Neil Armstrong parachute was blown back over land. A jeep driven by a roommate from flight school picked him up; it is unknown what happened to the wreckage of his aircraft, F9F-2 BuNo "125122". In all, Armstrong flew 78 missions over Korea for a total of 121 hours in the air, a third of them in January 1952, with the final mission on March 5, 1952. Of 492 U.S. Navy personnel killed in the Korean War, 27 of them were from the "Essex" on this war cruise. Armstrong received the Air Medal for 20 combat missions, two gold stars for the next
Neil Williams (pilot) Neil Williams (pilot) Neil Williams (1934 – 1977) was a Canadian aerobatics pilot. Williams was born in 1934 in Canada and educated in Wales, where he first learned to fly in 1951. After completing an engineering apprenticeship he joined the Royal Air Force (RAF), and was trained as a pilot in Canada, winning the course trophy and gaining his wings. He served in Cyprus as a Canberra photo-reconnaissance pilot, and returned to the United Kingdom in 1961, where he joined an experimental squadron. In 1962 he graduated from the Empire Test Pilots' School (ETPS), and also started competitive aerobatic flying.