B Flight tasked with a patrol mission over the city of Venlo. BUMPER flight took off from Ophoven led by F/Lt 'Riksen' Richards supported by F/O 'Mac' Steele as 'Red-2' and myself as 'Red-3'. As soon as we crossed over to the frontline Riksen reported 3 bogies distant at about 20,000 feet and ordered myself and F/O 'Mac' Steele to approach slightly below "co-alt" while he remained top-cover. When we got to about a mile away to their low-6 o'clock, Mac confirmed the bogies as enemy and we started our attack in earnest. When we got just a few hundred yards away we were spotted and the bandits broke left, leading us into a turn-around. I saw F/O 'Mac' Steele head up to the left with his bandit while I chased my bandit who attempted to get on his 6 o'clock. I fired a few bursts of .50 Cal MG to measure the deflection and then began firing shorter bursts of 20mm cannon to try to finish my fight with the bandit early enough to then concentrate on the remaining 2. I scored a few hits damaging the enemy aircraft but he went into a steep dive and I decided to break off and help out with my section instead. By the time I got back into position above I saw another bandit get hit and started his dive downwards. Careful not to fire on a friendly, I started a climb/circuit and finally observed the last remaining bandit getting onto Mac's 6 and so I went flat-out and tried to catch him first. Riksen and I both took a pass and I was able to get a lethal 20mm hit that F/Lt 'Riksen' Richards confirmed stalled his craft out and ended his fighting ability. Shortly after we RV'd F/O 'Mac' Steele had reported that he had taken some hits and his plane was in bad shape; so F/Lt 'Riksen' Richards ordered us to RTB. We all landed successfully. F/O 'Zach' Z. Lamothe |
