Posted on 10/06/2016 9:54:54 AM PDT by DFG
American World War Two hero Chuck Yeager has launched an extraordinary attack against Britain, saying its people are ‘nasty’ and ‘arrogant’. The 93-year-old, who was the first man to break the sound barrier when he worked as a US test pilot, has recently taken to social media. And judging from his first attempts he is no mood to let age mellow him.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The comments over at the site are really funny. It seems the Brits have totally rewritten the history of World War II and our part in that war.
Let’s see . . . . Tina Brown . . . . . Anna Wintour. Yea. He’s right.
I have a good friend who retired from Delta who flew Yeager once when he was in the Military and concurred with arrogant ahole.
Sure, the Brits broke the sound barrier first as Geoffrey de Havilland did a power dive into the mud in 1946. All Yeager did was control his aircraft in supersonic flight and land alive.
“It seems the Brits have totally rewritten the history of World War II and our part in that war.”
The same phenomenon can be observed among Russians, who conveniently forget that we were fighting the Japanese from early 1942.
I don’t see much to admire in someone who’s only virtue is to be hard on everyone around them in wartime, and otherwise a low life in every other way.
Well said, and not just in wartime.
It's called "Toxic Leadership."
The Army made an extraordinary step just in the past few years to address this issue: it actually admitted that it exists.
The whole myth about the "hard nosed tough as nails" military guy that "gets the job done" is just that. A myth.
I retired from the Army. I've seen many senior officers and NCOs like that. I've worked for them, too.
They're incompetent. They use abuse, cussing, screaming, yelling, ridicule, and everything else to cover up their incompetence.
A competent leader, by definition, is not abusive.
It is called the Alec Baldwin syndrome.
I was living in Europe during the Marshall-plan years and Berlin airlift. Even then, many Europeans thought that the US was acting for purely self-interest reasons and felt no gratitude towards America.
Could you elaborate? What is the “Mimosa Line”?
I heard he was on Twitter and immediately started following him. He’s a hoot and a half.
It is news to me that anyone considered the RAF a “U” branch of the British military. Far from being a country club for gentlemen, my impression is that it was always a little infra dig.
And in the movie The Great Escape, where the film makers went overboard on American involvement in the escape which was a mostly British effort.
They don't. Aviation histories from reputable British authors have always correctly credited the X-1. However, they also point out that many of the X-1's design features were anticipated in the remarkably similar-looking wartime Miles M 52, which was unfortunately cancelled without progressing beyond a 1/3 scale model- but not before the design data had been shared with Bell under a UK/US agreement.
All they needed was a 1/3rd scale Chuck Yeager to fly it.
” ... many Europeans thought that the US was acting for purely self-interest reasons and felt no gratitude towards America.”
I briefly lived in France on two separate occasions in the early to mid 1990s. I was pleasantly surprised when many older Frenchmen, upon learning that I was an American, expressed deep gratitude for the U.S. role in helping to liberate France from the Nazis. It went a long way to dispel my preconceptions about the “arrogant, haughty” French.
By contrast, I briefly lived in England in 2000 and found some Brits to be completely disdainful of Americans in general and, initially, of me in particular. It was only when I won the title of “Pub King” at a local watering hole in Oxford that I gained a modicum of respect!
Steve Yeager was an exceptional defensive catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, with a weak bat for much of his career. He managed to be the starting catcher while the Dodgers went to the World Series despite a .198 batting average. He did have his moments in the playoffs, nonetheless.
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Steve Yeager is Chuck Yeager’s cousin according to Wiki. He was an excellent catcher, but he did bat .300 in the World Series, and have a career average over .300 with bases loaded. He spent 15 years in the majors.
They don’t. Aviation histories from reputable British authors have always correctly credited the X-1. However, they also point out that many of the X-1’s design features were anticipated in the remarkably similar-looking wartime Miles M 52, which was unfortunately cancelled without progressing beyond a 1/3 scale model- but not before the design data had been shared with Bell under a UK/US agreement.
...
IIRC, the main design inspiration for the X-1 was a bullet.
“Ask almost anyone in the aviation community.”
He visited our A-10 Wing back in the 80’s in the UK.
Great guy. Drank lots of beer in the club (bought a few rounds himself), bonded with the fighter pilots and he was a WWII fighter pilot with great stories and had a spine and spoke plainly.
It was clear he didn’t suffer fools gladly. He was a proud American that when on Good Morning Britain and owned the lefty nut-burgers.
Plain to see he luved fighter pilots and they, him.
Ask almost anyone in the fighter pilot community.
I was just in France on a tour, and the tour guides and others we met in Alsace around Strasbourg seemed to still have appreciation for what the U.S. did in freeing France from the Nazis. I walked the ground where Audie Murphy won the CMH, went to a small but quality museum for the battle of the Colmar pocket, etc. Apparently one of the highly decorated U.S. soldiers who had participated had just visited a few weeks previous to our trip, and a big to-do was made of it, with honors from town mayors and councils and such.
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