65 Squadron campaign - 13 August 1940

I've made another and hopefully last fresh start with this campaign, having cleaned out pilots in a fresh install after another attack by the Fifth Column [attributed to mod leftovers] which blew up everyone else's Spitfire at the end of the runway...



This time I selected Adler Tag itself as my campaign start date, this being the point from which the Luftwaffe switched the main focus of their attack to the defenders, including airfields and radar stations. I have reduced squadron strength selected in Workshop, not to save system resources, but so that I can continue to fly patrol missions in realistic (Flight of 6) strength, instead of full squadron. While ready to switch to the latter when we start being regularly scrambled to deal with raids.

Here's the briefing for our first mission - to cover a Channel convoy. While continued in the North Sea, I think daylight convoys in the English Channel had actually been discontinued by this time, and that 65 Squadron was still at Hornchurch up to the north east, not at Tangmere. They often operated out of forward bases and narrowly escaped loss when bombed taking off from Manston on August 12th, as captured by Yellow Section's Gordon Olive in one of his many vivid paintings reproduced in his memoir 'Spitfire Ace'.



As before, I'm flying the machine he often flew, but as flight leader. Here we are at the end of the runway. Tangmere was actually a grass airfield at this time, and didn't get asphalt runways until 1941-2 (according to Chris Ashworth in 'Action Stations 9')



Getting off from Tangmere is tricky in a Spit unless you use maximum boost aka WEP. Somebody should have compulsorily purchased and levelled all those tall buildings on the rising ground to the north of the runway!



Anyhow, I made it, and by now I'm well practised at getting away ahead of the others.



Cockpit canopy still open, I level off a bit and swing around to the east. Our assigned course is just inland along the coast until roughly north of our patrol area. I decide to adhere to that, as it will help give me the lie of the land in this sector.



Throttling back to let the boys catch up catches out Red 3, who briefly slides in front of me.



But he's soon back in his appointed station, and I begin to climb again.



A little later and we're approaching Brighton. There's no sign of the famous pier, but there's a war on and no time to worry about buckets and spades or what the butler saw.



As the WotR weather forecast indicated, there's an increasing amount of cloud around, as we head east...



...but we don't give it a second thought. Up to this point, I haven't called Control for news of any Bandits. I decide I'll wait until we've reached our patrol area. In the meantime, Mother Nature's fluffy white clouds and blue skies certainly make a pretty backdrop to our darkly-painted war machines.



Nearing our turning point, we come out into slightly clearer skies. The boys are keeping up quite well, I'm pleased to see.



Just west of Hastings, we turn gradually onto a heading out into the Channel, with Red 2 on my right in his Spit with its older black-white undersurfaces.



The coast begins to fall away behind us as we grind south. We haven't seen any other aircraft since we took off, but I know that could change quickly. I can feel the tension rising with every mile we get further out to sea.




...to be continued!