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Wildcats by =INK=
The Wildcats' engines were already warmed up when Cage and I scrambled out of the ready room at Lemur Airfield. We were the only pilots on hand at the time there, and radar had picked up a handful of enemy aircraft to the northwest. One of the Ghosts' boys was already engaged, but he was alone and the situation didn't look promising. As soon as the ground crew who had helped us strap into the cockpits were clear of the birds, I signaled a takeoff by ramming the throttle all the way forward. The little Grumman plane jumped and rushed down the dirt strip, taking off on its own within a few seconds. I pulled the wheels up and shot a quick glance behind me. Cage was right there, in perfect line astern position. Good wingman, indeed.
The tower came over my radio and gave me a vector to the Northwest. I told Cage to follow and turned the Wildcat on its right side, wrenching around in a tight turn. I called the Ghost, Pan, over the open channel and asked him for information on the bandits. He said there were two, a low F6F and a high Ki-84 Hayate. Both were AZ pilots. One low, one high? Didn't seem too coordinated to me. Maybe we'd get there in time anyway.
Cage and I leveled out at a low altitude and sped for the Hellcat that Pan was tied up with. In a short time, I could see two dots a little above the horizon, one of which (this was Pan) was making passes on the lower plane. I tapped my feet against the rudder pedals, as if that would give my plane a little extra speed. I called Cage on the radio and told him to engage the Hellcat as soon as he could, but to watch out for the high Ki-84. I turned on the water-injection switch and pulled up to attack the F6F. He was higher and buzzed me with a head-on pass, but I quickly looped after him. He was starting to get slow from focusing on Pan, and for a split second I thought I had him.
The F6F pilot paid for his attempts by getting slow against two Wildcats, however. Cage was having some trouble, I could see, and I wondered if his plane was having some sort of mechanical failure. I however had no trouble sticking to this guy's tail. It's almost always been the same story for me. Whenever I've put the Wildcat on the tail of a Hellcat or Corsair with a similar speed, there is simply no way the enemy pilot can evade. This was no exception. After a short succession of loops, half-rolls and tight turns, I got a few bursts off at the AZ. With a few puffs of both black and white smoke, the Hellcat began to spin and the pilot jumped out of his smoldering bird.
As I leveled out my Wildcat and looked around for Cage, I caught sight of another dot which jolted me back into action. Now that the one AZ was dead, the other decided it was time to dance with us. What coordination. I certainly was amused by their ever-present displays of stupidity, and hoped to high heaven that we wouldn't screw this up.
Pan, however, was buzzed by the higher Ki, and I could see tracers spilling out in his direction. Then Pan's airplane erupted in a ball of flame. The wings broke at the roots and swept backwards, and it seemed like he himself just barely made it out alive. The Ki pulled up high, looped, and then dove in on me with admirable speed, (he also put a shell or two into my wing), but immediately began to turn us instead of pulling up a second time. In the seconds preceding his initial pass, Cage and I had dropped our noses for some energy to work with, and we were for the moment able to stick with him. But then, as I finished a loop expecting to have the Ki bore sighted, he was nowhere to be seen. I searched frantically, checking the windows at the cockpit floor and rolling both ways to see below me, but could not figure out where the little silver bird had disappeared to.
All of a sudden, over the roar of the F4F's Twin Wasp engine, I detected a small but distinct high pitched whine. My hearing was less than respectable in almost every frequency except the very low and very high ones. I knew it had to be the Ki, but where? I shot a glance through the cockpit floor windows just in time to see the bird hurry by, directly underneath me and much too close for comfort. I reflexively pulled the trigger, and my four 50-caliber guns spewed a hail of lead in front of me, and the Ki flew right into it. At a distance of no more than 50 yards directly ahead, the Ki blew up in a hellish fireball, and large pieces of cheap aluminum wedged themselves in the underside of my Wildcat.
As soon as I was past the explosion, I scanned the skies and, finding them clear, told Cage to join up with me. I headed northerly and reduced throttle so he could catch up. The tower at Lemur came over my headset then, and congratulated us on clearing the area. My plane was damaged and there was no other enemy around for many miles, so as soon as Cage was on my wing, I throttled up and turned southeast for Lemur.
On the way back home, I rolled my hood all the way back and allowed the fresh, cool sea air to calm me down. I was still quite jittery from the Ki-84's explosion, and was also concerned about the condition of my landing gear and flaps. I throttled back and lined up with the field well in advance. While still several hundred yards out, I grabbed the landing gear level and moved it down. To my relief, I felt the bird shudder as the undercarriage deployed and locked into position. It was undamaged by the shrapnel. My flaps were also in working order, and the Wildcat set itself down on the dirt gently.
I cut the throttle all the way and looked in the mirror above my head. Cage put his F4F down centerline about 200 yards behind me. I applied the brakes and slowly moved my plane towards the hangars where many of the mechanics and ground crew were cheering for us. We'd gotten through again, all right, and I knew we'd get a few minutes of rest before having to take to the skies once again.
Cya up, Inky
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