Jefferson DeBlanc, Honored World War II Fighter Pilot, Dies

[thedrifter]

December 4, 2007
Jefferson DeBlanc, Honored World War II Fighter Pilot, Dies at 86
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN

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.

“I could see myself in the pot,” he recalled long afterward.

He was placed in a bamboo cage. The next day, deliverance arrived. A local man was carrying a gift for his captors.

“This guy came in and threw down a 10-pound sack of rice, which he stole from the Japanese,” Mr. DeBlanc remembered in a 2000 interview with The Baton Rouge Advocate. “He threw it down at their feet, and they picked it up and let me go. From then on, I felt safe.”

His rescuer was affiliated with the coastwatchers, mainly Australians and Pacific islanders who spied on Japanese plane and ship movements in the Solomons and helped rescue downed Allied pilots. Mr. DeBlanc was taken to a nearby island by locals sympathetic to the Americans, and a United States Navy patrol plane picked him up.

Mr. DeBlanc, who had shot down three Japanese bombers off Guadalcanal the previous fall, later downed another Japanese plane off Okinawa, giving him nine “kills” in the war.

President Harry S. Truman presented him with the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor, on Dec. 6, 1946. Recounting Mr. DeBlanc’s exploits off Kolombangara, the citation said that he had “remained on the scene despite a rapidly diminishing fuel supply” and had waged “a valiant battle against terrific odds.”

Mr. DeBlanc, a native of Lockport, La., left active military service after the war, received a doctorate in education from McNeese State University and taught mathematics and science in St. Martinville. He retired from the Marines in 1972 as a colonel in the reserves.

In addition to his daughter, he is survived by his sons, Jefferson Jr., of Church Point, La.; Richard, of Coteau Holmes, La.; Frank, of St. Martinville; and Michael, of Parks, La.; seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. His wife, Louise, died in 2005.

Examining diaries left behind by coastwatchers, Mr. DeBlanc eventually learned the identity of the man who had saved him. He returned to the Solomons in May 2000 to thank the rescuer, Atitao Lodukolo. Mr. Lodukolo was a frail 95 years old by then.

Mr. DeBlanc and Mr. Lodukolo posed together for a video camera, and then they exchanged salutes in a final farewell.

“How about that?” Mr. DeBlanc remarked later. “That’s full circle.”

Ellie

RIP

[thedrifter]

DEATHS ELSEWHERE
Jefferson DeBlanc, shot down five planes in a day in WWII
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
From wire reports

Lafayette, La.- Jefferson 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. He was 86 and lived in St. Martinville, La.

On Jan. 31, 1943, 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.

Japanese planes pounced on the American aircraft. DeBlanc's fighter was using fuel at an unexpectedly rapid rate and he could have returned to his base, but he pressed his attacks.

In the span of a few minutes, he shot down five Japanese planes, but soon afterward his fighter was hit by enemy aircraft fire.

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 tribesmen.

His rescuer was affiliated with the coastwatchers, mainly Australians and Pacific islanders who spied on Japanese plane and ship movements in the Solomons and helped rescue downed Allied pilots. Islanders sympathetic to the Americans took DeBlanc to a nearby island, and a U.S. Navy patrol plane picked him up.

President Truman presented him with the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor, on Dec. 6, 1946.

He retired from the Marines in 1972 as a colonel in the Reserves.

Hollis Alpert, author

and film critic

Naples, Fla.- Hollis Alpert, a film critic and author who co-founded the National Society of Film Critics in 1966, died Nov. 18. He was 91.

The first members were all New Yorkers, but they called themselves a national society because they wrote for publications with national circulation. Today, the group's 60 members also include critics for major daily and weekly newspapers.

The world of entertainment also permeated Alpert's many fiction and nonfiction books.

He captured the controversial history of "The Life and Times of Porgy and Bess" (1990) in "crisp, engaging prose," according to a 1991 Baltimore Evening Sun review. In another book, "Broadway! 125 Years of Musical Theatre" (1991), he presented a concise history of the American musical.

Among the biographies he wrote were "The Barrymores" (1964), about the illustrious acting family, and "Fellini: A Life" (1986) about the Italian director.

He also wrote "autobiographies" with actors Richard Burton and Charlton Heston.

During World War II, he served in the Army as a combat historian, writing lengthy accounts of battles while sending home short stories that were published in magazines.

After the war, Alpert returned to New York and worked as an assistant fiction editor at The New Yorker from 1950 to 1956. He continued to freelance book and film reviews to other publications, which led to his being named movie critic for Saturday Review.

In 1975, Alpert left his reviewing post and served as editor of American Film Magazine for six years.

Willard Sweetser, 105,

oldest academy alumnus

Gray, Maine - Willard Sweetser, a retired Navy rear admiral who commanded destroyers in combat in World War II, died Friday. He was 105.

He was the U.S. Naval Academy's oldest living alumnus. He enrolled in 1922.

Sweetser served aboard the gunboat USS Panay, which in 1937 was attacked by the Japanese while at anchor in the Yangtze River in China, and went on to command the destroyers USS Lardner and USS Hickox in the Pacific. His awards included the Silver Star and two Bronze Stars.

After World War II, Sweetser served as naval attaché at U.S. embassies in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, a posting that involved the gathering of intelligence on the Communist governments then in power.

Elizabeth Hardwick, 91,

author and critic

New York- Elizabeth Hardwick, an author and critic, died Sunday. She was 91.

Hardwick was among the last survivors of a promiscuous, hard-drinking circle of intellectuals that included Edmund Wilson, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Mary McCarthy, Philip Rahv and the celebrated poet Robert Lowell, with whom she had a famously difficult marriage.

She was wed to Lowell in 1949 and suffered through his infidelities and manic depression, endlessly leaving her and then changing his mind. They divorced in 1972, but remained close and five years later were on the verge of reconciling when he collapsed and died in a taxi on the way home to her.

Lowell wrote about their relationship - even quoting from Hardwick's private letters - in such collections as "The Dolphin" and "For Lizzie and Harriet." Hardwick referred to their time together in the novel "Sleepless Nights" and later described him as "the most extraordinary person I have ever known, like no one else - unplaceable, unaccountable." Lowell described their marriage as one of "unending nervous strife, as though a bear had married a greyhound."

Although she started out as a fiction writer, Hardwick received her greatest acclaim as a critic. "Seduction and Betrayal," an analysis of such literary heroines as Hester Prynne of "The Scarlet Letter," became required reading for studies of women in fiction.

Hardwick also helped found the New York Review of Books.

Hardwick wrote three novels, many short stories and a short biography of Herman Melville, part of the popular "Penguin Lives" series.

Ellie