Hometown: Hattiesburg, MS
Branch: U.S. Navy
Unit: Fighter Squadron 32, USS Leyte (CV-32), Fast Carrier Task Force 77
Military Honors: Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal, Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: December 4, 1950 - KIA near the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea
Age: 24 
Conflict: Korean War, 1950-1953

Original story from Naval History and Heritage Command

Jesse Leroy Brown was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, into a sharecropper family. He was a school athlete who excelled at math and dreamed of being a pilot from the time he was a young boy. When he left Mississippi to attend Ohio State University in 1944, his high school principal wrote to him, “As the first of our graduates to enter a predominately white university, you are our hero.” Even though Brown had to work the midnight shift loading boxcars for the Pennsylvania Railroad to earn money for his education, he was still able to maintain a high GPA.

Brown joined the Naval Reserve to help pay for college. After he saw a poster recruiting students for a new naval aviation program, he was discouraged from applying and was told he would never make it to the cockpit of a Navy aircraft. He persisted and was finally permitted to take the qualification exams. He wrote to a childhood friend that he had made it through five hours of written tests, followed by oral tests and a rigorous physical exam—making it through each round of eliminations with flying colors. Despite his excellent performance and acceptance into the program, Brown told his friend, “I’m not sure the Navy really wants me.”

He received orders to Selective Flight Training in Glenview, Illinois, in March 1947, followed by additional training at Naval Air Station Ottumwa (Iowa) and Naval Air Station Pensacola. On October 21, 1948, at the age of 22, Brown became the first black man to complete Navy flight training.* A public information officer released a photograph and story the next day with the headline, “First Negro Naval Aviator.” The story was picked up by the Associated Press and Brown’s picture appeared in Life magazine.

Brown, now a section leader, flew a Vought F4U-4 Corsair and was assigned to fighter squadron VF-32 aboard USS Wright (CVL-49). His squadron transferred to USS Leyte (CV-32) in October 1950 as part of Fast Carrier Task Force 77, on its way to Korea to assist United Nations forces.

On December 4, 1950, on the way to Chosin Reservoir with his squadron, Brown announced over the radio, “I think I may have been hit. I’ve lost my oil pressure.” He crash-landed his Corsair on the side of a mountain in the snow.

Circling over the crash site in his own Corsair, Brown’s wingman, Lieutenant (j.g.) Thomas J. Hudner Jr. realized something was wrong when Brown didn’t emerge from the cockpit of the wrecked aircraft. Hudner made the decision to crash-land next to Brown’s wrecked Corsair, risking court-martial, capture by the Chinese, and his own life by ignoring his commanding officer’s directive, “If a plane goes down, that’s one down. We don’t need Hollywood stuff.”

Hudner found Brown in pain, bleeding, and trapped in his aircraft by a damaged instrument panel, with no way to rescue him. A Sikorsky helicopter piloted by Marine First Lieutenant Charlie Ward arrived in response to Hudner’s radio distress call, but there was nothing that could be done to extricate Brown from the Corsair. Brown asked Hudner to tell his wife, Daisy, how much he loved her before he died in his cockpit. As daylight dwindled and the possibility of capture grew increasingly imminent, Hudner and Ward were reluctantly forced to leave Brown’s body behind. 

Unable to safely recover his body, Brown’s shipmates instead decided to honor him with a “warrior’s funeral.” On December 7, 1950, seven aircraft loaded with napalm and piloted by Ensign Brown’s friends made several low passes over his downed Corsair. The top of Brown’s head was still visible with snow on his hair when they dropped the napalm on his plane while reciting The Lord’s Prayer.

Ensign Jesse Brown would posthumously receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and the Purple Heart. Hudner nervously anticipated a court-martial for defying a direct order and willful destruction of a Navy aircraft. Instead, he would receive the Medal of Honor for “exceptionally valiant action and selfless devotion to a shipmate.” When USS Jesse L. Brown (DE-1089) was launched in 1973, Hudner was in attendance, standing next to Brown’s widow. In 2017, USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116) was christened in Hudner’s honor.

Jesse Brown’s story is retold in the 1998 book The Flight of Jesse Leroy Brown, by Theodore Taylor, and in the 2015 book Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice, by Adam Makos. In 2022, Sony Pictures released the movie Devotion, inspired by Jesse Brown’s story.

*Editor’s Note: Many sources cite Jesse L. Brown as the “first African-American Naval Aviator,” or “first black Navy pilot.” Some historians dispute this claim, pointing out that Oscar W. Holmes preceded Brown, earning the designation of Naval Aviator in 1943 (Brown’s came in 1948). Because of his civilian experience as a pilot, when Holmes joined the Navy he was able to bypass much of the training required of Brown.

It is not disputed that Ens. Jesse Brown was the first black Naval Aviator to complete U.S. Navy flight training, the first black Naval Aviator in combat, and to be killed in combat.

To be sure, both men should be regarded as trailblazers in the integration of the United States Armed Services.

Sources
Details submitted by the EAA Aviation Museum
Card photo: U.S. Navy, circa 1950. (USN 1146845)
Naval History and Heritage Command: Jesse L. Brown
Military.com: 'We'll be back for you'
Navy Times—Jesse L. Brown: the son of a sharecropper who became a Navy hero
Military Times—Hall of Valor Project: Jessie LeRoy Brown
History.net—Jesse L. Brown: The U.S. Navy’s First Black Aviator
Naval History and Heritage Command: Jesse L. Brown (DE-1089)
Naval History and Heritage Command—Oscar Holmes: A Place in Naval