"Frozen Chosin" and Doing What Was Right
(Kinda long, but absolutely worth the time!)
Stories of American Heroes - Brought to you from the "Home of Heroes" -
Pueblo, Colorado
The Brotherhood of Soldiers at War
Thomas Hudner
&
Jesse LeRoy Brown
No Man Should Die Alone!
Eight thousand badly outnumbered Marines shivered in the sub-zero
temperatures of the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea on December 4, 1950
as eight F4U-4 Corsairs left the deck of the carrier USS Leyte. Each
of the eight heavily armed but outdated fighters was piloted by a Naval
aviator rushing to defend their comrades on the ground. Most of the
pilots were young, in their early twenties, but all were dedicated
"brothers in arms" who would risk their lives for the soldiers on the
ground, men they didn't even know, but defended because they were
Americans at great risk.
Lieutenant Commander Richard Cevoli led his squadron inland, over the
rugged mountains of North Korea just north of the Chosin Reservoir. The
eight fighters skimmed 1,000 feet above the snow covered terrain, eyes
alert for the movement of enemy troops. It was a general support
mission, one of many Naval pilots had been flying recently to give air
cover to the withdrawing Marines below. Cevoli's pilots had been flying
over Korea for only about two months, but in that short time they had
become skilled combat veterans. They had also become close....like
brothers.
Off in the distance flying "wing" for Ensign Jesse Brown was Lieutenant
(j.g.) Thomas Hudner. Hudner was senior to Brown, but the Ensign had
more experience. In the perilous skies over North Korea, rank didn't
matter. It was experience that counted. The two pilots were good
friends, though they had little more in common than a boyhood
fascination with airplanes and a determination to some day soar above
the clouds. Their dream had come true. That dream had also become a
nightmare of death and destruction. On this day they would confront the
nightmare once again, and Lieutenant Hudner would do all the wrong
things.....
BECAUSE IT WAS RIGHT!
Thomas Hudner was born in Massachusetts on August 31, 1924; the
son of a successful Irish businessman. Though by no means rich, the
family lived comfortably in their hometown of Fall River where Tom's
father ran Hudner's Markets, a chain of grocery stores. In school Tom
was a fair student whose primary interests were athletic. His grades
were sufficient, however, to qualify him for the U.S. Naval Academy
where he graduated in 1946. After serving time on the USS Helena, Tom
finally made his dream of flying come true. He received the wings of a
Naval aviator in August, 1949, and in November he joined Fighter
Squadron 32 aboard the USS Leyte in the Mediterranean.
One of the "old hands" Tom Hudner met upon joining Fighter Squadron 32
was Jesse LeRoy Brown. As Tom came to know Jesse, the two became good
friends. Two years younger than Tom, Jesse had earned his wings a year
earlier, in October 1948. Seven months before Thomas had joined the
squadron, Jesse was commissioned an Ensign. But despite the boyhood
dream of flying both young men shared, the two could not have been more
different. It was this difference that generated Tom's immense respect
for the junior officer, and that cemented a bond of brotherhood between
the two.
Jesse LeRoy Brown was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi... a world away
from Tom's New England state. The son of a hard-working but poor
sharecropper, he grew up in a home that offered little comfort other
than love and dreams for the future. The Brown home didn't have
electricity, running water, or even an indoor toilet. Racial prejudice
stood as a wall to any young, black boy's dreams in a community that
preached and practiced segregation of white citizens from its black
residents.
As a boy, Jesse had watched airplanes fly over the cotton fields. He
would look to the sky and say, "That's where I want to be." He refused
to be denied this, or any of his other dreams, by a society that judged
him by his color. He excelled as both an athlete and a student,
graduating second in his high school class. Scholarships afforded him
the opportunity of a college education...provided he was also willing to
work full time. He began his college education at the age of 17. He
had been told that the right thing to do would be to enroll in a black
college. Instead, as a personal challenge, Jesse enrolled at Ohio State
University. Less than 1% of the students there were black. Jesse had
done the wrong thing.... because it was RIGHT. To afford that
education, he also worked a full night shift. Through his long days of
study and the hard hours of his night shift loading boxcars, Jesse
continued to dream of flying.
In 1946, the same year Tom Hudner was graduating from the Naval Academy,
Jesse Brown enlisted in the Naval Reserve. The following year he was
appointed a Midshipman. Undaunted by the kind of prejudice voiced by an
ROTC instructor at Ohio State who told Jesse, "No nigger would ever sit
his ass in a Navy cockpit," the courageous young pioneer was the only
black American among the 600 cadets when at last he entered flight
school in Pensacola, Florida. Despite continued prejudice, even
outright harassment by some officers, on October 21, 1948 Jesse LeRoy
Brown received his wings.
Jesse LeRoy Brown became the Navy's first black pilot.
Living with Jesse Brown on the USS Leyte, and flying with him from its
decks, Thomas Hudner became privy to the more intimate details of
Jesse's struggle to overcome racial prejudice and follow his dreams.
The more he learned about the the 23-year old pilot, what he had been
through and how he had risen above it, the more his respect for the
young man grew. He also found Jesse to be a devoted husband and father.
Back home awaiting his return was his young wife Daisy and a year old
daughter, Pamela. Jesse spoke of them often and wrote to them almost
daily.
The Leyte was anchored off the coast of France on Sunday, June 25, 1950
when nearly 100,000 North Korean soldiers swarmed south to smother the
free Republic of Korea. Shortly afterwards Leyte was ordered home for
repairs before being dispatched to the Sea of Japan. The interlude
afforded Jesse a five day visit with his wife and daughter before facing
the dangers of combat on foreign shores. Even the simple task of
returning to his ship was marred by lingering racial prejudice. As the
Navy's first black aviator traveled to Birmingham to catch his plane, he
was almost denied a seat on the bus....because he was black.
After stops in San Diego, Hawaii, and Japan, the USS Leyte arrived off
the coast of Korea in October, 1950. The pilots of Fighter Squadron 32
were quickly thrown into the cauldron, flying missions over enemy
controlled territory almost immediately. By the morning of December
4th as Lieutenant Commander Cevoli's Corsairs skimmed the mountains
along the Chosin Reservoir, Jesse Brown was already flying his 20th
combat mission. His wingman, Thomas Hudner, flew just a short distance
away. Everything seemed to be going smoothly and the calmness of
Ensign Brown's voice on the radio announcing he was loosing power didn't
register an immediate alarm. Then his voice came across the radio again
and the other pilots in the formation knew something was seriously amiss
when he said:
"I think I may have been hit. I've lost my oil pressure and I'm
going to have to go in."
Lieutenant
Hudner watched in fear and hope as Jesse Brown fought the controls of
his Corsair. The engine was out, there was no power, and no place to
run. The terrain was simply one mountain after another. As Ensign
Brown's plane neared the side of the nearest mountain, the other pilots
began a circling pattern. The mountains were swarming with camouflaged
Chinese Communist soldiers, and if Jesse was able to land his crippled
craft successfully they would need to move in swiftly to provide cover
fire to protect him.
Flying into the
wind, it was going to be a "wheels up, dead stick landing" on a near
vertical, snow-covered mountain slope. The other pilots held their
breath, then watched in horror as Jesse Brown's aircraft slammed hard
against the mountain side. The impact created an immediate cloud of
flying snow that momentarily masked the other pilots' view of the crash
scene. Then, as the snow cleared, they could see Jesse Brown's
shattered plane lying in ruins. The engine had been ripped away and the
fuselage was ruptured at the cockpit, twisted at an almost 45 degree
angle. Sunlight glinted off the glass of the closed cockpit and Jesse
Brown's wingmates released a sigh of despair, fully aware that the
Navy's first black pilot had died in the crash on a North Korean
mountainside. Before turning away, they circled a second time.
Suddenly Tom Hudner noticed something. The canopy was now OPEN! He
descended for a closer look and there, sitting in the open cockpit,
Jesse Brown waved back at his wingman. Somehow he had survived the
impact.
Lieutenant
Commander Cevoli quickly broke away from the other fliers to gain
altitude and radio for a rescue helicopter. The other pilots continued
a low altitude circle of the downed airman to insure that the enemy
didn't reach their comrade before the rescue crew. As they anxiously
watched the surrounding terrain, they also kept an eye on Jesse Brown.
Something was wrong. He was sitting up, waving from time to time, but
he wasn't making any effort to get out of the ruptured cockpit. Then
Thomas Hudner noticed smoke rising from the nose of the Corsair. The
plane appeared to be on the verge of erupting into flames which, because
of the direction of the wind, would quickly engulf the cockpit....and
Jesse Brown. The fact that his friend hadn't got out of the plane
meant one of two things. Either Jesse was too badly hurt to extricate
himself, or he was somehow pinned in the wreckage. Without a second
thought Lieutenant Hudner prepared to do the wrong thing, because it was
the right thing to do.
"I'm going in,"
Tom radioed his commander, knowing that there was only one way to do
that. Any landing would be disastrous, but Lieutenant Hudner had just
decided to crash a perfectly good American fighter plane on a steep
mountainside heavily controlled by the enemy. He didn't wait for an
approval from anyone, he just did it.
The other pilots
watched from their tight circles as Lieutenant Hudner headed his Corsair
toward the steep mountain slope, searching for anything resembling a
level area to land. Flying into the wind and up the slope in a
carrier-like approach, he settled towards the ground. It would be a
planned, wheels-up crash landing. Then he was down, about 100 yards
slightly upslope from his friend. As he hit the rock-hard ground and
bumped to a stop his thought was, "What in the hell am I doing here!"
And then he was out of the cockpit and running to the side of his
"brother."
Jesse Brown was
in horrible pain. Tom could see it in his eyes and on his face. But
Jesse remained calm, speaking to his wingman from time to time.
Lieutenant Hudner could see that the brave Ensign was indeed trapped.
The buckling cockpit had pinned him beneath the hard metal of the
instrument panel. And Jesse was cold. He had been on the ground for
almost half an hour, exposed to sub-freezing temperatures at more than a
mile above sea level. In working to free himself from the wreckage he
had removed his flight helmet exposing his head to the wintry blasts
that hung over the mountain. He had also removed his gloves to release
himself from his parachute harness. They dropped from his numb fingers.
He had struggled to retrieve them but, pinned as he was, they were out
of his reach. "By the time I got there," Hudner says, "his hands were
like claws.... totally frozen."
Lieutenant
Hudner worked to release his friend from the metal tomb, but to no
avail. The wreckage held him too tightly. The helicopter that would be
coming to rescue the two men would be useless unless they could free the
trapped man. He knew his radio was still operational, knew also that
by turning on the battery to power it he risked igniting the fuel that
leaked about the plane. So once again Lieutenant Hudner did the wrong
thing.... because it was the right thing to do. Returning to his own
Corsair he powered the radio and told the rescue helicopter to bring an
ax to chop the wreckage away and free Jesse, as well as a fire
extinguisher.
After sending
the message, Tom Hudner returned to his friend's side. He had retrieved
a wool scarf and cap that he had carried in his flight suit for
emergencies, and now he gently lowered the cap over Jesse's head.
"Wrapping the scarf around his frozen hands was more of a gesture than a
remedy," Hudner says. "Everyone knows when limbs are already frozen
that a wrap won't warm them back up. But it was all I could do."
Jesse was still
conscious and spoke from time to time, but he spoke very slowly. It was
apparent that his body was broken up inside, but Jesse never cried out
or complained. Meanwhile Tom Hudner began to scoop up the cold snow and
tossed it at the spot where the smoke was coming from under the cowling,
but the smoke didn't diminish. After about half an hour both mean
could hear the throb of the rescue helicopter arriving, then landing on
the steep slope. Marine Lieutenant Charles Ward brought the fire
extinguisher and ax to Tom Hudner. The extinguisher was small and
quickly expended. Then the two men began frantically beating against
the metal cockpit with the ax without any effect. It was getting dark,
time was running out. Jesse spoke less and less frequently, more and
more slowly, and began to fade in and out of consciousness as the two
rescuers vainly attempted to free him. The ax simply bounced off the
metal. They made no headway.
As the sun set
over the cold mountain, Lieutenant Ward informed Tom that his helicopter
was not equipped to fly at night. They would have to give up soon, or
at the very least fly out for additional help. Everything they had
done was fruitless. Perhaps if they could fly back and get torches to
cut the metal.
Lieutenant
Hudner sensed Jesse was trying to say something and leaned closer to his
friend. "If I don't make it," he whispered, "Please tell Daisy I love
her."
Tom Hudner
promised his friend that he would. Lieutenant Ward informed Tom it was
time to go, that nothing more could be done. In the fading twilight
Lieutenant Thomas Hudner peered once more into the shattered cockpit of
the Corsair. Jesse no longer spoke. He was unconscious and fading
fast. Tom Hudner had crashed his plane on a mountain side to rescue a
friend, something the Navy would certainly frown on. In the end, it had
been for naught. As the helicopter lifted off Thomas Hudner looked
back one last time at the crash site, and Jesse Brown sitting motionless
in the open cockpit.
"One of the
worst things when something has happened to you is the feeling that
you're alone," Thomas Hudner later said. "Just being with him to give
him as much comfort as we could was worth the effort." Tom Hudner is
also quick to point out that he would have done the same for any of the
other men in the squadron, and they for him. "I just happened to be the
one that went in that day," he says. "If it hadn't been me, it would
have been one of the others (pilots)."
In the days that
followed it became impossible to recover either Jesse Brown's body or
the two downed Corsairs. When Tom returned to his ship, he reported the
circumstances to the ship's captain. Then, to prevent the Chinese from
gaining access to the crash site, the captain dispatched a flight of
aircraft to the mountainside where they dropped napalm on the two
aircraft and Jesse's body. It was the most dignified burial the men of
Fighter Squadron 32 could have afforded their brother. As the napalm
blanketed the hillside, Jesse and his Corsair vanished into history, a
hero that we can not afford as a Nation to ever forget.
Jesse LeRoy Brown
13 Oct 1926 - 4 Dec 1950
Tom Hudner and
Lieutenant Ward landed in Hagaru-ri at the foot of the Chosin reservoir
through which thousands of Marines were withdrawing from an overwhelming
Chinese force, then flew to Koto-ri where they were the weather held
them for three days. When the weather lifted, Tom was flown back to the
USS Leyte, where he was informed upon arrival that Captain Thomas Sisson
wanted to see him on the bridge. Lieutenant Hudner approached
uncertainly, convinced that he was about to be reprimanded for for his
actions. "There are still people who think I did the wrong thing," he
told me recently. "They say I destroyed a perfectly good, multi-million
dollar fighter plane for one man. But what is a life worth!"
Captain Sisson
listened to the brave Lieutenant's account of that horrible day on the
mountainside and understood. Sometimes it takes more courage to do
that which you know is RIGHT, than to simply give in and do what others
think is right. Captain Sisson recommended Navy Ensign Jesse Brown for
one of our Nation's highest awards, the Distinguished Flying Cross. He
submitted Jesse's wingman and friend, Lieutenant (j.g.) Thomas Hudner
for the Medal of Honor.
Four months later on April 13, 1951, President Harry S Truman invited
the Hudner family to the White House where he presented the Medal of
Honor to Navy Lieutenant Thomas Hudner. It was a moment of great joy
for the Hudner family.
Attending the ceremony and standing quietly to the side holding a large
bouquet of roses was a young black lady. She smiled through her tears
and shook hands with Lieutenant Hudner. He had delivered the message,
"Tell Daisy I love her."
When Lieutenant
Hudner returned home, Fall River proclaimed "Thomas Hudner Day" and
hosted a wonderful celebration. The appreciative citizens presented the
young pilot with a check for $1,000, a considerable sum in 1951.
Lieutenant Hudner didn't cash it. Instead he endorsed the back and sent
it to Daisy Brown who had returned to school.
On March 18, 1972 the Navy christened a new member of its fleet:
USS Jesse L. Brown
(DE-1089)
It was the first time in our Nation's history that a Naval vessel was
named for a Black American. Daisy Brown and Thomas Hudner were there to
remind us all of the brave young pilot for whom it was named.
SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
Shortly after posting this story I received the following e-mail:
"As Jesse Leroy Brown's widow I'm so glad that you've called
attention to his story and the valiant effort of Tom Hudner to save him.
There's no better example of brotherhood, white and black, than what
happened that terrible afternoon at Somong-ni. Thank you for telling
this story of bravery."
Daisy Brown Thorne
Sources:
Thomas Hudner (Personal Interviews)
Above and Beyond, Boston Publishing
Korean War Heroes, by Edward F. Murphy
