Hi all,
Group 2 Flight Leader reporting in.
Here is the AAR report of Allies Group 2 Lancaster Flight. (Date Fri 30th Mar 1943)
After arriving in the Tower we were all assigned Flight groups, Departure fields & targets. Group 2 was Oneil, Camel and myself. Our target was to be the City. Other flights were assigned other strategic targets such as Refinaries, Radar & Ammo Factories as well as the City.
We left A29 and climbed in a northerly direction Oneil left a minute after Camel & Myself so we reduced Man pressure to enable him to form up, before turning west just after entering 7,10.3. We then applied full throttle (Default climb) and proceeded in a westerly direction along the southern edge of 7,10 before turning North West from 7,10,2 across to 7,10.4 where we turned north. As we passed into 7,11.1 we changed course to West. Some brief relaxation was afforded by the cloud cover but this soon dissipated as we turned north as we passed into 5,11.1 and we were left at 11K in a bright moonlit sky now flying level.
All was very quiet and much time was spent scanning the skyline for tell tale dots as we knew the Hun were out looking for us in force. Radio messages were coming in thick & fast and it was obvious that other flights had already been found by the German night fighters Camel broke off radio contact abruptly and I am sad to report that no further contact was received but a trail of smoke could be seen decending to our low 5. I assume he fell prey to a roving night fighter and hope he was able to bail successfully. Shortly after entering Sector 5,11.9 we turned West briefly before turning North in 5,11.8 to line up on our designated target of Berlin. It was to be a Carpet bomb run so both Oneil & myself set ".salvo 14" and started our approach.
Intelligence reports indicated the previous waves had already done thier stuff and the City destroyed so we re routed further north and attacked the Radar Factoy we did expect a fairly quiet run in. Unfortunately our route took us straight over the Ruined city and suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by flak. Despite a few near misses we were soon clear and able to concentrate on the task in hand.
We decided to turn West and dive after the drop and try to return to base low level a route which would take us South with A27 to the East and finally turn East and return to A29. Unfortunately this was not to be. Oneil reported multiple bandits inbound and I turned 180 degrees to help. I dragged 3 (Which only left about 7 on Oneil lol). The odds where well and truly stacked against us. The tracers ripped across the sky both from the allied bombers and also the Luftwaffe night fighters. I saw a few shells hit an FW190 but was caught with a slicing beam pass by ??? and found myself playing dope on a rope. As I drifted earthwards I had plenty of time to reflect on what we should have done.... perhaps next time.
<S>! to all who attended and also to those who set it all up. Another fantastic night.
(Even if it did start at 04:00am local time - still, back to 03:00am next week so at least I should be more awake)
TTFN
snafu
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[This message has been edited by snafu (edited 03-31-2001).]
