Boxing Day Sorties

Remember the heart warming tale of the Germans and Brits coming out of the WWI trenches to play football at Christmas... good will to all, no guns and no diving? Well Fritz wasn't having any of that this time around. On Boxing Day enemy troops attacked Gent, and Navy and air forces out of Breksens and Vlis were moving to suppress Knokke Airfield.

19 Squadron were away on well deserved R&R over the Christmas break. Speedy77 called in at the squadron mess to collect post, and feed the squadron's three legged cat, Bader. No sooner had he sat down with a cuppa and penguin biscuit, when the scramble was called.

Enemy shipping was approaching knokke, and the Royal Navy were moving to meet them. Ju87s were harrying British Ships and fighter support was requested. Speedy lifted in a spit 1a from Knokke and headed due West to gain altitude, at 10K he turned back East. The AWS was Red East of Knokke, and speedy spotted tracer and shell fire around the British Ships. Diving down he spotted 5 contacts all Ju87s. Pulling a lead on the nearest he fired a long burst and saw his rounds find their mark. Cursing the lack of cannon, he pulled up to regain height and check his own 6. Another stuka was following speedy's climb firing wildly. A few shots hit the spit and caused stream of white smoke. The spit still handled well, so speedy dove back onto another Ju87 with one eye now firmly on the temp gauges. More hits on the Ju87 and this time speedy saw him go down. More friendlies had now joined the fight, but so had 109s. Speedy took his chance to rtb for ammo and grab a fresh machine.

The first attack by the RAF had cleared the skies over the British ships, but now more 109s were lifting to counter. Speedy lifted again, headed East at 10K to support the friendlies already over the Breskens - Vlis area. The RAF had the altitude advantage and were preventing the 109s gain height away from Vlis. The lufties then changed tactics. They appeared to group closely together at low alt in numbers of 5+ and then all relentlessly attack one RAF fighter. The leader would attack the RAF plane and if any friendly tried to help it, the remaining 4 109s ensured they could do little. All the RAF could do was attempt to split 109s from the main group and take them out.

One 109 had been drawn up from the main group by another spit and was approaching stall at the top of his climb, classic rope-a-dope, speedy77 was following up and raked the cockpit area and engine of the hanging 109, with his 8 mgs. Scratch one 109. Suddenly Speedy found himself the target of a swarm of 5 109s, diving out West he headed for approaching freindlies and Knokke AF. Barrel rolling, forced the 109s to slow to keep on his 6, but the 109s were beginning to smell a kill as the plink plink became more frequent. One shot bent the propeller and the spit was now a glider, fortunately he made a forced landing at the edge of the airfield and the 109s were forced broke away.

Speedy leapt out of the cockpit, glad to live to fight another day and headed back to the mess, only to find Bader licking his penguin biscuit. Thinking how well a cat could run with only two legs, he trudged off home to setup his new Track IR.

lol!

nice AAR, good report speedy, that bloody cat will have to get seen to!

glad to see you racked up some kills there - all I've been able to hit since Christmas Eve is the ground.

Never fear - the new year brings new blood, I can't wait to get up flying again! (Especially now the Spit 2 is in!)