Ensign Jesse L. Brown, Medal of Honor recipient

Ensign Jesse L. Brown was born in Hattiesburg, Miss., into a  farming family. 

His father was a veteran of War World I and a share-cropper. Brown worked on the farm and worked at other jobs to help supplement the family income. He was also a good student in school and desired to attend college and high school. He and his family were Christians and active church members.

Brown saved his money, and with the financial assistance of friends and employers where he worked, he was able to attend Ohio State University for two years.

While at OSU the Korean War began in June 1950, and a Navy on-campus poster indicated a need for Navy aviators. Brown applied and was accepted for flight training. Before going to Rhode Island to flight school, he married his sweetheart. Daisy, and they moved to Quonset Point, Rhode Island.

Upon completing Navy flight school, Brown received his wings and was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Navy, the Navy’s first African-American fighter pilot. He and his fighter pilot friends were assigned to a Corsair squadron aboard the aircraft carrier USS Leyte, which soon departed to the coastal waters off Korea. His squadron’s mission was to give close ground support to the First Marine Division and other American ground forces that were engaged in ground combat with the North Koreans in the mountains near the Chosin Resevoir.

En route to Korea, Brown also assisted the chaplain in preparing for chapel services.

Brown was on a combat mission on Dec. 4, 1950, when his plane was damaged by ground fire forcing him to crash-land his plane in the mountains of North Korea. The ground was snow-covered, and the temperatures were near zero.

In the crash that buckled Jesse’s plane, he was pinned by the cockpit panel and was unable to extract himself from the cockpit. His close friend, Tom Hudner, was also on that same mission flying his Corsair, and knew Brown was in trouble. Hudner purposely crash-landed his place near Brown and began efforts to help release Brown, but he could not lift the cockpit equipment off his friend. Hudner called in a rescue helicopter for help, and both Hudner and the helicopter pilot tried to free Brown but could not. Brown’s life was ebbing away, and his last words to Hudner were, “Tell Daisy that I love her.” Communist forces were fast closing in, and Hudner and the chopper pilot had to leave their friend’s lifeless body in the plane. Hudner made a promise to return to his friend, but Brown’s body was never recovered. Brown was the Navy’s first African-American officer to die in combat.

Hudner was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic and extraordinary efforts to help rescue his friend in that frozen North Korean battle-zone.

The award was presented by President Harry S. Truman. This writer was touched deeply by this story, for he was also in Korea as a young Marine during that war.

Peace!

Note: Two books were helpful in preparing this sketch: “On Desperate Ground” by Hampton Sides and “Devotion: A Higher Call” by Adam Makos.