Yeager: An Autobiography by Chuck Yeager
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Book Reviews of Yeager: An Autobiography
Book Review: What a life!
Summary: 5 Stars
"Yeager" is stuffed full of great stories. You probably know Chuck Yeager as the pilot who broke the sound barrier and that story, of course, is included. But there's a lot more.
There's exciting stories about World War II dogfighting. There's a story about Yeager running for his life behind enemy lines after being shot down. There's many breathtaking stories about flying high-powered aircraft to record speeds and heights. And there's crashes. Yeager acknowledges that he's lucky to be alive.
Yeager also throws in good stories about interesting people, like pilot Jaqueline Cochran and bar owner Pancho Barnes. There's a surprising story about spying on the Soviet Union and very funny one about golden trout (yes, the fish).
It's hard to believe one man experienced so much in one life. This is one book that I deliberate took my time reading, because I wanted to enjoy each story fully, without rushing on to the next one.
I really liked that the book includes "other voices" - short sections from Yeager's wife and colleagues that help provide extra perspective.
The book is in first person, but co-written by Leo Janos. While it's impossible to know how much Janos actually wrote, I suspect he deserves a lot of credit. Why? Because more than once does the book mention that Yeager, while a master pilot, had little grasp of basic English. "He could barely construct a recognizable sentence," recalls a general who knew Yeager in the Air Force.
I was fairly shocked by the poor treatment Yeager got from the military while he was risking his life flying experimental planes. For years, he got no promotion and his family had to crowd into a barely habitable shack. (Yeager eventually moved up and finally became a general near the end of his career.)
I was bothered a bit by Yeager's callous attitude toward the many people he saw die in his military service, but he makes it clear that it comes with the territory.
"I got mad at the dead: Angry at them for dying so young and so senselessly; angry at them for destroying expensive government property as stupidly as if they had driven a Cadillac off a bridge. Anger was my defense mechanism. I've lost count of the how many good friends have augered in [crashed] over the years, but either you become calloused or you crack."
One minor complaint: Sometimes Yeager uses aviation or military phrases that could use some translation: "Dead stick landing," aileron, "bird colonel." It's not a big problem, but a sentence here and there could have made things a bit clearer.
Book Review: Title is the weak point
Summary: 5 Stars
An old Norwegian proverb says heroism consists in hanging on one minute longer. I get the feeling from Yeager's story that he has done just exactly that more than once.Yeager was shot down over occupied France during WWII. He was hidden by the French Resistance who led him over the Pyrenees and sent him off to Spain, across the mountains on foot. He returned to his fighter squadron in England and stayed to fight again in French and German skies.
War over, he returned home, decorated and commended, to become a test pilot for the newly formed Air Force. Yeager is the pilot who broke the sound barrier, paving the way for supersonic flight and the space program.
This is a book full of wild tales and heroic deeds. Hilarity and tragedy, like in life, ride side by side.
"He loved practical jokes," the authors write. "He went over to a little airport in Dayton and signed up for flying lessons. He took the course, taught by a really sharp-looking blonde, and when the time came for him to solo, a bunch of us went to watch. He took off, climbed above the field, then dove straight down, did a roll and barely missed the hangars, looped and spun, and turned everything loose. His instructor hid her face in her hands and almost passed out, but when she saw us standing in our uniforms and laughing like hell, she knew she'd been had."
Yeager comes across (because he says so) as an everyday kind of guy who loves to fly, was in the right place at the right time, and has had a lot of good luck. One can't help but notice that he worked hard, too, and was blessed with the gift of persistance.
Co-author Leo Janus was Houston bureau chief for the New York Times during the Apollo missions and received the American Institute of Physics-US Steel Foundation science writing award in 1981.
The book is amusing and informative. It reads like a roundtable riot with a bunch of flamboyant pilots. Only the title is its weak point -- it is unoriginal, predictable and boring.
Chuck Yeager is not.
Sunnye Tiedemann (aka Ruth F. Tiedemann)
Book Review: One to read over and over
Summary: 5 Stars
The word around the campfire is that Chuck Yeager is real SOB. Fortunately, I heard this long after I'd read this book and decided he was anything but. I still question this "SOB" assessment. General Yeager signs books, answers fan mail and cracks great jokes. This is the Chuck Yeager that comes across in the pages of this book, which is undoubtedly one of the best aviation yarns ever written. Yeager had a way of being at the right place at the right time. Those places and times form the heart of this book, and the heart of the golden age of aviation itself. If there is a person most qualified to tell the story of how America transitioned from piston-fired aircraft into the supersonic jet age, Chuck is that person. Told in a loose, casual manner, the story whizzes along at mach speed, slowing only to allow "other voices" (friends, family, comrades) to further illustrate Chuck's highly adventurous life.
The book can be very funny, as when Yeager describes "topping" a tree with his WWII trainer's wingtip; it can be suspenseful, as when Yeager and others describe his nearly fatal flight beyond Mach 2. And the book can be sad, as when he illustrates the dangers of flight testing by revealing that streets at Edwards Air Force Base were named after fallen test pilots. Of course, it's all old news now - some of the lore has even decayed into clichés. But the magic of this book is that the moment you pick it up and start reading, it all seems new again.
Yeager bashers always seem to miss what this book hits on so well; it's not the things he did, it's the way he did them. This isn't the story of a war ace turned arrogant test pilot; this is the story of a country boy who inadvertently made a name for himself merely by doing what came naturally to him. We should all be so lucky.
Book Review: A great story that is easy reading.
Summary: 5 Stars
Chuck Yeager's book was just fun to read. It is one of the books that I hated to put down once I started reading it.
Many of the reviews have called Chuck Yeager a hero. I believe that he is simple due to what he has accomplished through his military career. From humble beginnings in backwoods America to an enlisted man and then on to be a general. Yeager has shot down enemy planes in combat, been shot down and evaded being captured. He shot down a German jet fighter with a propeller drive fighter. Yeager shot down five enemy aircraft in one mission. He was the first person to break the sound barrier. He has flown most jet aircraft while in their testing phase where many pilots have died. I think that makes him a hero in that he took the risk of death over and over again while serving his country in peace and in war.
I have read a few reviews of the book that are unflattering. Maybe he had a racist background, maybe he didn't like people from India, maybe he was this or that. I never saw that in the book but I guess you can take out of it what you look for. Many great men in history both military and civilian were not perfect humans. Maybe Yeager was one of them but maybe he wasn't. This book is not about the Nobel Peace Prize, it is about a combat veteran and his exploits in the air.
If you are looking for a book an easy to read book of a true American experience that shows a man that faced death over and over while serving his country and lived to tell about it, then Yeager should be on your list.
Book Review: A great spirit and lots of fun
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a bunch of great old yarns told by a guy who led a pretty amazing life. Yeager surely adds to the American mythos of self-determination, with his straight-up, "emperor-has-no-clothes", gutsy, and very fun style of story telling.
Some of the things Yeager managed to survive are pretty extraordinary. If this had been written as a Hollywood screenplay, it would have been totally unbelievable. From getting shot down and evading capture in WW II, to an uncontrolled spin in the X-1A, many combat missions over Vietnam, and nearly having his face burned off while ejecting from the F-104 -- he is definitely one lucky guy.
Yeager obviously has a bit of an ego, as is necessary for someone in his line of work. However, the "Other Voices" sections, written by friends and relations, helped to give breadth to his personality. These sections showed that he helped others as a teammate and friend just as much as he went after his own goals. These sections made the book much stronger, and Yeager's personality more impressive.
Also, the book is a very enjoyable read. The stories of horsing around in England during WW II, and at Pancho's place in California, show how much fun these guys had, while they were doing all these amazing things up in the air.