CONCORD, Mass. — A Medal of Honor recipient has celebrated his 92nd birthday with the help of 50 Navy petty officers who serenaded him outside his home.

The sailors sang "Happy Birthday" and "Anchors Aweigh" to former Navy combat pilot Capt. Thomas Hudner, then presented him with a birthday cake and shook his hand during the ceremony Wednesday at his home in Concord, Massachusetts.

Hudner did not speak, but he stood and saluted. His son, Thomas Hudner III, said his father was "humbled and moved" by the show of affection.

The Massachusetts State Police escorted the petty officer selectees from the USS Constitution in Charlestown to Hudner's home in Concord and said in a Facebook post that it was an "honor and privilege."

Hudner was awarded the Medal of Honor during the Korean War 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.

Hudner's medal citation in the

Military Times Hall of Valor

says Brown's plane was was forced down behind enemy lines near the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea, on Dec. 4, 1950. "Hudner risked his life to save the injured flier who was trapped alive in the burning wreckage. Fully aware of the extreme danger in landing on the rough mountainous terrain and the scant hope of escape or survival in subzero temperature, he put his plane down skillfully in a deliberate wheels-up landing in the presence of enemy troops," the citation reads.

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