The Medal of Honor Pilot Who Crashed His Plane to Save His Wingman
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, during the Korean War, Navy pilot Thomas Hudner made a decision that defied orders and nearly cost him his life. When his wingman, Jesse L. Brown, the Navy’s first Black aviator, was shot down behind enemy lines near the Chosin Reservoir, Hudner deliberately crash-landed his own aircraft in the snow to try to save him. Trapped and badly injured, Brown could not be freed before darkness and freezing temperatures forced rescuers to withdraw. Told by the History Guy, this is the story of friendship, sacrifice, and an extraordinary act of selfless courage that earned Hudner the Medal of Honor and secured Brown’s place in American history.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:14.3 | And we continue with our American stories. |
| 0:18.1 | Up next, a story that comes to us from a man who's simply known as the History Guy. |
| 0:22.6 | His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages all over YouTube. |
| 0:28.6 | The History Guy is also heard here at Our American Stories. |
| 0:32.6 | It might seem like an April Fool's joke. The Navy commissioned its newest destroyer on April 1, 2017, |
| 0:40.3 | and named it after a man who deliberately crash-landed |
| 0:43.5 | a perfectly good aircraft behind enemy lines. |
| 0:48.1 | Here's the history guy with the story. |
| 1:07.0 | Yeah. The beginning of October 1950, United Nations troops were moving deep into North Korea, and it seemed that the Korean War would be over soon. |
| 1:16.3 | UN commanders felt that there was a good chance that the Koreas would be reunited by the end of the year. But everything changed on October 19th when the Chinese decided to enter the war. The UN forces were caught off guard by the Chinese offensive, |
| 1:22.5 | and by November some 30,000 United Nations troops, U.S. Marines and soldiers, as well as troops from the United Kingdom in South Korea, |
| 1:30.0 | were surrounded by 120,000 Chinese troops near a man-made lake called the Chosen Reservoir. |
| 1:37.9 | Among those participating in the battle were flyers from the U.S. Navy that were flying close support missions from nearby aircraft carriers. |
| 1:45.0 | The Vought F4U4 Coursairs of Task Force 77 flew mission after mission in support of the outnumbered UN troops. |
| 1:53.0 | Among the pilots of Task Force 77 were instant Jesse L. Brown and Lieutenant Junior Grade Thomas J. Hudner Jr. They were wingmen and friends, despite |
| 2:03.5 | coming from very different backgrounds. Jesse Leroy Brown was born October 13, 1926, in Hattiesburg, |
| 2:13.6 | Mississippi. One of six children of an impoverished family who lived in a home that |
| 2:17.7 | had neither central heating nor indoor plumbing, Brown was of African American, Chickasaw, |
| 2:22.8 | and Choctaw heritage. He was an unlikely candidate to become a U.S. naval aviator, evidenced |
| 2:27.8 | by the fact that prior to Brown, no African American, never done so. Thomas J. Hudner Jr. came from the other side of the tracks, |
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