Well, another hard fought and costly mission. This was a long range escort of a six-ship B-17 formation. We launched from Knightland at approximately 17:15 EST, and headed into Bishopland. Our targets were the ammo factory and the city. We had 14 P-51s split into 3 flights. Form up and climb out was without incident, but shortly after crossing the line the fighter attacks began and never stopped.
The escort pilots were brave and aggressive, but again we suffered from a lack of centralized command and control of the escorts. Two many of the escorts would chase after the first enemy fighter to draw near, leaving the "Dicke Autos" with insufficient little friends to guard them. Nonetheless, only one Fort was lost and another damaged on the way to the target.
Coming off the target, disaster struck. Several of the Forts turned without permission to make a second pass at the target (strictly against General Eaker's orders), destroying the combat box. With the escorts entangled in individual dogfights, the remaining B-17's secumbed one by one, until only Cobra remained. The escorts -- at least one flight of them, anyway -- managed to rally and fight a rear-action to allow Cobra to make it back over friendly territory.
As Cobra made his final approach, a lone Me109 made a suicide lunge and delivered Cobra's Boeing a crippling blow. His gunner manage to smoke the 109's engine during the engagement, and the enemy was subsequently destroyed. Both Cobra and his crew safely bailed out within walking distance of their base, code named F10.
Lessons learned: The mission MUST have an overall commander to direct the appropriate response to threats. Despite an escort all out of proportion to the size of the raid, bomber attrition was still unacceptably high. Better escort techniques need to be developed and rigorously adhered to.
TOD Stats to date:
54 total pilots registered
7 KIA
2 MIA
15 enemy a/c destroyed
1 Assit
End of Report
Sabre (a.k.a. Rojo)
Tour of Duty Coordinator
P.S. As you can see, attrition is high in this one-life-to-live series. There are still eight missions left...and it takes five successful missions to earn a Tour of Duty ribbon. Anyone interested in signing on should e-mail me for details. Missions are Thursday's at 21:30 EST and Saturdays at 17:00 EST.
