Col. Jefferson DeBlanc Sr., who was awarded the Medal of Honor after a fierce World War II battle in which the Marine Corps pilot shot down five enemy aircraft, parachuted from his damaged plane, then swam to an island where tribesmen traded him for a five-pound sack of rice, has died. He was 86.
DeBlanc, who later became a beloved high school math and physics teacher, died Thursday at Lafayette General Medical Center in Lafayette, La., of complications from pneumonia, said his son Frank of St. Martinville, La.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, November 28, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 36 words Type of Material: Correction
DeBlanc obituary: An obituary of Medal of Honor winner Col. Jefferson DeBlanc Sr. in Tuesday's California section said he served with Marine Fighting Squadron 22 in the Marshall Islands. He served with Marine Fighting Squadron 422.
The incident that earned Jefferson the nation's highest military honor took place Jan. 31, 1943, during operations against Japanese forces off Kolombangara Island in the Solomon Islands.
A Japanese fleet was spotted headed toward Guadalcanal. U.S. dive bombers were sent to attack the fleet, with fighter aircraft deployed to protect the bombers. In a one-man Grumman Wildcat fighter, DeBlanc led a section of six planes in Marine Fighting Squadron 112, according to the citation that accompanied his Medal of Honor.
At the rendezvous point, DeBlanc discovered that his plane, which was dubbed "The Impatient Virgin," was running out of fuel. If DeBlanc battled the Japanese Zero fighter planes, he would not have enough fuel to return to base. Two of his comrades, whose planes malfunctioned, turned back, according to a 1999 article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
"We needed all the guns we could get up there to escort those bombers," DeBlanc said in the Times-Picayune article. "I figured if I run out of gas, I run out of gas. I figured I could survive a bailout. I had confidence in my will to survive. You've got to live with your conscience. And my conscience told me to go ahead."
DeBlanc and the other pilots waged fierce combat until, "picking up a call for assistance from the dive bombers, under attack by enemy float planes at 1,000 feet, he broke off his engagement with the Zeros, plunged into the formation of float planes and disrupted the savage attack, enabling our dive bombers and torpedo planes to complete their runs on the Japanese surface disposition and withdraw without further incident," the citation says.
Ultimately, DeBlanc shot down two float planes and three of the fighters. But a bullet ripped through DeBlanc's plane and hit his instrument panel, causing it to erupt into flames. DeBlanc "was forced to bail out at a perilously low altitude," according to the citation.
