Kanalkampf. Mission 10: 19th July 1940

[Pitti]

Flight Reports: Mission 10: 19th July 1940

Template:

Mission Date: 19th July 1940

Name:
Rank:
Unit:
Aircraft:
Markings:
Aerodrome: Marquise
Pilot Status: KIA / OK
Aircraft Status: Lost / Damaged

Victory Claims:

Time	Place	Aircraft	Opponent	Confirmed
-	-	-	-	-

(code here)
http://www.aircombatgroup.co.uk/forum/v ... =66&t=1169


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Mission Date: 19th July 1940

Name: Pitti
Rank: Major
Unit: Stab II./JG26
Aircraft: Bf 109 E-4
Markings: << + -
Aerodrome: Marquise
Pilot Status: OK
Aircraft Status: Ok

Victory Claims:

Time	Place	Aircraft	Opponent	Confirmed
1404	Channel - in front of Dover	Hurricane	-	no

At 1323 II./JG26 took of from Marquise for a Freie Jagd over the English channel. As usual, I was flying with the 6. Staffel and led the whole Gruppe. After flying several circles around the airfield, waiting for everyone to get into formation, we flew off to the coast at 1332, all 3 Staffeln together. We crossed the coast half way between Marquise and Calais. We headed north in the dirction of Deal/Manston. We had orders to stay over the water and not to cross the English coast. So we flew alongside the coast near Deal at an altitude of 4km when I spotted a big formation on my low 1 o'clock position. The formation flew south at an altitude of 2km. I order to turn towards them and have a look what they are. The 5. Staffel reported that these contacts are Defiants, about 10-15 of them. The 5. Staffel and parts of the second Schwarm of 6. Staffel went into attack. I stayed at high altitude with my Schwarm to keep the overview and look out for enemy fighters. Shortly after I lost visual on the Defiants, they must have turned around below us were we couldn't see them, but some of my pilots were still attacking them. At 1345, parts of the 5. Staffel reported a big flight of Spitifres over the bay of Manston at about 5km. I gave order to everyone to head there an engage the enemies. At this time I was near Deal at 5km and saw two Spitfires passing 500m above, they didn't see us and we flew on towards Manston. As we arrived there the sky was filled with 109s, Spitfires and Hurricanes, form 3km to 7km. In the ruslting dogfight I managed to damage a Hurricane and a Spitfire. The enemies outnumbered us and thus we were more busy to keep our sixes clean then to shoot down these damn brits. Once you shook of an enemy from your ass, two others appeared there a minute later. By doing multiple Split-S maneuver I succeeded to keep them away from me. During the fight I lost visual contact to my wingman. Over radio he reported that he is engaged as well. I gave order to the whole Gruppe to leave the manston area, south towards France to stretch the fight and get into better attacking positions. Near Deal I spotted my wingman passing below with 4 Spitfires behind him. I dove into the fight but wasn't able to get into shooting position. Nevertheless, I got their attention and they let off of my wingman. But it was too late, his 109 was too damaged to made it back to france. He had to put it down somewhere near Dover. Now I had these three or for Spitfires behind me. I headed towards France in a shallow dive. Unteroffizier Wiesel and Unterfeldwevel Warjunkie, both part of my Schwarm, were in the same area and so I turned around and we started too fight the Spitfires in front of Dover harbour. During the fight some more enemies appeared, Hurricanes. I dove on one Hurricane and gave it a full burst from all of my weapons, directly into the cockpit and engine area. By passing it and looking bad I saw the pilot bailing out, this was at 1404. While still engaged with the Spitfire we slowly came closer to the French coast. At about 1411 they finally gave up and flew back home. Low on fuel I decided to fly back to Marquise where I landed at 1414.
Not a single bullet had hit my trusty 109, but others of my comrades weren't that lucky and didn't make it back to our base.

[Wiesel]

Mission Date: 19-07-1940 1320-1418

Name: Wiesel
Rank: Unteroffizier
Unit: 6./JG26
Aircraft: Bf-109 E4
Markings: Brown 4
Aerodrome: Marquise West
Status: RTB / Pilot OK
Victory Claims:

Time	Place	Aircraft	Opponent	Confirmed
-	-	-	-	-

[Trautloft]

Mission Date: 19.07.1940 13:20 - 14:00

Name: Trautloft
Rank: Hauptmann
Unit: 6./JG26
Aircraft: Bf-109 E4
Markings: Brown 8
Aerodrome: Marquise
Status: wundet/Land at Homebase
Victory Claims:

Time	Place	Aircraft	Opponent	Confirmed
-	-	-	-	-

[Maalek]

Mission Date: 19-07-1940 1320-1418

Name: Maalek
Rank: Hauptgefreiter
Unit: 6./JG26
Aircraft: Bf-109 E4
Markings: Brown 20
Aerodrome: Marquise West
Status: Motor failure / watered in canal

Victory Claims:
Time Place Aircraft Opponent Confirmed
- - - - -

[Nik]

Mission Date: 19.07.1940 13:20 - 13:50

Name:Nik
Rank:Unteroffizier
Unit:6./JG26
Aircraft:BF 109 E4
Markings:Brown 14
Aerodrome:Marquise
Status:pilot wounded/ Plan lost
Victory Claims:

Time	Place	Aircraft	Opponent	Confirmed
-	-	-	-	-

[Aurora]

Mission Date: 19-07-1940 1320-1418

Name: Aurora
Rank: Gefreiter
Unit: 4./JG26
Aircraft: Bf-109 E1
Markings: white 19
Aerodrome: Marquise West
Status: Pilot unharmed, Aircraft unharmed
Victory Claims:

Time	Place	Aircraft	Opponent	Confirmed
1409	East of Folkstone	hawker defiant	unkown	yes (chumleigh)

[Chumleigh]

Mission Date: 19-07-1940 1320-1418

Name: Chumleigh
Rank: Hauptgefreiter
Unit: 4./Jg26
Aircraft: E1
Markings: white 14
Aerodrome: Marquise West
Pilot Status: OK
Aircraft Status: undamaged

The 4th staffel suffered not a single loss today - in fact no damage whatsoever! We averaged half a kill per pilot too!
I suppose the fact that there were only two of us altogether might have had something to do with it... My lead got the the kill by the way - a Defiant. I was right behind him hoping he'd leave something left of it for me to shoot at...

[Atreides]

Mission Date: 19-07-1940 1326-1353

Name: Atreides
Rank: Leutnant
Unit: 5./JG26
Aircraft: Bf-109 E3
Markings: Black 3
Aerodrome: Marquise West
Airplane status: Ditched the 109 between Deal and Calais after water line got broken.
Pilot Status: OK.
Victory Claims: None

After taking off the Messerschmitt 109 E3's of the 5th Staffel took their position behind the 6th and headed towards Deal. Arriving there some Defiants were spotted low over the Channel.
Part of the 5th Staffel had to engage these while the rest including me stayed up.
We that had remained at altitude soon encountered a large number of enemy fighters high over the bay near Manston at equal altitude and energy. This wasn't going to be pretty. While engaging we directed the 6th and 4th Staffels to this location.

My wingman Stig got attacked by an enemy Spitfire while I was turning to attack some other fighters. Upon seeing this I turmed to help him. The Spitfire broke away from Stig after I engaged it.
Not able to outturn him I dove towards Deal. The Spit gave up and I in turn turned towards a group of 4 planes dogfighting.
After some maneuvering I got behind a Spitfire heading towards Manston, however another one in the furball (I think it was a Spitfire) heading the other way was lucky enough to get a few hits on me in a head-on pass. The cooling system of the 109 is badly designed so of course the water line of the engine was damaged. I was on a timer and had to disengage towards Calais. An enemy followed me but when I jettisoned my canopy before ditching the Spitfire strangely disengaged. I don't know if he was engaged in turn, but maybe Chivalry still does exist.

The Kriegsmarine luckily had a Schnellboot nearby which picked me out of the water. Soon I was back in Calais with some other squadron mates who had also been picked up. Incredibly 1 plane had made it back to France today, so apparently it's true that you can't kill a squadron (Staffel).

High command did notify us that soon changes will be made to the flight characteristics of a large part of the air-fleet. This is welcome news since some of the guys including myself are on low morale. We are looking forward towards this with great anticipation.

About the 5th Staffel as a whole:
We got split up mainly because of part of the 5th Staffel having to attack low enemy (AI-)planes. When the rest encountered the Allies we were outnumbered and on equal energy. Considering these facts I have to say it was admirable the Staffel as a whole managed to get at least some kills.

[Grey]

Mission Date: 19th July 1940

Name: Grey
Rank: Uofr.
Unit: 5./JG26
Aircraft: 109E3
Markings: Black 1 / ace of spades
Aerodrome: Marquise
Pilot Status: OK
Aircraft Status: Lost

Victory Claims:
14:03 Pas de Calais/ Defiant / confirmed by Zap
14:06 Pas de Calais/ Defiant / confirmed by Zap
14:19 Manston / Hurricane/ no confirmation
14:20 Manston / Hurricane/ no confirmation
14:25 East of Manston/Spitfire/ confirmed by Need

This was going to be an quiet day, fighter sweep over the channel, I didn’t even knew the Tommie’s had any birds left according to Goering.
The mighty 5th staffel took off as last attachment for the 26th, but as soon we hit the sky, it looked like Berlin during rush hour. We as 2nd swarm couldn’t find our way through the traffic jam, it looked like Goering had send an armada up there to keep the channel clear. Lucky for us we had our schwarm fuhrer who’s a condor legion veteran and he took care of the situation, like an eagle looking over her baby chicks!
The first attack order came in; Interceptors on their way to our Europe without any real fighter escort. Our vet went in first, suddenly I saw black smoke and a flash and lost contact over our schwarm fuhrer, not sure what happened. But the war must go on, so the rest of us went in and finished them off, Zap and myself got 2 Tommies burning, 4 in total. After this event I saw no more contacts. The others must‘ve ditched, even my swarm had split, no answer over the comms neither, except a bloke from Beieren who was with us on his first mission. Not sure where to go, I decided we should rendezvous at Cap-gris-nez at 4k. so we did. We changed our R/T to the next channel and found out that 1 schwarm was fighting over Manston, so back in business! The chap from Beieren and me were on our way, but we lost each other due to the heavy radio chatter on the channel of the scharm 1… once over Manston I picked up 2 Tommies who were flying like they were in a JU-52 at around 4k making a right hand turn. So, I got cocky and picked on the wingman, fired until all sorts of fluids where leaking, fired some rounds on the leader, got him too and I dived to the deck before they called in the cavalry! Once on the deck I found a 109 being chased by a Spit, I had the advantage of energy and went in. first I got his radiator so he turned around, (since we were over sea and he had to land) so I followed and I gave him some more candy’s until his engine stalled. By this time he called for his mommy and she came down at me with her broom until my engine popped as well… I ditched right next to my prey. Lucky me I only took a nasty bullet to my head, (I eat them for breakfast these days) so I was able to swim to a German S-boat who was nearby, what are the odds to that?! I saw the fella who I brought down swimming to his people, he looked back and I saluted him with what was left of my arm! Next time pilgrim I yelled, next time… He yelled something back, but his voice faded away in the the engine roar of the S-boat. The boat took me back to France and for now I’m in the sick bay looking for a butcher to take one or more .303 rounds out of my body.

After combat report at Marquise

[Lee]

Mission Date: 19-07-1940 1320-1418
Name: Lee
Rank: Gefreiter
Unit: 5./JG26
Aircraft: BF-109 E-3
Markings: -+4
Aerodrome: Marquise West
Status: KIA over Ramsgate
Victory Claims:

Time	Place	Aircraft	Opponent	Confirmed
-	-	-	-	-

Well even tough I am KIA , I consider this mission a huge improvement in my part .
Did not over-heat my engine .
kipped formation to the best of my abilities .
Even got a few shots at some Hurricanes .
Had loads of fun in the mission today , This campaign really turned a less then good day to an amazing evening .
I am literally 10,000 feet high , and loving every minute of it .
Getting better each day .
Imagine how good I would be next week .
Lee signing off .