Hoppy Strikes it Hot!

May 2, 1944

Somewhere Over Northwest Wielvakia

"Skippy Lead this is Skippy Five, just crossed Nav Point Dog...splitting with Six through Ten for primary target, do you read?"

"Roger that Skippy Five...good hunting, Hoppy."

Major Arch Hopper gave a confident "Same to you, Skippy Lead!" to the commander of the 70th Fighter Squadron as he hailed the five other P-47D Thunderbolts and banked to the right. The short, stocky pilot had now fully immersed himself in being the squadron's morale booster, and today was no different. However, instead of seeing how well he could curl the tips of his handlebar moustache or doing his best impersonation of the Kaiser (while the intel officer played that fast bastard Goering), he was leading from the front. Sticking himself in harm's way again to remind the men, especially the new guys, that this was a team effort. There would be no hotshots, and there would be no permanent desk jockeys.

"Skippy Five to flight, spread out into a left wedge, maintain course and heading. Keep sight of Boxer until we hit our target." He radioed.

That target was a railyard at Gnplask, too small for the guys in bombers but too important to pass up. Lieutenant Colonel Lewis and his fourship, with four P-47s from the 66th, were to hit the local SS headquarters nearby as a distraction. The rest of the group was one of multiple waves hitting the place; a group of 12 B-26 Marauders were minutes behind. Some big counterpunch was supposed to come in July and get the Belks reeling back from Ratio and Nordlands, and let the liberation of Wielvakia carry forward. Arch hoped they could get it done before the Belkans got frustrated or felt so powerful they tried to storm westwards into his homeland. That boiled his blood a bit; damned Belks always felt like they had to rule the world and that they were its superior lot. Well they'd again test that today, and Arch was packing plenty of steel to even the odds. He checked his fuel gauge and RPMs before he looked up into the sky for signs of trouble. Their escorting P-51s above and ahead, still in formation as he could see. It was sign enough for him that the Luftwaffles weren't here...yet.

"Skippy Five to Skippy Six, I'm gonna roll and check below us. Gimme some space and come back in when I'm done, alright?" He radioed.

"Gotcha Hoppy." His wingman, Captain "Beet" Beatlie replied with an "Okay" sign.

Arch tightened his oxygen mask and stiffened his body against the Gs before he gave the control stick and good yank. The P-47 was a lot of plane to handle, but it had a roll rate like nothing else. His world flipped upside down and the warm, late-spring countryside swept into view. Untempted by the natural beauty, Arch squinted and looked for the slightest sign of trouble beneath the clouds. He couldn't see anything; nothing moving fast enough to be a Belkan fighter. As he turned upright and relaxed with the fading Gs, the plane suddenly jolted up and down. Weather hadn't predicted turbulence; the sight of black puffs far above indicated they'd come into range of a flak battery.

"Skippy Five to flight, bring it up to 29,000 and fast! While they're still bursting too high! Boxer, lookout below cause we're coming upstairs!" He radioed.

The P-51s, probably mistaken for the attacking aircraft, duly raised their altitude towards the upper reaches of the flak's envelope while Arch and his lot went for the middle ground. Arch checked his navigational charts; they'd hit the outer defenses of Gnplask. Just as soon as he'd relayed that, Boxer Two called out bandits ascending from their ten low. Arch craned his neck and looked downwards for any sign for more bandits. Sure enough, the Belkans were taking the multi-pronged approach.

"Skippy Six, more bandits at my two low. Break and go high!" Arch called.

Beet snapped up while Arch went head-to-head with the incoming fighters, revealed to be the ever-common Me 109. The Major let loose with his plane's eight fifty-caliber machine guns on the closest Messerschmitt. The battery of "Ma Deuces" made a sound reminiscent of a typewriter, muffled by the thin air and his flight helmet. His first target for the day passed by beneath, spitting back with its 13mm machine guns too late to reach the Osean fighter. Arch kept up his dive and tried to gauge how many bad guys the escorts were up against. At least ten, he figured. He chose one of them in the best position relative to him and banked towards the fresh 109. He settled into an approach off its eleven before chopping away at the sky ahead of it. Arch closed in until he saw smoke burst from the wing root. He gave it a few more rounds before he reversed and looked for his wingman and the other Belkans.

"Beet, you still with me?" He called.

"Yeah Arch...engaged with two bandits!" Beet replied.

"Okay, okay I'm on my way! Looking for you now!"

Arch pulled up and barreled through the rear of the Belkan formation as the fight morphed into a classic furball. Thirty-six 109s and 190s against twenty-eight Mustangs and Thunderbolts. Arch spotted his wingman in a dive, trying to use the P-47's performance against his more nimble opponent. A single 109 was spiraling down after him as another seemed to be falling away. Arch leveled out, then nosed up and made a single pass at the pursuing fighter. He hammered away at the fighter until it passed by, then was thrown off from his attack by another 109 coming to rescue his ally. Arch pulled hard right and increased his throttles before pulling down and right to keep on the guy who was after Beet.

"Hoppy, where are you? This guy's all over me!" Beet growled through his teeth.

"Hang on Beet, hang on! I'm coming." Arch replied.

Arch tensed his muscles as the world outside spun and reversed from upright to upside down and back again. The edges of his vision blurred and darkened while his labored breathing overtook the drone of his engine. He spotted the shape of a 109 as it slid further and further into the middle of his vision. He fired two bursts at the fighter, missing both. Even his hope of scaring off the Belkan pilot failed. He passed by behind the 109 and slowed, yanking, forcing his Thunderbolt to turn and turn as tight as it could. The big fighter fought back against the straining move until Arch relented and eased out of the turn. Instead he rolled it to the left and found the 109 making another pass at his wingman. This time the Belkan pilot was putting his plane's heavy-hitting 30mm cannon to work. Arch dove and made another high-speed pass at him, firing until he saw spark after spark walk across the enemy plane's wings and center fuselage. The 109 disappeared under his nose, leaving the Major sneering even as his wingman got on the radio to report the damage to his plane.

"Skippy, we can handle the rest of the bandits. Get your guys together and hit that railyard." Boxer Two ordered.

"Roger Boxer, good hunting! We'll be back if you wanna drive it home to 'em!" Arch said before shifting gears to his wingman.

The two P-47s leveled out in the clouds, weaving back and forth gently to avoid the flak bellow. Arch saw the other plane was missing part of its tail and had several ugly tears in its rear fuselage. He hailed for Beet to follow him back up and keyed his radio.

"Okay...Skippy Seven, get Skippy Five back to the barn! Rest of you come on, we've got a target to hit." He instructed.

Captain Saul Munoz met Beet as he turned for home while the surviving checkerboard-nosed Thunderbolts pressed forward. Arch very reluctantly hailed Colonel Lewis on the radio to report that they might need his four aircraft to help make up for their losses. Lewis informed him that they had already dumped their bombs on the HQ, but that they would make an effort to join him at the target with what remained of their warloads. Arch and his remaining flight each carried ten 5-inch HVARs (High-Velocity Aerial Rocket), two 500-pound bombs and whatever they had left in their remained in the clouds , keeping a very loose formation as they picked their way through the overlapping patches of flak towards the city. The city had close to 72 guns around it, barring however many the preceding waves of Lenish Typhoons and Mosquitoes had managed to crater.

"Alright Skippy Flight, we're at our initial point...break into pairs and hit your targets. Stay fast and stay unpredictable. Yipperoo!" Arch radioed, finishing with the 70th's motto.

"Yipperoo!" The others echoed. The Red Angels were on the hunt again.

Arch and his new wingman, First Lieutenant Marion Cochise, ditched their external tanks and climbed a bit further before winging over, one at a time, and diving through the clouds and down onto the Wielvakian city. More Flak 88s, joined by the four-barreled Flak 43 and Flak 38, started chewing away at the sky as soon as the first engine noises descended from above. The bloodthirsty take on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit gracing Arch's plane seemed to reflect the speed that he was coming down at. He didn't need the throttles; gravity did the job. The guns met them with a wall of lead that caught anyone not staying unpredictable. Their frantic calls, if they made them, would be cut off violently as they blew apart or, panicked by the sudden hits, unaware of the cityscape below. The number of P-47s withered slowly; the casualties flashed past Arch's attention in milliseconds. He didn't even look to see where Cochise was.

"Skippy Eight, tell me you aren't riding my ass." He radioed.

"Never liked asses, sir." The man replied.

Bearing 220 was his heading, and 800 Feet was the magic number today. Arch pulled back on his stick a few thousand feet before that altitude and rattled windows across the neighborhoods as he slid into a place the Belkan gunners would be unable to hit him. Not unless they wanted to tear up the town. His plane screamed down and over the rooftops of the city's old district. Tracers raced up past his plane and harmlessly floated into the sky as he made a break for the target. It spread across the horizon of his view, marked by the white smoke of trains in motion. His eyes focused on two sets of water towers. At the last possible second he nosed up again, bombs armed, and rolled onto one of the main water stations to deliver his two 500-pounders. He released them as soon as the towers slipped beneath his nose.

"Skippy Five, bombs away!" He declared.

Arch pulled back and ascended several thousand feet while his bombs whistled down to the ground. Two towers were torn from the ground and sent them crashing back down in a torrent of water. Cochise came in behind him and vaporized two more; Arch switched to his rockets and looked over his shoulder in search of more targets. The hardened targets, like the roundhouses, were to be left to the B-26s, The train cars and storehouses full of Belkan supplies below were the first thing Arch laid eyes on.

"Skippy Eight, break off and hit those storehouses near that switchyard, I'll cover you." He instructed.

"Roger, Skippy Five." Cochise snapped.

Arch gained altitude, on the lookout for groundfire or more bandits while his wingman roared around to deploy his rockets against the light structures. Arch circled in a slight tilt to the right, spotting his wingman's attack as he roared in and shot four rockets at the buildings.

"Skippy Eight, rockets away!" The pilot declared.

As soon as he was pulling away, Arch gained some distance from the cars before he snapped around and went into a shallow dive. It took only the slightest adjustments to make sure his sights were on target.

"Skippy Five...rockets away!" He reported.

salvoed all but four of his rockets into the nearby freight cars. He pulled away as secondary explosions tossed the remains of war material and its transportation about like a pile of leaves in a gale. He leveled out of his ascent as Cochise came up to meet him. The two Thunderbolts circled above the yard, then dove again to pile on the attack on engines and cars caught out in the open. Arch found himself a train placed near the edge of the facility, slowing. He caught the very slightest sense of movement as he fired two more rockets into the engine, then made a wide circle to come around and strafe the length of the train. He hit a foursome of fuel cars with enough of the tracers placed in his belts to cause a fire to belch from the holes. As he pulled away again, the radio crackled to life with a new voice.

"Skippy this is Cigar Lead, clear out as soon as you can. We're at IP and coming in hot!" An Osean voice quipped.

"Gotcha Cigar. Alright boys, bring it in; we've had our fun for the day." The Colonel hollered. Like a football coach gathering his team after a game.

Arch made a gentle bank to the left and nosed up, with Cochise appearing out of thin air to join him. Before the Major could acknowledge him or anyone else, a flak burst exploded above and in front of him. The whole plane shook as the sound of metal striking her fuselage strained his ear drums. Like a dying animal's scream. A familiar voice, almost equal in volume, broke through the confusion.

"Hoppy, Hoppy you okay? Fuck...I think they hit me too-Hoppy?! Skippy Five?" Cochise said, sounding disoriented.

"Lower it down, dammit. You're gonna make me deaf, Poker!" He replied.

Arch, who'd instinctly ducked, raised his head and felt wind on his face. A piece of shrapnel was lodged in the front of the canopy. He looked down at his controls; none of the dials or gauges had gone crazy. He looked at both his wings and saw maybe a dozen more pockmarks in them, not particularly deep. If he was leaking fuel he'd know soon, but it was at such a low rate it was impossible to see leaks...no, he spotted one. The stuff was dragging an ugly smear across the plane's gleaming silver finish. He looked to the other side, then pulled back on the stick a bit more. Higher altitudes would let the stuff coagulate, maybe slow or plug the leak...if he didn't have more.

"Skippy Lead...Skippy Five and Skippy Eight have been hit, but looks like we're okay. We're heading for you now." Arch radioed, able to control his voice.

"Roger that Hoppy, we'll clear your six for you until we reach Boxer." Lewis assured in a friendly tone.

As they passed over the fast-moving B-26s, two familiar airframes roared in from the damaged pair's five and passed by. Lewis and his wingman went the same way as the B-26s a moment before they dropped back down to meet their injured friends. Arch checked himself for dings and, after another minute of thought, ditched his remaining rockets to lose some weight. Despite it all, he was quietly thankful the P-47 could take a hit. He'd still plan for the worst, but the "Jug" wasn't one of the primary Osean fighter bombers because she was pretty! With luck, he'd make it back home and be enjoying a nice cup of coffee with a little something added by order of the 70th's surgeon.