Mission 6 Oh Canada. 52 Sq. Bulldogs.
Oh Canada!
Kyte and McKendrick were on patrol. As the senior pilots in 52sq. they were trying to kill two birds with one stone.
Ostensibly preventing the Huns observing the build up for the Canadians next Big push, by destroying any photo recon aircraft they happened to encounter, they had actually taken up the brand new Nieuport 16s to assess their performance.
Kyte had flown one once before, on the occasion when he had met Albert Ball. Albert had explained how to get the best out of the Nieuport, including his trick of zooming below the enemy, hoiking down his Lewis and firing into the belly of the enemy machine.
Kyte was now keen to put this idea to the test.
As they rounded a rather large Cumulus cloud, they both spotted an Albatros CI escorted by a Fokker Eindecker, trundling across the sky some five hundred feet below them.
"Cheeky blighters" said Kyte to himself as he banked and started his dive.
"We can't have Fritz zooming about over our side of the lines taking photographs whenever he fancies it."
Frank McKendrick obviously had the same thoughts as Kyte but was quicker on the turn.
Zooming down upon the pair of interlopers, he exchanged fire with the Eindecker whilst Kyte was still out of range.
As Kyte came into range he received the fire of both the CI and the Eindecker, and his engine started to splutter.
As he returned the Eindecker's fire he was amazed to see it simply turn onto its back, like a shot pigeon and then go into an ever steepening dive from which it never recovered.
He was so astounded that he just flew the gap it had left and straight under the gun of the observer in the Albatros. Kyte's attempt at return fire was of course way off target.
However, with Kyte now being joined by Jock McKendrick on the tail of the Recon machine, and the first of the defending ground based machine guns joining in the Germans now took some damaging rounds in return, and were set on fire by McKendrick's fusillade.
Despite this, return fire hurt Kyte's Nieuport so badly, that together with his ailing engine he felt constrained to turn away and nurse his aircraft back to base.
McKendrick continued the tail chase, and despite doing more damage to the Hun machine, was hit in the engine by some brave shooting from the German Observer, slowing his pursuit down considerably.
With no further fire damage the CI flew toward large ammunition supply dump.
It then came under cross fire from several machine gun emplacements.
Jock was now finally catching up, but was still held at bay by the accurate return fire from the Fokker's Observer.
At last, as the now seriously damaged German machine reached the dump the rear gunners fire ceased, and Jock realized that the objective was not photographs but bombing, as the Observer reached over the side of his aircraft and released a small bomb onto the target.
In the ensuing explosion, all hell broke loose from both Jock and all the machine guns.
In addition to the fire the engine now started smoking from a ruptured oil pipe as Jock loosed off the last of his magazine.
Unable to sustain any more damage the Albatros simply went out of control and smashed into the ground beyond the perimeter of the compound.
Jock overflew his victim, but could make out no signs of life.
On his return to the airfield, the phone went wild, with every machine gunner in the area claiming to have accounted for the Albatros. Jock just filed his report, and sat back with a large Malt in his hand. HQ could sort this one out. At least he had prevented the total destruction of the dump.
The Butcher's Bill.
52 Sq. Bulldogs.
Lt. F.O. Kyte. RTB. One Kill.
Lt. Frank. (Jock) McKendrick. RTB. One kill.
The Kaiser's Eagles.
One Eindecker SD.
One Albatros CI SD.
British Ammunition dump partially destroyed.
Rob.
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Originally Posted by WWIflyingace
Shall I warm up the dice ?!
Well that was a very "explosive" encounter Rob!
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