After returning to England from Spain the previous May, Yeager had begun a fight with his base commanders over the War Department regulation that prohibited airmen shot down over occupied Europe from returning to combat duty. “German intelligence kept dossiers on most of us, and knew who had been shot down before; they’d go right to work on your fingernails if you were shot down again,” trying to extract information on the French Underground. “[But] I was raised to finish what I started, not slink off after flying only eight missions. Screw the regulations.” The brassy West Virginian had taken
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