Wheeew! Just finished the Boddenplatte mission, pretty exciting. It was fun, but hard as well. Took me 3 tries. I was plane number 10, and had to wait for the first planes to take off. Adrenaline pumping, I lifted off the runway. A few seconds later I was shot down by a FW 190
Second time I lifted my wheels off the runway too soon and my propeller plowed into the ground,
Third time I lifted off, then took off after a group of planes. I left the field behind, and in doing so missed many targets, but I think made it easier to survive. The P-51's were not doing as well as history said, many of them were getting shot down. They were shooting quite a few too I think, but I was too busy trying to see what was happening behind my six to pay much attention.
I kept following the group of planes, couldn't go fast enough to catch up (grrr) but found out some were P-51's. I kept trying to latch onto a fighter but kept missing them. Finally found a pair of Bf 109's, followed them for a while, shot up the wingman a little, he veered off somewhere, followed the leader, shot him up some, I overshot him, went up behind him, he started to dive, I followed, he started to roll a bit erratically, I pulled up because I saw the ground was coming up awfully fast and he wasn't going to pull up, waited a seconds, then came the call that I made a kill.
I'm not sure if it really counts, I suppose I was responsible for his diving to the ground, don't know if the few shots I got on him caused him to go out of control or not, anyway one Bf 109 gone.
I looked around and the sky seemed fairly empty. Decided to head back to base and not try and find the Axis bases and strafe them, (pretty dangerous when there is a whole mess of enemy planes are landing plus the flack) and try and live out the mission. Flew back home, saw a P-51 go down because of battle damage I think, two other planes behind him. I flew over, expecting trouble. They were P-47's, friendlies, and flying back to Y-29. One ditched, but one of the P-47's made it back to base.
Meanwhile plane number 4 "Eleen and Jerry" landed, smoking a bit. The pilot had to bail out on the ground, (sorry Alan Rigby)but at least his P-51 made it back to base.
I landed without incident, thankfully, and a little while later my wingleader "Slender Tender and Tall" made it back to base, along with another P-51 "Hawk Eye Owan". He flew above and wouldn't land, so I decided to end the game!
All in all, I think at least 4 P-51's made it back to base, and a couple P47's. John C. Meyer didn't make it back, didn't work out quite as good as the history books, but it was a mission complete, we had saved Y-29, I'm thankful for that, but it wasn't easy!
I can see why it was so amazing that all 12 of the original Y-29 pilots survived the attack back then, it doesn't almost seem possible when you look back on it, but it happened.