Lt Seiler Egotistical/ Govt Veteran Military -1
Lt(jg) Windy Booth Mercurical/avarice
Lt(jg) Spanky Carter Pleasant/position Rookie Speed deamon +1
Lt(jg) Nick "The Greek" Likeable/familiy +1
Lt(jg) Hubie Smith generous/govt Rookie +1
Ens "Boyo" Riley Agressive/family
Ens Dan Bartle Likeable/family Rookie connections +2
The AM mission rolled proved historical (not making it up!) and was a fighter bomber mission to the airfield at Cazes. "Mac" heard "play ball" on the way their so knew the French were going to resist. They had almost reached the airfield when 3 Hawks rose to challange the 6 wildcats. Mac and Spanky jettsoned their 100 pounders and kept the Hawks so busy that Mac downed 1 for the Rippers first kill of WW II! Shortly theirafter a random event called for a french morale check which the french failed and decided not to fight! (Way cool!)
All 6 fighters beat the airfield (though I was afraid Mac would get shot down!) with Windy taking the honors by destroying a hanger and a french bomber!
Windy shows how it is done!
Spanky's engine was hit by groundfire and he nursed his plane back to the carrier. Hubie had sustained minor tail damage from a Hawk earlier so the time was at hand for carrier landings!. Spanky went first and crashed onto the deck. After he was recovered (WIA) the plane was quickly tossed over the side to allow the rest of the Rippers to land without incident. Good thing no one had fuel challenges!
A win for the Red Rippers though! Hopefully Spanky will be back before the war is over. Post game Windy upgraded to Veteran and the Squadron CO ,Tommy Hall, gave us an extra plane and pilot for the next mission. 7 Pilots and 8+1 planes left.
Was feeling pretty good about the Rippers now. Mid day mission was another fighter bomber one. This time to Fedhala to support the beaches. 6 Wildcats plus the one that Tommy gave us; we should have the war won by dinner!
Rippers on the prowl
Unfortunatly we were intercepted early by 5 DE 520s. This plane is at least equal to the wildcat, we had a fight on our hands!
Time to jettson your bombs!
(the one plane is a wildcat disguised as an SBD.
It didn't help)
It short, it was ugly! We never made it to the target. My rolling was bad but I can't even blame it on that. We stunk. The Rippers lost 4 wildcats including our "extra". Lt Seilers- KIA. Ens Boyo Riley--KIA. Ens Bartle managed to bail out and was picked up by US troops. He should be back on the ship tonight. Windy managed to down one DE 520 and Mac pushed one off the Greek's tail. It is a good thing you can only lose 1 glory point per mission.
Post mission we introduced our intel officer, Lt Rogers. He must have washed out of flight school because he is coarse and doesn't like us.
That leaves us with 4 +2 pilots and 4 +2 planes. Tommy already isn't happy since we lost his pilot.
It is fun seeing how this plays out and tonight I get to see how we have contributed to the battle overall.
Enjoy!
Joe
Great report Joe. I remember reading Rick Atkinson's account of the Torch campaign, Army At Dawn, but don't remember reading much about the air war. What carrier did the USN have in support of Torch?
ReplyDeletePadre,
ReplyDeleteArmy at Dawn is a great book. His second, Day of Battle is just as good. The 2 main carriers for the US were the Ranger and the Suwanee.
Thanks
Joe