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[Seamas]

I'm curious to know if our typical bomb hit % is historically accurate on average or just a skewed result of the dice rolls.  So far the dame is averaging what, maybe 15%?

Does that bomb run % refer to the amount of our ordnance that was physically dropped or that which hit the target?  It would be a shame to land back in England with a bomb bay still full of bombs, but it would also be poor form to drop leftover bombs wherever they fall for convenience's sake...  Sort of a lose-lose there, huh.

[Anvilfolk]

I think it's the percentage of the Dame's bombs that actually hit the target. I don't honestly know whether those statistics end up being accurate with respect to the real thing. However, one guy did do a cumulative study of 400 missions (looks like a lot of bombers don't make it past 10-15 missions... that's where the Dame is at right now). The Norden bombsight was supposed to be really good, but between all the flak and wind and speed estimation errors, as far as I know it could miss quite often.

I think at some point it just became a matter of how many bombers flew in each mission. They'd simply saturate the target area, with most missions having between 200 and 500 bombers, I think. There's apparently a nice log of all the operations. According to those logs, things were much quieter than they were in the early war. The Luftwaffe and aviation fuel were both heavily depleted.

You can get a bomb drop malfunction due to damage, and then I think you end up out of formation because you're slower than all the other bombers since you're still carrying bombs on the return trip. That is a very, very dangerous situation to be in! Most often though, you drop the bombs, whether on-target or off-target. You're off-target on a roll of 1-2 and on-target on a 3-6. However, if you were hit by flak you get a -1 to the roll, and if there's damage to critical systems you can have up to a -3 or -4 modifier. If you're off target there's a minimal chance that you'll hit a little bit - maybe 10% chance of 5% or 10% hit accuracy. If you're on target it varies wildly from almost 100% to 20%, I think.

Anyway, flew mission 10 today. Starting on 11 we'll be going on "real" missions, outside the fighter umbrella, maybe even into Germany. I'll try to get the writeup for missions 6-10 sometime tonight, and hopefully get some of the real missions in at some point in the weekend

[EuchreJack]

It would be a shame to land back in England with a bomb bay still full of bombs, but it would also be poor form to drop leftover bombs wherever they fall for convenience's sake...  Sort of a lose-lose there, huh.

I remember reading somewhere that it was common practice in WWII to drop any leftover bombs prior to landing, but not for convenience sake: It was dangerous to land with a full bomb load.  If the landing gears malfunctioned and you had a belly full of bombs...BOOM!

It also wasn't wherever they may fall: Some air wings had designated areas near the base where they could drop any unused ordinance.  And air missions had secondary targets where they could drop excess bombs if the primary was too heavily defended to get off a whole load.

[Anvilfolk]

Oh, right, missed that part. Absolutely right. You'd never come back home with a full bomb bay if you could avoid it. I assumed they'd drop them over the channel or something. Same thing with carrier airplanes - or perhaps especially with carrier airplanes! You don't want bombs going off when you crash into a carrier....

Interesting that you would mention landing gear malfunction........ stay tuned

[EuchreJack]

I forgot to mention that besides the risks of the bombs going off, it was just plain harder to land with the extra weight of the bombs, hence why it was never done.

Yeah, I forgot about the bombs being dropped over the channel.  I seem to recall reading that was fairly common practice if a bomber still had any bombs to drop them over the channel, so good guess!

[Anvilfolk]

Update for missions 6-10 posted!

Now we might be going all the way into Germany - the Mighty 8th is taking the fight to Hitler himself!

[EuchreJack]

Looking forward to further updates.

By the way, how does the rabbit's foot work?  I've seen you've used it a few times to not die.

[Anvilfolk]

Used it once

Instead of getting an enemy wave, you might get a random event (1/36 chance, I think). And then, in the middle of all possible events (some good, some bad), the most probably one (7 on a 2d6) is the rabbit's foot. You can keep it from mission to mission. You can use it once to re-roll any die roll.

I'd gotten hit by a 109 shell in the bomb bay, then in particular it damaged the bombs themselves, and finally, the bombs were supposed to blow. But I re-rolled that, and they didn't roll. If they had, it would've been instant death, KIA. It was incredibly lucky that I had a rabbit's foot and that the re-roll saved the bombs

I'm being absurdly lucky with the damage rolls. I mean, the highest probability of damage to sections is going to be "superficial damage", which has no impact on the mission, but I've been damaged so often and not really gotten anything bad happen. There was the landing gear, a couple of oxygen hits (they needed 2 hits to lose the oxygen). There was that one time I had to drop out of formation because of the heatsuits... But overall, for 10 missions that's not bad at all!

[Sheb]

It's really getting tense. Especially since you had such a good run so far.

[Seamas]

Man, it's getting very tense!  I can't believe how lucky this crew and the Dame have been so far.  You must have a whole crate of rabbits tucked away in the cockpit.

So how far apart are these missions - a day, a week?  That's pretty amazing to think the ground crew could fix 'er up so fast, and moreover, leave so little time to the flight crew to recover before sending them out again. 

[Anvilfolk]

We've secretly substituted a couple of 200lb bombs for crates of rabbits' feet Good thing we've got a big rabbit farm going at base, or we'd never be able to get as many rabbits' feet as we need

I still can't believe how insanely lucky the Dame is. Did a couple more missions, one of them to Paris, which is outside the fighter screen. Got hilariously unlucky with the amounts of enemies that showed up, but hilariously lucky with actual damage, as usual. More on that later

If you guys are into this, you should try it. The manual for the game is on BoardGameGeek, and there's a VASSAL module for it. That's what I'm doing! It's really, really great to experience playing the game, even though there's not that many choices. There's so much hanging on every single die roll, and you get really attached, and really feel like a part of the experience. The long missions feel really long (IS IT EVER GOING TO END?! LEAVE ME ALONE, FRITZ!! I JUST WANT TO GET HOOOOMMEEEEEE!), the short missions feel really nice, frustration and elation at hit or missed bomb runs...

So how far apart are these missions - a day, a week?  That's pretty amazing to think the ground crew could fix 'er up so fast, and moreover, leave so little time to the flight crew to recover before sending them out again. 

Excellent question! I'm actually guesstimating, since I actually know relatively little about the topic. I prefer the Pacific Theatre and read a lot about the Battle of Britain, which was before the USA came in I've been trying to include mission charts, which have dates, but have probably missed quite a few.

Whenever damage is really slight, I fly the next day. If damage is more significant, two or three days later. A lot of the damage is superficial, which I take to mean basically a hole through a steel plate, which is pretty easily fixable. I'm assuming spare parts were always available, and that the ground crew works overnight There's a war going on!

The real reason I'm rushing it a bit more is because I started in '45, and don't want the war to end before the Dame's had the chance to do her 25 missions and its crew go home as heroes! You can get an estimate of mission dates from the mission records of the Memphis Belle, though Missions were flown almost every day in real life too, so I just include the Dame whenever I get the chance

[Knave]

I really enjoy the B-17 game. Enjoying reading along.

I might do a similar LP with a similar game that I just picked up:

The Hunters: German U Boats at War

Basically same premise as B-17, except you command a German U-Boat and have to sink enemy ships and survive being sunk yourself. Haven't played yet, but from what I read there's a little more player input than B-17.

[Anvilfolk]

Yeah, I've been looking at that one! I keep hearing wonders about it. I'm getting pretty excited with all the solitaire games. I'm thinking I might dive into Carrier next, though that appears to be more of a beast of a game! It's hard to find, and copies are very expensive, but there's a VASSAL module.....

Where did you get Hunters from? I'm not sure whether to get it as a P500 game, since so many things seem to be changing still. It's nice that all the materials are freely available for you to update your copy, though.

I'm also toying with the idea of making a travel version of B-17! I can see myself doing transatlantic flights pretending I'm in a B-17 instead of a 757 Let's see how that goes

[Anvilfolk]

Flew another mission today, and that's all my heart can take.

The Dame is alternatively amazingly unlucky and amazingly lucky, but I am happy to report that she is somehow still flying at mission 14. I am sad to say that might not be the case for all of her crew...

Stay tuned! I'll hopefully be able to do the writeup this weekend.

[Anvilfolk]

Spoiler: Missions 11-13 (click to show/hide)

Dear Mom & Dad,

I don't know how to start this letter, but I know that it must be written. It's been a long time since we've exchanged more than pleasantries, but the truth is that I feel my luck cannot hold out much longer... I want you to know what my life has been like, for it may well be the end of it soon. You should know how I've been spending my days.

We've been flying missions two out of three days for the past weeks. The missions have become longer and harder, and we're hitting tougher targets, that are more well protected by planes and anti-air.

If we're lucky, we know we're going to be flying the next day. If not, we're just woken up at around 0500 for breakfast. On the days we are to fly, we get eggs for breakfast, though we can barely stomach them. Then we head out for the briefing, where we get information on primary and secondary targets, the routes in and out, expected defences in anti-air batteries or fighters, and all of that stuff.

The navigators and bombardiers then get their own briefings, and I tend to head off to the plane with the remaining crew and start pre-flight checks, and just talk with the gunners. They're just kids, not one of them above 20, and the missions are taking a toll on them. They get sick before flights, or start shaking until the plane is finally up in the air.

To be honest, I feel like being sick too. I keep remembering the Forts going down, burning, and can only imagine how hard it must be to get out. The only thing keeping me from breaking apart is the weight of responsibility over these kids.

Anyway, a while back we went to Rotterdam, to bomb the shipyards there. We were worried because all of the way is over water... very cold water. If we're hit and have to bail out, the chances of us surviving are slim...
 

Luckily, it turned out to be a milk run - an easy mission. We were clear until we reached the target. The weather was bad, so there wasn't much flak. We were attacked by a few fighters, but none of them hit us. Steven, our starboard waist gunner thinks he got a 190 which was smoking bad, only those 190s are sturdy. He was real sad, and kept complaining he should've gotten credit. We had good fun teasing him. He's a nice kid, Steven.

Anyway, because of the poor weather we missed our bombs, and got attacked twice on the way back. The Germans have been favouring the boom and zoom tactics, where they drop from very high, come very fast (faster than our fighters can catch them), shoot at us, and zoom back up.

Fortunately, these guys were going so fast they missed. But they're very hard to spot, since they come from the sun, and only our top and radio turrets can hit them.

The very next day, we flew to Paris, to bomb out some factories there. This time it wasn't a milk run. This will be hard to read, but I do want you to know what the bomber boys go through.

Paris is just outside the range of our fighters, meaning that once we are approaching the target and need to go straight and level for the bombing run, like sitting ducks, there's nothing protecting us but our gunners. Fritz can come at us any way he likes.

We were clear almost all the way to target. Then, two planes used the boom and zoom technique on us.

One of them gets past the fighter screen, and some of his shells smash right through the waist into the bomb bay doors, which start groaning and clattering as we fly. That's in addition to some new holes on our port wing.

And then we're past the fighter screen, above Paris. We didn't have time to look for the Eiffel tower, because Jerry was expecting us... they were waiting for our little friends to turn back, and have us all for themselves. They had a field day.

They were everywhere. A formation of three 190s came at us hard. Steven, who was so miserable the day before, definitely shoots down the 190 coming from 3o'clock. He was so happy I had to tell him to shut it over the intercom - the other gunners couldn't coordinate!

Luckily for us, the concentrated fire from all the B-17s threw off most of the other fighters on our way to target. Many others in our formation weren't so lucky... the fighters were swarming in the air, and we at least seven bombers go down (that's 70 people killed, wounded or made prisoner). The damaged ones that dropped out of formation didn't stand a chance.

I don't know if Calvin, the bombardier is having a bad run, but he sure needs to get his game on. We've been missing far too often and that day was no exception, even though the weather was good and the flak was light.

But Fritz isn't going to let us off the hook so easily. From this point on, the mission became a blur for me. What I do know is that the enemy fighters did not let us go. For the better part of one hour, they swarmed and buzzed around us, piercing through the formation and our newly returned escorting fighters.

It was tough. We were hit again, and again, and again, from all sides. The tail was hit, the wings were hit, one aileron stopped working, there were holes everywhere... then they hit the #3 engine on the starboard wing, and it caught on fire.

I was then sure we wouldn't make it out, but Gage, the copilot, worked the extinguishers. He kept activating them, but the fire just wouldn't stop. I was about to order the crew to prepare to bail out when the fire suddenly fizzes out, and somehow the engine keeps working. We were lucky, because we were all out of extinguisher charges too... We reduced the load on the engine, and managed to stay with the formation somehow.

We were attacked again as we were nearing England. We'd had enough, but Jerry didn't seem to think so... and they hit us yet again, but as long as damage wasn't too bad we'd be able to glide out to England. I just had to keep the boys alive.

During all of this, the gunners are doing their job, shooting guns left, right, forward, back, and up and down. Their feet were buried in 50cal casings at the end of the mission. The top turret had jammed from enemy fire, and Cruz, the engineer in charge of working that turret was miraculously not hit.

At the end of it all, we claimed 3 enemy destroyed and 5 probables.  Steven, the starboard gunner was real happy to get one, as was Ryan at the tail guns, and Cruz got a kill and two probables. He's turning out to be one hell of a shot!

I can't believe we made it through all that without one of us buying the farm. And the poor Dame, she was so beat up... The #3 engine was replaced, as was a lot of the armour plate on the wing, which had burnt away from the fire.

It took about a week to get the Dame back into shape. You'd think that'd give us some rest, but no. The 8th Air Force kept flying every day, and every day some bombers wouldn't come back. We just sat there through the day, and tried to figure out who we had lost this time around. The waiting is unbearable, and I think our nerves were even more frayed than if we'd been on those missions.

Finally, the Dame was back up, and we were ordered to Rotterdam again. After take-off I was shaking so badly that I found myself checking the instruments to find an excuse to turn back. I couldn't, but was real close to turning back anyway. I think the only reason I didn't was that I rationalised we'd be under fighter cover the entire trip.

It almost turned out to be a milk run, since only a few fighters engaged us and missed. The weather over target was abysmal - I don't know what weather intelligence is doing, but this was a fiasco.

All of a sudden, as we were lining up for the bomb run, this 190 appears from out of the clouds and gives us a real pounding. And I mean a real pounding - he strafed the ship from bow to stern, as they say. Ryan yells he's hit over the intercom, but thinks he'll make it, so we keep pushing. Fortunately, it seems none of the exploding shells hit anything critical.

The fighter tried the same stunt again, but Cruz, our engineer and top gunner, was ready for him and and shot him down. That's his 4th kill. He might become an ace soon!

The weather put off our bombs, so we missed again - that's the 4th time in a row - and head for home. The formation is tight enough that no other fighters try to intercept us, and we make it home safe.

Our morale is at rock bottom. We can't see how we're going to make it out of this if noone else seems to be. The frustration of missing our targets so often is grating on all of ours nerves - we're flying over half a dozen hours, under fire all the time, only for our bombs to miss. We might as well have not made the trip!

We're trying to live off the little things, like Cruz becoming an ace, or making fun of Steven's complaints about not getting credit for his kills. But I never know whether I'll be up to flying the next mission... I've seen some pilots break down, and I think I'm getting close to it. I hope not.



We're scheduled to fly again tomorrow. We're going to Brest. Not only is the route entirely over water, but we will also be outside the fighter screen again.

I have a bad feeling about this mission... heck, I have a bad feeling about every mission now. Perhaps it's nothing, but in case it is, I wanted to thank you for everything.

I'm going to catch some shut eye now, since I need to be well-rested for tomorrow. I will write again as soon as I can.

Always your loving son,
Cpt. Angel Harris,
327th BG, 8th Air Force

Spoiler: Mission 14 (click to show/hide)

Dear Mom & Dad,

Sorry for not having written sooner. I hope you weren't unduly worried. Let me just say that I am fine now, even though the Doc said it was touch and go for a while.

But let's start from the beginning. All of us had a bad feeling about this trip to Brest, to bomb the U-boat pens. It was the longest we'd ever flown, and twice as long outside fighter cover that we'd ever been, so the briefing was quieter than usual.

I could see the grim determination in the faces of some pilots, but a lot of the replacements were already sweating despite the cold.

After the briefing I needed some fresh air, so I went outside for a while. Moochie, the black dog we've almost adopted as our mascot was around and we played for a while.

I felt I should've given the boys a bit of a pep talk, but couldn't bring myself to it. We all knew what was waiting for us.

All too soon, it was time to take-off.

Most of the way was over water, a fair amount away from France. We also had a few other formations pulling diversionary raids, dropping chaff to confuse Fritz. It seems to have worked on the way in.

We were only attacked once, by a lone fighter coming in on our 6 o'clock. The poor fellow must've come straight out of training, because you never attack a B-17 formation from behind. He didn't even bank or try to evade our fire. Ryan, the tailgunner, and Cruz, the top gunner, weren't too worried and were joking over the comms about who'd get him first.

I guess most of us were rooting for Cruz, since one more kill and he'd become an official ace. Sure enough, he hit the bullseye, and the 109 went down in flames. You should seen how we partied then - like I said in my previous letter, we're living on the small things, and now we had an ace gunner! Even Ryan was cheering!

That seemed to lighten the mood a bit. We had some fun talking all the way to target, and it seemed as if this might be a milk run after all. Even after the fighters left us and return to refuel at base we seemed to be clear.

The trouble began once we hit landfall, close to Brest. The Luftwaffe must've let alone so they could move all their fighters close to Brest. There wouldn't really have been anywhere else we would be going.

The weather was just fine, so while we had good visibility on the target, so did the enemy fighters. Without any cover, they formed up in front of us and made passes from 12 o'clock, in waves of 3 to 5 fighters each.

The by now all too familiar rattle of most of the guns on the B-17 becomes permanent as the fighters buzz all around us. They're coming in very fast, but Cruz manages to hit one, and that puts his aim off. The others luckily also miss us, so we are safe from that first wave as they continue to attack the formations behind us.

We had no time to think as the second wave came in.

Cruz manages to take one down - he's on a roll now! - and the Calvin, the bombardier gets some more shots into another one. They're mostly coming from straight ahead, which makes it hard to get many guns to bear. Luckily, the fighters mostly miss us.

So far so good, and we line up just right on the target. There's some fairly active flak, but while two or three bombers near us go down, we seem to be doing fine. Finally, Calvin gives the "bombs away" shout, and we start our turn back to England. This time we were finally on target! Intelligence later confirmed some pretty heavy damage to the sub pens!

Then all of a sudden there's a flurry of fighters heading straight for us, and they put some shots into our radio room and some holes all around the plane, but nothing critical. One of them tries to come back, but Cruz shoots him down! By this time we've lost track of how many fighters he's gotten, to be honest!

For a few minutes we are clear and put some distance between Brest and us, but not far enough for the friendly fighters to join us.

But Jerry came back, in exactly the same formation as before, straight for us. The last thing I see were lights winking from their wings and nose, telling us they are firing. Then there's a storm of noise and color and I blank out.

All that I'm going to tell you from now on I didn't see. I was out for the rest of the trip, bleeding badly. Gage, the copilot, told me the rest.

Apparently, a few 20mm shells exploded inside the cockpit. One of them sent a metal piece of the seat into my neck and head, and I passed out. Gage was hit too, in the leg, but not as badly, so he managed to keep the plane under control.

Those fighters came back for more, but our gunners were fiercely defensive now, determined to get me back home alive, and kept Jerry at bay.

Gage later told me the crew kept asking for me over the intercom, and he had to order radio silence so he could hear the formation lead's orders.

We were attacked twice more on the way home, so that the closer we were to home, the longer it felt we still had to go. By then the escort had rejoined us, but wasn't doing an amazing job of protecting us.

The first flight all missed, and it seemed like the Luftwaffe was finally giving up the chase. But that was a very wrong assessment... they came back with a vengeance.

Even though a lot of our guns got hits on them, this must've been a crack unit, because they kept coming and hit us hard.

I'm afraid that during that last attack, still a ways out from England our crew was hit. The radio operator, Mason, got a piece of shrapnel on his side, but nothing serious.

However, Steven Macias, our starboard waist gunner who kept complaining about not getting credit, took a direct hit from a 20mm shell. It took his arm off at the elbow. Roman did his best to stem the blood flow, though there's only so much you can do on a B-17... By that time we weren't too far from home, and both him and I made it back alive, though barely.

I woke up a day later at the base hospital, with a bandaged head and neck. That was just before they shipped Steven back to the States, and I was glad to see him before he went, though it was quite a shock when he came in. He still had bloodied bandages around his stump...

I can't tell you how that image steeled me to get through this, and take the fight to the Reich. Steven promised he would write as soon as he got back home, and was pretty good-humored, given the circumstances. He kept saying he couldn't wait to be pampered by all the nurses in the hospital ship. I dare say he'll be happy on the way home.

It's now been a few days, and I'm feeling much better. The Dame is being patched up, and should be good to go about the same time as I will. I want to get back on the proverbial horse before I lose my nerve.

We're still not sure who we're getting as a replacement crew, but he's got to be assigned to us soon. I'm going to miss Steven's complaining about the intelligence officer not crediting him his kills.

But he is going to be alright - he's a tough kid. And so will we. And even if we don't, you know we'll have done my part, and that's what matters. As long as we keep this effort, and I see it around me that we will, Germany won't win the war.

I look forward to seeing you again. Give Edwin my regards.

Always your loving son,
Angel

Spoiler: Mission 15 (click to show/hide)

Dear Mom & Dad,

You'll be happy to know we did our first mission to Germany! You probably heard about it on the news. We gave it a right pounding!

It was Wilhelmshaven. Fritz has been using it as a major U-boat base, which are making more than a nuisance of themselves on our merchant ships across the Atlantic and the waters around Great Britain. And now yours truly has helped put them out of commission!

We didn't actually have anyone assigned to us since Steven went back to the States. We were getting nervous, but the day of the raid we arrived at our squadron briefing room to find "Roman Howard" as our starboard waist gunner. Needless to say, Roman McWhorter, who's been with us from the beginning, was none too happy about having his name hijacked by a fresh-off-the-factory gunner.

No worries though, he promptly got the entire crew to call him "Second", since he's the second Roman we've gotten. It caught on quickly enough. We didn't have too much time to chat, as we only met him by the plane before take off. He looks older than I am, and spent the early voyage talking to Calvin. Turns out he wants to be a bombardier and is taking some classes. Fancy that! Well, I hope he makes it, though he seems a nice enough fellow and I'll be sad to see him go. He keeps fiddling with his gun, going on about how he has some tricks to make it perform better at high altitudes... so long as he doesn't jam it, I'm not going to complain.



Anyway, you can't tell it now, but we really had the jitters for this mission. This is the furthest we've ever been, and fully half the trip is outside fighter cover.

We got attacked twice, once from 6 o'clock high (poor guy never had a chance, and broke off trailing heavy black smoke), and another time the formation's fire was so concentrated they gave up on the idea.

Then we were out of fighter cover (not that they did much on the outbound trip). It was quiet for a while. Then they came at us from all quarters.

Cruz, by now our uncontested hero of the top turret, shoots one down, but the rest keep coming. One of them put some holes through our starboard wing. Another sent a piece of shrapnel to say hello to Mason, who was fortunately not badly hurt.

They were having a ball now, and came back for more. They decided we needed more sunlight and punched more holes through the fuselage, but failed to hit anything important. Our guns were chattering the entire time, and by now I'm getting a little worried with the ammo...

As we approach the target, with only the occasional cloud, when we get bounced yet again. It's clear that Fritz isn't going to let us drop bombs on Germany without putting up a fight. This time there's three of them, in a frontal attack.

Again, their aim is good and the poor Dame is pattered with more holes than I can count. As another of them comes back, Calvin, our bombardier (who really should've been paying attention to the bomb run...) actually managed to find Jerry's cockpit, saw it shatter, and the plane immediately nosed up, stalled and dropped away...

The determined attack took its toll, and a lot of the bombers are dropping out of formation from the damage...

But by this time we're focused in our bomb run, and the flak is bursting close to us.

It wasn't that strong, but one lucky hit exploded just below our starboard wing. It'd already taken a few cannon shells. This time it really got torn apart. It looked like a sieve, and I could've put a leg through any of those holes! I'm surprised it held, and even more surprised that none of the control cables were severed.

Fortunately, we managed to stabilise from that hit just in time, and off went the bombs. We could see the ships escaping from the harbour down below as the bombs started dropping. It was a glorious sight!

Just after this, on our turn back home, a 190 dives down vertically on us. That's a great position to really strafe us stem to stern, but before he starts firing Cruz - again, our hero!, smokes him and he misses.

Surprisingly, the trip home was uneventful. Just as we were getting over to England, two 110s decide to attack us from 9 and 6 o'clock. The Luftwaffe has got to be slacking on training, because they have no idea what they're doing. They are easy targets, especially because of their size.

Ryan in the back guns takes one out, and Roman the First puts enough shots into the one from 9 o'clock that he misses and breaks off.

The weather over England was absolutely terrible. We had a hard time finding the airfield, but we finally did it, and somehow managed to put her down through the pouring rain.

It was a tough mission, and we had many losses. We were lucky to be in the middle of the formation, where it's safer. We're still waiting for a few stragglers as I write this, and bombers who were too damaged to make it back to our own airfield. But we made it to Germany, and hopefully seriously dealt the U-boats a serious blow.

And the Dame came back battered yet again. I doubt there's a square inch of her original fuselage on her anymore. But by now she's got a reputation - the Lucky Dame. This was our 15th mission! Well over half. Another 10, and we're done!

The ground crew is confident they'll get her ready tomorrow, so we'll probably fly again after that. But tomorrow, we'll try to rest up!

Looking forward to seeing you soon! And will you tell Edwin to get his sorry ass to England? We need to catch up in person! Thanks!

Your loving son,
Angel

Spoiler: Mission 16 (click to show/hide)

Dear Edwin,

My nerves are too frayed to write to Mom & Dad.  I don't know who else to talk to, so I'm turning to you yet again.

You probably heard from Dad that we went to Wilhelmshaven... well, the brass was so happy with how that turned out, despite our 10% losses, that it decided we should go there again.

A terrible idea, if I ever heard one. Of course this time Fritz would be waiting... I also got posted as high squadron, which isn't as well protected as the middle squadron, so we knew it was going to be rough going.

Soon after take off, a lone 190 swoops down on us, but our top turret gunner, Cruz, puts enough shots into him that his wing actually snapped off and barely missed us.

Just after that, it was clear this was going to be a long, long mission. Two 190s, one 110 and one 109 from ahead move in on us.

The noise was unbearable, but we somehow all of our gunners missed them. The 110 didn't, and shovelled some cannon shells into our radio equipment. With the radio out, we couldn't call out mayday or anything if we needed to bail or ditch... we were completely cut off from help, if anything happened. I started becoming nervous, but tried not to show it...

As the 110 comes back, Cruz scores his second kill this sortie. That man is incredible, and I never want to fly without him.

So then Fritz decided to wait until our escorts were at bingo fuel. As soon as the friendlies turned back, he came back for more. This time there were five 190s...

I knew something was going to happen when I spotted all of them heading straight for us... with all of them coming in high, we had very few guns we could turn on each one.

Ryan got his 4th kill on the rear guns, but the rest kept to coming. Cruz told us Roman the First smoked another one. That was before they came in and did their bloody work. The first one shot through and through the port fuel tank, which left a streak of fuel.

The second one hit the waist. With four 20mm cannons, Roman McWhorter didn't really see what was coming. One second he was firing, and the next his guns went silent. Then Roman the Second yelled in a panic over the comms that Roman had bought the farm, and that his brains were splattered all over him. A 20mm shell tore Roman's head apart and threw most of it onto Roman Howard...

We were all shaken, but I've never been more proud of the boys than right then, because when those 190s came back they gave them hell. Those were tough shots, and we've missed them plenty of times before, but this time Calvin the bombardier with the nose gun and Garrett in the ball turret let loose with a vengeance. Both returning 190s went down in flames - and somebody said over comms "this is for Roman".

After I'd composed myself, I looked back at our fuel tanks and muttered a prayer because the tank had self-sealed. That must've been the only bit of good luck we had.

I can't believe how it must've been for Roman Howard, the Second, sitting there with Roman's remains all around him...

I guess he didn't have too much time to think, because soon we arrived over the target. They're coming in in two waves, but the first one is driven off by formation fire. Garrett takes another kill from the second one, and the rest all missed.

The way was clear, and we were determined to make the best of this run for Roman. And so we did. We sailed right on through medium flak, and for the second time, we dropped our bombs on Germany, and let Jerry have it.

Of course, that wasn't the end of this mission. How could it? Another two waves of fighters come in, and the first one is yet again driven off by our formation.

The next one, though, really had it in for us. We were again attacked by a mix of 190s, 109s and 110s, from all sides.

They caught us by surprise this time, and all of our guns miss... I don't know which of their fighters hit, but they strafed the entire plane.

The cockpit window burst apart, the waist was hit, and Roman the Second's machine gun too. It kicked off its stand and badly crushed his arm, and he had a bone sticking out. Then the radio room was hit, the bomb bay, the tail... the tail guns jammed, and just after this attack Roman yells his heat suit is broken and Ryan is having trouble getting oxygen.

And the fighters won't leave us alone. They all come back for more...

Cruz takes a 109 out and Calvin hits the 110, and somehow they all miss.


Roman started whimpering over comms about the cold and his crushed arm. At this altitude if your heat is not working it's only a matter of time until you get frostbitten.

But I can't drop out of formation to go down to 10.000ft so he can warm up. We'd be mince meat, especially out of fighter cover! So I have to risk it, and stay with the formation high up.

I really pushed it. I really, really pushed it. I don't know how Roman didn't get frostbite. So many have, in better circumstances! I don't know if him bleeding from his open fracture helped or didn't help.

But I stayed up as long as I could consciously do so, and when we finally got fighter cover, I dropped down to 10k, out of formation.

And of course, there was Jerry, waiting for us. Just when you think you're home safe.

On they come, but with my waist gunners dead or wounded and the tail guns jammed there's very little we can do. The fighter escorts didn't spot us either, because they didn't come down to help.

We were lucky that the two 110s missed, but the 109 from straight ahead shot some rounds straight into our #2 engine. It belched the blackest smoke you've ever seen, but somehow we managed to feather it, meaning we could power glide all the way to England.

We finally arrived, and I managed to put the plane down on three engines. We couldn't even radio in we had wounded aboard, so we fired multiple flares on approach.

There were ambulances waiting for us... they took what remained of Roman McWhorter away.

And they also took Roman Howard to be operated on. They're saying his arm is going to have to come off... The waist was a right mess after that. And somebody had to clean off all the brains and blood...

The rest of the crew made it out in one piece, more or less. But our confidence is shattered again. Heck, I don't know what I'm going to do when they ask me to go up again. I think we'll get a couple of days, until the Dame is back up, but right now I'm at the edge.

I know I won't sleep tonight. I've already spent plenty of sleepless nights, my mind full of planes going down in flames, but now... now it'll be worse.

I don't think I can talk much more about it without breaking down, so I'll wrap it up here and go try something else. Perhaps tomorrow things will look better.

Your brother,
Angel