Because I love flying the Wildcat and Dauntless (SBD), and because I of my background in naval aviation and aviation history, I was very interested in flying this (my first) snapshot.
When I logged on, Moose assigned me to fly the SBD, which was fine with me, as I fly it often in the MA and probably know the aircraft better than anyone. Having just 6 SBDs for close-in CAP, we split into two, 3 plane sections. I took my three down for low CAP at 5k, and Moose took his three up to 15k for high CAP. We set up a patrol, my group flying west, Moose and his SBDs flying east. We reversed course at the end of the search legs.
We encountered a pair of Zekes near the carrier, however, they were dispatched by patrolling Wildcats. Several minutes later, Japanese torpedo bombers were spotted coming in from the east at about four thousand feet. Wildcats were waiting and raced down to attack the enemy. Moose and his SBDs were also nearby, at the extreme limit of their search leg. So, Moose led his section in as well. Meanwhile, my section was within sight of the Lexington. Just minutes later we detected a large group of aircraft approaching from the south. We began climbing in an effort to reach the enemy’s altitude. We didn’t have time to get there. We were still laboring up, just past 8,000 feet when the Japanese dive-bombers arrived over the carrier. With little choice, we raced after the Vals in their dives, snapshooting and generally trying to disrupt their attacks. As surviving Vals ran to get clear the anti-aircraft fire, we engaged them in a swirling dogfight. Moose arrived and joined us in the brawl. Both of us had acquired gunners from aircraft lost previously (Roscoroo and Lizard). Eventually, Moose, a Wildcat and myself chased a lone Val until we caught him and shot it down. I shot off the smoking Val’s wing, but no one knew who would receive credit (Moose eventually did). I received two maneuver kills, one certainly a proximity kill resulting from anti-aircraft fire. Another Val stalled out of a violent turn trying to avoid my Dauntless, and spun in. One last Val was spotted trying to escape skimming over the water. However, we were getting low on fuel and elected to head back to the Lexington rather than engage in a protracted tail-chase. This last Val turned out to be MRPLUTO, who could not understand why his Val was so slow until he discovered that he had forgotten to retract his dive flaps. He would eventually make it to his carrier, and as far we could determine at the time, was the sole survivor of the attack on the Lexington.
Moose and I flew a tight formation back to the carrier, recording film and taking screen shots. We along with Dolfan, who remained zealously on guard over the Lexington, recovered aboard the carrier. Despite the carnage, three of our six SBDs survived, and had managed 4 assorted kills and 9 assists.
A tip of my hat to BigMax, Moose and Wotan for staging a terrific event. I along with other members of the =Ghosts= will be returning for future snap shots.
SBD pilots were:
Section 1:
Moose
Roscoroo
Lizard3
Section 2:
Widewing
Dolfan
Aegusto
My regards,
Widewing
