Cover of Yeager: An Autobiography

Yeager: An Autobiography

General Chuck Yeager, the greatest test pilot of them all — the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound . . .the World War II flying ace who shot down a Messerschmitt jet with a prop-driven P-51 Mustang . . .the hero who defined a certain quality that all hotshot fly-boys of the postwar era aimed to achieve: the right stuff.

Read more

Now Chuck Yeager tells his whole incredible life story with the same "wide-open, full throttle" approach that has marked his astonishing career. What it was really like enaging in do-or-die dogfights over Nazi Europe. How after being shot over occupied France, Yeager somehow managed to escape. The amazing behind-the-scenes story of smashing the sound barrier despite cracked ribs from a riding accident days before.

The entire story is here, in Yeager's own words, and in wondeful insights from his wife and those friends and colleagues who have known him best. It is the personal and public story of a man who settled for nothing less than excellence, a one-of-a-kind portrait of a true American hero.

Audience
adult
Length
long · 448 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Yeager: An Autobiography? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Yeager: An Autobiography. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds Shares aviation, biography, nonfiction
  2. I Could Never Be So Lucky Again Shares aviation, biography, history
  3. Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed Shares aviation, nonfiction, biography
  4. The Red Baron Shares aviation, biography, nonfiction

“People who read Yeager: An Autobiography tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Fighting the Flying Circus: The Greatest True Air Adventure to Come out of World War I
  2. Red Eagles: America's Secret MiGs
  3. John Glenn: A Memoir
  4. It Doesn't Take a Hero: The Autobiography of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

“If you want more of the same (biography about military history), start with these.”

  1. Deke!: An Autobiography
  2. Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father
  3. Times to Remember
  4. My Life to Live: How I Became the Queen of Soaps When Men Ruled the Airwaves

“If it was the aviation that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Happy Bottom Riding Club: The Life and Times of Pancho Barnes
  2. Amelia Earhart: The Sky's No Limit
  3. 20 Hours, 40 Min: Our Flight in the Friendship
  4. The Wright Brothers: A Biography

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Fighter Pilot
  2. Forever Flying
  3. World War II Pilots: An Interactive History Adventure
  4. Rickenbacker: An Autobiography