Wednesday, July 31: Bertrix revisited
I take off Maubeuge with 61st XO tass at 1950 Zulu time and head south to get clear of potential swoopers. It's the first time we wing up properly. We make a couple of tac turns as we sweep a boxing-ring track through Charleville, Haybes and Wellin to arrive without mishap or contact at Bertrix. Time now: 20:10.

We take station in the usual left orbit and eventually let down to 3 km. There is no enemy activity, absolutely none, and this at European prime time. Apparently the whole of Luftwaffe has upped sticks to the north in a supreme effort against the Brits. We continue to orbit as dusk approaches.

Shortly before night falls a lone bugger rotates and heads out northwest. Judging by size and speed, it's a 110, climbing at a shallow angle. I curve around him and go in over the woods in a straight-in dive, intending to plug his pilot. Approaching darkness and the dark woods conspire to make a difficult shot, but I manage to land a squirt nonetheless, albeit scattered. The 110 seems to barely acknowledge the attack so I make a huge vertical barrel roll and go in again just after tass softens him up further. This time I plug the canopy well and truly, and see him nose over and impact with a commendable ball of fire. We quickly orbit back to the field to re-establish area SA. I pick up a Stuka heading out west and give him a squirt. He goes into a tizzy and fireballs in the woods. Back to orbit again.

After a long while a 109 takes off and is promptly shot down in a double bounce. Another 110 rotates and heads out west. I catch up with him halfway to the crossroads and hurt him a bit, but again night makes accurate shooting difficult. He successfully evades my further visitations and races home to land safely, if smoking. We let him go. Back to orbit.

At this juncture 61st pilot sikes is enroute. It's still quite dark when another 109 makes an appearance. He heads out west, and my gunnery still sucks. I land but a few bullets before breaking off high. The 109 continues on his heading so I make another pass and hurt him some more. Tass bores in as well and together we flame him north of Bouillon. The interesting thing about this 109 was his tendency to use negative G with a follow-up jink to escape. Instead of following his maneuver (and suffering the red-out) I use the Hawk's excellent roll rate, allowing me to cut the distance despite his balls-out run. One squirt and he goes down. Back to the orbit.

When we arrive, sikes is also on station. Nothing stirring below, except for a couple of Stukas who prangs on takeoff. They smash most convincingly into Bertrix town, four or five of them altogether during our extended presence. Dawn breaks, and the field comes alive, well, almost, with up to three bandits all at once. One of them prangs, the other spins on the ground and the third is gunned down. However, at this juncture a 109 comes in from south, co-altitude, and damages tass before I can intervene. I'm fairly sure that a couple of bandits took advantage of the respite to rotate and head out, though none of them engages us. Bad show. The offending 109 is battered down, by tass I believe.

We remain on station. I account for another Ju-87 and a 109 before we're engaged by a 109 coming in at about 4 km. He makes his pass and zooms right back up. OK, good, a careful customer. Tass is still in the fight but sikes is nowhere to be seen, possibly returning to base. I climb well to the side of the 109 while tass dogs him from below. After he's made two passes, incidentally wasting a lot of smash by diving too deeply, his energy overhead is almost eroded. I fly quite gently, using trim mainly, and am soon able to close to guns range. However, my wing guns cough and dry up, forcing a yet more careful approach. I plink him a bit and down he goes in a wide sweeping turn before straightening out to extend. He's not taking any chances.

Up and around we go again. I cut the circle, plink him a bit, and then it's the same extension routine again: dive, run, chandelle. This time I stay high on his seven o'clock and climb slightly. WeÕre almost to Neufchateu as he comes around again, and this time he badly misjudges my smash. I'm closing the circle at 380 IAS when he expects me to be at around 250 or so. I close to about 50 m before letting him have it, but I cannot concentrate my fire against his wildly bucking crate. When I finally have a decent shot, my guns goes click-click. Bugger!

He manages to wrestle out of my grip and extend again, this time down to about 2500 meters. All the while hammered has been inbound at 5 km with a running commentary about the fight. Tass is returning to base with a sick engine. I keep chasing the 109 towards Neufchateau when hammered sights us below. I angle off with the intention to induce the 109 into a slow climb to the north just as hammered bores in and creams the guy. Whee-ha!

I return to base, hearing that tass is safely down after 1 hr 40 min and that hammered and mick is established over Bertrix. Sometime in the middle of the mission I xmit the fact that we have Bertrix wrapped up, and the opportunity is immediately grasped by 357th FG and GAO IV fighters: they close every enemy forward base south of the Sambre and lend the frontline fighters excellent support in the Cerfontaine-Walcourt area, among other places.

I land after 1 hr 52 minutes. Tass and I account for some 10-11 enemy between us. This isn't a great bag by any reckoning but the strategic effect of closing down Bertrix for nearly two hours is marked. This is made yet more obvious when hammered encounters a whole gaggle of 109s at 5 km over Bertrix, apparently sent there to deal with Òthem bullie hawksÓ. Mick is lost early in that engagement but hammered successfully extricates and lands Maubeuge (tally unknown).

Signed: BMBM, CO 56th FG