Assigned to the same 15-man squadron, the two first met in the fall of 1949 while changing into their flight gear in a locker room at the naval air station at Quonset Point, R.I. As Mr. Hudner recalled it, Ensign Brown did not extend his hand for fear of embarrassing him if he did not want to shake it. So Lieutenant Hudner walked across the room and extended his.

War broke out in Korea in June 1950, and that August the aircraft carrier on which their squadron, VF-32, was based, the U.S.S. Leyte, was deployed there. On Sept. 15, United Nations forces landed at Inchon, and when tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers crossed into Korea in October, the squadron’s mission suddenly changed from offense to defense — to slowing the Chinese advance and protecting the outnumbered United Nations forces on the ground.

Though technically junior to Lieutenant Hudner, Ensign Brown had logged more air time, and was therefore section leader; Lieutenant Hudner was his “tail end Charlie,” flying at his rear that day, Dec. 4.

On seeing that Ensign Brown was alive after his crash landing, Lieutenant Hudner tightened his harness, jettisoned all excess weight, and landed, wheels up, within 100 yards of the wreck in two feet of snow. He found Ensign Brown conscious and calm, bareheaded, his fingers frozen, unable to reach his fallen gloves and helmet.

“We’ve got to figure out how to get out of here,” Ensign Brown told him.

Lieutenant Hudner removed the woolen watch cap he had carried in his flight suit, placed it over Ensign Brown’s head and wrapped Ensign Brown’s hands in an extra scarf. Then he looked into the cockpit. The ensign’s right knee was crushed and jammed between the fuselage and the control panel.

With only one hand available — he needed the other to hold on to the plane — Lieutenant Hudner could not extricate him. He radioed the incoming helicopter to bring an ax and a fire extinguisher. The trapped man, he later recalled, “was very stoic.”