Here is an article that provides an update on the efforts by Thomas Hudner to repatriate Jesse Brown’s body from North Korea and have a US Navy ship named after him:
Thomas Hudner
Earlier this year, 91-year-old Thomas Hudner made a request to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus in a letter imbued with a sense of finality.
“It pains me to ask for any favor, but there is one last cause to which I must attend,” wrote Hudner, a Korean War Navy aviator, Medal of Honor recipient and namesake of a guided-missile destroyer to be commissioned in 2018.
Hudner requested a ship be named after fellow flyer Jesse Brown, the Navy’s first African-American aviator and among the first blacks to fly in the newly integrated armed forces. Brown crashed and died on a North Korea mountainside in 1950 during the infamous Battle of Chosin Reservoir.
Hudner was Brown’s wingman — the aviator who flies slightly behind to protect the lead pilot’s flank. Hudner spent the fleeting minutes after Brown’s crash trying to unpin him from his mangled Corsair fighter that ultimately was his deathtrap. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but I highly recommend reading the story about Hudner and Jesse Brown at the below link:
Hudner actually traveled to North Korea back in 2013 to help locate Jesse Brown’s remains, but was turned away from the search due to bad weather. He is now focusing his energy on getting a new US Navy ship named after his deceased friend.
Park Jong-wang (R), director of veterans policy at South Korea’s Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, poses with Thomas J. Hudner (C) at the latter’s home in Massachusetts on Dec. 14, 2015 (local time), after conferring South Korea’s Taegeuk medal of honor, the top military decoration. Hudner, who fought in the Korean War (1950-53) as a pilot, went to North Korea in 2013 to look for the remains of Jesse Brown, his wingman. (Photo provided by South Korea’s Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs) (Yonhap)
