S3 Series

Tasked with close escort of Wellingtons just making alt and rally near f 19 ....Wellys took the brunt of LW attack going down like flies with last one going down just short of field 6 area. 23rd overwhelmed by large numbers of 109's and beat a fighting retreat back into safe zone staying aloft for 2nd Wellington strike with results more or less the same fighting our way into close to target before last bomber going down beating a hasty fighting retreat to replane and rearm losing 1 airplane on that sorte.
Rallyed for 3rd strike actually flying over a enemy strike. Bad call on my part electing to stay on target and mission assignment letting enemy bombers go and staying with the Wellingtons as again......3rd strike went down to a man despite desperate fighting at 15 k around the buffs, again overwhelmed by large numbers of 109's to fast for us to stop hitting the wellingtons. 23rd lost a couple more on that fight.
Dunno how 4th sorte went as the sleepmeister logged after an exhausting night.
Good news is, fights came in quick and no hour long flight to fight and back home again. that was good.
Bad news was how easy Wellingtons went down.
Hind sight being 20/20 the LW parked at high alt over target fields protecting their fields and Wellingtons didn't have enough escort....shoulda said screw the Wellingtons and concentrated on killing enemy bombers when we seen em.

Details for 23rd Fighter Group
MOL frame 1

fooo 2 AIJu88 kills 3 assists
ohshix 1 assist
slapshot 1 assist
split 1 kill 1 assist
theoph
thunder 2 kills +1 AIJu88 kill
vonsleep 2 assists

SUMMARY

7 pilots
22 sorties
19 safe landing(s)
3 airframe(s) lost ( 3 x Spit2 *)
3 pilot(s) KIA
0 taken POW
3 victories
8 assist(s)
3 ground objects and/or AI destroyed
0 TOT

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HQ - 23rd Fighter Group

Tough escort assignment 23rd, Sleepy. Hard to escort in such close proximity to their fields and cap.

Skies were full of targets and angry 109s for sure.

<S>

Oskar

Great work guys in that tough assignment. I thought we had 16-24 AI in each group, only 8 is hardly a bomber sortie.