FeurerKrieg -> August 28th, 1943 (7/12/2009 11:54:07 PM)
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August 28th, 1943 After two days of rest the Allies were back in Burma. I moved some air units back into Rangoon, perhaps prematurely. That might not have been the wisest thing to do, and I'll be a little more careful next time. At Rangoon, we had a sizeable CAP up, which would have been fine for fighting off P-38s or fighting bombers - but not both. Wave 1: 71 P-38G fly sweep. We bring down 45 P-38Gs and lose 1 Jack (pilot rescued), 14 Tojos and 2 Tonys. Wave 2: 85 Liberator III and 52 B-17s flying in to attempt to shut down the airfield again. Our tired fighters only manage to bring down 2 B-17Es and the airfield is trashed again. Wave 3: 66 B-24D Liberators join the fun, and our slight CAP is only able to shoot down one of the bombers. [image]http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj283/bfeurer/rangoon6.jpg[/image] The first wave at Rangoon, nasty P-38Gs Over all we lose 24 aircraft on the ground. Not the end of the world, but it could have been avoided. At Mandalay, 17 Spitfires and 16 P-47C Thunderbolts fly a sweep, meeting only 4 Jacks and 3 A6M3a Zeros. We lose all the Zeros, but only 1 Jack. They do well though, taking out 2 Spits and 4 of the P-47cs. And one more sweep to round of the day occurs at Magwe. Our planes there were mostly at Meiktila providing CAP but the few that remained did okay. 24 Kittyhawk III and 18 P-38Gs tangled with 5 Jacks, 5 A6M3a Zeros, 2 Tojo and 21 Tonys. We lost 6 planes (1 A6M3a, 1 Tojo, and 4 Tony) but the enemy lost 15 Kittyhawks and 8 P-38Gs. Nearly 4 to 1 odds on the losses. All these attacks against Rangoon has made me decide to pull back our planes from Magwe and Lashio. I will stay in Magwe a couple more days, but after that, we will use those planes to help ensure we are ready when we return to Rangoon again.
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