This was our first FSO as a unit. People showed up early and plans and assignments were handled quickly. We were tasked with escorting the 367th "The Dynamite Gang" under Jappa52 in B-25Cs to attack enemy naval units to the west of Vella Lavella. Reporting for duty were 14 pilots, and assignments were made by the XO, Gavagai, as follows;

Takeoff was from A10 with TAC rolling SW. We lost Boingg at takeoff due to engine difficulties and a spare plane was not available. We reached 5k and turned back toward the base to pick up the bombers which had delayed their takeoff to allow us to gain some altitude. The 367th launched with 9 sets of bombers but lost a few planes on takeoff.

The 4+ Zekes at 11oclk came down the left side of the bombers and turned in attacking Soup and Dogfart who were at the bombers 7oclk. The 5 who were now at our 5oclk turned in on us. Doggie went down quickly and BlueFam, DrDea and B4Buster all had Zekes make runs on them. DrDea was able to avoid his Zeke.

B4Buster got one on him and took hits to his tail plane loosing his rudder and vertical stabilizer.

Red and White Flights were tied up by the two flights of Zekes. We had lost 2 P-39s quickly, Dogfart and B4Buster but no Zekes went after the bombers. The bombers turned due north for the center of 6,10. Blue Flight was between the bombers and the dogfight, with Fudgums holding station over the bombers. Two Zekes were attempting to get past us to the bombers. I barrel rolled and dropped behind one trying to close the range. The Bombers had started dropping down to 8k from 15k. Fudgums made a run at the leader and ESears was taking pot shots at the trailer. Some confused manuvering took place and somehow I ended up on the tail on the leader heading down to the bombers which were at 12k and dropping down. Corrs, who was engaged further back, called "One Down" as I continued after the Zeke. Gavagai was calling a Zeke at my long 6 keeping me informed of the trailer who he was chasing. The lead went after Bugsplat who had lost his two drones and was the highest bomber. I chk6ed him and verbally called a warning as well. Gavagai was shooting at his Zeke, got hits and forced him to break off.

I decided I was not going to close anymore and he was getting awful close to the bomber, so I opened up at 600yds. I only used my MGs but I got some hits along his right wing. He must have been using alot of stick to try and hit the bomber because I closed 200 more yds. The bomber was shooting back, and we both had to worry about friendly fire. I lit him up from wingtip to wingtip twice and started a fuel leak in his right wing. I took a hit from the bomber's fire and decided that I had done my bit, fired one more burst knocking off some parts and broke right clear of the bomber's return fire. Others from the 367th were taking shots almost vertically at the Zeke too, coming a little too close to where I had been moments before. They hit his right wing which I had shot up, taking it off and he spun right and went down. At the time I don't think I knew his wing was off. I remember thinking he was going down out of the fight and let him go.

Shamus, who was in the fight a half sector back, called "This one is down" just as I rolled over the Zeke. I had dropped down to 9k and started back up. Hajo called for his crew to form up on him, and find Fencer. He had himself (Hajo), Dace, Corrs, Shamus and DrDea. There were 10 of us left at this point. At this point we had lost BlueFlam, Dogfart and B4Buster to enemy fire and Boingg to an equipment failure. We coordinated where we were all at and Red Flight and White Flight started north to where Fudgums, ESears, Gavagai, Soup and I were at in 6,10,5. There was no sight of the enemy task force. Sears pushed a zeke down behind the bombers. I gained alt back to 13k and turned west to check for the Task Force. And then I said "I think that was all the esc.. CAP for this carrier." Truer words than that have been spoken alot. Unbeknownst to us there were alot of Zekes yet to show. In fact 6 more were closing on Soup, Gava, ESears, Fudgums and Fencer at that very moment. Four of them had alot of altitude on us. They went after ESears initially. I reved back to the guys to help out. Gavagai pointed out "This doesn't look good Fencer." Hajo and the bulk of the unit were at 6,9,8 hdg North. We were at 6,10,5,7 and I relayed that to Hajo. Sears had one on him and a second went after Soup. As Sears went past me he called one on my six. There was one manuvering back there at 1000yds. Fudgums wanted to know what to do, so I advised him to stay with the bombers. There were 8 Zekes within 9k of us at this point. We were outnumbered 2-1. Sears dove for the deck with Soup shooting at the Zeke on his six. The Zeke broke off using his superior roll rate to swing around again onto Sears. I saw this and called "Hang on Sears" and dove down to try and clear him. Soup also was still after the Zeke as well but I was higher and going faster. Gava called "Fencer 6" and I saw a Zeke 1k behind me. The Zeke saw either Soup or I and broke left and up away from Sears, then hauled it back right sharply causing me to overshoot. Soup however was 100mph slower and he cut in on the Zeke. He was unable to get a good angle and the Zeke broke up again. Gavagai called another in on me at this point. There were 11 Zekes in 10k of us 4 P-39Ds. I was looping around attempting to get a shot on the original Zeke, this guy was doing the same to me. Sears had looped up, he chk6ed me and was attempting to cut the Zeke off. Gavagai was still above the rest of us slightly with the remaining Zeke of the three currently engaged. There were 10 others at 20k right over us. The original Zeke looped back over me. Sears took a shot at the one which was now attempting to get on my six. The third Zeke disengaged and Gavagai made a run through the other two but was going too fast. Sears was trying to pull lead on one, Soup (who had battle damage) was manuvering around attempting to get in position on one of the Zekes. The one Sears was still after was trying to get a shot at me as I called out our position once again. Sears got lead and opened up as I pulled back into the Zeke. Sears smoked him and forced him off of me. The first Zeke turned back into Sears and took a high front quarter shot at him as he followed the second one down. Sears took a pilot wound from this shot. There was nothing he could have done to avoid it. I turned into this Zeke as Gavagai called that the third Zeke was back in. He tried to HO me too, but I beat him too it, scoring two or more hits as he went by. Gavagai came hurtling through just as I cleared the Zeke shoot him up as well.

That same Zeke whipped around and took a high 12 shot at me, missing. Two of the Zekes had used their superior climb to get alt on us while this guy stayed low. Two were hovering over Sears and Soup went after the Zeke which had just taken a shot at me, and was cutting in on my six. I broke hard left into him attempting to force an overshoot. However he was slower than me and easily stayed with me, so I took it back right to level out as Soup closed. As the Zeke got at 400yds, Soup cut in on him so I went hard left again. Sears and Gavagai had also closed the range and we were all within 1.5k of each other, with the Zeke in the center. The other two Zekes had taken themselves out of the fight momentarily and their buddy was going to pay for it. One of them, the smoker, came down after Sears at about this time. Soup opened up on the Zeke at 200yds and nearly simultaneously the Zeke opened up on me. His first burst took out my port flap, but he was totally screwed as all three of my fellows were on him. Sears took a high deflection shot and went past, a Zeke trailing him. Soup hit him hard taking his left wing off just as Gavagai got a bead on him, while Sears came back under the fight loosing the high speed Zeke which had dove on him. Gavagai picked up a Zeke, one of the spectators, and he broke low to avoid it. Sears followed the smoking Zeke up as he climbed and blew him to hell. In seconds we went for 3 v 4 to 1 v 4. They had the initiative and altitude, more manuverable planes and they were loosing. Seconds after he blew up that one, the remaining Zeke made a HO attempt on Sears. Gavagai tried to follow him up but was unable. At this point Hajo and the guys showed up within vox range. Fudgums called on vox saying that there were Zekes on the bombers. Hajo made quick work of the Zeke which had hovered at the edge of the fight until the last few minutes, blowing his tail off and then blowing him up. This accounted for all the Zekes in the original fight but now more had engaged DrDea, Dace, Corrs and Shamus as they closed on our position. At this point the bombers returned coming south. We quickly turned to clear Dace anc Corrs as the bombers approached our position. I cut in on two following Corrs taking a shot at 400yds. I evidently hit him in the cockpit because he blew up as I walked a burst across his fusalage and right wing.

Seconds later another one came across in front of me from the left, then turned back left at 400yds again. I missed as he broke hard right but I was able to follow him around and cut inside. Yet just as I got a good angle I accelerated stalled and snap rolled left as he went right. I recovered quickly and looked around to get my bearings back. Corrs, Soup, Shamus and Dace got all over a Zeke and took it's tail and right wing off. That took care of all the Zekes in the immediate area and we turned to the Bombers which had just appeared to our NW and West. We had not sooner turned and pointed our noses up when the Bombers swept by with Zekes on them. Shamus and I went after two on Jappa52 with Corrs and DrDea close behind. One dove out, and Gavagai appeared from nowhere on the leader just as Jappa52 blew his wing off and he tumbled away just as Gava opened up, more hits flamed him and he blew up quickly. Soup called he was dragging a Zeke on the deck and Hajo and Dace went to help. Gavagai and Fencer tag teamed one with Gavagai blowing him up with 20mms. Soup took a pilot wound and Cadi (B-25) still had one Zeke on him. The Task Force was found in 6,10,3 and the bombers diverted to the target. A smoking Zeke came through and I turned into him and got a few bursts off at him with my 30cals. Gavagai noticed our fuel was evaporating quickly we were down to 25%. That smoking Zeke got on Sears as I was 600 back now. Sears was in a climb and the Zeke went to follow him up. He took some 30cal hits and broke down and away from Sears. I followed him and hit him heavily with my 30cals but he just whipped it all over the sky evading most of my fire. I called for someone to come kill him. Corrs and Shamus engaged him with Shamus blowing him up. We then decided it was time to head home for gas and bullets. We were down to less than 15 minutes of flying time and only enough fuel to make A12. Sears and Soup were both suffering from pilot wounds and were soon lost. That left Fudgums, Gavagai, Corrs, Dace, Hajo, Shamus, DrDea and I. Fudgums was off on his own but the rest of us turned for A12 and we were all below 2k except Gavagai who was up at 6k.

As we neared A12, Gavagai wanted to maintain a CAP, he said he had the gas but I told him to come on down and get some fuel. There were P-38s taking off that should have covered us. Vlkyrie1 called KI-61s coming in low just as I touched down. So I applied throttle and hauled it back into the air. The KI-61s never showed so I put it into the cicruit again and put it back down on the runway. There were 16 Allies at the field including two P-38s at 3k+ and a couple P-39s just upping. Wappo was there in a B-24 as well. I landed midfield and started rolling toward the NE end of the runway for the rearm pad. I was down to 34mph when I sighted Zeke at 3k from me heading for the NE rearm pad. It turns out that there were 3 others at 18k and this guy dove in from 10k. Here is where I started doing too much at once, I started scanning for more, upped the throttle to try and haul it up again and looked to avoid a vulch if I could. Trouble was there is a mountain at the end of the runway. P-39s are not all terrain vehicles. He got Fudgums on the rearm pad. I hit the hill at 91mph and tore off my right gear and outter wing. I continued up the hill spinning to my right loosing my left main gear in the process along with my outter left wing and tail. I still had a prop and a nose gear so I took advantage of it and applied throttle and went downhill toward the runway. I hit bottom lost my nose gear, caught fire and slid right onto the runway, where I was able to exit for a safe landing. That one was for my buddy Dan Johnson who I already miss.

Final results for TAC are as follows from the LOGS at AHEvents.org.