March 2012 Snapshots

[shegotya]

For Calendar reasons

Mar 07 12   68Wydwyt   The Black Friday
On the morning of February 9th, 1945, two Beaufighters from Coastal Command's 489 Squadron were on a recce-mission. At 10:30, at the entrance to Fordefjord they sighted a Narvik class destroyer, Z-33, with heavy escort. Even before the two Beaus had landed, the planning of the attack had begun. The Admirality were interested in destroying the few remaining warships of the Kriegsmarine; the destroyer was the main target. The nearby Coastal Command Strike Wing base at Banff with Beaufighters was alerted as was Peterhead, home of 65. Sqdn flying Mustang Mk IIIs. They would act as escort. Takeoff was just before 14:00. It was obviously going to be a tough mission!

The Luftwaffe had some Focke-Wulfs at readiness at a nearby airfield, Herdla. The alarm had sounded at Herdla shortly before 15:50 and a few minutes later the Focke-Wulfs were in the air. Now they hear of their mission; interception of a large enemy formation in Fordefjord.


Mar 14 12   Cryptic   Eighth Overhead
Before the advent of the P-51B Mustang the American Eighth Air Force took the fight to the Germans, in daylight, largely unescorted in large "self-defended" armadas. Several hundred B-17 Flying Fortresses were carefully organized into boxes, then the boxes were stacked into a bomb group with the hope that they would be able to deter the German fighters. They took a lot of casualties, and did a lot of damage. Was it worth it? Time would tell, but they tried their utmost to hurt the enemy.


Mar 21 12   68Raptor   Jackpot
In 1944 Axis Airfields and Transportation targets were chosen as the primary targets for the roving Allied fighters. Jackpot's and Chattanooga's were low level strafing missions. Jackpots were airfield targets and Chattanooga's were Railroad targets. In this Snapshot we recreate what happened hundreds of times during the Air war over Europe, A dangerous low level strafing mission over a hostile airfield.


Mar 28 12   68Baltar   Last Day at Lexington
As the Sun rose on May 8th many pilots aboard Task Force 17 especially the
Lexington did not know what the days events would later entail upon them. As
they had the previous day, The Air groups of the Lexington and the Yorktown
were going to launch again. On the 7th they sunk the light carrier Shoho but this
time they would launch against Shokaku and Zuikaku. The Japanese pilots,
mostly Pearl Harbor Veterans would launch a sixty-nine plane strike force to
attack TF 17. Lexington Air Group was spread through the clouds the Japanese
fleet had used as protection. The SBD's from the "Lady Lex" managed to get
some bombs onto the Shokaku but she would survive. The Lexington on the
other hand, would not. The Japanese battled through the American defenses in a
dogfight covering miles of ocean. Four Wildcats and five SBD's were lost in the
defense of Lexington. Naval airmen and shipboard gunners accounted for 19 of
the Japanese attackers. The attack damaged the Yorktown and aerial torpedoes
mortally wounded Lexington and she sank later that evening taking 33 aircraft to
the bottom with her. In this event we will be recreating the defense of
Task Force 17.