1275psi
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Joined: 4/17/2005
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Above him the fight rolls on, the defending fighters have failed...............the fighters, 47th in particular, are in amongst the bombers.
Fuchida nurses his plane down, the engine barking, coughing, vibrating....his teeth set on edge, he walks the narrow path between speed and stall, between glide and falling short of the strip.
He banks, hands fly, the wheels come down.
Tracer hammers across above his left wing, blue spinning death fills his mirror.
Action instinctive.....hard left rudder, but stick forward and harder into right thigh, his bird slews, the right wing dives, the nose swings left, she crabs down and sideways, the enemy snarling above and past.
The field rises, straighten, down, bounce..........and all about the earth is exploding as the bombs begin to fall,
Bouncing, bouncing, on the very edge of out of control he tries for the trees..............a curtain of dirt stitches across the nose......Helldiver!........nothing for it...ground loop.earth, dust noise, ............
Out!
The scramble...50 yards to the trench................lungs, legs pounding....... .and in!
the earth heaves, above, again, again, again, gods, how many!, and again and again, the howl of the dive bombers, the scream of the bomb, the air actually pulsating, the earth convulsing...........
The raid, seemingly lasts forever.
For the dead, i suppose it does.
Endeh is obliterated.
The Tigers try to land.
Few make it in one piece.......again, and again, the touch, the wobble.the crater, the collapsing gear.....the belly slide.
The liberators come an hour later, they incredibly miss.
Well maybe they don't.........there is nothing really left to bomb here
Dusk.
47th have 7 servicable planes left
30 damaged.
Only 1 pilot lost.
But moral is, despite the carnage, soaring.
From 59 to 83 kills, in a single day.
Good enough return for a nothing place called Endeh
battle result, carrier strike, liberator strike on Endeh
48 hellcats shot down
24 liberators shot down this day
11 helldiver
8 avengers
5 dauntless
for 18 zeros, 6 tojo shot down, 6 NK1's
total today, 90 allied to 35 japanese.
The shattered groups are ordered to retire. Others take their places in the nest of fields north of Koepang.
We hold the bombers.and wait...........
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RE: The little ship that could. - 
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