were you smart enough to dive away and re-group?
In FSO your often hampered by orders & objectives. Since Icon range is so short you dont know what you've got till your engaged. You cant "dive out" till you've identified if you've got bombers mixed in. I dont know what max alt for the F4F's is but once you hit 20K in a P-39 its almost impossible to maintain in even a gentle turn.
We (USMC/71) ended up split into three sections with a "scout" flight that enegaed a large number of B5N's before they could strike. Our main body of 8-9 (not sure exactly) that got heavily engaged at A37 and Ramon and I as "CAP" at our designated assignment (A35). When we arrived we had a large number of zekes at roughly 30K. The moment we identified them we dove out...since we were just 2 they didnt follow en mass.
Had our "main body" been there undoubtably they would have been more aggressive. In FSO small scout elements are often ignored, run off or engaged my a small element. When you (as primary defensive CAP) are engaged by a previously unengaged strike force you normally end up playing "ball" to there "bat"...the flip side is that if you are vectored to an inbound strike that has been engaged and strung out your normally the hammer that breaks the entire attack up.
Anytime a defensive CAP actually engages over its assigned target its already lost most of the time....just the way it is IMO.