This topic was created by JLV .
Hmm.
Messerschmidt 163 "Komet" pilots probably did go supersonic, but they had the right rocket powered, ogee-winged and tailless aircraft for the job. Unlike the spitfire pilots (and for that matter Yaeger himself), who had to deal with ramming the wrong design through the sound barrier courtesy of brute force and ignorance.
That's a little harsh. The fuselage of the X-1 was designed after an object of which it was well known that it could fly stable at supersonic speed: the cal .50 machine gun bullet. Ans it wasn't quite like in the movie*. Yeager did fly with broken ribs that day, but it was by no means his first spin in the X-1. They practically inched their way forward - every filght just a little faster, a little modifacation on the controls here, a little modification at the engine there, and so on. Yeager's autobiography gives a good account. He was a pilot's pilot, he took risks, but he was smart enough to know when to stop. Well worth a read, other parts of his life and career are even more amazing. (Yes, I'm a fan.)
That being said, the first pilot to break the sound barrier should have been Geoffrey de Havilland Junior. The de Havilland D.H.108 Swallow was a much more advanced plane than the X-1, but such is life.
* The Right Stuff, of course. If you watch it: Yeager has a cameo in Pancho Barnes'** bar. Watch out for "Fred".
** Also a larger-than-life-someone-should-make-a-movie-about-her character.
As to the Messerschmitts: there are stories that the odd Me 262 did go supersonic by accident in a steep dive, but we'll never know.
The American Me 262 Project made several flyable reproductions of the Me 262 around 2003.
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