O Orange II took off and off and assembled with the bomber stream at the designated point. On the outbound trip we were jumped by an Me110 over Belgium.
The attack caused hits in the wing root and holed the inboard starboard tank. Fuel was leaking but fortuntaely did not ignite. The attack also knocked out the engine fire extinguisher controls and aerilons and the port elevator.
The Me 110 made a follow up attack but missed. Our tail gunner returned fire but missed the enemy AC. Some violent corkscrewing lost the Me110.
Due to the fuel leak we had no choice but to jettision our bombs and head for home. We found some cloud cover and managed to return safely to base, unfortunately the first to get back.