Black History Month: Jesse LeRoy Brown

A movie was filmed in 2022 called ‘Devotion’. The previews show a black pilot who was friends with a white pilot flying combat missions in Corsairs. Knowing a bit of history, I knew that had to be Korea since we didn’t permit black pilots on carriers during World War 2. The real question was whether the movie would be accurate or not. Yup, it is.

Tangent: The filmmaker wanted to make things as real as possible, so he hired the guy who choreographed the air fight scenes from Top Gun: Maverick to do likewise with this film–and wherever possible, actual planes from the period were used–Corsairs, Bearcats and even a MiG-15!

Brown’s important because he’s a first. He’s the first black man to complete the Navy’s basic flight training program.

He was always interested in flying from the time he was a child. The problem with tha was that to be a pilot, even then, you had to have a good education. In Mississippi circa 1935-40, that wasn’t happening for a black man in a small town (to be fair, that’s still true in a lot of places in 2024). To help his dream, his family moved him in with his aunt in Hattiesburg where he’d get a better education. It worked.

Here’s the next thing, though–what we do can influence others we know nothing about. Brown was advised to go to a local black college. He’d be able to use that to get a solid job and not dropout because he couldn’t afford to attend. Brown decided otherwise–he intended to go to Ohio State University. This wasn’t because Ohio State offered a great education. There was a different reason a black man in 1944 would put OSU at the top of his list. You know it…give it a second.

Jesse Owens. Brown wanted to go there because Owens was great, had gone there, and Brown wanted to be great as well. His principal tried to dissuade him, saying that fewer than a dozen blacks graduated from OSU in a year. Brown went anyways and became an architectural engineering major–because OSU refused to give him admission to the Aviation program because he was black (racism wasn’t just an issue in the South…it exists everywhere–and to be fair, it’s not just aimed at blacks and it isn’t always a viewpoint held only by whites).

So how could he work this out? There HAD to be a way.

There was: the US Navy Aviation Cadet Training Program. It was a program that wasn’t available at HBCUs and only at a limited number of other colleges. So Brown joined the USN Reserve, applied for the NROTC program, and with the NROTC stipend, he was able to focus on school to boost his GPA, aiming for that aviation program. …probably ought to mention that in 1946, that only 0.3% of all NROTC students were black; less shocking, none of them were in southern states that were part of the Confederacy.

Graduating, he was commissioned and sent on for flight training. What interested me here was that Brown noted the other pilot candidates treated him with respect and as an equal–the only hostility he received was from the janitors and cooks, men who were also black and tried to belittle Brown for thinking he was good enough to be a pilot.

–Isn’t that a big part of life? You have a dream, you’re successful–and there are ALWAYS people who want to tear you down rather than respect what you are doing, people who would rather complain about their circumstances than take action.

Of course, you can’t stay in the Midwest forever and eventually to finish training, he was sent to Pensacola NAS. It was in Florida where he had his first run-in with other officers/instructors who resented having to teach a black man to fly.

Commissioned as an aviator, racism directed at him decreased across the board. Brown’s letters home said he was treated to exacting standards–and so were all the other pilots. Brown’s capabilities are also shown as he was promoted to section leader–with no complaints about that from other pilots. In fact, several noted that Brown was a skilled pilot in their own personal communications.

In October, 1950, Brown’s carrier, the USS Leyte was transferred from the Mediterranean to Task Force 77 off the coast of Korea to provide air support for ground forces trying to check the communist advance across the peninsula. For two months, Brown led missions, quite a few in support of the Marines at the Chosin Reservoir–a battle that gets its own room at the Marine Corps’ own museum. And then on December 4, 1950, Brown was with other pilots looking for targets when his plane was hit by groundfire and went down. His plane caught fire with Brown trapped inside. His wingman intentionally crashed his aircraft to try and save him (Thomas Hudner was awarded the Medal of Honor for this) but he couldn’t, even when a rescue helicopter arrived–the fire was too great for an extinguisher and Brown bled to death before a more extreme rescue attempt was made (amputating his leg with an ax).

The next day, Navy planes returned to the site and bombed it with napalm to make sure Brown’s body couldn’t be captured and desecrated by the North Koreans. They recited the Lord’s Prayer as they did so. Brown was the first black officer killed in the Korean War. In Distinguished African-Americans in Aviation and Space Science, the authors quote the USS Leyte’s ship newspaper’s memorialization: ”a Christian soldier, a gentleman, a shipmate, and friend … His courage and faith … shone like a beacon for all to see.”

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A couple of other tidbits. Brown wasn’t the first African-American pilot. That was actually Oscar Holmes…but that’s because the US Navy didn’t realize Holmes was black. Just as important, Brown inspired a guy named Frank Petersen to become a pilot–the first black Marine Corps pilot who then became the first black USMC General.

Who knows who else Brown inspired–or was inspired by those who admired Brown…or even because of the movie about him? What we do makes a difference–you, me, Brown. Everyone.