Jeff Deblanc, Jason Theriot:
**dates, years, and places mentioned may be confused in his retelling**

-Prior to WWII was a product of the Depression, grew up in that environment; always looking for jobs
-After graduation from high school in 1938 worked in the sugar houses as a bench chemist; was able to go to college through the factory
-Never finished college as the war broke out in 1939; went to LSU
-Was already in training by the time Pearl Harbor happened as there was already a push for trained men
-At LSU had civilian pilot training (CPT) and Deblanc was in it by 1939 when war broke out in Europe
-When war broke out in U.S. Deblanc wanted to make sure he was not drafted into another department, like the infantry; wanted to fly for the Navy
-Brother, Frank, was an engineer and was going to go into the Army but Deblanc feared that Frank would be stuck building bridges in front of the infantry and be killed
-Told Frank to go into the Navy and become a pilot too; flew a four engine plane all through the war in anti-sub patrol in the Pacific
-Deblanc advanced into naval flight training in Oct. 1941 and was stationed in Corpus Christi; wanted to be a fighter as he was able to fight on his own terms

After Pearl Harbor (9:36)
-His class of cadets were assigned to be (?) pilots and Deblanc did not want to so he went and resigned for service in the Navy and was sent into the Marine Corps to be a fighter
-Deblanc’s group were known as the “Omega” pilots, because their training was too little to be actual fighter pilots; they needed bodies out there

(13:11) Describing his plane, M3N (?) plane, a by-plane
-Breezed through his air craft landing training and was sent to Corpus Christi, to what he thought was more training but was put in as reserved pilots and teaching
-Navy pilots had some run-ins with the Navy guys there
-Wore these large rings and would knock on the bar when ordering drinks to be served first—called them “ring knockers”
-Bar would be split by pilots in reserved and ring knockers

(16:49) describing the planes; F3F, they used at the air craft carriers from WWI with no gun wingmen; transferred to OOS2, a low wing monoplane
-Once graduated and passed training for instrument flying, had a total of 250 hours of flying time; sent on a carrier to Guadalcanal in August 1942
-Was given a plane that he had flew the least, less than 10 hours of flying time
-June or July 1942 (maybe he meant 1943?)went over to New Caledonia; 22 days at sea, not on an aircraft carrier as there were planes already there
-Was there to replace those in squadrons that had been killed; saw first combat in November 1942

(25:00) in service training he was given on how to fight Japanese planes in dog fights from older pilots
-While at New Caledonia was renamed as the “Cactus Air force;” those that fought from August 20 - January 23 1943 were a part of this air force in the South Pacific

(28:43) Looking at a photo of a F4F, the Wildcat, mid-wing plane; describing how he used it

First Combat (33:19)
-When he first ran into a Japanese plane was Nov. 10 1942; also the first day at Guadalcanal (maybe he meant New Caledonia?)
-Flew as the last man in the squadron formation, in the very back; were flying with others to see the layout of the islands
-Landed at 11 and then the radio went off about Japanese bombers (this happened everyday); Japanese plan was to push them off the island, literally
-Took off and was flying over Japanese territory; listened to Coast Guard radio on where the Japanese would be in the air and on land
-Had to have short messages on the radio from the Coast Guard as the Japanese could locate where they and the planes were if they stayed on long enough
-Used a lot of British slang and terms for codes

(37.45) Describing in detail of the planes on both sides, islands they flew over in the fight, where his squadron was and who was helping him
-What they were to except from the Japanese; how they lost one pilot, Joe Falcon

Life on Guadalcanal (44:02)
-Knew every night there was to be bombing; always tired
-Washing Machine Charlie plane had the loudest engine in the Japanese and they could always hear them when they were coming
-Ran a few times in patrol in the foxholes on the ground; scared him more to be under artillery fire
-Marine and Natives worked together to keep the base clear enough so the planes could take off
-Natives mostly stuck with the winners at the time, so they were always switching back and forth
-Night was the worst as anything that moved was shot, so no going out to the bushes for the bathroom
-Japanese sometime would ride bicycles down their (US) runway and fire at their tents
-The base was never truly secured until December; able to get supplies easier and Japanese were no longer destroying them
-Flew almost every day for 6 weeks; describing more on other attacks/bombings he was in

-On one flight after some Japanese bombers, 3 out of 8 planes had fuel problems; Deblanc’s plane was one
-2 pilots bailed and went back to the base but Deblanc chose to stay on
-Knew that if he got into a fight he will not have enough fuel to go back
-Decided that he’d fight and then fly back to a certain island and bail there, told his comrades
-Describes certain tactics used; starts talking about how he was shot down (same story in TH1-040)
-Returns to when he was flying back with little to no fuel after the fight; wasn’t his first time to have to fight with little fuel

Cuts off mid-sentence at very end