Yeager may have arrived in Europe as a legendary test pilot but he has always considered himself, first and foremost, to be a fighter pilot and his dogfighting skills remained sharp. One of his squadron pilots recalled that, when he arrived, “there was a helluva line of eager young pilots anxious to jump our new squadron commander and see what he was made of. Testing Yeager turned out to be a massacre. He waxed everybody, and with such ease it was shameful. The word got around that he was somebody very special.” Yeager returned to California’s high desert when he took over command of the 1st Fighter Day Squadron at George AFB in 1957.