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Contact Info
Home Town Little Rock, Pulaski County
Last Address Oakton, Fairfax County, Virginia. Burial: Lakeside Cemetery, Des Arc Prairie County, Arkansas
Date of Passing Aug 14, 2008
Location of Interment Lakeside Cemetery - Camden, Arkansas
Wall/Plot Coordinates Des Arc, Arkansas
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Last Known Activity:
Lieutenant Eldon Walter Brown, Jr., U.S. Navy
Elton Brown was an early jet pilot in the Navy during the Korean War. He is best known as the "other VF-51 pilot" from the USS Valley Forge on a strafing run at an airfield near Pyongyang when two Yak-9's took off; Lt.(jg) Plog blew off its wing with a short burst, scoring the Navy's first aerial victory in Korea. Ens. Eldon W. Brown, Jr., downed the second Yak a few minutes later. Flying Navy F9F-3's, these air-to-air contacts were also a first for American jet aircraft.
Ed Brown flew forty-two combat missions from the USS Valley Forge, squadron VF-51, between July and September 1950.
After leaving the Navy, Ed was an experimental test pilot with Lockheed. He flew the F-104 from 1957 until 1971 and was also the ZELL program test pilot. He later worked for the Federal Aviation Administration before he retired.
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Other Memories Around Christmas 1948, I went to Seattle to join squadron VF-211, flying F6F Hellcats. There, I met Commander Lanham, who later became our carrier group commander in Korea. I was flying F6Fs in Seattle when Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson cancelled our air group for funding reasons.
When they abolished our air group, I delivered an F6F to El Toro, California, and picked up orders for VF-51. I joined the squadron in San Diego in 1949, in time to see the squadron's last FJ-1 Fury fighters, but not to fly them. My first jet flight was in a TO-1 Shooting Star. It had an Air Force instrument panel, which measured air speed in miles per hour. We used knots in the Navy, so we would look at thant panel, see the numbers, and think we were flying really, really fast.
As for the VF-51, the squadron had formerly been known as VF-5A and had been the first Navy jet squadron on the west coast. The squadron reequipped with the F9F-3, which I discussed above. Some things didn't change. In those early days in jets, you always landed on the carrier with your canopy open.
Next, USS Valley Forge, the Navy's air war in Korea, 1950.
