of the P-80 Shooting Star and P-84 Thunderjet aircraft.
He was subsequently assigned to the test program
for the experimental Bell X-1 rocket plane, which took
place at Muroc Dry Lake Field in the Southern California
desert. Following the example of his Mustangs, Yeager
named the Bell X-1 “Glamorous Glennis.” On October
14, 1947, he broke the sound barrier in it. Testing con-
tinued on both the X-1 and the later X-1A. On Decem-
ber 12, 1953, despite warnings from technicians, he
After return from the ‘trip‘ in France and Spain Chuck
received a new P-51, this time it was D series, which
he named ‘Glamorous Glenn II‘.
INFO Eduard
37
Srpen 2026