June 4, 2025 • 41 mins
When fighter pilot Jefferson DeBlanc survived being shot at in a crazy dogfight over the Solomon Islands in World War Two, his adventure was only beginning. What happened after he parachuted out of his burning plane is a story of grit, blind optimism, and against-all-odds survival.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Pushkin. Jefferson de Blanc was falling through the air. The
wind roared in his ears, his shoulders were gripped by
the hardness of his parachute. He was plummeting thousands of
feet towards the Pacific Ocean, having jumped seconds before from
(00:29):
the wreckage of his plane. He was hoping to land
somewhere close to a shoreline, because as he was falling,
night was falling too. It was the evening of January
thirty first, nineteen forty three. Jeff was a Marine Corps
fighter pilot, and for the past hour he had been
battling Japanese warplanes in the skies over the Solomon Islands,
(00:54):
weaving in and out of enemy fighters, dodging bullets, firing
in return, and watching his good friend, his wingman, get
blown out of the air. Jeff himself had shot down
several enemy planes. He had looked directly in the eyes
of one of the men he had killed right before
(01:15):
the man's plane exploded, and then Jeff's own plane had
been shot to bits, the engine caught fire, and the
plane fell apart around him.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Not in minutes, but in seconds.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
As Jeff scrambled onto the wing and pulled the rip
cord of his parachute. He knew that falling through the
sky was the best of a bunch of bad outcomes,
because there was no chance he survived in his plane,
but there was a chance he could survive the fall,
a slim one. Maybe the water was filled with sharks,
(01:51):
and even if he managed to get to land, the
islands below him were occupied by the Japanese military. He
had seen their bases from the sky. If he survived
the swim, and that was a big if, he would
be stranded deep in enemy territory. But his current predicament
was the direct result of two very specific decisions he
(02:12):
had made, one at the start of the battle and
one at the end, but both were the same to
stay and fight. Stay, even if it meant that this
was the endgame. Plunging through the atmosphere towards the water
as the sun disappeared over the horizon, Jeff de Blanc
(02:32):
was twenty one years old, and somehow he was incredibly calm,
convinced that he wasn't going to die, but how he
would survive would be another story entirely.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I'm JR.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Martinez, and this is medal of honor stories of Courage.
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in
the United States, awarded for gallantry and bravery and combat
at the risk of life, above and beyond the call
of duty. Each candidate must be approved all the way
(03:10):
up the chain of command, from the supervisory officer in
the field to the White House. This show is about
those heroes, what they did, what it meant, and what
their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice.
Jeff de blanc story is about long odds, some of
the longest I have.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Ever heard, but that's not the reason I love it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Jeff's story is incredible because it gets to something that's
at the very heart of the Medal of Honor, a
key to answering the question why, in the name of
protecting others do some people knowingly do things that might
kill them. To Jeff, the answer was clear. It was
(03:55):
because he felt accountable. Not to his country, or his
comments or a higher power. He was accountable to himself.
Jefferson de Blanc was born in nineteen twenty one. From
(04:16):
a very early.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Age, he was obsessed with aviation.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Here he is talking about the moment he fell in
love with it, when he was about six or seven.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
An aeroplane came over a biplane and had engine trouble
and landed in the pasture about a mile from Alla home.
So we all ran to see the aircraft.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
That accent you hear in his voice, it's kajun. Jeff
was born in Louisiana, and he was descended from the
French speaking settlers of that region. He grew up in
the Bayous, specifically the Achafalaya basin the nation's largest river swamp,
bigger than the Everglades. He spent his youth scrambling around
(05:02):
in the murky heat of those dense, junglely swamps, not
a place where planes usually just fall out of the sky.
But to a kid on that by you, this was
a dream come true.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
And of course I was the first one to get there.
And when I got there, for a reward, he picked
me up and put me in the cockpit and I
looked at the dolls. I was caught and hooked, no
doubt in my mind. The instrumentation was fascinating, and that's
how I got hooked on aviation. From then on out, you.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Will come to know something special about Jeff. Once he
sets his mind to something decides to do something, that's it.
It just sticks from a one time encounter with a
plane as a kid, he picked a life path and
stuck to it. He went to college in nineteen thirty eight,
and by thirty nine, with war escalating in Europe, the
(05:56):
government started training civilians to fly. Jeff I've signed up
for flight school as quickly as he possibly could.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
In July of forty.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
One, at the age of nineteen, he joined the Navy
with the plan of becoming a fighter pilot. The attack
on Pearl Harbor put pilot training on hyper speed. With
the declaration of war, the military had to turn out
aviators in record time, which meant that Jeff barely got
two hundred and fifty hours of flight training before he
(06:28):
was shipped out. No lessons in dog fighting tactics, almost
no instruction on how to fire guns.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
And we did not have any schalvival training. The name
of the game was getting the bodies odd fast, and
that's what they did.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Jeff graduated from flight school, but then he was told
the one thing that no fighter pilot wants to hear.
The Navy needs you to fly reconnaissance aircraft.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
They were going to make a peeboard pilot out of me,
and I didn't want it.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I wanted fighters, So Jeff transferred to the Marines. There
he could be a fighter pilot. In the summer of
nineteen forty two, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
The Marine Corps Reserve.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
His airplane would be the F four F Wildcat, rugged
and easy to maneuver, with six machine guns.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Mounted on the wings.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
It had a flying range of several hundred miles, but
any dog fighting would burn fuel quickly. You could strap
on an extra fifty gallon fuel tank, but that tended
to have problems, including making the plane more difficult to
fly and easier to blow up. Jeff couldn't wait to
start flying Wildcats, but he hadn't trained in them at all.
(07:43):
Before he fought in one for the first time, he
had only flown a Wildcat for nine hours, almost nothing.
He would have to turn that nothing into something pretty
fast because he was shipping out to the Solomon Islands,
specifically Guadalcanal. We've talked about Guadalcanal before on this show.
Last season, we told the story of Doug Monroe, the
(08:05):
Coastguard signal men who died during one of the early
battles there. In the months after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese
Empire had gained footholds throughout the Pacific, the Philippines, Eastern China, Singapore,
New Guinea, and Moore. Their goal was to move eastward
to threaten Hawaii, and southward to cut off Australia from
(08:27):
the rest of the Allied forces. The Allies were going
to have to stop them if there was any hope
of winning the war. So the Allies set their sights
on the Solomons, a chain of more than nine hundred
islands scattered over eleven thousand square miles in the South Pacific.
In nineteen forty two, they invaded Guadalcanal, the biggest of
(08:49):
the islands, where the Japanese had carved out an airfield.
The Allies captured the airfield dug In and used it
as a staging ground to take on the enemy.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
This is the field on the island of Guadalcanal and
the Solomons, for the possession of which so much heavy
fighting has taken place in American hands. It's become a
vitally important base from which to bun Japanese warships and convoys.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Fighter pilots and wildcats would escort dive bombers as they
went to strife the Japanese. The wildcats would take on
these Japanese floatplanes and fighter jets so that the bombers
could get close to their targets. You could have sent
out bombers without the wildcats. They needed that protection if
they were going to get to their targets and get
home safely. These aerial missions were inherently dangerous, and estimated
(09:35):
four hundred and twenty American pilots would eventually lose their
lives in the skies over the Solomons, and so in
November of forty two, three months after the start of
this campaign, Jeff arrived in Guadalcanal. The terrain of the
Solomon Islands reminded him of Louisiana. The relentless heat, the mosquitoes.
(09:56):
None of that was new to him. He was, as ever,
completely calm, full of hope and a kind of giddy,
youthful faith. He told himself, I could survive here if
I had to. Soon enough, he would put that theory.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
To the test.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
The months passed and the Battle of Guadalcanal ground on.
The US troops still only held the airfield, while the
Japanese were elsewhere on the island and on bases scattered
throughout the Solomons. Both sides had lost thousands of men,
and yet as the years slowly turned to nineteen forty three,
it seemed that neither would budge. On the afternoon of
(10:51):
January thirty first, Jeff was given a mission.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Boyd came down from fighter command that a Japanese invasion
fleet was commandawn with ships to probably reinforced Gualacanal for
the final fight. So they scrambled US eight fire to
Polish to go up after Escort twelve Dove bombers to
hit a Japanese destroyers and ships that were in the
(11:18):
Columbanga area and Vello Novello two hundred and fifty miles
outs beyond the range of the Wildcat. So we had
to strap on a wing tank of fifty GALLUS to
make it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
That fifty gallon tank of fuel was going to be
the difference between the fighter pilots making it all the
way out to the fight and back to the base
or potentially having to bel out of their aircraft somewhere
over the ocean. Fuel tanks unempty. But it was also
a liability. Jeff as usual, was unfazed. He strapped on
(11:53):
the watch he had just bought on leave a few
weeks before. It was already a prize possession. He was
really proud of it and curious to see how it
would do in the altitude. He climbed into his plane
and fired up the engine. The eight fighters and twelve
bombers set out. Jeff was in the lead. It was
(12:13):
three pm when they took to the skies. Fairly shortly,
Jeff realized that things were going sideways, and I worried.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
About one hundred miles out, I'd already used my fifty
gallon and the main tank was not full. I was
using guys like mad. That was a leak somewhere. I
don't know where it was, but I knew that I
would never make it back.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Something was up with the tank, and not just his.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
He watched as two of the other fighter pilots peeled
off and returned to base.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Two guys must have had the same trouble, because they
turned back, So that left six of us to do
the job of protecting the dove bombers. Now we needed
all the guns we could get up to him to
protect the dove bombers. They'll give the dead ducks.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
The bombers desperately needed the Wildcats to keep them safe
and to fend off the Japanese attack that was sure
to come. Jeff knew that when they got to the
bombing site, he would most likely be engaged in a dogfight.
Every evasive action he would take would cost a more
precious fuel. Nevertheless, he made a decision he would stay
(13:21):
and fight no matter the cost.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Now, I'm not a brave man, but I have to
live with myself. If I quit now, that would be
one last fight of parlet to go up there. So
I just shoted to keep going.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
As the convoy reached the target area, the dive bombers descended,
circling for marks, but Jeff realized they were no longer alone.
Two Japanese floatplanes appeared from above, diving down towards the
American bombers. Jeff had the advantage of altitude. He saw them,
but they didn't see him. He lowered his Wildcat and
(13:58):
got the rear floatplane in his sights. He led on
a burst of gunfire, a direct hit. He watched as
the aircraft went into a spiral and exploded. Then he
settled behind the next one, right in the Japanese pilot's
blind spot. He opened fire again. The floatplane climbed into
the sky and shattered into a flash of light. Jeff
(14:20):
and his wingman, Sergeant James Fellaton, climbed higher, searching for
a safer altitude. But then they saw it, a swarm
of Japanese fighter planes heading straight for them. Jeff swung
as wildcat below the group of enemy planes, shooting at
the lead fighter. That plane caught fire but escaped. Another
(14:42):
Japanese pilot spiraled up from the pack, trying to figure
out what was happening. Jeff followed right on his tail.
He got the fighter in his sight and picked it off.
But now he and Peloton had the attention of the
whole group of Japanese pilots. They were completely outnumbered, so
the two Americans turned their wildcats towards each other, weaving
(15:05):
back and forth covering each other's tails. Then Felosin swung
too wide and came straight into the crosshairs of one
of the Japanese guns. Felason took a had to his engine.
His plane started streaming black smoke. He had no choice
but to beil out parachute into the ocean below the
rest of the Japanese fighters scattered. For a moment, the
(15:29):
sky was clear of the enemy. The sun was setting,
and the window to return home and land safely was
quickly disappearing. The American dive armbers assembled in formation they
had done their job. It was time to return to base.
Jeff glanced at his fuel gauge, and what he saw
(15:50):
made his stomach turn. The dogfight had depleted his fuel
even further, but he might have enough to make it
close to Guadalcanal, close to where someone could find him
rescue him.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
If he had to build out.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
He was ready to head back when he noticed something
out of the corner of his eye. Two enemy fighters
on his tail. If he stopped to engage them, he
would never make it back to safety. But he had
to draw them away from the American bombers. That was
what he had been sent on the mission to do.
(16:26):
Out of fuel, thousands of feet in the air, ocean
and jungle islands beneath him, and a choice to make well.
After all, he told himself he'd grown up in the
Louisiana swamps.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
He wasn't afraid of the jungle.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I figured I knew enough about survival. I wasn't trained
for it, but I was born and reared here in
the Chapelot mission, and I could survive if I hit
the islands.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
So he decided once again to stay. He watched as
the American bombers disappeared over the horizon to guadalcan And safety,
and then he climbed higher to attack the two enemy
planes head on. They closed the space in a heartbeat.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
He fired.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
The first Japanese plane caught fire, but it wasn't going down.
Jeff realized the pilot planned to fly his burning fighter
right into Jeff's Wildcat.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
This guy was shot. He knew he was dead. He
caught fire and he was going to ram me. He
coming straight, told me he's still on fire, So I
held a trigger down. He explored, and I flew through
the pieces.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Debris flew past him, hitting Jeff's plane, but his engine
was still running. His Wildcat was still flying, and as
far as he could tell, there was just one fighter left.
He banked sharply to get on the tail of the
second fighter plane as it sped by, but the pilot
had guessed his plan and pulled up high above him.
(17:57):
Then he came down straight towards Jeff.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
When I saw him coming down on him, he was
picking up speed, and he was too anxious for the kill.
And you get too anxious. You've seen birds that whale
animals get too anxious to kill the anticipate, and they
caught themselves. So he was coming down so fast that
he didn't realize he was overtaken me. The normally the reaction,
let me get out of here and president see if
(18:22):
I pick up what's being run away from him. That's
your normal way of trying to presume of your life.
Run away, but not in the final plan. Instead of
trying to run away, I chopped the throttle, which slowed
me up. Then I skidd it so he couldn't stay
on my tail.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
In effect, Jeff slammed on the brakes, trying to force
the Japanese pilot.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
To overshoot him. It worked. The two pilots locked eyes.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Wing tip to wing tip. When we looked at each other,
then I knew and he knew that he was a
dead man.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It was a moment that would stay with Jeff forever.
That between seeing your adversary acknowledging his humanity and knowing
what you were about to do to him, and yet
his conscience was clean.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
A lot of polots rationalize, we don't shoot donald killed man,
We just shoot down our planes. You know, that's a
shield to take away the idea haven't killed somebody. It
doesn't work that way. You either kill or you be killed, okay,
and you have no remorse for the enemy. He's ought
(19:33):
to kill you. So the name of the game is
you kill him before he kills you.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Jeff fired, and the Japanese pilot's plane exploded for the
first time in hours. Jeff seemed to be out of
harm's way.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
I figured I hadn't made Let me go home, try
to survive. And while I'm doing that, the sun is setting.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
He glanced at his watch. It was six pm. It
would be dark soon.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
And that's when I got hit. The first bullet came
through it over my left shoulder and took my watch
off my wrist.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
He hadn't seen the new fighter planes behind him, but
now they were lighting up his Wildcat with bullets. The
instrument panel burst into flames, the engine lost power, his
plane was disintegrating. As Jeff looked frantically around, he saw
another fighter bank to take a run at him. He
was a dead man.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
So I got out of that like a tall dog
because the bullets were shutting everything on fire and hitting
the armor plate and everything else. But I was lucky.
I was. I have a few shopnel cuts, but I
didn't realize it yet. But Adrennone was flooring so fast
that I didn't even feel that I was hurt.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
The only thing left to do was bell out. He
was about three thousand feet somewhere over the western Solomon Islands.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
So I jumped out, trailed the ledge of the wing,
and pulled a rip cord and floored.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
That was beautiful, Like I said, this is one extremely
unflappable man.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Man. That was the more sensational thing I ever did
in my life, and it was outstanding.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
But then he hit the water harder than he'd anticipated.
His gun canteen and extra shells were ripped away from him.
He managed to inflate his life jacket. When he broke
the surface of the water, he could see shoreline ahead
of him, but the current was sweeping him out to sea.
Jeff knew he was bleeding, and he knew there were sharks.
(21:38):
All aviators at the time were giving chlorine pills to
break into the water to keep sharks away, so Jeff
broke his as he swam and swam and swam. It
would take six hours of swimming for Jeff to reach shore.
Dusk settling into full darkness, the stars coming out, and
(22:01):
an unknowable amount of swimming left to do, but he
kept going.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Finally he reached the shore.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
He pulled himself up on the sand, tore off his
life jacket, and ran across the beach to the underbrush.
It might have been dark, but he knew the Japanese
had a base on this island. He had seen it
from the sky. He was an enemy territory.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Now I knew enough to get off the beach and
cover up my tracks. I fell asleep.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
For the moment.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
He could rest, kind of like a worn out kid.
Jeff could sleep pretty much anywhere. This place was Kullabungara Island.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
That night he found.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Peace, but what awaited him on the island was every
bit as dangerous as anything in the sky. Jeff de
Blanc woke up to the filling of rain. He ached
all over. He had a backpack with the basic survival kit,
so he dressed his wounds as best as he could
and had a bite of chocolate from his pack. He
(23:08):
had no idea where to go or if the Allies
knew he was still alive. He was pretty sure the
Japanese did. One of the pilots had circled him as
he was parachuting down.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
I had to figure, well, I'm an animate territory, not
know they're looking for him, because the man circled me
in and they shot me arms, So they're looking for
me definitely.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yet, somehow Jeff was convinced that he could survive in
the jungle, maybe even still a plane off the Japanese
base and get home. He started to trek inland. He
had a knife in his pack, and he walked with
it out in front of him.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
The vegetation was so thick.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
He found it easier to climb into the trees, moving
above ground from one to the next. The second night,
he fell asleep, this time in a tree, even though
his wounds had started to bother him. The following warning,
he spotted a grass hut and a small clearing. It
had a straw sleeping mat inside, and Jeff gathered coconuts
(24:07):
from the trees and rain water from where it had
pulled on massive leaves. While exploring the jungle, he found
a downed Allied fighter jet swarming with flies. He saw
that the machine guns had been removed, and he shuddered
had the Japanese been there? But then he saw bare
footprints surrounding the wreckage.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
He knew what that meant.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
One of the local indigenous tribes must live close by,
because the Solomon Islands were populated, of course, by people
who lived there for thousands of years, some Melanesians, some Polynesians.
In fact, more than eighty different languages are spoken by
the peoples of the Solomons, making it one of the
Pacific's most diverse countries in terms of language and ethnicity.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Jeff had known he.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Wasn't alone, not really, but he didn't know if these island.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Would be happy to see him. He didn't count on it.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
He gauged his safety by listening to the birds outside
his hut. As long as they were singing, He told
himself he was alone.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
If the birds are singing, everything is right on, no doubt.
From the swamps just all over the world. That way,
the birds are shinging. Fine.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
He spent a night in the little hut, and then
another and another listening to the birds song, tending to
his wounds, staying his same hopeful self. And then he
woke one morning and said something had shifted. The birds
stopped singing.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
What does that tell you? I tell you in trouble.
Something is out there.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
He grabbed his knife and walked to the door of
the hut. A young islander stood there, about five foot two.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
He was grinning. Now, why should he be grinning, I'm
told he is I haven't. He has a machete. I
could throw a knife and had to fight him hand
to hand. But for some reason for him to be grinning.
And when I stepped out that hut, four or five
others right there with machetes.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Oh, Jeff thought that's why he was grinning. Jeff was
totally outnumbered. He dropped his knife, but he wasn't exactly stressed.
He wasn't an anxious guy, just in his twenty one
year old, not particularly sophisticated way.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
He was a little worried that they might eat him.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I could see myself in the pot.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
The men moved Jeff through the jungle to the water's edge.
An outrigger canoe was waiting there, and they motioned for
him to get inside.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
When they put me into twelve men out rigor. Then
I knew they were going to trade me to the
Japanese because they weren't friendly. They punched me in if
I'd moved the stigma with a knot, which means don't move,
and I got the message in a hurry.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
They paddled along the shoreline for hours towards a village
towards the Japanese base. Jeff had no way of knowing.
Finally they stopped and motioned Jeff out of the canoe.
He followed them to a village where they put him
in a bamboo cage with two guards set outside. Jeff waited,
even to unflappable Jeff, this was starting to seem pretty bad.
(27:31):
Then six more Islanders entered the village. One of them
was carrying a sack.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
When he walked into that compound, you could tell he
had authority, and he had a ten pound shakarage, which
he put down at the feet of the men who
held me. They let me go and I quickly joined him,
and we all took off head and oft of the
jungles towards another village.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Jeff wasn't sure what was happening, but he knew one
thing he had been traded for a sack of rice.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
When he threw a ten pound shak arrived. None I
knew exactly how much I'm w a ten pound shak rise.
That's the value of my life.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
The new group of men walked for an hour without
exchanging a word, and then the leader turned to Jeff
and spoke to him in pigeon, a dialect close enough
to English that Jeff could understand. They weren't taking Jeff
to be sold to the Japanese, he said, they were
rescuing him. Unbeknownst to Jeff, a network of coast watchers
(28:30):
had been hunting for him every bit as hard as
the Japanese had. The coast watchers were largely British and
Australian men, mostly civilians, who had stayed in the Solomons
after the Japanese invasion. Now they worked as Allied spies,
hiding in the jungles to report on enemy activities. Islanders
(28:52):
had been helping the Allied forces since the start of
the war, as well, working as guides, providing valuable intelligence,
leading down pilots like Jeff through the jungle to safety,
often passing within inches of the enemy. They were the
primary communication link between the coast watchers. There were also
targets of the Japanese. That was the reason Jeff had
(29:15):
been kept in the cage. In that first village, Japanese
planes had shot in each village.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
They were looking for me. And then it see a
white man in the village that strafed the village and
bombed regardless of the natives.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
That man who had traded Jeff for the sack of
rice was named Ati Ludukolo. He was tasked with bringing
Jeff miles across the Kullabangara Island, across the sea and
onto the next largest island, which was called Vela la Vela.
From there they could arrange for the Allies to pick
Jeff up, but they would have to get there first.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
So we worked on another village and I was in
chief there. I'm stripped of the ways and everything else.
I have my Marine Corps buckle. There the chief grabs
my buckle. The intelligence officer said, if any native takes
something from you, you take something from them. It's protocol.
When he grabbed that buckle, I grabbed that spirit that
he had. Well, we traded. In other words, he nodded,
(30:13):
and I nodded, and I walked off with the spear.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Jeff held tightly to that spear as he and Ati
traveled on. They reached another twelve man outrigger canoe. They
paddled in the darkness through a rainstorm, with nothing but
the tides to guide them and daylight, and into another canoe.
This time Ati made Jeff lie on the bottom and
covered him with palm fronds. Being spotted by the Japanese
(30:40):
would have meant death to them all. They paddled on swiftly, quietly,
until finally they reached Vella.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
La Vella, so they took the fronds off of me.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Jeff blinked and looked out from the canoe.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
I see a big red born, and I see a
white man coming down with three natives. And he spoke
Oxford English and said to me Lieutenant de Blanc. And
he didn't mission a de Blanc or this or that.
He came out in perfect French.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
It was Reverend A. W. E.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Sylvester, a New Zealand missionary who had refused to evacuate
the islands after the Japanese invasion. He was a coast
watcher too, That's how he knew who Jeff was. In fact,
Sylvester himself had only survived the Japanese invasion because the
Solomon Islanders had led him to safety, just as they
(31:34):
had helped Jeff and the other stranded allies. Here's Sylvester
speaking to an interviewer about it back in nineteen forty five.
Speaker 6 (31:43):
I certainly owe my life to the natives. One of
my native teachers came and gave me the warning, and
all my decisions regarding evacuation were made on their information.
We never made a mistake through the services of the natives.
The total number of people we evacuated were two hundred
and fifty for Mare Island.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Jeff couldn't have known it, but his route from Ati
to Sylvester to safety was one that the coast watchers
and the Islanders had been perfecting for months. He had
fallen into just the right place. Sylvester welcomed Jeff into
his home, where Jeff unsurprisingly slept like a log. He
(32:25):
also got a piece of welcome news. His wingman Pelton
had survived as well, wounded, ribs, broken, but alive. The
following day was a Sunday, and the men were having
a leisurely British cup of tea when an islander ran
up and whispered something in the Sylvester's ear.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
The minister put down his teacup.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
He said, well, we'll have to have mash now and
then after Mass you're going to have to leave. I
said why, He said, the job Nusia coming in. He said,
I know you are Catholic Initiative Church of England, which
is not the shame denomination process. But I said, please,
I'll be on the first sheet in fresh Row.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
And so in the middle of the jungle, with the
Japanese on their way, the group gathered and prayed. Then
Jeff Ati and a few other Islanders booked it out.
They wound up trekking for miles, finally reaching the village
where Peloton had been hidden. Safety started to feel closer,
(33:26):
but the two Marines would have to wait until an
American rescue mission could be organized to take them back
to Guadalcanal. Two coast watchers invited Jeff to hike to
their secret outposts in the mountains, where he saw Japanese
planes take off and land from nearby bases. Only then
did he understand the extraordinary work these hidden ally spies
(33:48):
had done and what risk they had taken to save
Americans whenever they fell. On February twelfth, nineteen forty three,
three days before Jeff's twenty second birthday, planes left Guadacanal
to pick up Jeff and his wingman. They were taken
offshore in a canoe. Atti rode with them, safeguarding them
(34:12):
until the end. The rescue plane landed, escorted by fighter pilots,
within sight of three Japanese airfields.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
They picked us up on the run. Atti was the
one who brought me back through the peaboat. It's made
to land on the water to pick up things. So
they landed on the water, but didn't cut the engines
up through my spear and the first and then jumped
in after it.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
The men on board had risked their lives to get
Jeff and Peloton, just as Ati had. The pe boat
took off, headed to Guadalcanal, and Jeff finally exhaled.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
I knew I was saved.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
He had lived with this decision to not turn back,
to stay and fight, and he had also lived. Jeff
(35:16):
went on to serve a few more months in the Solomons.
When he returned home on leave, his little town presented
him with a watch to replace the one that had
been blown off his wrist. He was awarded the Navy
Cross for his actions in the skies. That last day
of January nineteen forty three, he volunteered for active service again.
(35:38):
He flew missions during the Battle of Okinawa. He touched
down to Japan after the war ended, curious to see
what the country looked like, but he was ready to
return home, specifically to Louise Burrard, his high school sweetheart.
He had known her since she was the star forward
of the championship girls basketball team. A dark haired beauty
(36:02):
with a sweet smile. They got married. Jeff went to
college and then in December of nineteen forty six, he
got a call. He was told that he was going
back into active duty.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
He couldn't understand it. Why he has served his country.
He was a reservist. What active duty was he even
going back to?
Speaker 3 (36:28):
I said what I don't I'm a reserve. Oh go,
he said this to come to Washington to get too
Medal of Hona. He said, you got to be joking.
I said, shut up to a man riding, and they did.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
So.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
They put him on active duty to go back. She
wouldn't cast anything.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yep, they put him on active duty so that he
wouldn't have to pay for the trip anyways. He and
Louise went to Washington, and President Harry Truman gave Jeff
his Medal of Honor at the White House. Jeff went
on to stay in the Marines as a reservist until
nineteen seventy two. He and Luiz had five children, a
(37:06):
girl and four boys. Jeff got advanced degrees in science
and mathematics.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
He became a teacher.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
He taught middle and high school kids, and then he
went back to the Solomon Islands four times. The first
was in nineteen ninety two for the fiftieth anniversary of Guadalcanal.
He went up in a plane, this time flown by
someone else, and peered down over Kullabungara Island, searching for
(37:34):
the hut where he'd hidden out so many decades before.
And then in two thousand he flew to Vella Lavella
to be reunited with Ati Loduklo, the man who had
guided him on his treacherous path to safety. Jeff was
taken by boat to ATI's village, where his former guide,
(37:56):
now in his nineties, was waiting.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Ugged.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
They ate dinner together, They exchanged gifts. Fifty seven years
had passed since they had met in the jungle, Since
Atti saved Jeff's life, Jeff had never forgotten his bravery,
or his kindness, or, of course, that ten pound bag
(38:21):
of rice. Jeff de Blanc died in two thousand and
seven at the age of eighty six. The spear he
traded his belt Buckle four now sits in the World
War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana. Even at the
end of his life, when asked about the Medal of
Honor and his actions on January thirty first, nineteen forty three,
(38:44):
Jeff brought everything back to one thing, not heroism, not bravery,
but personal accountability.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
I could have used your time back and nobody would
have questioned, because two guys did. Already would have to
live with myself because no doubt in my mind, a
lot of bombers would not have returned, and that would
be a part that I would have to be accountable for,
and I don't like that.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
The kind of accountability Jeff is talking about isn't expectations
from others or a job description. It's a personal ethos.
It's the feeling of being sure what your values are,
and the determination to stick to those values no matter
the cost. Some might call it a conscience. That little
(39:34):
voice inside your head. That little voice told Jeff that
if he turned back and abandoned his mission, he'd be
turning back to a life he wouldn't want to lead.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
So he stayed and protected.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Those bombers, even when he knew he might never make
it home. I think that's why Jeff felt such peace
when he found himself falling thousands of feet through the air,
the empty ocean rising up to meet him, seeing this
glorious beauty in the fall, with the conscience as light as.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
A feather medal of honor.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Stories of Courage is written by Meredith Rollins and produced
by Meredith Rollins, Jess Shane, and Suzanne Gabber. Our editor
is Ben Adolf Hoffrey. Sound design and additional music by
Jake Gorsky. Our executive producer is Constanza Gallardo. Fact checking
by Arthur Gomperts, Original music by Eric Phillips. The rest
(40:42):
of the team includes Carl Catle, Greta Cone, Christina Sullivan,
Sarah Nix, Nicole Appendosh, Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner, Jordan McMillan,
Kira Posey, Owen Miller, Amy Haggerdarn and Jake Flanagan. Special
thanks to the series creator Dan mcinn, to the Congressional
Medal of Honor Society, and to Ja to Anga the
(41:05):
audio visual archive of ati Aroa, New Zealand. If you
want to learn more about this story, take a look
at our show notes, where we have some of the
resources we use to put together this episode, including a
book by the man himself, Jefferson de Blanc. We also
want to hear from you. Send us your personal story
of courage or highlight someone else's bravery. Email us at
(41:28):
Medal of Honor at Pushkin dot fm. You might hear
your stories on future episodes of Medal of Honor, or
see them on our social channels at Pushkin Pods.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
I'm your host, JR. Martinez
Pushkin. Jefferson de Blanc was falling through the air. The
wind roared in his ears, his shoulders were gripped by
the hardness of his parachute. He was plummeting thousands of
feet towards the Pacific Ocean, having jumped seconds before from
(00:29):
the wreckage of his plane. He was hoping to land
somewhere close to a shoreline, because as he was falling,
night was falling too. It was the evening of January
thirty first, nineteen forty three. Jeff was a Marine Corps
fighter pilot, and for the past hour he had been
battling Japanese warplanes in the skies over the Solomon Islands,
(00:54):
weaving in and out of enemy fighters, dodging bullets, firing
in return, and watching his good friend, his wingman, get
blown out of the air. Jeff himself had shot down
several enemy planes. He had looked directly in the eyes
of one of the men he had killed right before
(01:15):
the man's plane exploded, and then Jeff's own plane had
been shot to bits, the engine caught fire, and the
plane fell apart around him.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Not in minutes, but in seconds.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
As Jeff scrambled onto the wing and pulled the rip
cord of his parachute. He knew that falling through the
sky was the best of a bunch of bad outcomes,
because there was no chance he survived in his plane,
but there was a chance he could survive the fall,
a slim one. Maybe the water was filled with sharks,
(01:51):
and even if he managed to get to land, the
islands below him were occupied by the Japanese military. He
had seen their bases from the sky. If he survived
the swim, and that was a big if, he would
be stranded deep in enemy territory. But his current predicament
was the direct result of two very specific decisions he
(02:12):
had made, one at the start of the battle and
one at the end, but both were the same to
stay and fight. Stay, even if it meant that this
was the endgame. Plunging through the atmosphere towards the water
as the sun disappeared over the horizon, Jeff de Blanc
(02:32):
was twenty one years old, and somehow he was incredibly calm,
convinced that he wasn't going to die, but how he
would survive would be another story entirely.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I'm JR.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Martinez, and this is medal of honor stories of Courage.
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in
the United States, awarded for gallantry and bravery and combat
at the risk of life, above and beyond the call
of duty. Each candidate must be approved all the way
(03:10):
up the chain of command, from the supervisory officer in
the field to the White House. This show is about
those heroes, what they did, what it meant, and what
their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice.
Jeff de blanc story is about long odds, some of
the longest I have.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Ever heard, but that's not the reason I love it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Jeff's story is incredible because it gets to something that's
at the very heart of the Medal of Honor, a
key to answering the question why, in the name of
protecting others do some people knowingly do things that might
kill them. To Jeff, the answer was clear. It was
(03:55):
because he felt accountable. Not to his country, or his
comments or a higher power. He was accountable to himself.
Jefferson de Blanc was born in nineteen twenty one. From
(04:16):
a very early.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Age, he was obsessed with aviation.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Here he is talking about the moment he fell in
love with it, when he was about six or seven.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
An aeroplane came over a biplane and had engine trouble
and landed in the pasture about a mile from Alla home.
So we all ran to see the aircraft.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
That accent you hear in his voice, it's kajun. Jeff
was born in Louisiana, and he was descended from the
French speaking settlers of that region. He grew up in
the Bayous, specifically the Achafalaya basin the nation's largest river swamp,
bigger than the Everglades. He spent his youth scrambling around
(05:02):
in the murky heat of those dense, junglely swamps, not
a place where planes usually just fall out of the sky.
But to a kid on that by you, this was
a dream come true.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
And of course I was the first one to get there.
And when I got there, for a reward, he picked
me up and put me in the cockpit and I
looked at the dolls. I was caught and hooked, no
doubt in my mind. The instrumentation was fascinating, and that's
how I got hooked on aviation. From then on out, you.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Will come to know something special about Jeff. Once he
sets his mind to something decides to do something, that's it.
It just sticks from a one time encounter with a
plane as a kid, he picked a life path and
stuck to it. He went to college in nineteen thirty eight,
and by thirty nine, with war escalating in Europe, the
(05:56):
government started training civilians to fly. Jeff I've signed up
for flight school as quickly as he possibly could.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
In July of forty.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
One, at the age of nineteen, he joined the Navy
with the plan of becoming a fighter pilot. The attack
on Pearl Harbor put pilot training on hyper speed. With
the declaration of war, the military had to turn out
aviators in record time, which meant that Jeff barely got
two hundred and fifty hours of flight training before he
(06:28):
was shipped out. No lessons in dog fighting tactics, almost
no instruction on how to fire guns.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
And we did not have any schalvival training. The name
of the game was getting the bodies odd fast, and
that's what they did.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Jeff graduated from flight school, but then he was told
the one thing that no fighter pilot wants to hear.
The Navy needs you to fly reconnaissance aircraft.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
They were going to make a peeboard pilot out of me,
and I didn't want it.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I wanted fighters, So Jeff transferred to the Marines. There
he could be a fighter pilot. In the summer of
nineteen forty two, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
The Marine Corps Reserve.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
His airplane would be the F four F Wildcat, rugged
and easy to maneuver, with six machine guns.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Mounted on the wings.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
It had a flying range of several hundred miles, but
any dog fighting would burn fuel quickly. You could strap
on an extra fifty gallon fuel tank, but that tended
to have problems, including making the plane more difficult to
fly and easier to blow up. Jeff couldn't wait to
start flying Wildcats, but he hadn't trained in them at all.
(07:43):
Before he fought in one for the first time, he
had only flown a Wildcat for nine hours, almost nothing.
He would have to turn that nothing into something pretty
fast because he was shipping out to the Solomon Islands,
specifically Guadalcanal. We've talked about Guadalcanal before on this show.
Last season, we told the story of Doug Monroe, the
(08:05):
Coastguard signal men who died during one of the early
battles there. In the months after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese
Empire had gained footholds throughout the Pacific, the Philippines, Eastern China, Singapore,
New Guinea, and Moore. Their goal was to move eastward
to threaten Hawaii, and southward to cut off Australia from
(08:27):
the rest of the Allied forces. The Allies were going
to have to stop them if there was any hope
of winning the war. So the Allies set their sights
on the Solomons, a chain of more than nine hundred
islands scattered over eleven thousand square miles in the South Pacific.
In nineteen forty two, they invaded Guadalcanal, the biggest of
(08:49):
the islands, where the Japanese had carved out an airfield.
The Allies captured the airfield dug In and used it
as a staging ground to take on the enemy.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
This is the field on the island of Guadalcanal and
the Solomons, for the possession of which so much heavy
fighting has taken place in American hands. It's become a
vitally important base from which to bun Japanese warships and convoys.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Fighter pilots and wildcats would escort dive bombers as they
went to strife the Japanese. The wildcats would take on
these Japanese floatplanes and fighter jets so that the bombers
could get close to their targets. You could have sent
out bombers without the wildcats. They needed that protection if
they were going to get to their targets and get
home safely. These aerial missions were inherently dangerous, and estimated
(09:35):
four hundred and twenty American pilots would eventually lose their
lives in the skies over the Solomons, and so in
November of forty two, three months after the start of
this campaign, Jeff arrived in Guadalcanal. The terrain of the
Solomon Islands reminded him of Louisiana. The relentless heat, the mosquitoes.
(09:56):
None of that was new to him. He was, as ever,
completely calm, full of hope and a kind of giddy,
youthful faith. He told himself, I could survive here if
I had to. Soon enough, he would put that theory.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
To the test.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
The months passed and the Battle of Guadalcanal ground on.
The US troops still only held the airfield, while the
Japanese were elsewhere on the island and on bases scattered
throughout the Solomons. Both sides had lost thousands of men,
and yet as the years slowly turned to nineteen forty three,
it seemed that neither would budge. On the afternoon of
(10:51):
January thirty first, Jeff was given a mission.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Boyd came down from fighter command that a Japanese invasion
fleet was commandawn with ships to probably reinforced Gualacanal for
the final fight. So they scrambled US eight fire to
Polish to go up after Escort twelve Dove bombers to
hit a Japanese destroyers and ships that were in the
(11:18):
Columbanga area and Vello Novello two hundred and fifty miles
outs beyond the range of the Wildcat. So we had
to strap on a wing tank of fifty GALLUS to
make it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
That fifty gallon tank of fuel was going to be
the difference between the fighter pilots making it all the
way out to the fight and back to the base
or potentially having to bel out of their aircraft somewhere
over the ocean. Fuel tanks unempty. But it was also
a liability. Jeff as usual, was unfazed. He strapped on
(11:53):
the watch he had just bought on leave a few
weeks before. It was already a prize possession. He was
really proud of it and curious to see how it
would do in the altitude. He climbed into his plane
and fired up the engine. The eight fighters and twelve
bombers set out. Jeff was in the lead. It was
(12:13):
three pm when they took to the skies. Fairly shortly,
Jeff realized that things were going sideways, and I worried.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
About one hundred miles out, I'd already used my fifty
gallon and the main tank was not full. I was
using guys like mad. That was a leak somewhere. I
don't know where it was, but I knew that I
would never make it back.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Something was up with the tank, and not just his.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
He watched as two of the other fighter pilots peeled
off and returned to base.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Two guys must have had the same trouble, because they
turned back, So that left six of us to do
the job of protecting the dove bombers. Now we needed
all the guns we could get up to him to
protect the dove bombers. They'll give the dead ducks.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
The bombers desperately needed the Wildcats to keep them safe
and to fend off the Japanese attack that was sure
to come. Jeff knew that when they got to the
bombing site, he would most likely be engaged in a dogfight.
Every evasive action he would take would cost a more
precious fuel. Nevertheless, he made a decision he would stay
(13:21):
and fight no matter the cost.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Now, I'm not a brave man, but I have to
live with myself. If I quit now, that would be
one last fight of parlet to go up there. So
I just shoted to keep going.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
As the convoy reached the target area, the dive bombers descended,
circling for marks, but Jeff realized they were no longer alone.
Two Japanese floatplanes appeared from above, diving down towards the
American bombers. Jeff had the advantage of altitude. He saw them,
but they didn't see him. He lowered his Wildcat and
(13:58):
got the rear floatplane in his sights. He led on
a burst of gunfire, a direct hit. He watched as
the aircraft went into a spiral and exploded. Then he
settled behind the next one, right in the Japanese pilot's
blind spot. He opened fire again. The floatplane climbed into
the sky and shattered into a flash of light. Jeff
(14:20):
and his wingman, Sergeant James Fellaton, climbed higher, searching for
a safer altitude. But then they saw it, a swarm
of Japanese fighter planes heading straight for them. Jeff swung
as wildcat below the group of enemy planes, shooting at
the lead fighter. That plane caught fire but escaped. Another
(14:42):
Japanese pilot spiraled up from the pack, trying to figure
out what was happening. Jeff followed right on his tail.
He got the fighter in his sight and picked it off.
But now he and Peloton had the attention of the
whole group of Japanese pilots. They were completely outnumbered, so
the two Americans turned their wildcats towards each other, weaving
(15:05):
back and forth covering each other's tails. Then Felosin swung
too wide and came straight into the crosshairs of one
of the Japanese guns. Felason took a had to his engine.
His plane started streaming black smoke. He had no choice
but to beil out parachute into the ocean below the
rest of the Japanese fighters scattered. For a moment, the
(15:29):
sky was clear of the enemy. The sun was setting,
and the window to return home and land safely was
quickly disappearing. The American dive armbers assembled in formation they
had done their job. It was time to return to base.
Jeff glanced at his fuel gauge, and what he saw
(15:50):
made his stomach turn. The dogfight had depleted his fuel
even further, but he might have enough to make it
close to Guadalcanal, close to where someone could find him
rescue him.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
If he had to build out.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
He was ready to head back when he noticed something
out of the corner of his eye. Two enemy fighters
on his tail. If he stopped to engage them, he
would never make it back to safety. But he had
to draw them away from the American bombers. That was
what he had been sent on the mission to do.
(16:26):
Out of fuel, thousands of feet in the air, ocean
and jungle islands beneath him, and a choice to make well.
After all, he told himself he'd grown up in the
Louisiana swamps.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
He wasn't afraid of the jungle.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I figured I knew enough about survival. I wasn't trained
for it, but I was born and reared here in
the Chapelot mission, and I could survive if I hit
the islands.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
So he decided once again to stay. He watched as
the American bombers disappeared over the horizon to guadalcan And safety,
and then he climbed higher to attack the two enemy
planes head on. They closed the space in a heartbeat.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
He fired.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
The first Japanese plane caught fire, but it wasn't going down.
Jeff realized the pilot planned to fly his burning fighter
right into Jeff's Wildcat.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
This guy was shot. He knew he was dead. He
caught fire and he was going to ram me. He
coming straight, told me he's still on fire, So I
held a trigger down. He explored, and I flew through
the pieces.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Debris flew past him, hitting Jeff's plane, but his engine
was still running. His Wildcat was still flying, and as
far as he could tell, there was just one fighter left.
He banked sharply to get on the tail of the
second fighter plane as it sped by, but the pilot
had guessed his plan and pulled up high above him.
(17:57):
Then he came down straight towards Jeff.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
When I saw him coming down on him, he was
picking up speed, and he was too anxious for the kill.
And you get too anxious. You've seen birds that whale
animals get too anxious to kill the anticipate, and they
caught themselves. So he was coming down so fast that
he didn't realize he was overtaken me. The normally the reaction,
let me get out of here and president see if
(18:22):
I pick up what's being run away from him. That's
your normal way of trying to presume of your life.
Run away, but not in the final plan. Instead of
trying to run away, I chopped the throttle, which slowed
me up. Then I skidd it so he couldn't stay
on my tail.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
In effect, Jeff slammed on the brakes, trying to force
the Japanese pilot.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
To overshoot him. It worked. The two pilots locked eyes.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Wing tip to wing tip. When we looked at each other,
then I knew and he knew that he was a
dead man.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It was a moment that would stay with Jeff forever.
That between seeing your adversary acknowledging his humanity and knowing
what you were about to do to him, and yet
his conscience was clean.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
A lot of polots rationalize, we don't shoot donald killed man,
We just shoot down our planes. You know, that's a
shield to take away the idea haven't killed somebody. It
doesn't work that way. You either kill or you be killed, okay,
and you have no remorse for the enemy. He's ought
(19:33):
to kill you. So the name of the game is
you kill him before he kills you.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Jeff fired, and the Japanese pilot's plane exploded for the
first time in hours. Jeff seemed to be out of
harm's way.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
I figured I hadn't made Let me go home, try
to survive. And while I'm doing that, the sun is setting.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
He glanced at his watch. It was six pm. It
would be dark soon.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
And that's when I got hit. The first bullet came
through it over my left shoulder and took my watch
off my wrist.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
He hadn't seen the new fighter planes behind him, but
now they were lighting up his Wildcat with bullets. The
instrument panel burst into flames, the engine lost power, his
plane was disintegrating. As Jeff looked frantically around, he saw
another fighter bank to take a run at him. He
was a dead man.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
So I got out of that like a tall dog
because the bullets were shutting everything on fire and hitting
the armor plate and everything else. But I was lucky.
I was. I have a few shopnel cuts, but I
didn't realize it yet. But Adrennone was flooring so fast
that I didn't even feel that I was hurt.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
The only thing left to do was bell out. He
was about three thousand feet somewhere over the western Solomon Islands.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
So I jumped out, trailed the ledge of the wing,
and pulled a rip cord and floored.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
That was beautiful, Like I said, this is one extremely
unflappable man.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Man. That was the more sensational thing I ever did
in my life, and it was outstanding.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
But then he hit the water harder than he'd anticipated.
His gun canteen and extra shells were ripped away from him.
He managed to inflate his life jacket. When he broke
the surface of the water, he could see shoreline ahead
of him, but the current was sweeping him out to sea.
Jeff knew he was bleeding, and he knew there were sharks.
(21:38):
All aviators at the time were giving chlorine pills to
break into the water to keep sharks away, so Jeff
broke his as he swam and swam and swam. It
would take six hours of swimming for Jeff to reach shore.
Dusk settling into full darkness, the stars coming out, and
(22:01):
an unknowable amount of swimming left to do, but he
kept going.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Finally he reached the shore.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
He pulled himself up on the sand, tore off his
life jacket, and ran across the beach to the underbrush.
It might have been dark, but he knew the Japanese
had a base on this island. He had seen it
from the sky. He was an enemy territory.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Now I knew enough to get off the beach and
cover up my tracks. I fell asleep.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
For the moment.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
He could rest, kind of like a worn out kid.
Jeff could sleep pretty much anywhere. This place was Kullabungara Island.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
That night he found.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Peace, but what awaited him on the island was every
bit as dangerous as anything in the sky. Jeff de
Blanc woke up to the filling of rain. He ached
all over. He had a backpack with the basic survival kit,
so he dressed his wounds as best as he could
and had a bite of chocolate from his pack. He
(23:08):
had no idea where to go or if the Allies
knew he was still alive. He was pretty sure the
Japanese did. One of the pilots had circled him as
he was parachuting down.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
I had to figure, well, I'm an animate territory, not
know they're looking for him, because the man circled me
in and they shot me arms, So they're looking for
me definitely.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yet, somehow Jeff was convinced that he could survive in
the jungle, maybe even still a plane off the Japanese
base and get home. He started to trek inland. He
had a knife in his pack, and he walked with
it out in front of him.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
The vegetation was so thick.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
He found it easier to climb into the trees, moving
above ground from one to the next. The second night,
he fell asleep, this time in a tree, even though
his wounds had started to bother him. The following warning,
he spotted a grass hut and a small clearing. It
had a straw sleeping mat inside, and Jeff gathered coconuts
(24:07):
from the trees and rain water from where it had
pulled on massive leaves. While exploring the jungle, he found
a downed Allied fighter jet swarming with flies. He saw
that the machine guns had been removed, and he shuddered
had the Japanese been there? But then he saw bare
footprints surrounding the wreckage.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
He knew what that meant.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
One of the local indigenous tribes must live close by,
because the Solomon Islands were populated, of course, by people
who lived there for thousands of years, some Melanesians, some Polynesians.
In fact, more than eighty different languages are spoken by
the peoples of the Solomons, making it one of the
Pacific's most diverse countries in terms of language and ethnicity.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Jeff had known he.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Wasn't alone, not really, but he didn't know if these island.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Would be happy to see him. He didn't count on it.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
He gauged his safety by listening to the birds outside
his hut. As long as they were singing, He told
himself he was alone.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
If the birds are singing, everything is right on, no doubt.
From the swamps just all over the world. That way,
the birds are shinging. Fine.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
He spent a night in the little hut, and then
another and another listening to the birds song, tending to
his wounds, staying his same hopeful self. And then he
woke one morning and said something had shifted. The birds
stopped singing.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
What does that tell you? I tell you in trouble.
Something is out there.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
He grabbed his knife and walked to the door of
the hut. A young islander stood there, about five foot two.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
He was grinning. Now, why should he be grinning, I'm
told he is I haven't. He has a machete. I
could throw a knife and had to fight him hand
to hand. But for some reason for him to be grinning.
And when I stepped out that hut, four or five
others right there with machetes.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Oh, Jeff thought that's why he was grinning. Jeff was
totally outnumbered. He dropped his knife, but he wasn't exactly stressed.
He wasn't an anxious guy, just in his twenty one
year old, not particularly sophisticated way.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
He was a little worried that they might eat him.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I could see myself in the pot.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
The men moved Jeff through the jungle to the water's edge.
An outrigger canoe was waiting there, and they motioned for
him to get inside.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
When they put me into twelve men out rigor. Then
I knew they were going to trade me to the
Japanese because they weren't friendly. They punched me in if
I'd moved the stigma with a knot, which means don't move,
and I got the message in a hurry.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
They paddled along the shoreline for hours towards a village
towards the Japanese base. Jeff had no way of knowing.
Finally they stopped and motioned Jeff out of the canoe.
He followed them to a village where they put him
in a bamboo cage with two guards set outside. Jeff waited,
even to unflappable Jeff, this was starting to seem pretty bad.
(27:31):
Then six more Islanders entered the village. One of them
was carrying a sack.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
When he walked into that compound, you could tell he
had authority, and he had a ten pound shakarage, which
he put down at the feet of the men who
held me. They let me go and I quickly joined him,
and we all took off head and oft of the
jungles towards another village.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Jeff wasn't sure what was happening, but he knew one
thing he had been traded for a sack of rice.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
When he threw a ten pound shak arrived. None I
knew exactly how much I'm w a ten pound shak rise.
That's the value of my life.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
The new group of men walked for an hour without
exchanging a word, and then the leader turned to Jeff
and spoke to him in pigeon, a dialect close enough
to English that Jeff could understand. They weren't taking Jeff
to be sold to the Japanese, he said, they were
rescuing him. Unbeknownst to Jeff, a network of coast watchers
(28:30):
had been hunting for him every bit as hard as
the Japanese had. The coast watchers were largely British and
Australian men, mostly civilians, who had stayed in the Solomons
after the Japanese invasion. Now they worked as Allied spies,
hiding in the jungles to report on enemy activities. Islanders
(28:52):
had been helping the Allied forces since the start of
the war, as well, working as guides, providing valuable intelligence,
leading down pilots like Jeff through the jungle to safety,
often passing within inches of the enemy. They were the
primary communication link between the coast watchers. There were also
targets of the Japanese. That was the reason Jeff had
(29:15):
been kept in the cage. In that first village, Japanese
planes had shot in each village.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
They were looking for me. And then it see a
white man in the village that strafed the village and
bombed regardless of the natives.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
That man who had traded Jeff for the sack of
rice was named Ati Ludukolo. He was tasked with bringing
Jeff miles across the Kullabangara Island, across the sea and
onto the next largest island, which was called Vela la Vela.
From there they could arrange for the Allies to pick
Jeff up, but they would have to get there first.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
So we worked on another village and I was in
chief there. I'm stripped of the ways and everything else.
I have my Marine Corps buckle. There the chief grabs
my buckle. The intelligence officer said, if any native takes
something from you, you take something from them. It's protocol.
When he grabbed that buckle, I grabbed that spirit that
he had. Well, we traded. In other words, he nodded,
(30:13):
and I nodded, and I walked off with the spear.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Jeff held tightly to that spear as he and Ati
traveled on. They reached another twelve man outrigger canoe. They
paddled in the darkness through a rainstorm, with nothing but
the tides to guide them and daylight, and into another canoe.
This time Ati made Jeff lie on the bottom and
covered him with palm fronds. Being spotted by the Japanese
(30:40):
would have meant death to them all. They paddled on swiftly, quietly,
until finally they reached Vella.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
La Vella, so they took the fronds off of me.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Jeff blinked and looked out from the canoe.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
I see a big red born, and I see a
white man coming down with three natives. And he spoke
Oxford English and said to me Lieutenant de Blanc. And
he didn't mission a de Blanc or this or that.
He came out in perfect French.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
It was Reverend A. W. E.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Sylvester, a New Zealand missionary who had refused to evacuate
the islands after the Japanese invasion. He was a coast
watcher too, That's how he knew who Jeff was. In fact,
Sylvester himself had only survived the Japanese invasion because the
Solomon Islanders had led him to safety, just as they
(31:34):
had helped Jeff and the other stranded allies. Here's Sylvester
speaking to an interviewer about it back in nineteen forty five.
Speaker 6 (31:43):
I certainly owe my life to the natives. One of
my native teachers came and gave me the warning, and
all my decisions regarding evacuation were made on their information.
We never made a mistake through the services of the natives.
The total number of people we evacuated were two hundred
and fifty for Mare Island.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Jeff couldn't have known it, but his route from Ati
to Sylvester to safety was one that the coast watchers
and the Islanders had been perfecting for months. He had
fallen into just the right place. Sylvester welcomed Jeff into
his home, where Jeff unsurprisingly slept like a log. He
(32:25):
also got a piece of welcome news. His wingman Pelton
had survived as well, wounded, ribs, broken, but alive. The
following day was a Sunday, and the men were having
a leisurely British cup of tea when an islander ran
up and whispered something in the Sylvester's ear.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
The minister put down his teacup.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
He said, well, we'll have to have mash now and
then after Mass you're going to have to leave. I
said why, He said, the job Nusia coming in. He said,
I know you are Catholic Initiative Church of England, which
is not the shame denomination process. But I said, please,
I'll be on the first sheet in fresh Row.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
And so in the middle of the jungle, with the
Japanese on their way, the group gathered and prayed. Then
Jeff Ati and a few other Islanders booked it out.
They wound up trekking for miles, finally reaching the village
where Peloton had been hidden. Safety started to feel closer,
(33:26):
but the two Marines would have to wait until an
American rescue mission could be organized to take them back
to Guadalcanal. Two coast watchers invited Jeff to hike to
their secret outposts in the mountains, where he saw Japanese
planes take off and land from nearby bases. Only then
did he understand the extraordinary work these hidden ally spies
(33:48):
had done and what risk they had taken to save
Americans whenever they fell. On February twelfth, nineteen forty three,
three days before Jeff's twenty second birthday, planes left Guadacanal
to pick up Jeff and his wingman. They were taken
offshore in a canoe. Atti rode with them, safeguarding them
(34:12):
until the end. The rescue plane landed, escorted by fighter pilots,
within sight of three Japanese airfields.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
They picked us up on the run. Atti was the
one who brought me back through the peaboat. It's made
to land on the water to pick up things. So
they landed on the water, but didn't cut the engines
up through my spear and the first and then jumped
in after it.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
The men on board had risked their lives to get
Jeff and Peloton, just as Ati had. The pe boat
took off, headed to Guadalcanal, and Jeff finally exhaled.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
I knew I was saved.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
He had lived with this decision to not turn back,
to stay and fight, and he had also lived. Jeff
(35:16):
went on to serve a few more months in the Solomons.
When he returned home on leave, his little town presented
him with a watch to replace the one that had
been blown off his wrist. He was awarded the Navy
Cross for his actions in the skies. That last day
of January nineteen forty three, he volunteered for active service again.
(35:38):
He flew missions during the Battle of Okinawa. He touched
down to Japan after the war ended, curious to see
what the country looked like, but he was ready to
return home, specifically to Louise Burrard, his high school sweetheart.
He had known her since she was the star forward
of the championship girls basketball team. A dark haired beauty
(36:02):
with a sweet smile. They got married. Jeff went to
college and then in December of nineteen forty six, he
got a call. He was told that he was going
back into active duty.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
He couldn't understand it. Why he has served his country.
He was a reservist. What active duty was he even
going back to?
Speaker 3 (36:28):
I said what I don't I'm a reserve. Oh go,
he said this to come to Washington to get too
Medal of Hona. He said, you got to be joking.
I said, shut up to a man riding, and they did.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
So.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
They put him on active duty to go back. She
wouldn't cast anything.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yep, they put him on active duty so that he
wouldn't have to pay for the trip anyways. He and
Louise went to Washington, and President Harry Truman gave Jeff
his Medal of Honor at the White House. Jeff went
on to stay in the Marines as a reservist until
nineteen seventy two. He and Luiz had five children, a
(37:06):
girl and four boys. Jeff got advanced degrees in science
and mathematics.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
He became a teacher.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
He taught middle and high school kids, and then he
went back to the Solomon Islands four times. The first
was in nineteen ninety two for the fiftieth anniversary of Guadalcanal.
He went up in a plane, this time flown by
someone else, and peered down over Kullabungara Island, searching for
(37:34):
the hut where he'd hidden out so many decades before.
And then in two thousand he flew to Vella Lavella
to be reunited with Ati Loduklo, the man who had
guided him on his treacherous path to safety. Jeff was
taken by boat to ATI's village, where his former guide,
(37:56):
now in his nineties, was waiting.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Ugged.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
They ate dinner together, They exchanged gifts. Fifty seven years
had passed since they had met in the jungle, Since
Atti saved Jeff's life, Jeff had never forgotten his bravery,
or his kindness, or, of course, that ten pound bag
(38:21):
of rice. Jeff de Blanc died in two thousand and
seven at the age of eighty six. The spear he
traded his belt Buckle four now sits in the World
War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana. Even at the
end of his life, when asked about the Medal of
Honor and his actions on January thirty first, nineteen forty three,
(38:44):
Jeff brought everything back to one thing, not heroism, not bravery,
but personal accountability.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
I could have used your time back and nobody would
have questioned, because two guys did. Already would have to
live with myself because no doubt in my mind, a
lot of bombers would not have returned, and that would
be a part that I would have to be accountable for,
and I don't like that.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
The kind of accountability Jeff is talking about isn't expectations
from others or a job description. It's a personal ethos.
It's the feeling of being sure what your values are,
and the determination to stick to those values no matter
the cost. Some might call it a conscience. That little
(39:34):
voice inside your head. That little voice told Jeff that
if he turned back and abandoned his mission, he'd be
turning back to a life he wouldn't want to lead.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
So he stayed and protected.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Those bombers, even when he knew he might never make
it home. I think that's why Jeff felt such peace
when he found himself falling thousands of feet through the air,
the empty ocean rising up to meet him, seeing this
glorious beauty in the fall, with the conscience as light as.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
A feather medal of honor.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Stories of Courage is written by Meredith Rollins and produced
by Meredith Rollins, Jess Shane, and Suzanne Gabber. Our editor
is Ben Adolf Hoffrey. Sound design and additional music by
Jake Gorsky. Our executive producer is Constanza Gallardo. Fact checking
by Arthur Gomperts, Original music by Eric Phillips. The rest
(40:42):
of the team includes Carl Catle, Greta Cone, Christina Sullivan,
Sarah Nix, Nicole Appendosh, Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner, Jordan McMillan,
Kira Posey, Owen Miller, Amy Haggerdarn and Jake Flanagan. Special
thanks to the series creator Dan mcinn, to the Congressional
Medal of Honor Society, and to Ja to Anga the
(41:05):
audio visual archive of ati Aroa, New Zealand. If you
want to learn more about this story, take a look
at our show notes, where we have some of the
resources we use to put together this episode, including a
book by the man himself, Jefferson de Blanc. We also
want to hear from you. Send us your personal story
of courage or highlight someone else's bravery. Email us at
(41:28):
Medal of Honor at Pushkin dot fm. You might hear
your stories on future episodes of Medal of Honor, or
see them on our social channels at Pushkin Pods.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
I'm your host, JR. Martinez
Host
Malcolm Gladwell
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