LITTLE ROCK—Nathan Green Gordon, a former Arkansas lieutenant governor whose under-fire rescue of 15 downed airmen in World War II earned him the Medal of Honor, has died. He was 92.

Gordon died Monday night at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science hospital in Little Rock while being treated for pneumonia and other ailments, nephew Allen Gordon said. Though becoming forgetful with age, Gordon continued to charm and debate the news with those who spoke with him, his nephew said.

Family members said Gordon didn’t speak much about his service as a U.S. Navy pilot during World War II, fighting across the Pacific Theater in a Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat, a large plane no faster than a high-powered automobile. However, until his final days, he would tell anyone who asked about the rescue mission in the Bismarck Sea that brought him national acclaim, his nephew said.

Born in Morrilton, Gordon graduated from the University of Arkansas law school in 1939 and began his practice in his home town. He signed up for the Navy in 1941, in part because he knew he’d be drafted and didn’t want to “be marching around” like he did in military school as a child.

On Feb. 15, 1944, he received orders to search for downed pilots after a raid on the Japanese position in Kavieng near the mainland of Papua New Guinea.

Under fire in rough seas, Gordon piloted an unwieldy aircraft nicknamed the “Arkansas Traveler” to make three separate landings to pick up nine men, as rivets burst out from the landings. On the way back, he received a report about a life raft only 600 yards from the enemy shoreline. Gordon landed yet again, pulling six more airmen aboard while taking on heavy fire.

“His plane was seriously overweight by the time he finished,” said Stephan McAteer, executive director of the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in Little Rock. “He just did not want to leave anyone there because if they had been captured, they would have faced almost certain death.”

But the danger didn’t come only from the Japanese.

Gordon managed to pilot his aircraft back to the mainland.

However, Gordon never thought he’d be nominated for the nation’s highest military honor. His superiors cited him for “exceptional daring, personal valor and incomparable airmanship under most perilous conditions.”

On his return to Arkansas, friends persuaded him to run for lieutenant governor. The Democrat entered office in 1947 and held the position for 20 years, serving under Gov. Orval Faubus during the 1957 Little Rock Central High School desegregation crisis.

Funeral services had not been scheduled as of Tuesday afternoon.