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BLACKBURN-JOHN

JOHN  THOMAS  "TOMMY" BLACKBURN

Rate/Rank
CAPT
Service Branch
USN 00/1933 - 00/1962
Speciality
NAVAL AVIATOR
Born 06/24/1912
ANNAPOLIS, MD
FIGHTER ACE - 12 AERIAL VICTORIES
DECEASED, 3/21/1994
SIGNIFICANT DUTY STATIONS
CO, VGF-29, USS SANTEE CVE-29
CO, VF-17, USS ESSEX CV-9
C0, VF-19, USS BUNKER HILL CV-17
U. S. NAVAL ACADEMY, ANNAPOLIS, MD - CLASS OF 1933
CO, USS MIDWAY CV-41
SIGNIFICANT AWARDS
NAVY CROSS
DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS
AMERICAN CAMPAIGN MEDAL
EUROPEAN-AFRICAN-MIDDLE EASTERN CAMPAIGN MEDAL
ASIATIC-PACIFIC CAMPAIGN MEDAL W/STARS
WORLD WAR II VICTORY MEDAL
NATIONAL DEFENSE SERVICE MEDAL
SERVICE MEMORIES

              

LCDR Blackburn, Commanding Officer of VF-17, standing in front of his squadron’s “scoreboard” identifying the number of Japanese aircraft his fliers had shot down.  Picture taken in February 1944 at Piva Airstrip on Bougainville Island in the South Pacific.

NAVY  CROSS  CITATION

The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Lieutenant Commander John Thomas Blackburn (NSN: 0-72292), United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism in operations against the enemy while serving as Pilot of a carrier-based Navy Fighter Plane in Fighting Squadron SEVENTEEN (VF-17), attached to the U.S.S. HORNET (CV-12), while participating in aerial flights against the enemy in the New Britain theater.  In thirty-two days Lieutenant Commander Blackburn flew thirty combat sorties, twenty-one of which were escort missions or fighter sweeps over the Rabaul area, and on thirteen of which he encountered enemy aircraft.  On 26 January, when the bombers which he was escorting were intercepted by more than fifty enemy fighters, he destroyed one of them.  On 30 January the light bombers he escorted were aggressively intercepted by twenty enemy fighters.  In repeated attacks he destroyed two of them and probably shot down three more.  On 9 February he led a flight of eight Corsairs which found an enemy ship at anchor and sank it with machine gun fire.  His outstanding devotion to duty, his heroic conduct against numerically superior enemy forces, his daring and aggressive airmanship were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.