The "Ready Room" Newsletter
Volume 16 Issue 11

As a docent, I like to walk through the collection, looking at new exhibits and noticing things I may have missed before. Today, I found a display case near the Korean War exhibit with a book, some pictures, and a story that was new to me and probably to many others, too.

Jesse Leroy Brown lived just 24 years, but his story is packed with determination and grit. He grew up poor in segregated Mississippi as the son of a sharecropper. Regardless of these challenges, he made it to college and became the U.S. Navy's first African-American pilot.

Flight school was tough, but he was used to that. Once Jesse was on the USS Leyte, he made friends in his squadron, who recognized his skill as a pilot. One of them, his good friend and wingman, Lt. Tom Hudner, came from a wealthy family in Massachusetts. Hudner thought of Brown as family.

Jesse Brown was flying his Corsair fighter 17 miles behind enemy lines when ground fire hit his fuel line. He was too low to bail out and crashed in a small mountain clearing. What happened next showed true heroism: Tom Hudner crashed his own plane nearby to try to save his friend.

(Spoiler Alert) Unfortunately, Jesse's legs were pinned, and when radioing for a rescue helicopter, Tom told them to bring an ax.  They worked for 45 minutes trying to get him out of the wreckage without success. According to the stories, Jesse never complained or cried out. His last words to his friend were about his wife, "Just tell Daisy how much I love her." He was in and out of consciousness, and his breathing grew weaker as the light faded. The rescue helicopter had to take off, and Tom Hudner returned to the USS Leyte without his friend.