Chuck Yeager on Facebook.

[Yeager]

Where is it recorded that Yeager shot a German pilot in his parachute?  I know Pete Peterson admitted to doing it ONCE, but he explained that he had witnessed that very German pilot shooting at B17 bomber crewman who had bailed out so Peterson attached himself to THAT German airplane and pecked away at it until he got that German pilot to bail out.  He then shot him in his chute.  Tit for tat.  That's the only bit I have ever read/heard/seen on any 357th pilot gunning a German pilot in his chute.  If you have a link or some data it would well be worth a read. 

Chuck Yeager, now 90 years old, has been in a generally sad state of affairs these past half dozen years as the old man married a woman half his age with a well documented reputation for being a gold digger.  As a result Yeager has been ad odds with his children versus his estate and is now thoroughly estranged from his children.  A very sad story.

[icepac]

Bud Anderson is the one who shot a german in his chute.

He did it after witnessing the a german pilot do it to an allied flier......so he carefully shot up the plane to spare the pilot and then shot him after he chuted out.

[Ack-Ack]

Bud Anderson is the one who shot a german in his chute.

He did it after witnessing the a german pilot do it to an allied flier......so he carefully shot up the plane to spare the pilot and then shot him after he chuted out.

Do yourself a favor and read his book.  Bud Anderson never shot a German pilot that had bailed out. 

"There were plenty of guys on both sides who would strafe a downed airman, on the theory that he could kill you tomorrow ... There was gallantry in the air war. There was cruelty too. There were some who strafed parachutes ... everyone draws his own moral line. That was mine. I never strafed parachutes ..." (Anderson, To Fly and Fight, p.111)

ack-ack

[Yeager]

Bud Anderson is the one who shot a german in his chute.

He did it after witnessing the a german pilot do it to an allied flier......so he carefully shot up the plane to spare the pilot and then shot him after he chuted out.

Pretty clearly remember Pete Peterson telling the story on the video history of the 357th.

[Gman]

You have to read all of Yeager's entries on his FB page for the last couple of months.  There is some hilarious stuff there, it reminds me of my grandfather when he hit 90 - he too decided to just tell people what he thought without any sort of filter between brain and mouth.  This is fantastic stuff.

He's said that the Spitfire was pretty much garbage, and has gone on to argue with a bunch of angry British guys, and has repeatedly said that the USA "saved the UK", in such a way to try and entice people to argue with him.  It's funny to see a guy his age trolling his on FB page, and doing a super job at it.  

Someone asked me what English planes I've flown: I did all the work on the Hawker Hunter and I flew the Spitfire - not much of an airplane

Some British really hated to see an ex-colony come over and save their .....

Sandy Lyman Hintz Have you read the other posts - clearly not "everyone". You clearly never flew it or many other airplanes. And: spoken like a true Brit who'd rather live in America

There are HUNDREDS of responses from him fighting with guys....entertaining if you have the time to read through it all.

[Gman]

Just deleted someone as a friend who was very nasty and rude when I would not give her a free autograph. I asked her to clean my house for free for a year. She didn't understand the point.

Funny stuff from a 90 year old.

[Ack-Ack]

Pretty clearly remember Pete Peterson telling the story on the video history of the 357th.

It was him.  In another mission, he and another pilot, Charles Sumner Jr. engaged a Me 109 and forced it to crash land in a field and then both strafed the crashed Me 109 and pilot.  

Apparently strafing downed Luftwaffe pilots on the ground was fairly common, enough so that Hitler gave orders in May 1944 to the German High Command to immediately execute any Allied pilot that was captured after strafing downed Luftwaffe pilots.  Also during this time, Himmler issued secret orders to the local police and Home Guard throughout Germany to kill any parachuting Allied pilot that was captured.

ack-ack

[muzik]

  This reminds me that we play a game............

"My response to people who say they wished they could have flown combat in WWII is: 23 of the 30 pilots w/ whom I started out, didn't make it home. Guys aged 20-25."

If Yeager ever tells me 23 of 30 didn't make it back, I'll tell him I would have been sorry for those 23 other guys.

 I play a game because I was born in the wrong decade.   

[GScholz]

I remember watching an interview with Gen. Yeager where he killed a formidable German pilot as he was bailing out. I guess technically this wasn't shooting a man in a parachute since the German didn't even get to open his chute. I remember Yeager saying that as the German ejected his canopy and jumped, Yeager "walked" his guns over him. Yeager also commented, and I paraphrase: "I didn't want to have to fight that guy again."

I also read Gen. Yeager's autobiography many years ago where he wrote that there was a gentleman's agreement between the allies and Germans not to deliberately kill pilots, but that by 1944 both sides were only paying lip service to this agreement. When he himself was shot down over France he was so afraid of being shot by German fighters that he waited to pull his chute until he had entered a cloud layer below, not knowing how much altitude he would have left.

Also in his autobiography he described how he felt bad about being ordered to strafe civilians in late 1944 during a "maximum effort"; they were assigned what would today be called a "kill box" where they would attack anything that moved, to demoralize the German population. They were also ordered to strafe farms and other civilian buildings in the German countryside. I'm not sure I could have done that. During the briefing Yeager said to a fellow pilot (again I paraphrase): "If we do this we'd better win the war". Yeager was a ruthless warrior who strafed helpless enemy pilots and civilians, but at least he has enough of a conscience to feel bad about it.

[icepac]

It was Bud Peterson....not Bud Anderson.

Names are pretty close which caused the confusion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8LVlYJ5eJU

[cpxxx]

So I liked him on FB, frankly it's fairly obvious it's not him posting, maybe he approves the posts but it's not him. At 90 it's to much to ask. Frankly I'm a lot younger but FB is foreign territory for me.

[Gman]

I considered that too, the writing seems very contemporary and "youngish", especially with the crossing of swords with everyone when given the chance.....it's possible it IS the real Chuck Yeager I suppose, but one of my first fleeting thoughts while reading the entire page was how young an older guy can seem on the net. 

One thing to take note of is that there are a couple of different Chuck Yeager pages on FB, the one linked on page one of this thread, and another large one, with much of the same information and posts even, yet missing some from the one on page 1 of the thread.  Perhaps the one with all the cross stuff is a fan page, with someone impersonating him....hard to say as well.

[cpxxx]

Reading it, I suspect his wife Victoria is running the FB page. Which isn't to say it doesn't have his blessing. A great deal of what 'he' says is not exactly new. It's all there in his biography. Plus some of the comments don't fit as coming from a long time test pilot. Then when you read her own comments and blog they read very similarly.

But I wouldn't call them on it as they seem very litigious. Look what happened to his family!

[GScholz]

Question is what would be her motivation?

[icepac]

They're probably sipping some tasty drink and having a laugh.