Small Town America in World War II: War Stories from Wrightsville, Pennsylvania

Chapter 20: Sgt. Charles “Pete” Yeager

Chapter 20 Sgt. Charles “Pete” Yeager 222d Combat Crew Training School US Army Air Forces Born on15 June 1918, in Baltimore, Maryland, Charles “Pete” Yeager’s family moved to Wrightsville in 1925. He was the oldest of eight children , four boys and four girls, born to William and Anna May (née Dietz) Yeager. A victim of the Great Depression, “Pete” quit school to find employment and held several jobs before enlisting in US Army Air Forces in October 1942. During World War II, all his duty was stateside, including stints at Amarillo, Texas, Chanute, Illinois, and Ephrata, Washington . “Pete’s” permanent station was at Ardmore Army Air Field in Oklahoma where he eventually served as a crew chief responsible for the maintenance of B-17 heavy bombers. The base at Ardmore was part of the 4th Air Force and was used for the training of bomber aircrews. His career during World War II, while not glamorous, is another example of the vital role played by those involved in the training of crews for combat duty in the European and the Pacific theaters. Following World War II, “Pete” enlisted in the Army and saw combat in the Korean War as a forward air observer. After his discharge, he returned to Wrightsville where he lived for the rest of his life. He had married before initiating 374 SMALL TOWN AMERICA IN WORLD WAR II his military career, and he and his wife raised a daughter. “Pete” died on 11 February 2007. 1 “Pete” was working at Lancaster Malleable when the war started. As a married man with no children at the time, he believed that it was just a matter of time before he was drafted, so he decided to enlist in order to pick his desired branch of the military: “In the meantime, I had joined the CMTC, Civilian Military Training Camps, as it was called. It was something like the National Guard. You’d go for training thirty days out of a year, and I attended that in 1936, 1937, and 1938. I went first to Ft. Meade, Maryland, for infantry training, and then I was transferred to Ft. Hoyle, Maryland, for artillery training. You received military training, and in your fourth year, if you passed the tests that you had to take, then you could apply for a commission in the US Army. I was already planning to join the Army, and I had the big idea that if I could get a commission, I’d go in. But I wasn’t recommended to go back for a fourth year because I hadn’t completed my education, and you had to have a high school diploma or its equivalent to qualify. Anyway, that’s where I got my early military training.2 “So, when the war started in December of 1941, I was working at Lancaster Malleable, and I had a Triple-A [AAA] draft deferment. In 1942 I went in to see the boss and said, ‘I’m going to enlist in the service.’ Well, he couldn’t figure that out. He said, ‘We’ve got the deferment for you. We’ve got government contracts. Why do you want to go in?’ I said, ‘I’ve got the feeling that, having been attached to the military, one of these days when the supply of people gets low, they’re going to grab me because I don’t have any children. I’m going to get caught in the draft.’ When I went into the service, I wanted to have my choice of branches, not what they were going to push me into. So, I worked at Lancaster Malleable until October of 1942, and then I decided that I was going to enlist. Sgt. Charles “Pete” Yeager 375 “I talked it over with my wife, but she never said very much to me about my decision to join. Having been from a military family, she never said anything, and her father never discouraged me. I said to her, ‘If I can go in the service and keep a guy who has a family from having to go in, I think this is why I’d like to do it.’ Also, I wanted to serve the country, but I was not going to wait to be drafted and have the government push me around the way they did with draftees. So, I went to York and enlisted...