Somehow, the two of them lived.  Ken got hit 7 times and totaled 3 aircraft--but landed them.  I don't know how many times Pete got hit.  The Corsair was notorious for having to fly way too low when loaded up with bombs.  They were so heavy that they couldn't get above the ground fire.  So they took the flights through valleys where there weren't any ground people firing, but the N. Koreans had hung wire from mountain top to mountain top to break the back of the plane if you hit a wire.  Ken hit a wire.  Bent the plane in two but somehow flew it in and got it down.

When they retired the Corsair and went to jets, F-9s, it was better even though you couldn't carry the load that the Corsair had been capable of.  After their tours were over, they both came home.  Ken was an LSO, (the guy who had the paddles on the carrier deck and waved pilots aboard).  He went to the training command teaching cadets how to land on a carrier.  And Pete joined the Blue Angels.  And killed himself.  He made a mistake in the air.

The F9, which they were flying in Korea rotated about the fuselage when you did a roll.  But the plane the Blues were flying rotated around the tip of the wing.  I'm sure Pete thought he was back in Korea, did a roll just above the ground--which would have been fine in an F9--and as aviators say, "Bought the farm."  Not enough clearance to rotate that close to the ground around the wing tip.

I can't tell you how many Marine and Navy pilots died.  A bunch.  Such a waste.

They asked Ken to take Pete's place in the Blue's, but he said "No."  Years later, after we were married I asked him why he turned it down.  "I didn't want to travel with a circus and live out of a suitcase.  I wanted to do something useful.  Flying formation isn't useful."

That sums up Ken's personality.