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Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 2:02 am |
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Joined: Wed Nov 13, 2013 12:54 am Posts: 649
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I'll just add ours here to simplify reading aar's, hope ya don't mind!! <S> The 5 fighter pilots of the 23rd FG taxied out in brand new P51D Mustangs all fueled up for the long trip to come. We rolled 106 at T=0 and proceeded to grab air as the buffs ran a racetrack North and South grabn and forming up.
We rendezvoused with the Bombers as they headed out over the North Sea off the UK coast, NE of London. The bombers stayed N off enemy radar as long as possible before their run in to the Hamburg target area. Those clouds over the North Sea can really hinder staying with the buff group at times but we managed to stay on station fairly well. Thanks to sleepy for giving the escorts headings of the buff group. Comms are key to good escorting, especially in bad/cloudy weather.
There were a few enemy fighters encountered over the N Sea. If memory serves me right the 352nd were with the bombers as well when the enemy first showed and must have engaged them as there were no more threats until just about landfall, well down the river anyhow. There were multiple singles as well as a few pairs of enemy fighters attacking or stalking the buffs from there on, until otw home and over 100 miles west of the target area.
We lost a few airframes on the run-in which left us with 3 pilots still around the buffs as they split up and hit many targets then extended for another pass or even two for some I believe. We did the best we could fending off repeated attempts and some successful attacks on our buffs. Just as the 2 that lost airframes re joined for reception escort there were some low altitude fights/chases going on.
I didn't witness some of the action so I am probably missing somethings.
I believe we gave more than we got, but not sure.
I should have listened to my old CO’s advise about how itchy the fingers can become on bomber gunners.
All in all a fun night.
A long boring flight for sometime then boom, some terror, some fun, some cussing, planes burning, smoking and missing parts. Then quiet, then more threats which seemed to last longer than usual during escort duty. I’m just glad they weren’t organized and attacked in singles or pairs.
I want to thank the Southern Bomb Group for taking the early and probably heavier attacks which kept less Germans from coming up North to us.
<S>
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