Sorry if this one rambles on a bit, hope you enjoy though
Victories & Losses
I'm woken at half five in the morning by my batman for the dawn patrol duty, as I crack open my eyes needles of sunlight dagger into them through a crack in the curtain. I'm beginning to wonder if this is still actually England, I grew up here and to be honest, I'm not used to all this bloody sunshine. I'm beginning to think that it's all some sort of cosmic joke giving us all this good flying weather in the middle of a war, if I live long enough to figue it out I'll be sure to let you chaps know.
As it is I reckon my survival is in doubt, my wingman of the last two months died yesterday, I saw it happen which I suppose means that he at least had a witness to his passing. To often I've sat around in an a subdued mess room waiting for someone to return who just disappeared in the middle of a fight. The few are becoming fewer with each passing day, and for every one of us that sheds his wings today it means just that many more opponents for the rest tomorrow.
Everytime I close my eyes I see the fight in a fresh burst of images, the takeoff, the long climb to 18,000 feet, looking over to the right and seeing a huge formation of 88s and swarms of 110s coming through the clouds straight towards us...
"Green Lead, Break i've a bandit close in and he's firing!"
I haul the stick into my stomach and mash the right rudder whipping my Spit round in a vicious turn to the right, the bomber I'd been so intent on a second before seems to whirl madly across my canopy as tracer fire flickers all around me and I hear the dull plink-plink-plink of rounds slamming into the fuselage behind my head.Where the hell did these 109s come from?!
I shout at my flight to select their own targets and turn my attention to the 109 behind me. He's followed my break easily enough, must have gone into the vertical to stay with me, this tells me two things, one he's experienced in that he knows what our panes can and can't do, and two, he wants the kill. He could have converted his excess speed to alt and chosen a different target. Seems like he wants a flight leaders scalp though - bad news.
I'm not going to rollover and die for him though, as he comes racing back in behind me I start to break to the left then haul back sharply going into a steep climb almost hanging from my prop, the Jerry tries to follow me but because of his higher speed overshoots, I kick the left rudder and give him a quick squirt from my .303s which looks pretty when the bullets hit his armour plating but does no real damage.
He continues to pull back on the stick and goes over the top into a loop, I don't have the airspeed to follow so push a bit more left rudder and cut the throttle causing me to stall turn over to the left. I hold the dive for about three seconds then pull out in a turn to my right swivelling my head around I pick the 109 coming in from my left straight at me, I brake up and high over him then roll inverted and split-s, for a second all I can see is the Channel rushing towards me then I come up wings level and find my opponent curving away to my right. I go high into the turn and throttle back, dropping in on his six, the way he's snaking left and right tells me he's lost contact so I slip into his blind spot and close the range to point blank before opening fire into his unarmoured belly. There's a loud bang and his plane starts to belch flame as it drops towards the deck. I see the pilot bail out and hope to god our side pick him up, I sure as hell don't want him on my six again.
I look at my altimeter and I'm shocked to realise that I've lost almost 15,000 feet in the course of that fight, surprisingly though I'm not alone, there seems to be a lot of indiviual engagements going on at this altitude. Noticint another Spitfire getting a hard time from two 109s I trundle over to assist. As I head in their direction the Spit pilot turns in my direction and as the sun glances off his fuselage I notice his ID letter is H, it's my bloody wingman! I gate the throttle so that I can get a bit of an altitude advantage before engaging as he comes over the RT.
"This is Green Two, need a spot of help here chaps"
"Green Two from Lead, hold your course i'm on it."I'm trying to sound cool, but this doesn't look good, there's two 109s and it looks like Johnny is already carrying some damage, his crate seems to be twitching to the left and it's leaking petrol or glycol. Rolling inverted as they pass under me I drop in behind the two 109s, the wingman immediately notices me and curves off to the left. Knowing that if I stay on Johhnys pursuer we're both dead I throttle back and zoom high over the 109 to prevent myself overshooting. The enemy pilot exploits this oppurtunity to break back into me, immediately we go into the scissors and the bugger seems to be sliding in behind me more and more with every second. I wait until we pass just short of head to head again and this time drop a notch of flaps and hold the turn, the 109 settles in behind me, but the turn is to tight for him to sustain and I begin to gain on him. He realises and shoves the nose over into a dive, I retract my flaps and race after him, knowing that he hasn't got much space to dive I run him down, and as he starts to climb, rake his plane with a long burst from my guns until his left wing snaps off.
Leveling out I search for Johnny and find him on the deck in a tight turn with the 109 tight on his six about to reach a firing position. I drop my left wing and race towards them knowing I'm not going to be in time. The German opens fire and misses but Johnnys plane stalls out, it's right wingtip digs into the sea and his plane cartwheels across the sea flailing itself to pieces.
I drop onto the 109s six and squeeze the trigger determined to avenge my friend but all I hear is the dry clicks signifying spent ammunition. I curse in frustration...
Time for the dawn patrol now though, a new day, another new bunch of pilots. Maybe I should remain aloof from this lot, that way it won't be such a loss when they go down...
