1/48 USN F4U-4 Corsair “Battle of Jangjin Reservoir” Academy 12353

American piston-engined carrier-based fighter-bomber with characteristic bent wing design. Built in large numbers for the US Navy and Marines, seeing service in WWII and, the subject of this Academy kit, the Korean War.

Markings provided in the kit recall two US Navy Corsairs which crash-landed behind enemy lines.

The Jangjin Reservoir is in a mountainous region in North Korea where many Americans were lost in battle. “White 211”, flown by Ensign Jesse L Brown, the Navy’s first black pilot (and the first killed in the war), came down after being hit by hostile fire. Lt (junior grade) Thomas Hudner Jr crash-landed his Corsair “White 205” nearby to rescue Ens Brown but he died at the scene. Hudner made it out and was awarded the Medal of Honor in April 1951. Sixty years after the end of the Korean War, aged 88, Hudner returned to North Korea in July 2013 in a second attempt to recover Ens Brown’s remains. Sadly the mission had to be abandoned due to harsh weather conditions. Hudner died in 2017 aged 93. Jesse Brown posthumously received the Distinguished Flying Cross. Their story is portrayed in the 2022 biopic Devotion.

Choice of four US Navy and US Marine Corps markings including aircraft of ENS Jesse Brown and LTJG Tom Hudner, VF-32, USS Leyte, December 4th 1950.