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Posted on 12/03/2007 10:31:38 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Jefferson J. DeBlanc, a World War II fighter pilot who was awarded the Medal of Honor for shooting down five Japanese planes on a single day while running out of fuel, died Nov. 22 in Lafayette, La. He was 86 and lived St. Martinville, La..
The cause was complications of pneumonia, said his daughter, Barbara DeBlanc Romero.
On Jan. 31, 1943, Mr. DeBlanc, then a lieutenant in the Marines, took off from Guadalcanal in his Wildcat fighter, leading a six-plane section of Marine Fighting Squadron 112. They were assigned to protect dive bombers and torpedo planes attacking Japanese ships off the island of Kolombangara, in the Solomons chain.
Mr. DeBlanc became embroiled in a furious air battle as Japanese planes pounced on the American aircraft. His fighter was using fuel at an unexpectedly rapid rate and he could have returned to his base, but he pressed his attacks.
“We needed all the guns we could get up there to escort those dive bombers,” he told The Times-Picayune in New Orleans in a 1999 interview. “I figured if I run out of gas, I run out of gas. I figured I could survive a bailout. You’ve got to live with your conscience. And my conscience told me to go ahead.”
In the span of a few minutes, he shot down five Japanese planes, but soon afterward his fighter was hit by enemy aircraft fire that knocked his watch from his wrist, peppered him with shrapnel and set his plane afire.
He parachuted into the ocean, then swam for some six hours, making it ashore at Japanese-occupied Kolombangara. He hoped to steal a Japanese Zero fighter and fly it to Guadalcanal, but after resting for several days in an abandoned hut, he was seized by a group of tribesmen.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“..You’ve got to live with your conscience. And my conscience told me to go ahead.”
RIP Marine Lieutenant DeBlanc
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We’re losing the WW2 warriors that helped to save the world from tyranny and treachery at a pretty good clip.
God bless the memories of all those who served us all so proudly.
http://www.oohrah.net/mohflag/moh.htm
It would take a Marine to come up with a plan like that.
We can't lose with that kind of American initiative.
Semper fi, carry on.
Hey, he was a Cajun Marine it seems. What’d ya expect? ;-)
Story from last week here:
Ace fighter pilot, Medal of Honor recipient dies
Posted by concentric circles
On News/Activism 11/28/2007 9:43:31 PM CST · 76 replies
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1932059/posts
Thanks!
A great thread!
RIP Marine Lieutenant DeBlanc
Let’s hope the “Cowboys” of VMFA-112 at Ft. Worth Joint Reserve Base honor his passing with a fly-by.
Unfortunately, I see signs of us loosing that American initiative all around me every day. Folks like Lt. DeBlanc are becoming rare as hen's teeth.
RIP to an American hero....
LeBlanc was a Colonel.
Correction: DeBlanc was a Colonel. Don't know what rank LeBlanc was.
Time is doing what Hitler and Tojo couldn't -- stopping our WW II heroes.
RIP.
Don’t mean to be pedantic, but Jeff De Blanc wasn’t a Cajun; or, at least, the founding ancestor of the De Blanc family was a colonial French officer, all of whose descendants who were born in the colony were “creoles.”
Jeff, as his appearance in the Guadalcanal episode on Dog Fights reveals, did have a mild Cajun accent, as did most people in St. Martinville.
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