Night Stalkers went ship hunting this frame. We launched four TBDs from 45 and headed WNW to look for the moving DD group 4. Inside of 20 miles our helpful scout/escort Wildcats radioed a position report so off we went. We set up an attack and manged a single hit for one DD destroyed.
After RTB back to 45 we followed the Nomads back out this time heading towards the static shipping at 36. Gums and crew made the first run with NS pilots following up to sink all ships at the port. After contacting higher authority and gaining permission to run ops from 38 both NS and Nomad pilots landed and rearmed there for a quick turnaround and back out to the central shipping lanes. With gundoc out in front (from a previous disco and earlier launch from 45) he found the moving convoy(group 3 I believe) south of 25 so we directed all a/c to converge and attack the transport first, then the DDs. With time running out we beat feet back to 38 and rearmed again to head back. This time we split our forces with some finishing off the remaining ships at 25 (after the DRs had a go at them) and farout, pd and I heading further NW to re-attack the DDs we had found the previous sortie. Farout was our hero and sank a DD while pd and I both had torps run under the ship with no apparent damage. Unfortunately neither of us had an acmcam running at the time so we can't claim them.
Good missions and good communications between all involved. Luckily for us the nips decided to stay north and leave our blazing front line a/c alone.
Thanks to coolon for running the frame for us...great job!
Thanks to the 352 crew for the close escort back to base in the final moments. Glad I could provide a bit of slow flight training for you fighter pukes.
As always thanks to Jabo for the pond in which we fish!
mt-dew
