Another story from the Pacific War, an Australian was awarded a purple heart after being "shot down". He was in a fighter wing heading out on patrol, when his plane was hit by empty casings from, as it turned out, a bomber wing returning from attacking a Japanese base, the crews were dumping the spent casings into the ocean before landing. To hush it up, the US awarded him the purple heart.

I think I'll have a chance to run the next mission tonight. If so, I'll post the results tomorrow.

Kill Nazis!!! and kittens!

MISSION #14:

This time, you are off to hit the U-Boat pens at Lorient.
Zone 1: You take off.
Zone 2: No enemy fighters appear

The 190 scores some superficial hits and comes around for another pass, but he misses that time and flies off.

Zone 3: Five FW 190s attack, but there’s as lot of friendly fighters around for once. Three of the 190s are driven off by Spitfires. One of the remaining 190s is damaged by fire from both Irving Mouse on the Tail Guns and Ben140 on the Radio Room gun.
But the last 190 scores a solid hit, raking your plane from nose to tail. hail ferris and Shadow40 are both lightly wounded but remain in action. But Robo Jawa and Smoodge are both seriously wounded and are knocked unconscious. With the pilot out, Quincy Hoffman must fly the plane alone.

The 190 is chased away by a Spitfire before he can attack again.

Zone 4: No enemy fighters seen.

Zone 5: No enemy fighters appear.

Zone 6: Over the target and the weather is good. But four ME 109s attack. Despite his wound, hail ferris damages one of these with a burst from the Nose gun. EmperorMcAfee damages another with the Top Turret. But one of the remaining 109s scores some superficial hits and banks around for another pass. EmperorMcAfee fires a burst into him with the Top Turret guns, forcing him to break off and limp home.

You drop down for the bomb run. Flak is heavy and the planes shakes from some minor hits, but there is no serious damage.

But the jostling the plane takes and the pain of hail ferris’ wounds throw off his aim. The bombs miss the target, reducing the newly opened seaside location of Miss Collette’s Finishing School for Young Girls to a burnt-out ruin.

You turn for home.

Zone 6: Two waves of fighters attack. The first wave is a single ME 110, which is damaged by Richthofen in the Ball Turret.

The second wave is driven off by other bombers in the formation. This also generates a very rare Random Event: which in this case is Bad Luftwaffe Communications. This means there is less of a chance to be attacked by fighters in each zone. As you’ll see, this pretty much saves you all.

Zone 5: No enemy fighters appear.

Zone 4: No enemy fighters appear.

Zone 3: No enemy fighters appear.

Zone 2: No enemy fighters appear.

Zone 1: Back home and the weather has gone bad, socking the landing fields in with thick fog. But despite this and the fact that the pilot has been bleeding all over him for the last few hours, Quincy Hoffman is able to bring the plane in for a safe landing.

hail ferris and Shadow40 are patched up and returned to duty. This earns Shadow40 his second Purple Heart.

Amazingly, both Smoodge and Robo Jawa make rapid recoveries from their seemingly serious wounds. Both men are soon back on duty. (It’s as if your lives are controlled by random dice rolls and there were several very unlikely rolls in a row!)

Well, Command seems satisfied with your attempts to bomb the German U-Boat fleet into submission. Next time, you’ll be hitting the industrial facilities just outside Paris. That SHOULD be a milk run compared to your last few missions.


Pilot: Smoodge

Co-Pilot: Quincy Hoffman

Bombardier: hail ferris (1/2 kill)

Navigator: Robo Jawa

Flight Engineer/Top Turret Gunner: EmperorMcAfree (1 ½ kills)

Radio Man: ben140

Ball Turret Gunner: Baron von Ritchhofen (4 kills)

Starboard Waist Gunner: Shadow40

Port Waist Gunner: ButcherPalmer (1 Kill)

Tail Gunner: Irving Mouse

Reserves: gentlegamer; archaon03; Todd Flanders; CharlesDubblieX

Successful Missions: 4

Enemy Fighters shot down: 19

B-17s Lost: 4

Purple Hearts: Melkhor; NedFlanders; BilboPalmer; Shadow40 (2 Purple Hearts); ButcherPalmer; Smoodge; hail ferris; Robo Jawa;

Invalided Home: hail eris

POW: BiffPalmer; Space Ewok; hiya eris; ben138; Smudge; eternalrage II; Milton Mouse; CharlesX2; ben138 II; space tribble; Grimm; archaon02; immortalfury; Elwood Hoffman

KIA: Ignatz Mouse, CharlesX, Space Jawa, Grinner, aqhoffman, AlienFlanders, wintremute, BudPalmer, Melkhor, eternalrage, Wade Wilson; Marshal Mouse; BilboPalmer; EmperorNorton; NedFlanders: Charles X3

Pin-up girl Betty Grable is currently most impressed with: Quincy Hoffman

Hey - what happened to the list of reserves??

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Why is it I score hits every mission and have ye tot take down an enemy?

I'll fix it.

Thank you. For a second there I panicked, afraid that you had sold the lot of us into robotic slavery. Much better to go up a bomber plane to die horrible, fiery deaths. Whew.

ghah!
that was a close one.

good luck for us Fritz couldn't communicate.

who's for a pint of bitter?

Sorry guys, I have an appointment with Betty Grable, though I'm more of an Ann Sheridan and Rita Hayworth guy myself. Notice the 'and', not an or.


After I wash the blood and stuff off of me.

Hey, that's my blood - give it back!

I have no idea what is involved in playing, but if you do this again lmk.
My dad flew in B-17s in WW2. Top turret. Flew well over 25 missions including 2 on D-Day. Was credited with 3 1/2 victories (enemy fighters shot down) was wounded several times and actually was in 2 planes that didn't make it back to base. One ditched in the North Sea and was picked up by a British patrol boat and another did a "belly landing" on a fighter base in southern England.
Until shortly before his death he didn't share much about his experiences, but told me a lot in his last few years of life.
Pretty amazing stuff.

Agreed. Thanks for sharing.

rep already given!

Just think of all the amazing events millions of guys like your father experienced that nowadays would result in major media attention, a book deal, and intense public scrutiny. But to guys like your dad, it was just their duty. My great uncle Elwood (I took his name for our second crew iteration) was both an MP on detainee operations duty stateside, and an infantryman who was captured with the rest of the 106th ID and spend the last months of the war as a prisoner himself.

To play, all you have to do is post "sign me up for the reserves".

Then Kal does all of the actual work, from that point you just make snide/boastful remarks. Easy as pie.