BOSTON

A former U.S. Navy captain and pilot who received the Medal of

Honor for his heroics during the Korean War, and for whom a Bath-built destroyer was christened earlier this year, has died. Thomas Hudner Jr. was 93.

Massachusetts Department of Veterans Services Secretary Francisco Urena announced Hudner’s death on Monday. Hudner was the former commissioner of the department.

Hudner was awarded the Medal of Honor during the Korean War in 1950 after his plane came under enemy fire and he crash-landed in an unsuccessful effort to save the life of his wingman and friend, Ensign Jesse Brown, the Navy’s first black combat pilot.

“What Tom did is one of the greatest feats of bravery in any war,” said Adam Makos, who wrote a book about the aviator called “Devotion,” according to an Associated Press report published at the time of the future USS Hudner’s christening.

Brown’s gull-winged Corsair began leaking oil after being struck by ground fire, and he crash-landed on a snowy mountainside in enemy territory. Brown survived the hard landing but suffered injuries and was trapped inside the burning airplane, the AP reported. Circling overhead, Hudner saw that Brown was unable to escape. So Hudner did a wheels-up belly landing in his own plane and ran to his friend’s aid.

However, neither Hudner nor the crew of a rescue helicopter could free Brown.

It is rare that a ship’s namesake is able to attend a christening like the one Hudner attended at Bath Iron Works in April.

“Thomas Hudner demonstrated the extraordinary sacrifice and selfless devotion that are the foundations of one of the American military’s most sacred traditions — leave no man behind,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said at the time.

The Thomas Hudner is the 66th Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer and the 36th to be built by BIW. It is the second to be built at BIW after the program was restarted several years ago.

The nearly 510-foot-long vessel will have a complement of 323 sailors.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS contributed to this report.