Reader Clyde McAvoy relates this story he found missing from most of the obituaries about baseball slugger Ted Williams.

Williams, who had been recalled to service as a Marine fighter pilot, was flying over North Korea as the wingman for John Glenn, who later became an astronaut and a United States senator, when Williams' plane was hit. He didn't know that his plane was in flames because the smoke had not reached the cockpit. Glenn and other flyers yelled over the radio for Williams to bail out but he couldn't hear them because his radio had been knocked out.

Williams looked down and, seeing only frozen snow, decided to try to make it back to a base in South Korea. He made it, but on landing the cockpit was engulfed in smoke. As soon as the plane slowed enough, he leaped from the cockpit and ran like it was a scratch single. He was about a hundred yards away when the plane blew up behind him.

Typically, Williams never told that story. But John Glenn showed up as a surprise guest at Ted's 70th birthday party and related what had happened.

--Richard Halloran

---