After meeting with High Command, the bomber commanders reached an agreement on changing the targets we were going to hit and what our ingress/egress would be. The benefits of the change were several. First, the fighters were able to defend our fields against attack for the first 60 minutes, while the bombers reached their altitude. Second, the bombers were able to climb behind their fighters without any concern for the enemy scouts revealing our location. Third, once the bombers began their run to the targets, we would have the complete attention of both the 4th and 352nd squads.
Our primary target was L88 with the stated secondary target being L75. We reached 27K feet before we got to the first drop zone and we maintained our altitude between 25K and 27K throughout the mission.
Once we came on radar, we were followed by a scout almost the entire time. He didn't engage, but kept his distance and reported our location to the Axis commander who then sent quite a few 190s / 109s to try their best to pull us down.
Thanks to the fantastic job done by the 4th and 352nd fighter squads for slapping them off us every time they got brave enough to run at us. I watched the acmcam recording and it was a beautiful sight to see how these two fighter squads completely enveloped the bomber formation. I apologize for getting out a little too far ahead on a couple occasions.
On ingress, we had several disconnections without damage. One bomber (FURNAC) was late to take-off time, but he was able to cut the corner and catch up to the bomber formation well before we went on radar. As reports of disconnections came in, we began to quickly re-evaluate the target assignments to make sure everything was covered. I had no doubts that we would be able to close L88 with the numbers of bombers/bombs with which, we started. After reassigning a few targets for L75, I was very confident that we'd close it as we made our pass, however, we made contingency plans for a second pass, if needed. During the process of assigning those targets, it was determined that we just might have enough bombers/bombs to add one more target to our list (L71).
Shortly after the drop, L75 was ruled closed and we made our turn toward L71. We assessed the number of bombs still in our bomb bays and assigned targets to each bomber. There were just enough bombs to close L71, IF and only if, we hit our targets perfectly. Unfortunately, we left one target standing (radarStn) and reported it to the Frame CO and all the fighters with the hope one of them might be able to strafe it down adding a third large airfield closure to the list. It was reported to me that most of the guns were down, so I assured the fighters it was soft and should be fairly easy to finish off. However, MADCAT informed me that while trying to strafe the radarStn, he encountered significant numbers of guns still alive. (Sorry for the bad intell on the guns.)
SE-PUA informed me, to my dismay, that he was not going to risk any further a/c trying to close L71. But, behind the scenes, he must have been working on a top-secret mission that could only be handled by strike mission specialists, the Night Stalkers. The NS were our heroes for the night because, while on our way home, they strafed the final target at F71 to close it for us. It was a good night.
Summary:
Closed L88, L75, L71
Killed 1-2 enemy fighters
Assisted at least 3 kills of enemy fighters
Lost 2 bombers to enemy fire
Bombers in attendance:
Doolittle's Raiders:
Darryl (CO)
Artydd (XO)
Bassis
Bdbwww
Ciaio
Dogfit
Furnac
Gravey
Guttdu
Lalasu
Mlkdud
Noflyz
Revole
Mrdweb
Nomads:
Gums
Gofly
Wldbil
Gundoc
Thanks to SE-PUA for coordinating the frame. Thanks to NOFLYZ for creating the DTF that we all utilized during the bomber mission. Thanks to the 4th and 352nd for the excellent fighter cover they provided. Thanks to JABO and company for the fun evening. We had a BLAST!!!
Darryl <S>
CO of Doolittle's Raiders
