Community Corner

How Far Would You Go to Keep a Promise to a Dying Friend?

With his return to North Korea's Chosin Reservoir, Tom Hudner, a retired Navy pilot and Medal of Honor recipient, hopes to deliver on a promise he made 60 years ago: He's going back for Ensign Jesse Brown.

It was a cold December day, the story goes, when Navy pilot Tom Hudner crash-landed his plane in North Korea in an attempt to save Ensign Jesse Brown, the Navy’s first black pilot who had been shot down by anti-aircraft fire.

Hudner’s heroic attempt would earn him a Medal of Honor, but it would not save his fellow pilot.

Brown was badly injured, and his plane a mangled wreck. Hudner struggled through the snow, which he used to pack the fuselage of his friend’s smoking plane. Unable to get solid footing, Hudner tried unsuccessfully to free Brown from the wreckage until darkness fell and a helicopter pilot forced him to evacuate as they could not fly at night. 

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They told Brown they’d be back. And now, Hudner has the chance to deliver on the promise he made on that bitterly cold day in 1950.

A Return to North Korea

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A month shy of his 89th birthday, Hudner will return to North Korea on a mission to locate the spot of Brown’s crash and bring his remains home to his widow, Daisy, and their daughter, Pam Knight, according to the Associated Press.

Hudner’s trip to North Korea was arranged by Chayon Kim, a South Korean-born US citizen who has built ties with the North Korean military and who brought Dennis Rodman to the country earlier this year, the AP reported.

In an interview with VOA News, Hudner acknowledged his flying into North Korea, a country with no diplomatic relations with the United States, could generate criticism.

“Yes, I’m concerned about that,” Hudner reportedly told Voice of America. “But I think there are enough people in the United States who are for the man [Jesse Brown] and for what he stands for and certainly wouldn’t want to stay in the way to find him because many years ago I gave up the idea of being able to recover him. I felt by this time they surely would have found the wreckage.”

Back in 1950, US forces dropped napalm on Brown’s crash site, in what Hudner has described as an attempt to make sure Korean forces did not recover the pilot’s body.

Today, the site is sealed and controlled by the North Korean military, according to the AP report, which notes the private mission comes during a time known as the “anti-American period" leading up to the 60th anniversary of the armistice. 

Another Chapter 

Whatever the outcome of his mission to the Chosin Reservoir, Hudner’s second attempt to rescue Ensign Jesse Brown will be yet another chapter in his remarkable story.  

A Concord resident, Hudner is the oldest living Medal of Honor recipient from the Korean War. Following his distinguished military career, he worked for many years on veterans services. He has been an “Honored Citizen” here in Concord, and even had a Navy ship named after him


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