Vet returns to Korea to find fallen buddy
In U.S. navy died in 1950 after a deadly battle
Two years after he made history by becoming the U.S. navy’s first black pilot, Ensign Jesse Brown lay trapped in his downed fighter plane in subfreezing North Korea, his leg broken and bleeding. His wingman crashlanded to try to save him, and even burned his hands trying to put out the flames.
A chopper hovered nearby. Lieut. Thomas Hudner could save himself, but not his friend. With the light fading, the threat of enemy fire all around him and Brown losing consciousness, the white son of a New England grocery-store magnate made a promise to the black son of a sharecropper. “We’ll come back for you.” More than 60 years have passed. Hudner is now 88. But he did not forget. He is coming back.
Hudner, now a retired navy captain, heads to Pyongyang on Saturday with hopes of travelling in the coming week to the region known in North Korea as the Jangjin Reservoir, accompanied by soldiers from the Korean People’s Army, to the spot where Brown died in December 1950.
The reservoir was the site of one of the Korean War’s deadliest battles for Americans, who knew the place by its Japanese name, Chosin. The snowy mountain region was nicknamed the “Frozen Chosin,” and survivors are known in U.S. history books as the “Chosin Few.”
The Battle of the Chosin Reservoir lasted for 17 brutal days. About 6,000 Americans were killed in combat, and thousands more succumbed to the cold. Brown and many others who died there are among more than 7,910 Americans still missing in action from the war.
Though the fighting ended with an armistice signed 60 years ago July 27, North Korea and the U.S. remain technically at war. Efforts to recover remains have come in fits and starts, with little recent progress.
Next week’s mission is to pick up where search teams have left off by locating the exact spot of Brown’s crash. Armed with maps and coordinates, they hope to work with North Korean soldiers to excavate the remote area, a sealed site controlled by the North Korean military. Approval for the unusual journey comes as North Korea prepares for festivities marking the upcoming armistice anniversary. Pyongyang is expected to use the milestone to draw international attention to the division of the Korean Peninsula as well as to build unity among North Koreans for new leader Kim Jong Un.
Hudner said he hopes his visit will help to foster peace and reconciliation on the tense Korean Peninsula.
THOMAS HUDNER
Japan occupied Korea for decades, until the end of Second World War. Then the Soviets and the Americans moved in, backing rival fledgling governments and dividing the country halfway at the 38th parallel. War broke out in June 1950, with the communist North Koreans marching into Seoul. They were countered by U.S.-led UN forces that charged north, taking Pyongyang and continuing up the peninsula.
By November, U.S. marines had dug in around the Chosin reservoir and in Unsan County to the west. The plan was to push north as far as the Yalu River dividing Korea from China. What they didn’t know was more than 100,000 Chinese ground troops had slipped across the Yalu
“He had great promise had he not been so tragically killed.”
to fight for the North Koreans. They boxed in 20,000 UN forces, mostly U.S. marines.
Hudner and Brown were members of Fighter Squadron 32, dispatched to the region deep in North Korea’s forbiddingly mountainous interior to support the trapped ground troops and carry out search-and-destroy missions.
Theirs was a close-knit squadron. But the two men, both in their 20s, came from completely different worlds.
Hudner, of Fall River, Mass., was a privileged New Englander who was educated at prep school and had been invited to attend Harvard. Brown, of Hattiesburg, Miss., broke the navy’s colour barrier for pilots in 1948, months after president Harry S Truman ordered the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces.
It wasn’t an easy role for Brown to take on, Hudner recalled. “People who didn’t know him gave him a hard time just because he was black.” But those who got to know Brown grew to respect the serious, unfailingly considerate young man who impressed his peers with his dedication to flying — and his gentle sense of humour.
“The squadron, almost to a man, protected him any way they could,” Hudner told the Associated Press before his departure, his pale blue eyes sparkling. “He was a friend who, I’d say, was beloved by almost everybody who knew him. A very special person.”
Late the afternoon of Dec. 4, 1950, Brown and Hudner were part of a six-plane formation over the Jangjin Reservoir, one like dozens of missions in the months previous.
This time, ground fire struck Brown’s plane, forcing him to land behind enemy lines. When Brown waved for help from his crumpled, smoking cockpit after slamming into the mountainside, Hudner acted quickly.
“I thought: ‘ My God, I’ve got to make a decision,’ ” he said. “I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing his plane burst into flames.”
Hudner crash-landed his plane in high winds and snowy rocks about 100 metres from the downed fighter. As flames engulfed Brown’s plane, and still under the threat of attack, Hudner scrambled to pack the fuselage with snow, burning his hands in the process. He took his cap off and pulled it over Brown’s ears, then radioed for help as Brown remained trapped in the cockpit, bleeding heavily, his leg crushed and his body temperature dropping in the sub-zero conditions.
A marine helicopter arrived, but the pilot and Hudner could not extract Brown from the wreckage.
Before losing consciousness, his thoughts turned to his wife, whose name he whispered in his last command to Hudner: “If I don’t make it, please tell Daisy I love her.”
Hudner reluctantly got into the rescue helicopter. Brown is believed to have died soon after. The next day, U.S. military planes dropped napalm on the wreckage to keep the enemy from getting his body.
Hudner was awarded the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military’s highest award, for trying to save Brown. Brown posthumously received the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
“He was a leader,” Hudner said. “He had great promise had he not been so tragically killed.”
Hudner and the team don’t know if they’ll find Brown’s remains or the wreckage of the two planes.
But Adam Makos, who intends to make the trip the last chapter of his book about the two men, said Brown’s place in history makes it especially important to make the attempt.
“He’s a Jackie Robinson in many ways. He’s a Joe Louis,” he said. “He’s a historic figure, yet he’s lying on a Korean mountainside.”