This Fourth of July, recall Abraham Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg.
Amidst the carnage of the Civil War, the 16th president rallied Americans to the “great task” of advancing freedom. It is a task, he said, required in memory of those who died for it.
Lincoln implored his fellow citizens to ensure that “from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”
Next month, Thomas Hudner turns 93. He has lived a long and good life. But in North Korea 66 years ago, Hudner and a friend, Jesse Brown, proved the immortal truth of Lincoln’s words.
It was December 1950, at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. A joint U.S. Marine and Army force was fighting a Chinese Army four times their size. Deep inside the North Korean territory, encircled and thus cut off from reinforcements and supplies, and blitzed by freezing weather, their prospects were bleak.
Yet angels watched over them from above.
In a relentless effort, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps flew strike missions to harass the Chinese cordon and protect American windows of escape.
Hudner and Brown were two of those pilots.
One of them was about to make history. One of them already had.
Jesse Brown was the latter.
After all, Brown was the first black naval aviator in U.S. Navy history. While segregation in the armed services had ended just two years earlier, the elite combat branches such as naval aviation remained dominated by whites. But Brown showed the stupidity of segregation by excelling in his training and establishing himself as a skilled and popular pilot.
As the Korean War began, Brown and Hudner were assigned to the same squadron and soon found themselves flying in combat.
Then came Dec. 4, 1950.
While flying an air support mission for Marines at Chosin, Brown’s aircraft was hit by enemy fire and he was forced to attempt a crash landing in an enemy controlled valley. It was a very rough landing. His Corsair fighter heavily damaged and on fire, Brown’s leg was caught in his cockpit. While his squadron circled above, Brown sat injured, freezing, and surrounded by Chinese forces.
Recognizing his shipmate was in desperate need of help, and that a rescue helicopter could not be expected anytime soon, Hudner decided to take action.
He crash-landed his own plane.
Moving to Brown’s side, Hudner poured snow onto his burning plane. But after strenuous efforts, Brown’s leg still wouldn’t budge. So returning to his own plane, Hudner called for the rescue helicopter to bring an ax and fire extinguisher. Hudner returned to a now rapidly-declining Brown and the two waited.
When the rescue chopper arrived, Hudner and the rescue pilot, Charles Ward, were able to extinguish the aircraft fire. But after 45 minutes of desperate effort and with darkness rapidly approaching, they remained unable to release Brown. He lost consciousness soon thereafter. Lacking any other options in the freezing weather, Hudner and Ward were forced to leave their dead comrade.
A day later, rescue infeasible, Navy pilots bombed Brown’s aircraft with napalm to prevent his body from falling into enemy hands.
3,000 Americans would fall at Chosin, and nearly 40,000 Americans in the war before its end.
But the story of Brown and Hudner is important.
Today, while Brown is long dead and Hudner long-lived, the “great task” espoused at Gettysburg remains no less true. As America faces the prospect of another conflict on the Korean peninsula, we would do well to remember those who stand the watch for an exceptional nation.
