All,
1200 local time
4 June 1942
Midway
It's 4 June 1942, the dawn of the epic "Battle of Midway," a clash of giants, three US carriers vs four Japanese carriers that proved to be the turning point of the war in the Pacific. For more information, both real-life and how I'm running this campaign, please check here:
link
It's now 1200, and the Japanese strike group has found the USS Yorktown! Lt (jg) Chipman leads a CAP of six F4F Wildcats over to intercept a flight of six D3A "Val" dive bombers escorted by four Zeros.
The American CAP, from top left to bottom:
Ensign Theisman, a Rookie that was shot down at Coral Sea on his first sortie
Lt (jg) Chipman, a Veteran with three kills on four sorties
Ensign Walton, a Rookie on his first combat mission
Lt (jg) Head, a Veteran with four and one half kills on four sorties
Ensign Manley, a Regular with one and one half kills on two sorties
Ensign Bowles, a Rookie on his first combat mission
The Yorktown lays in the background, hoping to not catch any Japanese bombs…
The Japanese strike group, from top right to bottom left:
Zero 02, a Veteran
Zero 01, an Ace
Val 06 Val 03
Val 04 Val 01
Val 05 Val 02
Zero 03, a Natural Born Killer
Zero 04, a Veteran
Wildcats swarm the Japanese escorts, making head-on and high-angle attacks on them, looking to knock them out of the sky and deal with the enemy dive bombers at their leisure.
Some slick flying by Lt (jg) Head.
To see how the fight went, please check the blog at:
link
Things are looking up: for the moment, the skies are clear. Lt (jg) Head got to set his damaged Wildcat down, and the net set of CAP refueled and launched. A couple hours later the klaxons sounded again: inbound bogeys, this time a flight of Kates torpedo bombers!
V/R,
Jack
