Chuck YeagerVerified account

He began telling me how he was there when the U.S. started testing rockets. At first he delivered the concrete they used to build the rocket pads. Then, once the pads were built, he delivered the rocket fuel. Each trip he made was 9,000 gallons and he did it regularly every day.

He was there at the air force base and got to witness some of the U.S. first tests of rocket engines. When he dropped off the fuel he was so close that everyone had to go into an underground bunker just in case the engine exploded.

He told me, "You could feel it going off, the whole place was shaking so hard you'd thought it'd come down. It was over in just a few seconds like it was nothing. Then one of the men turned to me and said, "There went that fuel you just brought us.""

Talking about living in the nearby valley during the time they were testing he said you could see the rocket light up the entire mountain side at night and hear it too despite being miles away.

My grandpa then told me how, after they had been testing the rocket engines for a while they began attempting to break the sound barrier. My grandpa was there at the air force base when he watched Chuck Yeager ( @GenChuckYeager ) break the sound barrier.

My grandfather told me, "You couldn't believe it he was going so fast. You watched him and as he came around he came down and you could see it. You could see he was ahead of the sound, in one place you could see the sound over here and there he was miles ahead of it."

After that, he said, you could hear Chuck flying over the houses during the day and when he broke that sound barrier it would rattle the house so hard you thought it was going to shatter the windows.

I had never known this story about my grandpa before this morning. I had known he had delivered rocket fuel to the Air Force base but none of the details as to why and I had never questioned it.