The Jaded Bombardier

The Battle of Britain was a 57 day German attempt to cripple the Royal Air Force.  The Germans bombed the British isles mercilessly while trying to wrest control of the sky from the British. The British however had a couple of advantages. 1) Radar- Radar allowed the British to know when German attacks were coming and scramble fighters to intercept. The Germans could not launch an air raid without Being met by swarms of Hawker Hurricanes and Spitfires. 2)Home-field advantage- The British pilots flying who got shot down could be recovered and put in another plane. The importance of having trained pilots cant be stressed enough. Retraining pilots took time and cost money. The German pilots shot down could not be recovered. 3)Distance- Because the German pilots had to fly across the channel they only had about 30 minute of combat time before having to return to base. All of these culminated in British victory that saved the Isles from invasion. Casualties and losses: 1,542 aircrew k

This was a series of 5 large scale carrier battles That marked the death of the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Force. 956 American planes battled with 750 Japanese (300 land based). The Japanese were the first to strike with 68 plane strike on the American flotilla. The attack was repelled with 40 Japanese being shot down. this was followed up with 107 additional attackers. 97 of them didn't return to their carriers. Another 47 plane wave was repelled with 7 shot down. This left the final assault of  82 aircraft to suffer heavy losses with only 9 returning to base. At the end of day one 356 Japanese shot down to the Americans 30. The following day saw the Japanese lose another 250+ aircraft while the Americans topped out at 93. 80 of which crashed due to crashes in the dark. Final count, 123 to 645. This was the last great air battle of the Pacific theater.

Chuck Yeager had a very impressive career. He is credited with being the first man to shoot down a jet fighter. He also is the first man to break the sound barrier. But possibly most impressive of his achievements is his ace in a day claim. This did not happen very often. His first kill was a two for one. He spotted a formation of 109s while escorting a group of B-24s. He lined up behind the formation of 22 109s and prepared to fire. he lined up to fire but one of the Messerschmidts saw him. The 109 tried to roll away but crashed into his wingman. Yeager closed up to the rest of the formation and shot up another 109. Yeager then chased another 109 in a dive. after a bit of maneuvering Yeager dispatched it with a 3 second burst of 50. cal fire. meanwhile another 109 maneuvered onto his tail. he broke away and in an awesome feat of maneuvering ended up on the newcomers tail. Yeager fired on the 109 until the pilot bailed out. This concluded his 10 minutes of high energy dogfighting that

During WWII the Japanese Empire took many islands in the pacific. During the campaign to take them back the allies took the island of Guadalcanal. This island was chosen due to the small airfield being constructed there. This would become the main airbase of choice during this phase of the campaign. The Marines there operated F4F fighters and SBD dive bombers. The Japanese tried for a year to regain control the the island and this lead to a almost daily combat from august 7th 1942 to February 9th 1943. The pilots employed a particular tactic called Thatch's Weave. It involved 2 Wildcats making a crisscross pattern. If an enemy plane goes after one the wingman can engage and shoot down the threat.  The Marines    sank or destroyed 17 large enemy vessels as well as shooting down   268 Japanese planes in aerial combat. This was one of the largest air engagements of the Pacific theater and really demonstrated the skill of the U.S. aviators.

January 16, 1941, the War Department announced the formation of the 99th Pursuit Squadron. But this was not a normal fighter squadron. This was the first all black fighter squadron unit in the U.S. military. The squadron faced disbanding multiple times but its performance showed they had at least the same efficiency of other squadrons. They flew the P-40 and scored 32 victories. They eventually transferred  to Europe  as part of the 332nd fighter group.  They flew P-47s for a time before being transferred  to the now famous P-51. They flew a total of 172 bomber escort missions with only 27 bombers lost. They became known as the Red Tail Angels because of their good record. Awards and decorations included: Three Distinguished Unit Citations 99th Pursuit Squadron: 30 May–11 June 1943 for actions over Sicily 99th Fighter Squadron: 12–14 May 1944: for successful air strikes against  Monte Cassino , Italy 332nd Fighter Group (and its 99th, 100th, and 301st Fighter Squadrons): March

Robin Olds started his piloting career in a P-38 Lightning in the European theater. His first kills were a pair of Focke Wulf 190s. Late he and a wingman engaged a formation of 40 BF-109s and he came out with 5 kills one of which occurred while his engine was off due to fuel starvation. He became the first ace of the 479th fighter group. When the 479th converted to P-51s he had a total of 8 kills in the 38. In the P-51 he topped off his kill count with 4 more air to air kills and 11 destroyed while on runways. In Vietnam he took to the sky again and killed 4 more enemy aircraft. 2 of these were scored in operation Bolo. Bolo was an attempt to bring enemy MIGs out to fight. MIGs avoided fighters and instead went for slow vulnerable attack aircraft  like the F-105 Thunderchief. Olds fitted 105 jammer pods to the F-4s and used their callsigns in order to make the MIGs think they were bombers. at the end of the day the Vietnamese lost 7 of their remaining 16 aircraft in the inventory. Th