Heroes of the Korean War: Ensign Jesse L. Brown

[TomSea]

Excerpts:

Heroes of the Korean War: Ensign Jesse L. Brown

Basic Information

    Name: Jesse L. Brown
    Born: Hattiesburg, Mississippi
    Battlefield: Battle of the Chosin Reservoir
    Date: December 4, 1950



The Early Life of Jesse Brown

The US military has seen many African-American war heroes over the years that have in recent times finally been appreciated by the American public at large and even dramatized by Hollywood in movies such as Glory and the Tuskegee Airmen. However, the Korean War had its own African-American war heroes just like other American conflicts, but similar to most heroes from this war, they have been largely ignored. One of these heroes is US Navy Ensign Jesse Leroy Brown.

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Following His Dream

Brown did well in college where he studied engineering and in 1946 enlisted into the US Navy ROTC program in order to pursue his childhood ambition of being a pilot. At this time there had never been a black US Navy pilot and there were still plenty of people in the Navy interested in keeping it that way. Brown’s own ROTC instructor at Ohio State used racial slurs against him and discouraged him from trying to be a pilot.

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The Last Fight of Jesse Brown

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The area around the Chosun Reservoir is highly mountainous and thus Brown was going to be in for a hard landing and the condition of his airplane was going to make it only worse. Brown crash landed on the snowy slopes of steep-mountain at about 5,300 feet in elevation. His plane broke apart on impact and the his fellow Corsair pilots initially thought he had to have died in the crash. However, that was not the case as incredibly the hatch of what was left of his plane slowly opened and Brown started waving at the other pilots to send him help. Brown didn’t exit his airplane so this caused the other pilots to realize he must be either pinned in the wreckage or too injured to get out.

Read more at: https://www.rokdrop.net/2016/01/heroes-of-the-korean-war-ensign-jesse-l-brown/

Another real exciting story.