Battle of Britain: Wednesday 10th July 11:30

"The C.O. was furious. I thought a vein in his head was going to pop when he heard Lewellyn was missing. There was a bit of muttered invective which won’t grace the pages of this log followed by a ‘Show them how its bloody well done’. Scramble went at 11.15. Another lone raider, Fletcher-Hove as good as his word took Red Section up."

Red Section ready to go

Game 2 was again a small practice game with a very similar set up to game 1. Squadron Leader Fletcher-Hove took up Red Section with Pilot Officers Collins and Reynolds as his wing men. Interestingly both P.O.s had a rating of Regular where F-H was a Rookie; I took this to mean that F-H was either not a good pilot or wedded to poor tactics.

Ju 88 - would it be lucky this time?

To make it a little more interesting a solitary ME 109 was introduced to defend the Junkers.

ME 109 in advantage state

In the first round Collins and Reynolds went after the ME 109 whilst F-H tried to get into position to take a shot at the Junkers. The Ju 88's movement took it past Collins who gave it a blast and completely failed to hit the target. Meanwhile the ME 109  zipped in and outmaneuvered F-H which meant he lost an advantage level.

Break! Break!

Dogfight begins

F-H took a shot at the Ju 88, moved and then fired again but with the predictability of my die rolling failed to hit both times. Meanwhile Reynolds decided to go after the bomber too and there was another exchange of fire resulting in... a hit for the Luftwaffe.

By this time the ME 109 was in among the Hurricanes and found itself with their tails in its sights.

The Junkers is the centre of attention

There was another exchange of fire between Red Section and the Ju 88 resulting in another hit on the Hurricanes, though at least this time the RAF managed to hit the bomber, once.

17 seconds of ammo doesn't get you many results

But that pesky 109 now opened fire hitting Collins who failed to save and thus, being already disadvantaged, was shot down.

Its all about to go horribly wrong for Collins

This meant that once more the RAF had more boom chits than engines and so had to retire. Another Junkers had escaped.

Are 327 an unlucky squadron?

"Nobody seemed to know what had happened to Collins and there was no chat on Red Section's return. Two sorties and two missing pilots you knew everybody was wondering who'd be next..."