This was great fun.
I was a member of the 4th FG, flying a P-51B. We took off and climbed south to rendezvous with the bombers. Here's a view off my right wing as we did so. (Not the greatest resolution, but that's the best one I've got of the formation from my view.)
Then we moved out in front of them to provide forward escort. HR and I were assigned forward right of the bomber stream.
About 10-20 miles after the coast of France, as the bomber stream headed SW, I saw a high bogie south of the bomber stream. I was at 28k, and the bogie was a little higher. I reported it, and HR and I went to investigate. The bogie stayed out of ID range as we followed it around the front of the bomber stream, and then it turned in for attack. It was an enemy fighter. I closed and either got only a hit or two on him or missed completely. My gunnery was very poor. I was surpised how wobbly my P-51B felt at this altitude. I hadn't yet fought with a P-51B at this altitude before and wasn't used to it. When the enemy fighter (don't remember if it was a 190 or a 109) dove, I didn't follow, as he was in no position after that to attack the bombers.
A little while after this, two 109's showed up. I got on one probably after he had already done a pass or two. He went into a tight, climbing turn as he tried for the bombers again -- I followed and closed. When I got to 200 yards, I started firing. Several hits landed around the cockpit area, and as I pulled a little more g's to keep my firing solution, I stalled and snap rolled my P-51. I thought I had blown it again, as I got only a very short burst into the 109, but the 109 exploded about a second later. I'm not sure if I got a critical hit on it or if someone else got hits on it, but it gave me kill #1.
I got my plane back under control, and there was still the other 109 in the immediate vicinity. HR had flushed him away from the bombers, and he was working to get back on them. I got on him and started to close. He pulled up into a steep climb, trying to see if I'd stall out first. I didn't yet and continued to close, and he continued to steepen his climb. At about 400 yards, I openned up and kept pouring on the hits as he pulled into an Immelmann. As he got to the top of his Immelmann, I was 200 yards away, vertical, and almost out of speed. Finally, his wing blew off (kill #2), and immediately thereafter, I stalled out, nose vertical.
My P-51 entered a nastly flat spin at that point (at about 22k), and I was trying various options to get out of it. Full opposite rudder, stick full forward wasn't doing it. I tried some aileron. I tried chopping my throttle. I tried a notch of flaps. Around and around I went. I retracted my flaps. I tried different control inputs. Finally, around 15k, the oscillations in the flat spin and some control input started to allow me to get my nose down, a few more revolutions and I finally got my nose low enough to get out of it. Whew!
I climbed back toward the bombers. At this point, I sort of lost track of the various fights I was in. Luftwaffe planes would come in usually at very high altitude, dive on the bombers, and I would try to close on them to kill them or drive them off or drive them low. The LW fighters had the annoying habit of rolling and jinking as I closed on them but not veering off the bombers. Thus, if I didn't get a good hit on them, the danger was that I'd go past and be in perfect position for them to hit me. So I often would do the best pass I could, get as many hits as I could manage, then as I got to right on top of the enemy, try to veer hard off and up, frantically looking back to see if they were following me. The 190's were the worst because of that flickering roll they can do, flicking this way and that.
On one such attack, I closed in on target firing from 400 yards on in, overtaking him with a lot of speed. As I got to almost zero range, I pulled up hard. He flashed under my nose, and I heard something hit my plane. I thought it might be debris, as I had scored hits on him decently at especially close range, but it was his plane -- a collision. It tore off my left aileron. It could have been much worse.
After my pass, I would get back on the LW fighter if it stayed but not follow if he dived out. I would then try to rejoin the bombers then climb over the top of them to repeat the whole process.
I got two more kills doing this on 109's or 190's. Twice I intercepted a 110. The first time, I totally blew my gunnery run, even though I was set up perfectly. The second time, I didn't. That 110 dove out and was killed by others, giving me an assist.
By now, I was very low on ammo. I had about 50 rounds in primaries and about 175 in secondaries. Near the French coast, more 190's and 109's were attacking the bombers from altitude. It was hard to roll with them with my one aileron missing. At this point, I wasn't back up much above the bombers yet. I closed in, worked to chase off a 190, but a 109 came in on my tail and tried for me. He closed to within about 500 yards briefly as I rolled and dove out. He stayed 600 back for a while, then started to recede as I held my dive, running away from the bombers with him chasing.
After he broke off, I turned back to catch up to the bombers, climbing a bit as I went. Out over the channel, a higher 109 (fortunately not a huge amount higher) engaged me. I got a couple of hits into him and radioed to a the two friendly fighters (one was GB I think) I could see in the area that I had to run as I was almost out of ammo. I noticed as I left that the 109 was trailing smoke, which surprised me, as I was down to two 50 cal's at that point. Maybe one of other two guys had managed to get a quick hit on him.
I rejoined the bombers 10-20 miles east of the English coast. I checked around -- it looked clear. I turned back to cover any other bombers coming in after this lead group. I radioed if there were any more coming. One of the bombers (Strider, I think) was just into the channel from France. Some other folks said they could rendezvous with him, so I headed in to land.
This mission was a blast, and many thanks to the folks -- especially Fencer -- who organized it.
