Tom Hudner was born in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1924. Upon his graduation from the Phillips Academy at Andover in 1943, Tom received his appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. He would graduate in June of 1946. After almost two years in the fleet, Tom was accepted into flight training at Pensacola, Florida. After receiving his wings of gold, he was sent to an attack squadron in Rhode Island, but after just a few weeks the squadron was decommissioned.
During the decommissioning process two staff officers came to Tom to talk about his next assignment.
"Well, we have a slot for you in VF-32," one of them said. "What do you think about that?"
The information meant nothing to him. "VF-32? What's that?"
"Say, isn't that the squadron Jesse Brown's in?" asked another officer.
This didn't clear things up at all. Tom had never heard of Jesse Brown and none of the three officers in the room bothered to tell him who he was, either.
A few days later, after reporting in and getting the grand tour, his new flight leader asked Tom if he would have a problem flying as Jesse Brown's wingman. Dick Cevoli went on to explain that Brown was the first African-American naval aviator. Jesse had earned his wings at Pensacola the year before Tom received his. Brown was not only the first, he was the only black aviator on active duty in the US Navy.
Though neither knew it yet, both Tom and Jesse were destined to have their lives inextricably linked together by events on a frozen battlefield half a world away.
Tom Hudner was a lieutenant (junior grade) and Jesse Brown was an ensign, but Jesse had more flying experience, so Tom became Jesse's wingman. As the two flew together they began to develop a mutual respect and rapport.
Their first flight together, however, gave Tom, a by-the-book sailor, some cause for concern. Jesse led them over Quonset Point, Rhode Island, flat-hatting, as it was called, which left Tom uncomfortable. As it turned out, Jesse was making a flight over his home to say "hi" to his wife and daughter. When Tom found out the purpose of the flight he thought, "Why didn't he just say so?"
The following spring and summer, Fighting 32 undertook a Mediterranean cruise aboard carrier USS Leyte (CV-32). But the cruise would be cut short when the North Koreans launched their invasion of South Korea that summer of 1950.
By December, both Leyte and VF-32 were off the coast of the Korean peninsula. The Chinese had entered the war, and were threatening to encircle the 1st Marine Division at the Chosin Reservoir. Jesse, Tom and their VF-32 squadron mates flew close air support missions to assist the Marines in their fight to break out of the Chinese trap.
On December 4, Dick Cevoli was leading his flight over the battlefield when his wingman called over the radio, "Jesse, something's wrong -- looks like you're bleeding fuel."
This is what alerted Tom Hudner that Jesse Brown had a problem. They were flying in a loose formation with a quarter-mile of separation. With one glance Tom saw that Jesse was starting to lose altitude.
A glance at his instrument panel told Jesse that his engine temperature was rising into the red. Starved of oil, the Pratt & Whitney of his F4U Corsair was burning itself up. In just three minutes, his engine seized up and he lost power so fast he had no chance to run for the coast. By now he was too low to bail-out, so he would have to ditch his plane, and he would have to do it behind enemy lines.
The Corsair had an Achilles heel in that its oil cooler was on the underneath side of the fuselage and very vulnerable to ground fire. The Chinese developed the habit of lying on their backs and firing at the Corsairs as they flew over. It was long odds, but if they could hit the oil cooler with a single 30-caliber bullet the F4U would suffer the problems that Jesse's was now experiencing.
As Tom and Jesse looked down, all they saw were jagged mountains covered with forests. Finally, Jesse saw a small, sloped clearing. With his canopy open and his tailhook down, Ensign Brown dropped the Corsair into the snow. After skidding on the rocky ground it soon came to rest. The impact with the ground had bent the fuselage about 30 degrees right in front of the cockpit.
As Tom circled overhead he saw Jesse wave his arms to let him know that he was okay. But Jesse wasn't climbing out of the aircraft. With each circuit over the site, Tom saw that Jesse was still in the cockpit of the Corsair. Why wasn't he getting out? Now Tom saw smoke rising from the engine. The F4U was on fire! Still Jesse did not get out. Then it dawned on Tom, Jesse Brown was trapped.
"OK, I'm going down after him," Tom radioed.
A few days before this flight, the skipper of VF-32 had warned his men against trying to land to save a downed pilot. Any pilot taking such a risk could face a court martial. A year before, Tom would have had a hard time going against such an order, but today, with his friend trapped in a burning aircraft, he would risk anything to save him.
Tom made one pass to try and judge how best to make the landing. Coming around again he made a classic flaps-and-hook down approach, but with his wheels up. Whoomp! The Corsair hit with such force that Tom would experience back pains for years to come.
Tom climbed out of his cockpit and ran a hundred yards or so over to Jesse's F4U. He found his friend in bad shape. Jesse had taken his gloves off to try and unstrap himself, but he had been too weak from injury to succeed, and now his hands were already frostbitten. As Tom wrapped his scarf around Jesse's hands he heard his friend say "I can't get out, Tom. I'm caught." Tom would never forget how calm and soothing Jesse sounded.
Tom looked into the cockpit to see where his friend was stuck, he could see that his knee had been crushed between the instrument panel and the side of the cockpit when the impact of the crash landing had bent the fuselage. Tom could also see that he would not be able to pull Jesse out of the cockpit by himself. He would have to wait for the rescue helicopter. He ran back to his plane to radio his flight leader, asking him to tell the rescue chopper to bring an axe.
When Charlie Ward learned that a second Corsair had gone down north of Chosin he dropped off his crewman so he would have room to bring back two pilots. After a twenty minute delay Ward, and his rescue helicopter, were on the way.
When he arrived at the mountain where the two F4Us had crash landed he recognized Tom Hudner and Jesse Brown, two pilots he had come to know aboard USS Leyte during the voyage to Korea. Charlie had brought a small fire extinguisher, but it was used up in seconds on the smoke in Jesse's cockpit without any visible effect. Tom and Charlie now took turns with the axe, swinging it against the fuselage.
The ax didn't even make a dent, but he two rescuers did not give up. After swinging the ax for awhile they tried to pull Jesse out, but he would not budge, so they went back to swinging the axe. Again they tried to pull him out. Jesse looked over at Tom. "Just tell Daisy how much I love her."
Jesse's shoulders slumped heavily as he closed his eyes and his breathing became shallow. Tom lowered his head, sensing the finality settling in.
But Tom wasn't ready to give up. After getting up on top of the fuselage, and straddling the cockpit with his feet on the canopy rails, he stood above his friend and tried to pull him out. But Jesse remained hopelessly trapped.
Charlie now noticed that the sun was getting lower in the sky. Without night-flying instruments he would not be able to fly the helicopter after dark. He also knew that he and Tom would not survive the night and its freezing temperatures -- 35 degrees below zero Fahrenheit -- because the helicopter did not carry blankets or warm clothing. He walked Tom away from the Corsair and told him all of this.
"Jesse ain't moving," said Charlie. "I don't want to admit it, but I think he's gone."
Tom shook his head, he didn't want to believe his friend was dead.
"We gotta go," Charlie said. "I don't have instruments for night flying." Looking Tom in the eye, he asked, "You coming or staying?
Tom went back to Jesse. If his friend had been moving or even breathing, it would have made his decision easy. He would have stayed.
"Decide quickly," Ward said. "But remember -- you stay here, you freeze to death."
Tom called up to the cockpit, "Jesse, we don't have the right tools to free you. We're going to go and get some equipment. Don't worry -- we'll be back for you!"
He couldn't tell if Jesse comprehended or even heard. His friend had not even stirred. Reluctantly he went with Charlie to the helicopter and climbed aboard. As they lifted off they left behind one of aviation's pioneers. More than that, they left behind a friend.
Tom returned to his ship a few days later and was called to the bridge to report the incident to Leyte's captain. When he finished the captain said he wanted to send a helicopter back to retrieve the body.
"Captain, that's not the Jesse we knew. The Jesse we knew is gone." In protesting, Tom explained that it was just too dangerous to send another rescue crew, what with the possibility of enemy troops in the area, the ruggedness of the terrain, and the altitude of the crash site. A flight of Corsairs was sent instead, and they incinerated Jesse and his Corsair with napalm to prevent the Chinese from getting any useful intelligence from the wreck.
Instead of facing a court martial, on Friday, April 13, 1951, while his family and Jesse's wife sat in the Rose Garden at the White House, Tom was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Harry S. Truman. His loyalty to his friend had transcended color as he risked his life to rescue Jesse, upholding the highest traditions of the United States Navy and showing America the meaning of devotion.
After the ceremony, Jesse's wife Daisy said to Tom, "I'm just so grateful that you tried to save him. Jesse was lucky to have a friend like you."
Ensign Jesse Brown had served honorably and died honorably. As the first, and at the time only, black aviator in the US Navy, he had broken the color barrier at a time when America had yet to accept all of its sons and daughters as equals. In 1973, the Navy commissioned a frigate bearing Jesse's name.
In 2013, long after retiring with the rank of Captain, Tom returned to North Korea to begin a search for Jesse's remains in order to bring them home to America. Daisy hoped that someday her husband's remains would be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
Daisy would pass away in 2014, at age eighty-six. "In her last days," wrote Adam Makos, "when she looked around her, Daisy came to one final conclusion: The World needs Jesse Brown and Tom Hudner more than ever."
On November 13, 2017, Tom Hudner passed away at the age of ninety-three. USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116), an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, is expected to be commissioned by the U.S. Navy in late 2018/
As we consider Tom's devotion to his friend Jesse, let us also recall the devotion of our Savior. I attended a baptism recently, and I stood in the circle as the candidate was confirmed a member of the church. In the blessing the father said to the little girl that even if she was the only one who needed the Savior to go to Gethsemane and to Golgotha, the He would still have gone, because He loved her that much. That is also how much He loves each of us, and how much He loves all of God's children. We should never forget this simple truth.
Sources:
John R. Bruning, Crimson Sky: The Air Battle for Korea (Brassey's: Dulles, Virginia, 1999)
Makos, Adam. (2015) Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice. New York: Random House.
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