20/10: Marine Pilots Who Gave Their Prime Years Twice

Ted Williams knew exactly how this story should start. Not with statistics. Not with championships. Not with the careful reverence of historians. He told Richard Ben Cramer precisely what he wanted:

You've seen this before.

In Episode 1, we showed you a burning cockpit. A pilot's hands fighting controls that no longer responded. Fire streaming behind the aircraft like a death shroud. And then—darkness. Ten seconds of nothing.

We made you a promise.

Now we keep it.

And now we understand: Every episode has been leading here.

The Eyes Came First

When Naval physicians examined Ted Williams during his 1942 induction physical, they found something extraordinary. His visual acuity tested at 20/15—significantly better than the 20/20 standard. Some accounts pushed the legend further, claiming 20/10: the ability to see at twenty feet what normal eyes required ten feet to perceive.

Whether 20/15 or 20/10, the implications were the same. Ted Williams could see things other men couldn't. The rotation of a baseball leaving a pitcher's hand. The seams spinning at ninety miles per hour. The infinitesimal movements that betrayed a curveball from a fastball.

He could pick up the ball earlier out of the pitcher's hand, perceive its rotation and trajectory with greater clarity, and ultimately have a fraction of a second longer to make his decision.

— Ben Bradlee Jr., The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams Book

That vision would one day save his life over Korea. But first, it made him immortal in Boston.

September 28, 1941. Fenway Park.

A 22-year-old Ted Williams stepped into the batter's box on the final day of the season. His average stood at .39955—which would round to .400 for the record books. His manager, Joe Cronin, offered to bench him. Protect the number. Let history remember him as the last .400 hitter without risking another at-bat.

Williams refused.

If I'm going to be a .400 hitter, I want more than my toenails on the line.

— Ted Williams, September 28, 1941

He played both games of the doubleheader. Went 6-for-8. Finished at .406.

The last man to hit .400. Eighty-three years and counting.

The Other Marine

A correction appears on screen:

This distinction matters. We're telling the truth, even when the legend is simpler.

To me the height of my life, the best thing I ever knew wasn't the Yankees, wasn't baseball or broadcasting. It was the Marine Corps.

— Jerry Coleman, 2012 statue unveiling MLB.com

The SBD Dauntless was a dive bomber. Pilots dove at near-vertical angles toward their targets, releasing bombs at 1,500 feet while pulling out under crushing G-forces. The rear gunner sat with his back to the direction of travel, defending against fighters he often couldn't see coming.

The gunner was the bravest man I knew. If I did something wrong, he died, too.

— Jerry Coleman

Coleman flew fifty-seven combat missions across the Solomon Islands and Philippines campaigns. He watched friends die. He came home.

By 1950, Jerry Coleman had transformed himself from a wartime pilot into a World Series MVP. The scrappy second baseman couldn't hit like Williams—nobody could—but he could turn a double play better than almost anyone alive. The Yankees won it all, and Coleman took home the trophy.

His prime years stretched ahead of him. Twenty-six years old. Championship ring on his finger. The future seemed limitless.

Then October 1951 arrived, and with it, the letter.

Marine pilots from World War II had never been fully discharged. They remained on "inactive reserve," subject to recall at any time. The Korean War was devouring pilots faster than the military could train new ones. Men were dying. Experienced aviators were worth more than gold.

Jerry Coleman was ordered to report for active duty.

He didn't fight it.

For an experienced flier, it takes only about two months to get back in the harness. Starting with a youngster who has never flown before, it would take about two years before he would be ready for combat duty. The mathematics were simple.

— Jerry Coleman

While some questioned why he should have to go again—he'd already served, already risked his life—Coleman understood. Every experienced pilot who flew meant one inexperienced kid who didn't have to.

Ted Williams Got the Same Letter

His response was different.

He was pissed off to no end. He tried everything to get out of it.

— Richard Ben Cramer, Esquire 1986

Williams contacted politicians. He explored legal options. He made his displeasure public. The press covered every angle—some calling him unpatriotic, others questioning why a man who'd already served should have to serve again.

But the mathematics were the same for Williams as they were for Coleman. The Marine Corps didn't care about batting averages. It needed pilots who could fly now.

April 30, 1952. "Ted Williams Day" at Fenway Park.

The Red Sox gave him a Cadillac. The Jimmy Fund—a charity for sick children that Williams supported—received a donation. The fans presented him with a Memory Book containing four hundred thousand signatures.

For his last at-bat before shipping out, Williams gave them a three-run homer.

Then he threw a party at his Boston hotel. The crowd was mostly cooks and firemen, bellhops and cabbies. Ted Williams never liked a smart crowd. Smart people asked too many questions about his family.

The next morning, he was gone.

Ted Williams stepped off the transport into a different world. Gone was the adulation of Fenway. Here, he was just another captain. He lived in a shed with a cot on inner-tube springs. The base was a sea of mud. The air was misty and cold.

He was assigned to VMF-311, the "Tomcats." His aircraft was no longer the prop-driven Corsair he'd trained on—it was the F9F-5 Panther, a first-generation jet fighter. The technology had leapt forward. He had to learn all over again.

Cut to: Jerry Coleman at K-6 Pyeongtaek. Different base, different squadron—VMA-323, the "Death Rattlers." He was flying the AU-1 Corsair, a ground-attack variant of the WWII fighter he knew well.

Both men were part of Marine Aircraft Group 33. Operationally connected, though not flying together directly.

He was a guy who was caught up in the times and thrown into it. But he did his duty and he didn't make a big deal out of it.

— John Glenn on Ted Williams Glenn Memoir

The Wingman Question — Corrected

Ted Williams flew as John Glenn's wingman. Not the other way around.

Glenn was a Major with 59 combat missions already completed. Williams was a Captain just arriving. Glenn was the senior pilot. Williams flew on his wing—the subordinate position, watching his leader's back.

Ted was a good pilot. Very methodical. He worked hard at it.

— John Glenn

Jerry Coleman: The 120

While Williams was learning the Panther, Coleman was already flying missions. Lots of them.

WWII: 57 missions in the Pacific, flying SBD Dauntless dive bombers with VMSB-341, the "Torrid Turtles." Korea: 63 missions flying AU-1 Corsairs with VMA-323, the "Death Rattlers."

120 total combat missions. More than any other baseball player in history.

But the numbers don't tell the story. The losses do.

Max Harper blew up in front of me in Korea. I can still see the face.

— Jerry Coleman

Major Max Harper was Coleman's tentmate. On a mission near the DMZ, Harper's plane was hit. Coleman watched it explode. There was nothing left to recover.

I had eight friends that died and I tear up every time I think about it.

— Jerry Coleman

Ted Williams: 39 Missions

Williams flew ground-attack missions—strafing runs against North Korean positions, close air support for troops on the ground. Low-level flying. Maximum danger.

His legendary eyesight helped him spot targets. His methodical approach kept him alive. But Korea was not kind to pilots.

On his third combat mission, everything changed.

His wingman, Larry Hawkins, saw it first:

I moved up on Williams on his starboard wing. He looked over at me. I pointed down at his aircraft. His bomb bay doors were down and there was smoke and fire around his tail pipe.

— Larry Hawkins, 2004 interview WWII Museum

Anti-aircraft fire had torn through the F9F's belly. The hydraulic system was gone. The landing gear wouldn't deploy. The dive brakes wouldn't deploy. The flaps wouldn't deploy. Fuel was streaming from ruptured tanks. Fire was spreading.

John Glenn, leading another flight nearby, heard the radio chatter and moved to assist:

Ted got hit on one of his first missions. He was streaming smoke and fire. I pulled up alongside and watched the fuel coming out and tried to get him back to a friendly field.

— John Glenn, John Glenn: A Memoir (1999)

The Decision

Williams had two choices: eject over enemy territory or try to make it to a friendly airfield. Ejection meant capture—or worse. The F9F's ejection seat was notoriously unreliable.

He chose to fly.

For more than twenty miles, Williams nursed the burning aircraft toward K-13 Suwon Air Base—a 30-foot ribbon of fire trailing behind him. The cockpit filled with smoke. The controls grew sluggish. He was losing systems one by one.

I said well if there's a goddam Christ, this is the time ol' Teddy Ballgame needs ya. If you're up there, now would be a good time to help me.

— Ted Williams (Richard Ben Cramer, Esquire, 1986)

The Landing

No landing gear. No flaps. No dive brakes. He was coming in at 200+ mph with a 30-foot ribbon of fire behind him.

For more than a mile I skidded, ripping and tearing up the runway, sparks flying. I pressed the brakes so hard I almost broke my ankle.

— Ted Williams, My Turn at Bat

The Escape

The canopy wouldn't open. He hit the emergency ejector. Scrambled from the cockpit. Ran across the wing. The aircraft exploded behind him.

He bellied in at 150 miles an hour or more, slid up the runway for two thousand feet, came to a stop, jumped out of the cockpit and off the wing, and ran until he was out of danger. Then he turned around and stood there watching the plane burn on the runway.

— John Glenn

The Witness

Standing on that runway was Jerry Coleman.

Keep Flying

Williams was back in the air the next day. There weren't enough pilots to rest anyone.

He was flying the next day, and day after. There weren't enough pilots to rest a man. Ted was sicker, weak and gaunt. Soon his ears were so bad he couldn't hear the radio.

— Richard Ben Cramer

He flew 37 more missions after the crash. Two more aircraft were hit. He developed pneumonia, then an inner ear infection that grounded him permanently.

Meanwhile, Coleman continued flying until he was also grounded—not by injury, but by trauma. After 63 missions and watching his tentmate die, the Marine Corps pulled him from combat and assigned him to intelligence work near the DMZ.

July 1953. Fenway Park.

Ted Williams came home. Thirty-four years old. Five seasons lost to military service. Fresh from a war zone. Gaunt, sick, his hearing damaged.

He walked into the Fenway batting cage for the first time in over a year.

George Sullivan, then a young sportswriter, watched what happened next:

It was one of the greatest things I ever saw. He was taking batting practice, and after about ten minutes, there was blood streaming down Ted's hands. He hadn't swung a bat in so long that his hands had gone soft. But he wouldn't stop. He kept swinging until his hands were raw, blood running down the bat handle.

— George Sullivan (Ben Bradlee Jr., The Kid)

Batting gloves weren't common in 1953. Williams swung with bare hands. The blisters formed. The blisters broke. The blood flowed.

He kept swinging.

Their paths diverged after Korea.

Ted Williams

Ted Williams returned to Fenway and continued doing what he'd always done—hit. Despite the lost years, despite the injuries, despite the pneumonia and the ear damage and the hands that bled in batting practice, he played until 1960.

• Career batting average: .344
• Home runs: 521
• The last .400 hitter
• First-ballot Hall of Fame, inducted 1966

Jerry Coleman

Jerry Coleman returned to the Yankees but found his skills degraded. The depth perception problems from Korea never fully resolved. The scrappy second baseman who could turn any double play couldn't judge fly balls the same way anymore. By 1957, his playing career was effectively over.

But Coleman discovered something else he was good at: talking.

He transitioned to broadcasting, eventually spending forty-two years as the voice of the San Diego Padres. "You can hang a star on that one!" became his signature call. The city loved him.

In 2005, he received the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame—the highest honor for a baseball broadcaster.

Two Marines. Two Hall of Famers. Different doors, same destination.

The heroes are the ones who didn't come back.

— Jerry Coleman

Final Years

Williams died July 5, 2002. He was buried with full military honors.

Coleman died January 5, 2014. At his funeral, F-18 Hornets flew the missing man formation over San Diego.

Both men spent their final years not talking about batting averages or World Series rings, but about the friends who didn't come home. The pilots who took off one morning and never landed. The empty chairs in the officers' club.

We return, one final time, to Ted Williams' mandate.

...and then it goes dark. Dark! For maybe 10 seconds... And then when it comes back, there's the ballpark. And the crowd. Roaring. And that's how it's supposed to begin.

— Ted Williams

But we realize now—as the series closes—that it's also how it ends.

From the burning cockpit over Korea. From the darkness of February 16, 1953. From the desperate slide down a steel runway with fire consuming everything behind him. Through all of it—

The ballpark waited.

The crowd waited.

The game that marked America's time waited for its heroes to come home.

The Question Answered

We opened this series with a question: What if they hadn't served?

Four episodes later, we understand the question was never about what America lost. It was about what these men gained—and what they carried.

• Yogi Berra pulled bodies from the surf at Utah Beach and spent the rest of his life approaching everything with quiet gratitude. "You saw a lot of horrors. I was fortunate."
• Jackie Robinson faced a court-martial for refusing to move to the back of an Army bus, and that same courage carried him through the abuse that awaited in Brooklyn. The fight before the fight forged the man who changed America.
• Warren Spahn took shrapnel at the Remagen Bridge and went on to win more games than any left-hander in history. The same stubbornness that made him refuse to leave the battlefield made him refuse to leave the mound.
• Ted Williams—the greatest hitter who ever lived—rode a burning jet into a Korean runway rather than give up the chance to swing a bat again. Then he came home with bleeding hands and showed the world that some gifts transcend even war.

Final Image

And that's how it's supposed to end.

Fact-Check Flags

Ted Williams Military Service

Jerry Coleman Military Service

Aircraft Specifications