Like many a West Virginia boy, Chuck answered his country's call when World War II broke out. He entered the Army as a mechanic, and gave little thought to aircraft, other than their upkeep, until the advent of the "Flying Sergeants Program". Seeing an opportunity for both a promotion and a pay raise, young Yeager decided to give it a try.

To say that young Yeager took well to flying puts it mildly. Apocryphal stories say that before his term in flight school was done, he was feeding the men of his unit by hunting deer with the guns of his P-39 "Airacobra". Whatever the truth of it, he soon found himself on his way to England to fly P-51 "Mustangs" against the German invader. It was also during this time that he met his future bride, Glennis.

Shot down over France, Yeager survived for a time fighting with the members of the French Resistance before making an overland crossing into allied territory. Conventional policy at that time was to return any pilot who had gone down and been rescued by the Resistance home, lest he divulge any of that group's secrets. Yeager held out until the liberation of France, when the Resistance went public, then returned to active duty.

During his tours of duty, Yeager is credited with shooting down between 11.5 and thirteen enemy aircraft (one-half a kill is awarded when more than one pilot contributes to the shoot-down) in various P-51s, all named "Glamorous Glennis". Among his feats were five kills in a single sortie, and the first kill of a German Me-262 jet. While many pilots exceeded his total number of shootdowns, it must also be remembered that he sat out more than a year of the war following his shootdown and escape.

With the end of the war, Yeager found himself looking for bigger challenges, and there were no bigger ones than the test piloting programs at Muroc Dry Lake (eventually to become Edwards Air Foce Base). Contrary to popular films, while Yeager was something of a hellcat off-duty, when it came time to fly a test mission, he was pure business, with the kind of piloting instincts that can not be trained. It was these skills that got him the job of piloting the Bell XS-01, later simply known as the X-1.

Prior to October 1947, many learned authorities felt that the speed of sound was an absolute, something which could not be exceeded. Others felt it was simply another hurdle which could be crossed with the right combination of equipment and piloting skill. Yeager belonged to the latter group. On October 14, he took the Bell X-1 #6062, once more named the "Glamorous Glennis" through the sound barrier and into the history books.

Yeager spent several more years flying at Edwards (He still has the only reserved parking slot at the entire facility.) before answering the call of combat once more, this time in Vietnam. There he commanded a bomber group. At various times, he has served his country as pilot, instructor, engineer and ambassador around the world. It is said that at the time of his retirement, he had flown every type of aircraft in the United States inventory.

With his reitrement from the military, he became a sought-after public speaker, and a technical liaison and test pilot to numerous aircraft manufacturers, including Northrop Aviation and Cessna. He was one of the test-pilots on the Northrop F-20 program, an aircraft which was well-received by all who flew it, but which was never purchased by the Air Force, whjo preferred their F-16s, even after Yeager's endorsement of the F-20 as the best single seat fighter flying.

On October 14, 1997, at almost the exact moment of his record-breaking flight, Yeager pushed an F-15C fighter through the sound barrier once more, with Bob Hoover, his original chase plane pilot on his wingtip. Even on this solemn occasion, Yeager could not resist the opportunity to make the pilot of the camera plane earn his keep with some impromptu aerobatics. On his touchdown, Yeager announced his retirement from flying, after more than 56 years at the stick. There will never be another like him.

In his home state of West Virginia, Yeager is honored by the Charles E. Yeager High School in Hamlin; the Charles E. Yeager Bridge, just south of Charleston, on Interstate 77; the Yeager Scholars Program at Marshall University in Huntington and the USS Yeager Chapter of Starfleet, in Bluefield, among others.