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19
June 2000 Battle Report
by 'Inkwell' =INK=
The sun was shining brilliantly through a cloudless sky as I stepped out of the
Peninsular Hotel and walked towards my gray military jeep. The elegant hotel was
just one of many luxuries that had come to serve CZ pilots since our airborne
divisions had liberated Hanson Island from the AZ, and I had just enjoyed a
short rest and a very filling, fattening meal after an early morning flight. As
I drove out towards the airfield, I looked up at the skies and grinned. I had
already downed an AZ Spitfire today, and felt confident that I would get more
kills on this flight.
Some MPs started screaming when I drove my jeep, with 40's swing music blaring
loudly, off the road, across the airstrip, and over the grass, right up to the
command post. I parked and walked inside the shack-like affair. The operations
map was spread out over a large table, and officers were running here and there,
busying themselves with reports and other documents. In my laconic manner, I
looked over the map and noticed a lot of action at Meyer Airbase, on an AZ
Island of the same name some twenty-five or thirty miles south of Hanson
Airbase. Apparently CZ pilots were striking the field. I picked up a phone,
called the hangar, and requested that my Messerschmitt Bf-109F-4 be readied for
action with fuel tanks filled to the 70% mark. I was told that my plane had been
ready to go ever since my last flight, so I stole a nice-looking fountain pen
from a coffee table and walked right over to the hangar, leaving my jeep right
in front of a "No Parking" sign by the building.
The mechanics, kind folk that they are, had moved my plane to the edge of the
hangar by the time I got there. I tossed them a few dollars and told them lunch
was on me, then hopped into the small but cozy cockpit of my Messerschmitt. My
heart skipped a beat as the Daimler-Benz engine coughed to life; the 109F was
certainly the best all-around plane I'd ever flown, able to turn like a Wildcat
when I needed it, or climb like a Corsair when I needed that quality. It could
do everything, and do it all well.
I opened the throttle and kicked left rudder, lining the plane's nose up with
the centerline (and leaving a tire mark on the coral strip) and then thundered
down the field. The 109 leaped into the air at 75 knots, and I started climbing
over the water, heading for Meyer Island.
My flight over the water was quite uneventful; a single AZ Spitfire dove on the
Junyo but was shot down one way or the other--by flak batteries or a CZ fighter
on Combat Air Patrol. I came over Meyer from the north at about 25,000 feet. I
could see the field down in the valley, surrounded on most sides by mountains
and volcanoes, and flak bursts above the field: the CZ must have been attacking
in force. I flew over the island, keeping my altitude, to see if I could
intercept any AZ reinforcements before they could dive into the fray. In less
than a minute, the silhouettes of three Focke-Wulf 190 D-9s, two slightly above
me and the third below appeared and raced in on my lone 109. I kicked in the
water injection and nosed into the two diving planes, throwing off their aim and
getting a shot off myself.
Immediately
after the merge, I split-essed the hell out of there and dove for the third
Focke-Wulf, for being caught in a two on one is bad enough; in a 109 against two
Dora nines at high altitude is far worse. The third FW saw me coming and dove
himself, and as I was starting to compress with two Focke-Wulfs closing on my
tail, I yanked back the stick and looped into them, making another head-on pass.
I admired the sleek D9s as they sped past me, but I wouldn't have minded
watching them spontaneously combust at the time.
I kept holding the stick back, completing the loop and nosing the 109 down,
diving like mad to the north. The wind screamed by in a deafening roar, and my
adrenaline was rushing through me. The two D9s looped after me, and just before
I could speed out of their range, one of them put a 20 mm cannon shot and a few
machine gun bullets into my fuselage. With my heart in my throat, and my
'very-filling lunch' struggling to stay in my stomach, I nosed up into a high
yo-yo, pulling maximum G forces, rolled off to the right, and watched the D9s
race by behind me. Straining to get away, I split-essed again and turned
northeast toward the airfield, leaving the FWs somewhere far away. Mad thoughts
of being shot down into the water some 40 miles south of my airbase, and
considerably deep in enemy territory, drove me on relentlessly.
In just a short while, I caught sight of a CZ plane, piloted by =GOR= as I found
out later, engaging a Hellcat and what I presumed was the third Focke-Wulf. I
roared into the fight at 7,000 feet, and the F6F pilot turned into me, denying
me a nice deflection shot at his underside. I looked up ahead...there was that
damn D9! I nosed into yet another headon pass, and somehow snapped off a head-on
shot at the F6F too while the D9 breezed by. I performed yet another split-S,
and nosed up into the Focke-Wulf, which looped up after the merge and dove on
me. Just after the pass, I wrenched the stick over and back, and my 109
responded, nosing down and diving. I happened to look up and saw the F6F
climbing away at the horizon. I pulled harder, urging my little Messerschmitt
up...just a little more lead...NOW! I squeezed the trigger with all my might,
and 20 mm cannon belched fire at the Hellcat. The machine guns kept time with my
cannon's percussion, rattling their death call, and the sturdy Grumman shuddered
violently under the barrage. His pilot was caught totally off guard by my
surprisingly maneuverable 109F, and he tightened his loop to dive away. My 109
easily noses down, however, and the guns skewered the Hellcat through the canopy
with a beautiful ninety-degree deflection shot. As I passed by, the 20 mm cannon
completed its work with dreadful efficiency at point-blank range, and the F6F
erupted in a tremendous fireball.
I leveled the 109 out and announced my kill over the radio with elation; what a
marvelous plane this 109 is! Even so, as I looked around, the two Focke-Wulfs
have returned and were diving on me from above and behind, about two thousand
yards out! I threw the Messer Schmitt towards the earth for speed, and as the
D9s closed the range, the 109 screamed back into another loop to meet them head-on
yet again. The two of them pulled up and away after this latest merge, and one
tried to get me to fallow his rope and stall out. On failing, he turned around
and dove once more, and the ubiquitous head-on pass with no hits for either
plane followed. I passed a FW in a diving head-on, and finished the loop to
evade the other FW. Just as I began to wonder how long I must keep this up, I
noticed the 190 continued his dive into the low altitude furball over the field;
I have worked my way down to 5,000 feet just south of the enemy airbase. I
seized an opportunity to disengage these fancy birds and plunged after him with
intent to catch and kill over the field, but he spared me this challenge by
crashing into the earth. Maybe his elevators were not working right; perhaps I
did hit him in the last pass. I will never know. As I continued onwards, two of
my comrades crashed into the dirt themselves. I spotted a Dora 9 and engaged
him, but he dragged me down towards the field and....Flakpanzers! Damn it
straight to hell! The FP was a heavily armored Panzer IV chassis armed with four
extremely deadly 30 mm anti-aircraft cannon. I had witnessed four-engined heavy
bombers brought down by just a few hits from these monsters. Luckily, this
particular crew were watching other CZ aircraft, because I flew well into their
600 yard range and would most certainly have been shot down. The FW meanwhile
had passed out of my range, and =BFD= and RCAF came in and attacked it on their
own, so I reversed and took another very nice ninety-degree deflection shot at
another Hellcat. As pieces flew off of his plane, he crashed into the ground,
and I had a second kill under my belt on this sortie. I relocated the Focke-Wulf
far off, and looked around for more prey. There! A Bf-109G-2, a later and less
maneuverable variant of the plane I was flying, was attacking another CZ pilot.
I raced after him, but he nailed the CZ pilot before I could get enough firing
lead on him. We wound up in a turn fight, which I was sure to win because of my
greater speed and tighter turning radius. I snapped off a shot at a low A-26B, a
twin engine bomber, which happened to be in the path of my guns, but did not
shoot him down. As I continued my flat turn, I noticed with glee that the Gustav
pilot had stopped trying to outturn my Franz; a vain endeavor. He nosed down
with what little altitude he had, and I pulled the trigger once more. Shells
ripped into his underside and he crashed into the ground. A third kill! I
immediately started turning with the A-26B, and put several hits into this bird
as well, but =GOR= came down and destroyed it, getting credit for the kill. It
was just as well, I told myself, for I was flat out of ammunition and flying low
and slow over an enemy base. That was my cue to get out of the battle zone and
fly home. I skirted the coastal volcano that flanked the west side of the
airstrip, and looked around for any enemy planes. With no one in sight, I
started to relax and checked my gauges. Curses! My water injection has been on
for several minutes, and the fuel has been practically flying right out of my
109's small tanks! I was now just about out of fuel, 30 miles south of my
airfield, and with no altitude to glide on. That was my cue to start cursing and
calling for help.
I yelled over the radio that I was out of fuel and ammo, over the western bay of
Meyer Island. One of the CZ pilots nonchalantly replied, "You're out of
luck too, bud." This wasn't the most comforting thing that could have been
said. I raced northwest as fast as the little Messerschmitt would fly, out over
the beachless coast, over the water...faster; higher! Even so, however, out of
nowhere, an AZ Spitfire materialized on my tail, and one of the ever-present
Focke-Wulfs appeared at ten o'clock, slightly higher. Of all the nerve! I went
straight for as long as possible, and then looped up into the FW to throw his
aim off, but the Spit nonetheless would have a clean shot at my belly at any
second. As a last-ditch effort, I rolled hard over and nosed down. For the
moment, I had gotten out of the way of both planes. I nosed up, rolled slightly
to the side, and at just over one thousand feet, practically broke the cockpit
open and jumped the hell out of there. Bullets began tearing the tail and
fuselage as I practically tumbled off the left wing root and pulled the ripcord.
Snap, boom. Just like that. I had no time to swing in the air; the chute caught
and I was just a hundred feet over the water. I looked down; standard procedure
was to free fall the last 15 or 20 feet so the chute wouldn't come down on top
of the pilot and potentially drown him. However, after sending my 109 into the
sea flaming, the Spitfire turned around tightly and nosed down, right for me.
"Oh, no, no, no, you damn Spitty!" I heard myself say. "What an
unchivalrous bastard!" I thought as I pulled the harness off a full sixty
feet above the water. That was honestly a little worse than fighting the two 190
D-9s up at 25,000 feet. I plunged into the sea and sank like a rock while
tracers tore my chute apart. I let myself come back up for air, and thankfully,
nothing seemed to be broken. I treaded water and watched as he looped around
again. The Focke-Wulf at least had sped off towards the airbase, where a REAL
threat to the AZ was. The Spitfire dove down again, and I flipped over and dove
perhaps ten feet under. Bullets swished by underwater, and it was quite a hair
raising experience, but thankfully he missed. As soon as the firing stopped, I
went up for air to ready myself for the next barrage. He yo-yoed around to the
right and came down again, snapping off another long burst as I went deep. When
I came up for the third time, however, I saw him speed off toward Meyer
Airfield; the next wave of CZ bombers were attacking.
By now I was having a bad day. I looked around and caught my breath, and then
took to floating on my back in the calm waves of the bay. More explosions could
be heard behind the volcano; I hoped to high heaven that the bombers were
pounding the daylights out of these dolts. All I could do was watch and wait. My
comrades knew where I had gone down; someone must have been sent to pick up
downed pilots. I could only hope that the AZ wouldn't think of this first. I
quieted down and watched a few small puffy white clouds roll by under the
afternoon sun.
I had been in the water for about ninety minutes, and CZ attacks had slowed down
a bit when I heard a small crashing sound coming from the west. I went back to
treading water and then sank low in the waves; a submarine conning tower was
definitely emerging right there in the bay. I watched the sub surface at low
speed with the utmost silence, and somehow stayed buoyant without moving my
limbs even. After a few harrowing seconds, however, I recognized the
unmistakable silhouette of a small CZ coastal submarine of the S-class,
operating at the limit of its range. I could see crewmen run to the
anti-aircraft guns and several men watching the waters and skies from the tower.
"Over here!" I yelled, nearly jumping clean out of the water while
waving my arms. I swung my tired arms as much as I could, trashing about in the
bay and shouting to the submarine with the green flag painted on the side of the
tower. They caught sight of me within a few seconds, and a little dinghy was
quickly launched off the bow deck with two crewmen. They paddled towards me; I
swam towards them with energy I didn't know I had, and soon they hauled me into
the rubber yellow craft.
"Am I glad to see you guys!" I collapsed in the dinghy and the sailors
paddled towards the submarine. They said they knew another CZ pilot was down in
this area, and were very short on fuel and supplies themselves. They had been on
lifeguard duty for 14 days out west, and were now returning to a small submarine
dockyard on the north coast of Hanson Island, out by Miller Airbase. As soon as
the three of us were aboard, the S-27 dove into shallow water and proceeded out
to sea on the electric engines; it wasn't until we were well out of AZ territory
that the Captain surfaced and ran on the diesels. Eight other pilots had been
pulled out of the waters around Meyer, and two more had been on the boat for
weeks; they had been picked up while fighting the BZ about 100 miles westward.
We chatted for some time while eating old bread and soup, and entertained the
submarine sailors with reports of combat in the skies. They listened with big
grins on their faces as we elaborated shoot downs and being shot down, watching
bombs explode and seeing hangars shudder under their fury. There was a decent
amount more of action, and fright, in our combat, but the lifeguard submarines
were invaluable to us. As it turned out, S-27 had torpedoed and sunk a good size
BZ transport back at the beginning of the month before being ordered to stand
lifeguard duty.
It was after dusk when S-27 stopped close to the south beach at Hanson Airbase
and sent me ashore; all the other pilots were returning to Miller Airbase. A few
coast watchers drove me up to the tower at Hanson Field. I stumbled up the steps
in a dry uniform from the sub, clutching my still soaked gear under my left arm.
I must have been quite a sight to the folk in the operations room. I was not
going to put in a full report at that hour, so I merely called out, "Three
kills, one assist, flamed over water and picked up by S-27, wherever you are,
Mr. Officer." I took a glass bottle of Coca Cola from the table where I had
earlier taken the fountain pen from, opened the screen door and stepped out into
the cool, bright evening.
I slogged my way down the wooden steps and headed over to my jeep. There were
four yellow slips of paper tucked under the windshield wipers. I tossed them
onto the floor of the backseat and then hopped over the door and into the
vehicle. I stretched out on the backseat, kicked my shoes off and crossed my
feet over the back door. I opened the bottle of Cola, took a long drink, and
placed it down on the floor. I grabbed my =RAF= ball cap, put the brim slightly
over my eyes, and fell asleep underneath the silent, twinkling stars.
=INK=
©2000
=RAF=™/=INK=
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