1.JG66

Stillwell et Van Pelt engagent leurs spitfires en combat tournoyant avec les BF109 de Muller et Meïer et le zerstörer de Richthaüser...Les chasseurs allemands réussissent à attirer l'officier anglais à basse altitude mais celui ci descend l'"Emil" de Muller(qui est capturé par les britanniques)et parvient à s'enfuir,malgré une blessure,en volant au ras des maisons londoniennes dans un appareil réduit à l'état d'épave.Le pilote sud africain en venant soutenir son officier tire une rafale dans le cockpit de Meïer,qui rompt le combat et réussit à ramener son avion en France en dépit de ses blessures.Richthaüser décide de rentrer et van Pelt ne le poursuit pas,car son moteur a mal encaissé les obus du chasseur de Wolfgang...

La fin du BF109 de Muller:

17 septembre:Adolf Hitler annonce l'ajournement jusqu'à nouvel ordre de l'opération See Löwe...

30 septembre:la Luftwaffe lance le dernier raid massif,regroupant plusieurs centaines de bombardiers, au dessus du Kent,bien sur le JG66 assure des missions d'escorte...

Une image que l'on ne reverra plus dans le ciel anglais:

30 septembre le JG66 mène sa dernière mission d'escorte au dessus de l'Angleterre.Aquiloni et Berkampf engagent O'Reily et Dumont qui attaquent les bombardiers.Les pilotes alliés dans leur hâte n'arrivent pas à coordonner leurs manoeuvres,le mitrailleur du DO17 en profite pour endommager sérieusement le spit du français,et le pilote réussit à fausser compagnie aux chasseurs.Voyant les bombardiers à l'abri,les pilotes de l'axe s'en prennent à l'avion de Dumont devenu une proie facile,qui se fait descendre par Aquiloni,puis rentrent leur ultime mission de cette campagne accomplie...

La fin du spit de Dumont(heureusement le pilote s'est déjà éjecté):

Pour conclure ce premier acte je cite le premier ministre britannique sir W Churchill:
Excerpts
“ Rather more than a quarter of a year has passed since the new Government came into power in this country. What a cataract of disaster has poured out upon us since then!… Meanwhile, we have not only fortified our hearts but our Island. We have rearmed and rebuilt our armies in a degree which would have been deemed impossible a few months ago.… The whole Island bristles against invaders, from the sea or from the air. …the stronger our Army at home, the larger must the invading expedition be, and the larger the invading expedition, the less difficult will be the task of the Navy in detecting its assembly and in intercepting and destroying it in passage; and the greater also would be the difficulty of feeding and supplying the invaders if ever they landed… Our Navy is far stronger than it was at the beginning of the war. The great flow of new construction set on foot at the outbreak is now beginning to come in. ”
“ Why do I say all this? Not, assuredly, to boast; not, assuredly, to give the slightest countenance to complacency. The dangers we face are still enormous, but so are our advantages and resources. I recount them because the people have a right to know that there are solid grounds for the confidence which we feel, and that we have good reason to believe ourselves capable, as I said in a very dark hour two months ago, of continuing the war "if necessary alone, if necessary for years. ”
“ The great air battle which has been in progress over this Island for the last few weeks has recently attained a high intensity. It is too soon to attempt to assign limits either to its scale or to its duration. We must certainly expect that greater efforts will be made by the enemy than any he has so far put forth.… It is quite plain that Herr Hitler could not admit defeat in his air attack on Great Britain without sustaining most serious injury. If after all his boastings and bloodcurdling threats and lurid accounts trumpeted round the world of the damage he has inflicted, of the vast numbers of our Air Force he has shot down, so he says, with so little loss to himself …if after all this his whole air onslaught were forced after a while tamely to peter out, the Fuhrer's reputation for veracity of statement might be seriously impugned. We may be sure, therefore, that he will continue as long as he has the strength to do so… ”
“ …It must also be remembered that all the enemy machines and pilots which are shot down over our Island, or over the seas which surround it, are either destroyed or captured; whereas a considerable proportion of our machines, and also of our pilots, are saved, and soon again in many cases come into action.… We believe that we shall be able to continue the air struggle indefinitely and as long as the enemy pleases, and the longer it continues the more rapid will be our approach, first towards that parity, and then into that superiority, in the air upon which in a large measure the decision of the war depends. ”
“ The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day, but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate, careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers who will play an invaluable part in the case of invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meanwhile on numerous occasions to restrain… ”
“ A good many people have written to me to ask me to make on this occasion a fuller statement of our war aims, and of the kind of peace we wish to make after the war, than is contained in the very considerable declaration which was made early in the autumn.… I do not think it would be wise at this moment, while the battle rages and the war is still perhaps only in its earlier stage, to embark upon elaborate speculations about the future shape which should be given to Europe… But before we can undertake the task of rebuilding we have not only to be convinced ourselves, but we have to convince all other countries that the Nazi tyranny is going to be finally broken. The right to guide the course of world history is the noblest prize of victory. We are still toiling up the hill; we have not yet reached the crest-line of it; we cannot survey the landscape or even imagine what its condition will be when that longed-for morning comes. The task which lies before us immediately is at once more practical, more simple and more stern.… For the rest, we have to gain the victory. That is our task. ”
“ …Some months ago we came to the conclusion that the interests of the United States and of the British Empire both required that the United States should have facilities for the naval and air defence of the Western Hemisphere against the attack of a Nazi power… We had therefore decided spontaneously, and without being asked or offered any inducement, to inform the Government of the United States that we would be glad to place such defence facilities at their disposal by leasing suitable sites in our Transatlantic possessions for their greater security against the unmeasured dangers of the future.… His Majesty's Government are entirely willing to accord defence facilities to the United States on a 99 years' leasehold basis… Undoubtedly this process means that these two great organisations of the English-speaking democracies, the British Empire and the United States, will have to be somewhat mixed up together in some of their affairs for mutual and general advantage. For my own part, looking out upon the future, I do not view the process with any misgivings. I could not stop it if I wished; no one can stop it. Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on full flood, inexorable, irresistible, benignant, to broader lands and better days.[3]

L'âme de la résistance:

Bilan de la bataille d'Angleterre pour le JG66:17 avions perdus,8 victoires homologuées.
Bilan du squadron 369:9 avions perdus,16 victoires homologuées.

Jusqu'à la fin de l'année 1940 le JG66 est retiré du front,de manière à recevoir les 2 Gruppen de chasse qui lui manquaient ainsi qu'un 10ème staffel constitué de chasseurs bombardiers.

1941 le JG66 tout d'abord stationné en Italie passe en Libye pour suivre les destinées d'un certain Erwin Rommel.
12 février 1941 à peine arrivé sur le sol africain,Rommel demande le bombardement de Benghazi.Bien sur le JG66 est de la partie,à cette occasion il rencontre à nouveau le squadron 369,qui a dû abandonner ses spitfires pour des hurricanes.

Pour cette première mission sur le sol africain les pilotes du JG66 connaissent des problèmes de navigations et n'assurent pas la couverture des bombardiers,qui réussissent malgré tout à échapper à la chasse britannique,notamment car Van Pelt ,désobéissant aux ordres de Stillwell,préfère abattre le 109 de Meïer,qui connait ainsi son premier saut au dessus du désert,plutôt que de poursuivre les bombardiers.Cela vaut au pilote sud africain une réprimande de son supérieur,mais surtout la joie de remporter la première victoire africaine du Squadron 369...

Un appareil du JG66 au camouflage particulièrement réussi:

La 1.JG66 reprend du service ?

J'y pense quoique sinon il y la 1.JG69 aussi...

69... Ca me plait bien...

Adjugé alors.Il faudra aussi baptiser l'escadrille américaine.