Day 2
I was fortunate enough to be taken under the wing of Vermont1 and CHAPPY and joined their squadron. They invited me along for a medium range air raid into Rook territory.
Our mission was to assault an air base and neutralize the town. I was first to the staging point and in the air, but because I was once again flying my Hurricane I was outpaced by my squadronmate's faster aircraft.
I arrived over the enemy base to find a wall of anti-air pounding away at our friendlies as they made their bombing runs. Without bombs of my own, I felt I'd be most useful trying to kill off the AAA positions. I attacked selectively, trying to position my strafing runs so that my exit path would avoid crossfire or at least allow me a shot at a second AAA.
I killed off five of the AAA positions using 6-10 round bursts from my 20mms and in the process lost a flap and one of my guns to return fire. A Japanese NIK had taken to the air while I was busy and as I pulled out of the final attack run I saw CHAPPY fly past with the NIK on his tail.
I gave chase, firing at 400 and then again at 500 as he began to outpace me. I scored at least one hit but didn't seem to hurt him. I continued to chase until he was 800 away and then broke off. He turned around and CHAPPY called a warning. I turned back to engage and we blew by each other, cockpit to cockpit.
I miscalculated my flap loss and overcompensated on my turn, bleeding off too much of my energy. I looked up through my cockpit glass while banking and saw the forward belly of his aircraft. He had lead on me, and I was soon shot down.
I returned again, this time with bombs and moved straight to the enemy town. Their fighter hangars were down, and they had a Panzer and Flakker on their way to town. Not having had any practice in bombing, I opted to nose dive towards town and drop my bombs indiscriminately. I managed to kill a building and then gunned down an AAA position in the town that was still firing.
Using the energy from the dive, I caught some altitude and went into another dive. I cut my engine power and sighted in on the Panzer. I was bemused to see a couple of my rounds bouncing off and the 30-40 or so shots that I put into him seemed to do nothing.
Not wanting to waste all of my ammo I broke away and circled east of the town, trying to cut off an enemy P-51 as it zoomed towards my squadmates who were mostly on the ground in vehicles at this point. As I intersected his flightpath he entered an aileron roll and I hit his belly with several cannon rounds. His engine began to smoke and he turned back home.
