Clash at Rabaul

Posting from -tone- 4 March 2001:

We had a great turnout... 13 pilots (6 DoD + 7 Rogue Gryffons) with maximum strength 12 at one time.
We flew an assortment of missions from F9

First mission saw us decline to be drawn to low altitude by P-38s and we continued flying around until we encountered 12 or 16 P-47s at 30K. They had the alt and we gamely took a few shots at them and fled. I cannot say I know how this action went as it was very spread out. We lost mgyver and -seam- and surfer ditched, but -poog- got 2 kills.

Our next hop saw us pick up ==jt== and -egbg- as new arrivals, and we got carelessly surprised by contacts we knew damn well were there by radar reports.. we lost gecko- and -lama- in this action, but -lama- claimed a P47 in a collision.

Then 5-8 low-level B25s struck F9 and we attacked with another unidentified squadron. This was the high point of the night, as we claimed 3 or 4 B25s without loss. We flew very carefully and only attacked when we had good shots and did not fixate on getting the kills -- the overall tally of damage racked up the kills for us. I was really impressed by our method.. particularly right after a bad disaster.

We then went to cover F8 from an assortment of strafers and such and got into a crazy confusing chase at mid to low alts. Tone died shamefully by colliding with an unaware spitfire (killed moments after the collision by the rain of fire), and that was bout it for the night.

Total tally:

-tone-: 1xB25, 1xSpitfire (collision death)
stoopd: 1xB25, 1xSpitfire
-hero-: 1xB25
-poog-: 2xP47
-wrai-: 1xB25, 1xUnknown
mgyver: shot down by P47
==jt==: mystery loss.. possible DWD
-lama-: shot down by P47
surfer: ditched after P47 damage
gecko-: shot down by P47
-seam-: shot down by P47

-tone-