Mission 3 had us target a
column of tanks. Yuri and Mako lead the bombers and Avatar lead the
escorts.
Enroute to the target our group was attacked by 2 BF-109s, Avatar order
the escorts to engage and a little dogfight at 1000 meters ensued. One of
the escorts was downed and Avatar shot down one of the 109s before driving
the other one away.
Meanwhile, the bombers continued on their way searching for their target.
Sporadic flak harrassed the TB-3s as they lumbered on and only Mako
suffered some damage to one of his engines.
Mako and Yuri split up, now that the skies were clear, to hopefully find
the targets faster. Shortly thereafter, both Mako and Avatar got a visual
on the convoy. Avatar, knowing he had a fast spiffy I-16, felt he could do
a straffing run long before the bombers show up to make their run, so he
commenced with his dive toward the column. Unfortunately, Mako was a lot
closer to target than Avatar realized and had already begun his bombing
run.
Things were not looking good for our fearless I-16 pilot...
Avatar fires away at the convoy and gets hits on a couple of the vehicles
and flies past just as the bombs are about to hit...
One minute he's there, reveling in his triumphant hits on the target when
he notices a bright flash off to his 2-3 o'clock, and then... he was no
more.
Now that Mako has dropped his load and pretty much wiped out all but one
vehicle, Yuri was making his way over after being informed of the target's
location from Mako. Yuri drops his bombs but unfortunately they fall a bit
wide and behind.
Not being one to give up easily, Yuri checks with his crew, and they all
agree to make a few straffing runs at the remaining target in a TB-3! Yes
folks, history was made this night.
Having recently been given this command he was still not quite used to how
the TB-3 handled compared to the Hurri IIb that he used to fly. So his run
was a bit low and slow in pulling up but he made it.
Barely! But as luck would have it he wasn't so lucky the next time around.
So Mako and 2 escorts were the only planes (the 3rd TB-3 was downed by
flak) to return to base. We're still wondering how Mako explained Avatar's
death...(contributed by Avatar)
