Brooke in his FW 190A-4 at 38,000 ft near Eelde, scouting with I/JG3 for enemy bombers. To the left, there are many bogies. From altitude, individual bogie size, and formations, it looks more like a fighter sweep than a bomber stream.
Brooke in his FW 190A-4 at 38,000 ft near Eelde, scouting with I/JG3 for enemy
bombers. To the left, there are many bogies. From altitude, individual bogie
size, and formations, it looks more like a fighter sweep than a bomber stream.
Farther on, Brooke sees to his right more bogies. These look like bombers, possibly
with two high escorts. Brooke and I/JG3 continue toward these.
As Brooke gets closer, he can see that it is a large bomber formation. He gets
out an accurate radio report and leads I/JG3 around behind the formation.
Brooke and I/JG3 positioning for the attack. The airfield and city faintly visible
below the nose of Brooke's FW 190 is Eelde, near Wilhelmshaven.
Brooke starts his attack run. The formation is all B-17G Flying Fortresses,
which are very, very tough planes, many of which have deadly gunners.
Brooke comes in at very high speed and totally blows his attack run. Some of
the B-17's are damaged and smoking, but not from Brooke.
Brooke comes around for another attack. This shows members of I/JG3 (-Whip and
VonO*) on attack runs, zooming through the bomber formation. Saber is already
out the other side or positioning for another attack run.
Before Brooke gets to gunnery range on the formation, he sees Yoj being attacked
by a P-47 and breaks off to go help. After a little bit, it looks like Yoj is
clear and besides some other Luftwaffe fighters show up to help. Brooke breaks
off go get back on the bombers.
After a long tail chase to get back to the bombers, Brooke does some feints
on the formation to see if he can spot some bombers that are ungunned and to
pick his target. It is very dangerous to run through a tight formation of heavily
gunned bombers. How dangerous is evident in the summary at the end of this pictorial.
Brooke picks one out that seems a little separated and didn't look like it was
firing at him. Here, he has closed and is firing. Unfortunately for Brooke,
the B-17 is firing back.
Brooke pours the hits into the B-17. Debris streams back, and the bomber begins
to smoke. Brooke is also taking hits from its gunners.
After his gunnery pass on the bomber, Brooke does a split s and dives out. More
bombers are smoking, the work of other members of I/JG3.
Brooke lands his damaged FW 190A-4 at a nearby airfield to get a fresh plane.
Strid and Fin`E are taking off in fresh planes.
Brooke takes off and chases down the bomber stream, catching it near Pottsdam
at 25,000 feet. Several other Luftwaffe fighters are there, all of us looking
at that trailing B-17, "tail end Charlie."
Brooke swings to the right of the trailing B-17, wondering if he should attack
it or move ahead. Greif does an attack run and gets the B-17 smoking, but the
B-17's gunners are fiercely defending their Flying Fortress. Greif is blasted
out of the sky an instant after this picture was taken. B-17's are deadly targets.
With the B-17 smoking but Greif dead, Brooke decides to attack the straggler
and try to finish it off. He avoids a straight-on tail shot and uses a slashing
side attack, trying to make it harder on the B-17's gunners. Here, Brooke is
putting hits into the B-17.
Brooke continues to pour on the hits. Debris is coming off the B-17, but it's
gunners are hitting back. Visible ahead are the rest of the bombers in the stream.
The gray area at the junction of the three rivers, just visible through the
haze, is Berlin -- the bombers' target.
Brooke zooms past after the attack run. Debris is visible. The B-17 has lost
both left engines, it's gear has dropped, and it is smoking; but its gunners
put more hits into Brooke's FW 190 as he goes past.
Brooke does a forward pass on the B-17 but misses. Before he can come around
for a third pass, Ahoy! and -max- have attacked it, and -max- has just put in
the final burst. All that is left of the B-17 is the diminishing black cloud
of the explosion visible between Ahoy! and -max-. Brooke gets the kill.
Brooke heads his damaged FW 190 toward the nearest air base. On the way, he
spots many bogies. He veers off and climbs parallel to the bogies, not wanting
to get jumped by a bunch of enemy fighters. As he climbs, they draw a bit closer,
and he sees the formation contains bombers. Also, from the motion of the bogies,
he can tell some of them must be Luftwaffe fighters attacking.
Brooke turns left into the formation and does a head-on attack on the lead bomber.
Brooke doesn't see any enemy fighter escort.
Brooke takes more hits on the previous attack run and dives out for the nearest
airfield. Yoj, another member of I/JG3, has done the same. Brooke lands his
damaged FW 190A-4.
No gun-camera footage survived from Brooke's 3rd mission in a FW 190A-4. He did get another kill on a B-17 and landed safely.
There are reports of enemy fighters rendezvousing with surviving bombers on
their way back. Brooke takes off this time in a Bf 109F-4. Near Eelde, climbing
at 34,000 ft., he comes across bogies up high. I/JG3 is dispersed by this point.
Brooke is the only Luftwaffe fighter in this area.
Turning right to check out the bogies, he finds a P-47D Thunderbolt closing.
P-47's are faster than his Bf 109F-4, and although his 109 outturns a P-47,
Brooke is slow from climbing, and turns are sluggish at this speed and altitude.
He decides to turn into the attack rather than turn away and get run down.
Brooke does a head-on firing pass on the P-47, which is doing the same to Brooke.
Perhaps not the wisest of choices, but Brooke decides to try his aim compared
to his enemy's. The other bogies resolve themselves into four other P-47's.
Hmmm. 5 on 1 are not good odds for Brooke.
Brooke and his enemy pass quite close to each other.
Brooke picks his path through the other four attacking P-47's to minimize their
ability to bring guns to bear.
After he passes the group, one P-47 was able to do enough of a lead turn to
get on Brooke's tail and close. Brooke does a nose-low break turn. Brooke waits
for the P-47 to get closer, then reverses hard. He can't outrun the P-47's,
but if he get them to bleed off speed and get close, he has a chance to change
the fight from fast passes (which the P-47's would win) into a climbing spiral.
The Bf 109F-4 will be able to outclimb the P-47's in a climbing spiral.
Through the dives and hard turns, two P-47's follow, and the others do not,
probably not wanting to blow all their altitude to gang up on one Bf 109, figuring
2 on 1 is sufficient. These two are aggressive and eager to attack Brooke. They
are getting in close and turning a lot, which scrubs off speed.
Brooke is now able to manevuer the fight into a climbing spiral. As they all
circle, Brooke gets a larger and larger altitude advantage over the P-47's.
Once Brooke has a large enough altitude advantage, he rolls over into a split
s and pounces.
The P-47 Brooke picks goes into high-g evasives -- a fight he won't win against
the tighter-turning Bf 109.
Brooke saddles up the P-47 and starts firing. The fight is at 25,000 ft. --
high enough that the turning and climbing ability of the 109 is an even bigger
advantage.
Brooke is getting a lot of hits, and debris trails back from the P-47.
Brooke has been dogfighting the first P-47 for a while. Brooke has been getting
hits on multiple passes, but P-47's are sturdy planes. During that time, the
other P-47 was able to climb up and come back into the fight. Brooke spots him
closing and loops around to avoid the attack.
Brooke gets back on the P-47 he was fighting before, and then Cybro joins the
fight in his FW 190.
Cybro puts a burst into the P-47, and it explodes. You've got to love the firepower
of the FW 190! Brooke gets an assist.
The second P-47 runs for it, but Cybro and Brooke (in a prolonged chase that
takes them to the coast and on the deck) are able to get close enough that the
P-47 decides to start turning. Now he's in big trouble, though.
The fight swirls around, with Brooke and Cybro getting hits on the outnumbered
P-47. Brooke puts in a final burst. . . .
And the P-47 explodes. Cybro again gets the kill, though, leaving Brooke with
another assist.
Wow, what a frame! That was the most action Brooke has seen in a long time.
As an illustration of how dangerous it is to attack gunned B-17's in this scenario, even though we took precautions for safety, of the 8 pilots in I/JG3, 5-6 were shot down by B-17 gunners.
Brooke ended part 1, frame 4 with, in FW 190A-4's, 2 kills and 1 assist (all on B-17's); and in a Bf 109F-4, 0 kills, and 2 assists (on P-47's). He returned to base each time. The end of the fights with the P-47's took place after the end of the frame, but we didn't notice until the fight was done. The 2 assists on the P-47's should perhaps be negated.
by Brooke P. Anderson
e-mail: brooke@electraforge.com
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