After our last trip this one was a bit of a rough go. Last time we didn't see any fighters at all and this time it seemed as if we had a personal escort with us.
A 110 surprised us as we came over the coast. It blasted apart our rafts, put some other holes in our kite and vanished into the darkness.
The next attack came shortly afterward when a 110 fired at us and did some more superficial damage. Both Combs and Malloy fired on him but missed.
On the second pass he got the starboard wing root and on the third is when I got hit. Nothing much, mind you, just a slight graze on the left cheek but annoying to say the least. He put a few more miscellaneous holes in the plane and then left us.
We made it to the target without further incident but there a burst of flak got us. It knocked out the Mid-Upper gun and sliced open Barton's leg. It looked rather serious to us. Fortunately he hadn't passed out and was able to stop the bleeding himself. The rest of us were a bit busy at the time.
Another 109 attacked us but thankfully missed us. Despite the flak burst and the bad weather Malloy did an excellent job getting the bombs on the markers.
As we turned for home we were jumped by a 110; put a couple of superficial hits into us, got the port rudder but Toombs got him. All we saw were flames going down below us.
As we continued home another 110 surprised us. This bugger managed to knock out the heat to the flight deck. His subsequent attacks did only minor damage or missed us but with the heat out we would have to descend or risk frostbite.
As we descended a searchlight picked us up and flak started firing. We were hit and took damage to the starboard wing root and damaged our control cables.
Then another 110 came out of nowhere and attacked. It missed initially and then Toombs scored his second kill.
We continued onward and another searchlight spotted us. It seemed like we couldn't get away from the enemy tonight. More flak and some damage to the port wing, including the fuel tank. The leak wasn't too bad and we hoped we would be able to make it back home.
We were coming over the Channel when, yet another, 110 jumped us. The fighter knocked out heat for the tail gunner but since we were already at a lower altitude it didn't matter. The big thing was that he got another hit on the port fuel tank. Fuel was now pouring out of the tank and we weren't sure if we would have enough fuel or not to land back in England.
He came back around for another pass and Toombs got hit by a piece of metal that ripped open his left arm.
We started to dump anything we could overboard to try to conserve the fuel that we had. Barton was alive but had passed out by now and I knew that if we had to bail our or ditch there was a good chance he wouldn't survive. The goal was to get to land and then figure out where to bring this thing down.
It was touch and go but we barely made it to one of the emergency fields along the coast. As the plane rolled to a stop the engines cut out, a victim of too little fuel.
They took good care of us and arranged for transport back. From what I have heard Barton should be able to rejoin us the next time out. Apparently it looked worse than it was. The Kitten will be able to be repaired and should also be ready to go.