Chuck Yeager Dies at 97
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Chuck Yeager -- who journeyed from a tiny community on the Mud River in West Virginia to become the first pilot to break the sound barrier -- died Monday night at age 97.
Yeager's wife Victoria announced his passing on Twitter.
"It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET," Victoria Yeager wrote. "An incredible life well lived, America's greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever."
A fighter pilot in World War II who once downed five enemy aircraft in a single mission and was shot down himself over France, Yeager achieved his greatest fame piloting "Glamorous Glennis," an aircraft named after his first wife. In that aircraft, Yeager reached Mach 1 on Oct. 14, 1947 over Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert. He was the first to achieve that speed and later was able to fly faster than Mach 2.
Yeager was born in the community of Myra in Lincoln County on Feb. 13, 1923. His family later moved to Hamlin and, in 1941, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces.
He began his military career as an aircraft mechanic, but after his highly decorated tenure as a fighter pilot and his groundbreaking work as a test pilot, he retired in 1975 as a brigadier general.
Among his many decorations were an Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, an Army Distinguished Service Medal, two Silver Stars and three Distinguished Flying Crosses. He also won the 1948 Mackay Trophy for most meritorious flight of the year and the Collier Trophy for that year's greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America for breaking the sound barrier.
Yeager was later immortalized in both Tom Wolfe's book "The Right Stuff," and the movie made from that book. The film won four Academy Awards and Sam Shepard was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Yeager.
Yeager Airport in Charleston is named after him, as is the Society of Yeager Scholars, Marshall University's highest academic scholarship.
After first wife Glennis, with whom he had four children, died in 1990, Yeager married Victoria Scott D'Angelo in 2003.