"Heinkel's, Thousands of 'em!"

Sunday July 28th, 1940

After the previous day's raids in the Solent, the Luftwaffe switches attention to the shipping in Dover harbour with two large raids. One around midday and the other in the early afternoon. (more detail of the raid here)

Pilots of Hawkinge and Manston are tasked with repelling the attacks.

Fighter Command that day flew 758 sorties with the loss of only 2 Spitfires, lets see how we get on.

"Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes"

With a few more bodies in, the mission felt busier than last week. It was great to be taxying out across the runway at Manston with three Spitfires coming in low over the airfield.

Heading for Dover, we could see the coast of France, though the haze seemed to hide aircraft very easily.



Looking down on Dover harbour

I think I spotted the first attack, coming in direct from Calais. A large formation of Heinkel's approximately 20 aircraft. We went for head on attacks as they didn't seem to have fighter cover, but quickly found out the Heinkel has good defensive fire, especially in a close formation.

We all took damage, Splash bailed (no parachute), I think WB went as did Apollo. I was PK'd and I think Brigstock bailed as well. Not as good a result as last week....

Taking a new aicraft from Manston, the 51 boys were now in the fray. Marsh made an emergency landing "Undercarriage lever a bit sticky, sir?" :)

We did a nice scramble formation take off, with Apollo leading, WB, yours truly and Swoop, just as two 110's came low over the airfield and demolished one of the hangars.

Manston hangar damage

After dealing with the 110's, we were all up again patrolling Dover. Nerves jangling, multiple calls across the comms of a large formation sighted, heading in from the SE. At least 40+ Heinkels this time, with 20+ 109's flying high cover.

Counting Heinkels.

I lost everyone at this time as the air was full of planes. There were a/c falling out of the sky, smoke trails (and some slow downs - when they dropped their bombs).

Shipping under attack in Dover harbour

The final raid was non-historic just to kill the last 20 minutes and was essentially a re-run of the first wave.

Dover harbour after the raids

Eventually it was all done and the raids on Dover was over. We did lose some shipping and a few aircraft along the way. According to the above link, the Luftwaffe lost 18 aircraft in the raids.

I don't think we did too badly.

Netstats....

Good fun all. I'm feeling more at home in this sim now. I need to start skinning.