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#3691599 - 12/02/12 09:49 AM CoD REDUX REDUX Mission 10 - 'Teutonic Knight' (fantastic AI experience...)  
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HeinKill Offline
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10 August 1940

My name is McColpin...and yeah, I'm a carrot top, so over here, the young bucks called me 'Red'. Or 'Yank'.

I called 'em wet behind the ears. Most of them only about 20 years old . . . six years younger than me. In fact the only pilot older was Vick, the CO. Crabby, but at least he knew what he's doing - I learned that much from the stories they told about their time in France, how it was only Vick's iron will that got most of them back alive.

I came here by way of Canada after I went to the British consulate in New York and an MP standing outside stopped me going in. 'What's your business?' he asked. 'I'm a pilot,' I told him, 'I want to join the Limeys and fight Hitler,' I said.

'America aint at war,' he told me, 'Get outta here.'

Well, I didn't give up. The British Embassy in Ottowa didn't have any US MPs standing out front and they even paid for my berth on a ship. I got to Blighty, and they rushed me through flight training when they realised I'd been flying since I was 20 - 10 hours behind the stick and I'd checked out on the Hurricane. Two weeks cooling my heels and then I was posted. 607 Squadron Tangmere.

I remember my first meeting with Aldrige, the intel officer. He wasn't much for listening, more of a talker... he started in on me straight away...



It was Dorniers! I ran to the nearest machine, still warm after someone had just landed in it. I had it rolling in a minute and as I lifted into the air, bombs started falling beside the runway.




Jeez, welcome to the RAF Red! Shadows passed overhead and the bombers were on me.



Stay below and attack from a rear quarter, you'll have fewer guns on you... I remembered the advice of my combat instructor but fat good it was as I wallowed around below the faster Dornier formation, with three gunners firing down on me!

I pulled away beside them and built up speed as they began a slow turn toward France.



Eventually I closed, but I was directly behind them. Again tracer reached back toward me. This was all wrong! I needed to be faster, I needed to be higher. Or lower. I needed to be anywhere except where I was.



That's combat Red, I told myself. It aint like the textbooks.

My Hurricane was rolling right and the nose pulling up...I hadn't had time to trim it before I got up alongside the enemy bombers. Now it even seemed they were pulling away from me!

Shoot when the wingtips fill your aiming reticle from one side to the other...I heard my gunnery instructor's voice in my ear.

And if the enemy is getting smaller in your sights, what then wise guy?!

I let go a long burst and couldn't believe my luck when the outside Dornier began smoking!



A voice came over the R/T, "Good shot Luton 9! Drop back McColpin, we'll take it from here."

It was Vick, and looking up I saw him and another Hurricane opening fire.



The Dornier I'd hit rolled over onto its side and the crew started piling out.



Maybe Vick could see my machine wasn't set up for the chase...in any case I took him at his word and broke for home, my hands shaking on the stick with the adrenaline of the chase.

As I swung in on Tangmere station, and got clearance to land, it was clear the bombing had caused a minor panic. There were vehicles all over the landing field, and in particular, some jerk on a tractor crossing the field right in front of me.



I dropped my revs and held the nose up as long as I could, to give him time to get clear...it was either that or a complete go around.



But he managed to chug out of my way and I dropped my kite down on the field just abeam of him. Jay-zus. If it aint one thing, it's another.

I undid my harness and looked across the field. Ambulances were running out to a gun position where the bombs had gone off.



And about fifty yards away, I could see the tractor that had scooted out of my way. It was a refueling bowser, and he'd no doubt been hauling it out of the way of the bombs in case there were more explosions. Jerry had a habit of using delayed fuses on some bombs just make life even harder. I'd been cursing the guy, but I guessed he was actually quite a hero, pulling 500 gallons of fuel out of a bomb zone.

Then I saw he was slumped over the wheel of the tractor, which was still idling.

He wasn't moving.



The guy was dead.

Welcome to the war Red.


__________________________________________________________________________________________

Extra reading:

Foreign Pilots in the Battle of Britain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-British_personnel_in_the_RAF_during_the_Battle_of_Britain



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#3691672 - 12/02/12 03:10 PM Re: "Six weeks": a campaign AAR from the Redux campaign for CoD [Re: HeinKill]  
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archermav Offline
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Nice,
Have d/l the campaign,just need some peace and quiet to play it! Thanks for your hard work.

Last edited by archermav; 12/02/12 07:01 PM.
#3691756 - 12/02/12 06:31 PM Re: "Six weeks": a campaign AAR from the Redux campaign for CoD [Re: HeinKill]  
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A most excellent read. Thanks.

#3691936 - 12/03/12 01:18 AM Re: "Six weeks": a campaign AAR from the Redux campaign for CoD [Re: HeinKill]  
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carrick58 Offline
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thumbsup Well done

#3692122 - 12/03/12 02:15 PM Re: "Six weeks": a campaign AAR from the Redux campaign for CoD [Re: HeinKill]  
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Nice!


Shoot to Kill.
Play to Have Fun.
#3692248 - 12/03/12 05:50 PM Re: "Six weeks": a campaign AAR from the Redux campaign for CoD [Re: HeinKill]  
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Came back to look at thos screenshots again. You really do have an eye for camera work. thumbsup

#3694185 - 12/06/12 08:37 PM "Six weeks": REDUX mission 2 [Re: HeinKill]  
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HeinKill Offline
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They called it a 'Stuka Party'... I called it 'Lucky to still be alive'.

Aldrige dragged us away from breakfast (what lunatic invented 'kippers' by the way?) to brief us for a convoy patrol. The first news he gave us was great. That guy on the tractor? He'd just been knocked out by the blast...he made it through fine.



This mission at least I had time to get my machine trimmed right, as we piled out over the Channel and started patrolling above the convoy.



There were five of them down there. It all looked so peaceful in the sunshine. For a minute, I almost envied them. There I was rattling along at 15,000 feet in my cramped, noisy cockpit stinking of oil and cordite, and there they were, floating along on white capped waves. Some of them even standing on the decks, waving up at us.



The envy didn't last long. Vick soon called over the R/T. "Stukas! Dozens of them. Attack formation A please gentlemen!"

Formation A? Was that line abreast, or line astern? As we swung down at the small specks below, I tried to remember.



I gave one of the Stukas a squirt as they loomed up in front of us and he fell away on one wing, streaming fluid. Was that a kill? I was watching him fall when I saw tracer spiralling past my fuselage.



You damn fool Red! I grunted. I shoved the nose of the Hurricane straight down without thinking, and the engine coughed and spluttered. It felt like I'd hit a wall, and I fell forward onto my straps as the engine struggled for fuel. Turns out it was the best thing I could have done. It caught the 109 pilot by surprise and he swept past me.



I swear, I was firing at him before I even realised it! I heard guns hammering and I thought, "That's it, I'm done for..." and then I realised the guns were mine and it was my thumb on the firing button.





The yellow nosed 109 started to smoke, and I let go of the control stick, both hands free. He rolled right, I rolled left.



I straightened out about 2,000 feet above the sea, and lost him under my starboard wing. I thought he was a goner.



I was wrong. While I was still getting my bearings, he appeared in my mirror and he closed fast.





As I ducked and wove, I swept past a slow, fat Stuka, waddling along just above the waves, its entire tailplane shot away. The crew just staring at me as I overtook them.





I dodged and ducked like a rattler trying to get out from under a Mustang's hooves. I didn't have the moves, but I hammered the rudder pedals with my feet, and rolled my wingtips from side to side, sure any moment I'd catch a wave with a wingtip and auger in.

But it wasn't me that tripped up. It was the 109 pilot behind me, and at about 200 mph, he suddenly nosed into the Channel.



I'd had enough.

I couldn't see anyone from 607 Squadron around me, just a few Stukas up above, beetling back to France. Fine, let 'em go.

I made my way back to Tangmere and this time landed without any fuss. As I taxiied in, the tower told me I had not one confirmed kill, but two!





I was going to call it damaged, but I guess someone had seen that first Stuka hit the water too. We'd gotten four of them, and lost none of our own. Some party!



I looked at the clock in the cockpit. Jumping jaysus. Had I really only been up there 21 minutes?!

21 minutes to end two lives, and nearly lose my own.

Less time than it took to shower, shave and dress.

Less time than I spent eating breakfast this morning.



Less time than it took to write in this diary...

___________________________________________________

Extra reading

StG 1 history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturzkampfgeschwader_1





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#3694385 - 12/07/12 03:46 AM Re: "Six weeks": REDUX mission 2 [Re: HeinKill]  
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thumbsup Good Job

#3696436 - 12/10/12 08:40 PM "Six weeks": REDUX Mission 3 - ' The Shame ' [Re: HeinKill]  
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HeinKill Offline
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August 12

Did the jitterbug last night with a fine English doll, but then got busted on the chops by some farmer's son with meathooks for hands. The locals don't mind you fighting and dying for them, long as you don't touch their sisters!

During the morning briefing Aldridge told me I'd be going on patrol with the CO, Vick...



When I saw Vick I was dead sure he was going to give me a talking to for the little misunderstanding in town last night, but if he knew about it, he didn't mention it. He didn't say much of anything until we were in one of the charabancs on the way out to the flight line...



"Three kills eh, Mr McColpin?"

"Yessir, Sir." I smiled a little.

"Don't be getting ahead of yourself up there old man."

"Sorry Sir?"

"I don't know if you are lucky, a good pilot, or a bit of both but just don't get cocky is all."

"No Sir."

"You are flying my wing, and I expect you to cover me until you are released. Clear?"

"Clear Sir." I wasn't smiling now.

He looked out the window and said casually, "Billy Seevers."

"Uh, Seevers Sir?"

"Yes, the farmboy who gave you that bruise on your cheek. Thought you might like to know who he was...in case you run into him again."

The erks were applying warpaint to some newly arrived machines, and ours were at the end of the line.



I stuck on Vicks wing, as he ordered, as we criss crossed the sky east of Tangmere, searching for stragglers from the earlier raid. I wanted more height, but Vick seemed to be searching the treetops.

It was Vick who saw it first, a little above us, "Luton 2 this is Luton leader. Heinkel! On his own...probably already been winged." Vick said, "Bearing 150, Angels 3 point 5. Follow me up."

There was nothing for me to do but sit and watch as he carved the Heinkel to pieces.



"Jolly good, that's one down!" he said happily as pieces flew off the German bomber and it began to dive toward the ground. "Close up Luton 2! The party isn't over yet!"



I swear this on my mother's honour, right then, I got an itch on the top of my head. It was the strangest thing. Like a drop of water just landed on me. I looked up...



"109s! Coming down fast from port!" I yelled into the R/T, "Break left, break left!"

Without thinking I pulled my machine around to face the threat, but the 109 was diving full throttle and blazed past.



He disappeared below then swooped up again. I got behind him easily enough, but he had a lot more energy and stayed in front. I slowly began to reel him in as he began a banking turn though.



Just then I remembered my lesson from the Stuka party, and swivelled my neck around to look behind me before I went after him. Sure enough...



His wingman was closing on me. They'd thrown me a classic sucker punch. And the guy behind me had me dead to rights.

It was kill, or be killed. So I opened fire on the 109 in front, as the 109 behind opened fire on me.





I thought I got some hits, then cannon rounds thudded into my port wing root. I could smell fuel or hydraulic fluid. A vision of fire filled my head. "Luton leader I'm hit! He's on my six!" I called.



I rolled desperately right. Now oil sprayed up onto the armoured front glass. I was hit bad.



Through the blackened glass I could vaguely make out a terrible sight. One of the 109s had pulled around and was coming at me head on. Over the radio, I heard Vick calling out, "I'll get him. Break, break, break." Vick called.

I closed my eyes and saw fire.

On the other side was...blackness.

I felt it all reaching for me in the next few seconds and the rest came automatically.



I threw back the Hurricane canopy, punched open my harness...

And tumbled out into clear air.



The 109 flashed straight overhead, its engine a nerve shattering roar as it passed within feet. I could hear the enemy's rounds smacking into my Hurricane as I dropped away.







I couldn't watch as my aircraft ploughed into the fields behind me. I hung my head and watched in misery as the ground came up toward me.



I landed near a small hamlet. Didn't even have a telephone.



Some chap drove me back to Tangmere.

Vick was standing with his hands on his hips as I climbed out of the car near the officer's mess.

"So you're alive then."

I wanted to tell him I panicked. Maybe I could have got the machine back in one piece. But that yellow nosed horror was coming straight at me, guns blazing, and I flipped my wig. I was trying to get the excuses all lined up, when he spoke again.

"When I saw your machine take a full burst of MG and cannon from that Emil and start streaming oil, I thought, 'Oh well, that's that. But then I saw your chute.'

"Yes Sir, I..."

"Reflexes like that are going to keep you alive Mr McColpin. If you'd stayed another second, you'd have been history."

I blinked.

"Go and get a bath, you look like the blazes," he ordered.

I saluted and turned away.

"Oh by the way..." he called, "You got another kill today. That 109 you hit on your first pass came down on the beach at Bognor Regis. Pilot was dead when they got to him, shot through the back of his seat."

I didn't look back at him. Didn't acknowledge.

I just kept walking.


--–----------------------

More reading:

The Battle of Barking Creek

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Barking_Creek







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#3696464 - 12/10/12 09:15 PM Re: "Six weeks": REDUX Mission 3 - ' The Shame ' [Re: HeinKill]  
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Fantastic stuff. Really enjoying these.

#3696568 - 12/10/12 11:56 PM Re: "Six weeks": REDUX Mission 3 - ' The Shame ' [Re: HeinKill]  
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thumbsup Really Nice job. U can almost here the Farmers Son saying He,s Over paid, over sexed and over here by my farm

#3696760 - 12/11/12 10:18 AM Re: "Six weeks": REDUX Mission 3 - ' The Shame ' [Re: HeinKill]  
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komemiute Offline
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Heinkill, please write to Lucasfilms and get to be the writer of the next WWII movie.
If they don't choose you over the guy who came up with Red tails, I call it quits and set the world on fire!


Click to reveal..
"Himmiherrgottksakramentzefixhallelujah!"
Para_Bellum

"It takes forever +/- 2 weeks for the A-10 to get anywhere significant..."
Ice

"Ha! If it gets him on the deck its a start!"
MigBuster

"What people like and what critics praise are rarely the same thing. 'Critic' is just another one of those unnecessary, overpaid, parasitic jobs that the human race has churned out so that clever slackers won't have to actually get a real job and possibly soil their hands."
Sauron
#3696833 - 12/11/12 01:30 PM Re: "Six weeks": REDUX Mission 3 - ' The Shame ' [Re: HeinKill]  
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Biggest Little City
Really really good HeinKill...keep em coming!


"A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human 'wisdom' . . . and the other twenty percent isn't very important." - Jubal Harshaw
#3696990 - 12/11/12 05:34 PM Re: "Six weeks": REDUX Mission 3 - ' The Shame ' [Re: HeinKill]  
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Go on... *Takes a sip of tea*


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Last edited by Heretic; 12/11/12 05:34 PM.
#3698775 - 12/14/12 11:56 AM Re: "Six weeks": REDUX Mission 3 - ' Strafed ' [Re: HeinKill]  
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HeinKill Offline
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13 August 1940

There was a box I had to tick on the enlistment papers. It said 'Swimming competency: none, fair, good.' I thought, I'm going to be a fighter pilot, what does it matter if I can swim?! I circled 'good' and forgot about it.

I didn't think about the English Channel.

I still didn't think about the Channel when I first arrived, because I came to Tangmere by train from London, and you can't see the coast from the station. But when I took my Hurricane up for the first time, I saw how close it was, and I remembered that question on my enlistment papers.

"You fat-head Red," I muttered to myself. There was 20 miles of water out there, and I grew up near Clarence Aerodrome in Buffalo. First time I saw Lake Eyrrie, I was ten years old. It looked cold. I threw a stone at it and went back to playing cowboys and indians. Closest I got to swimming in my life was if I dropped the soap in the bath.

The thought came back to me again as I sat and listened to Aldridge's early evening brief on our next and very urgent mission.



I'd asked Aldridge about the 110C since I hadn't tangled with one yet. He showed me his wooden leg, blown off by a cannon shell in a head on merge with a 110.

So the message was simple - throttle through the gate, turn around the raiders, and if I didn't want to drown or get a baseball sized hole in me, don't get in front of a 110.

The sun was dipping toward the horizon as we bolted into the sky. I'd like to say it was an orderly scramble but everyone seemed intent on getting out to the raiders while they were still mid-Channel, more than they were on getting into a tidy formation. Even Vick didn't keep up his usual chorus of 'close up, close up!'.



The only call he made on the R/T was as we hit the coast, "Watch out for the bloody barrage balloons!" he called.

The what? I looked around me, and directly above I saw one of the big bags of wind. I must have missed its tether cable by what? Feet? Inches?



As I looked ahead I suddenly saw the Hurricane of my flight leader, Perce, yaw like a great hand had snatched at his wing, and then it was torn away!



He'd hit the cable of another balloon. His machine started spinning like a dervish, straight at the ground.



The G-force must have been immense. His chances of getting the canopy open, getting out, almost none. Worst, his mike was open. And he was screaming. He screamed all the way into the ground.



I looked across at the remaining pilot from my section. Actually I hadn't even registered who it was. Grainger I think, by the look of his face, as he looked back over at me, terrified.

I wasn't scared. I was damned angry.



At Vick, for leading us out from Tangmere straight under a balloon barrage! Sure, there was an inbound raid and we had to hit it as quickly as we could. But to lose a man before we even got to the coast, where was the sense in that?!

Now Vick came on the R/T and if he'd heard what had happened, he didn't let on, "Sector says the raiders are at 10,000. Full boost climb gentlemen please."

My Hurricane clawed at the sky.



About five minutes later, we saw them, still above us, but too close to ignore us.



They might have tried to push on past us, and let us chase, but their nerve broke. Their formation scattered.



The next few minutes were a collection of scattered images. Looking back, I'm not sure who was shooting at who. When. How. All of Aldridge's good advice was forgotten.

I remember firing over the shoulder of a Hurricane as he plugged away at one of the 110s.





Who hit it? Well, we could argue about that later, if we survived.



Luton 10 signalled he'd been hit and was turning back. Damnation, this mission was going pear shaped, as the Brits said.



Then I latched onto a second 110 as he was zooming into a stall and dropping away.





He levelled out and I kept my thumb on the firing button until his engines started smoking. Then Vick radioed he'd been hit, and was turning back too! Who were these devils? Wasn't the 110C supposed to be easy prey?



The 110 I was chasing's speed fell away dramatically and I almost rammed him...





But he didn't go down, so I backed off the throttle, got in behind him and...his rear gunner sent a volley of MG fire through my prop, sawing down my engine cowling, glacing off the canopy and finally chopping off my right rear stabiliser like it was made of cardboard.



I guess instinctively I'd been staying away from the guns at the front of the 110s. I'd forgotten about the gun at the rear!

His port engine was dead, and he was probably a goner.



But that didn't help me anymore. And the squadron was taking a hammering too. Judging by the calls over the radio, we'd already lost 3 of ours to the 110s and I looked like being the next.





I was streaming fluids behind me, either glycol, or hydraulics, or both.



And the machine was steering like drunken cow...for good reason.



As I levelled out, too low, I did a mental tally again based on the radio calls I'd heard. We seemed to have downed 4, and lost 3.



There was no way I was making it back to the coast. But this time I didn't feel bad about losing the machine - it was a write off anyway. My first and only problem right now was ditching. I threw back the canopy.



The engine rattled and died, and I nosed towards the water, then I went in.



As I did, it heeled over on its nose, throwing me hard against the straps. Water rushed into the cockpit. The air in the tail kept it afloat, and I fought against rushing water, wet safety webbing, the mae west wrapped around my face and sheer panic, until I managed to claw my way out of the cockpit.



I scrabbled to the surface. My lovely fur lined boots, bought in London, full of water, trying to drag me the other way. I popped up, blowing like a trumpeter in a swing band, trying to inflate my mae west enough to stop me going to the deep.

Then above I heard the growl of twin engines.



I looked up in disbelief.

And then the kraut machine opened fire!



I dropped the mae west mouthpiece, lifted my hands in the air and let my 20lbs of wet clothes drag me under as the 110 strafed the sea around me.



But there was enough air in the vest that I bobbed back up as he swept overhead. I ducked.



He didn't come back.

Then it was just me, alone in the cold sea.

The dogfight above petered out, and the few Hurricanes and 110s left slowly moved away. Had anyone seen me?

After thirty minutes, my feet and legs were numb.

It was getting dark, and my jaws chattered with cold so hard I cracked a tooth.

I must have passed out, because when I woke, I was being pulled out of the Channel by a Walrus crew.



"You are bloody lucky mate," the coastal command crewman told me as he dumped me inboard. "Five more minutes and we would have had to call off the search for the night."

Lucky? I think I was starting to redefine luck.

Lucky was a boy from Buffalo NY, who never learned to swim, being shot down, dumped in the Channel, strafed, frozen and only half drowned.

THAT, was luck.

_________________________________________________

More reading:

Bf110 in the Battle of Britain

http://books.google.dk/books?id=PKa9EH5s...110&f=false



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#3699339 - 12/15/12 03:52 AM Re: "Six weeks": REDUX Mission 3 - ' Strafed ' [Re: HeinKill]  
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It makes me feel bad shooting up the German rescue plane in later missions.

#3709949 - 01/01/13 01:09 PM Re: "Six weeks": REDUX Mission 3 - ' Fluke' [Re: HeinKill]  
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HeinKill Offline
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14 August 1940

There were wry cheers in the mess when I walked in last night, still rugged up in an old blanket the Walrus crew had lent me. For once I was glad they'd already given me a nickname, because after two sorties where I returned without my machine, I'm pretty sure they would have come up with a good one for me.

Instead they filled me full of brandy and I fell asleep by the brazier in the ready room, woke up with my socks steaming and the sound of chairs being pulled up for the morning briefing. There was a sense of urgency in the room, and I came awake immediately.



Vick looked at me, "You up for this Mr McColpin? You're a flight leader now, you're one of the only men in this raggedy bunch of boys they've given me, but I need to know you haven't lost your bottle."

I threw off my blanket, and he saw I was still wearing my uniform - dishevelled, but ready. Lost my bottle? I had no idea what the hell that meant, but I fixed him with an angry glare, "Are we going to stand around talking all day Sir? Or are we going to go kill some Nazis?"

He smiled, "That's what I wanted to hear. Get up there. And try to bring your machine home this time eh? They don't grow on bloody trees."





We tore across the field and climbed out at full boost. It was a rescue mission, no time for niceties. Over the radio we could hear the warnings and cries of alarm from 111 Squadron already engaged off the coast.

In five minutes we had reached the scene of the fracas, and Vick set us loose. "Spread out and engage bandits," he called.

I keyed the mike and addressed my flight, "Luton Red Flight, take the 109s to starboard, select your own targets, select your own targets." We threw ourselves into the fray.



I came up under a 109 that was flying flat out after another Hurricane. Then I saw there were two of the jerks, one hammering away at the Hurri and the other riding shotgun up above.





If I'd gone straight in, the hun in the sun would have had me in his sights in seconds, so I wasted precious time climbing up behind them both and getting some altitude. I watched anxiously as the poor Hurri pilot dodged and weaved, willing him to hang on.



At about 300 yards I pushed the nose down and let rip with a long burst across the nose of the lead 109. I had no real expectation of hitting him but the tactic worked. The 109 broke off and the Hurricane peeled away. I looked twice . . . was the 109 smoking? Could I have hit it? Whatever, the 111 Squadron pilot had gotten away and that was all that mattered.





Good for him. Bad for me. The German flight leader's wingman broke right and swung in behind me.



Soon I had tracer hammering over and through my wings, Vick's voice ringing in my ears..."try to bring your bloody machine home this time..."

I called for help over the R/T, "Luton 8 to Luton red flight, need some help here guys!"



I pulled around in a tight circle, keeping the 109 on my right rear quarter, without a shot. Then one of my wingmen flashed in front of me, "I have him Red Leader, get yourself clear!"



Guns hammered as I pulled up and out of it. I was still in the combat zone, and started weaving, quartering the sky, looking for more threats, but my six, and the space around me, was clear. In fact, I couldn't even see the Hurricane that had rescued me, and the 109 which had been chasing me. I called my flight to regroup, but there was no answer.

Suddenly, I was alone in the sky. Time to call it quits. It was a worrying flight back. What had happened to everyone. To my own boys? Had they made it through? Who had won the day - us or Jerry?

I got back to Tangmere to find one of my guys had pancaked coming in to land, but it turned out he was OK, just a bruised ego. And the mission was a success - most of 111 Squadron had made it back in one piece, while we didn't have a single casualty.





To top it off, we had bagged three, and the icing on the cake? That 109 which I threw the Hail Mary pass at? Seems I managed to land a few rounds in his engine and one of the others saw him ditch his kite a couple of minutes later. My flight called it a 'fluke shot' - another strange Limey phrase for me to put in the book along with 'lost your bottle'.

And I had another notch on my rifle stock. That made 6.



I couldn't help sympathising with that Jerry though.

I shivered again at the thought of that cold, cold sea.


_______________________________________________________

More reading:

111 Sq RCAF History

http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/111_wwII.html









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#3710472 - 01/02/13 10:34 AM Red band of courage [Re: HeinKill]  
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 3,743
HeinKill Offline
Senior Member
HeinKill  Offline
Senior Member

Joined: May 2006
Posts: 3,743
Cloud based
August 15 1940

Today was a volunteer mission and there was only one volunteer. Yours truly.



There were no other takers to knock down the He115 floatplane, just guys in blue jackets shuffling their feet and looking at the floor.

As I was collecting my kit, someone muttered, "Like shooting up an ambulance...couldn't do it myself."

I didn't react. Just pointed at O'Halloran and Neil and said, "You two, with me."



As we climbed out, I did key the R/T though, "I don't want you listening to that jerk, Luton Yellow Flight." I told my section, "Some of 'em are great at flapping their lips, but they got marshmallow for guts. A nazi is a nazi, whether he drives an ambulance, or a tank. And a dead nazi, is the best kind."

It was something I had to say, but deep down, I wasn't jitterbugging with joy over this mission. I felt for any pilot who was floating in that cold ditch, hoping for the throb of aero engines or a friendly trawler to find him. But not so much I couldn't do my duty.

We started a search of the area the He115 had last been spotted. But up high, looking down at the choppy sea, it was going to be darned near impossible to see him.



"Fighters! Four o'clock!" my wingman called excitedly. I banked in that direction, shielded my eyes, and saw them - Hurricanes. "Do not engage Yellow Flight, do not engage! Those are friendlies. Stay with me."

We flew up along side the other Hurricanes and gave them a wave. We were about to go our separate ways when my wingman called again, "Uh, Yellow leader. More fighters, 5 o'clock and high. Probably friendlies too?"

I looked over my shoulder. And saw the slim, deadly silhouette of 109s boring down on us.

"Break right! Break right! Bandits!" I called.





They boomed past, and I was ready to swing around behind them, when I saw it. Low, slow and waddling across the waves - the He115.



"This is Luton leader. Keep the escorts busy men, I'm going for the floatplane," I ordered.



It would have been a turkey shoot if not for the itching feeling on the back of my neck telling me there was a flock of 109s circling like buzzards.

He was coming at me almost head on. They had a little pop gun in the nose - but that didn't worry me. I had about a ton of Merlin sitting between me and that MG. But I had to try and knock him down fast, before I became fodder for the Emils, so I took careful aim at the cockpit. And opened fire at 200 yards.





As I flew past his port side, I saw the pilot slumped over his controls. He was done for.



It was an ugly beast, and looked even uglier as it went down. One of the crew managed to crawl out as it fell. Then another.





"Heinkel down," I said over the R/T, "Where are..."



As I hauled back on the stick to get back into the fight, I heard the roar of a Daimler Benz, right over my head. One of the 109s had been lining me up for a kill, and my sudden climb had spooked him. He cleared my cockpit glass by feet and inches.



I could clearly see the red band around his nose.

Red band...I'd heard about those guys. It was JG53. Rumour had it their CO was married to a Jew, so Goering had them paint the red band on their machines as a mark of shame. In protest at that, they'd painted over their Swastikas.

That was the scuttlebutt, but what I knew for sure? The guy was trying to kill me. And he had just made a dumb move. Having pulled up suddenly to miss me, he dropped his nose and went for the deck to gain some speed. That put him right in front of me. I let him have it.





One burst clipped his starboard wingroot. The next went wide as he skidded right.



I fired again, and missed left again.



But the first burst had done its job. His machine began sideslipping, port wing low. He didn't have the altitude or time to try to correct. With a mighty splash, he augured in and cartwheeled across the sea.





Looking around I saw my section forming up behind me.

"Good show Luton leader!" one of them said, "The others have bolted for home!"



We pointed ourselves back toward Tangmere.

You don't want to think too much about this war Red, I told myself on the way back. Look at it one way, and I got two valuable kills today, put another dent in the Nazi ambition to take over the world.

Look at it another way, I shot down an air ambulance and a guy who was probably anti-Nazi and a jewish sympathiser.

It all looked black and white back when I was sitting in Buffalo, reading about it in the Post.

I was learning nothing was black and white, after you splashed it with blood.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

More reading:

JG53 history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagdgeschwader_53

Luftwaffe air-sea rescue

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world...of-Britain.html




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#3710521 - 01/02/13 01:34 PM Re: Red band of courage [Re: HeinKill]  
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 57
SoupyC Offline
Junior Member
SoupyC  Offline
Junior Member

Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 57
Biggest Little City
Excellent as always! Didn't know that about JG53, got some reading to do!


"A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human 'wisdom' . . . and the other twenty percent isn't very important." - Jubal Harshaw
#3710562 - 01/02/13 02:59 PM Re: Red band of courage [Re: HeinKill]  
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 3,743
HeinKill Offline
Senior Member
HeinKill  Offline
Senior Member

Joined: May 2006
Posts: 3,743
Cloud based
Yes, von Taubadel (the JG53 CO with the Jewish wife), went on to command the LW training academy, then held commands in Norway and Finland, and survived the war. So did his wife, miraculously. She and von Taubadel were divorced in 1948 and she lived until she was nearly 90.

Anyway, on with the story (I had some nice down time over the New Year break!)

H


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