hoho. went back to mat land yesterday. thank goodness it was only one day.

well. it was super boring. at my grandparents house, in BATU PAHAT.

okay, basically, i woke up at 0630hrs. had breakfast and left at 0700hrs.

bla bla. the trip took 2 hours, spent the time in the car sleeping and listening to music. it was rather fun though, with dad taking the car to up to 160km/h on mat land highway =D

so we reached at around 0900hrs. boredom prevails.

spent 2 hours reading a book. sadly, i finished it quite early, at 1100hrs. once again i was bored so i started walking around the house aimlessly. then lunch! yay. then i started walking around and smsing ppl in between. then when no one replied me anymore, i went to the car and sat at the front seat and started fiddling around with everything.

the night sky was dark and cloudy. Pushing the throttles forward as I pulled the control wheel up, the drone of the four Rolls-Royce Merlin XX in-line piston engines on the wings of the Lancaster grew louder as the formation of RAF bombers climbed to an altitude of 20,000 feet. The navigator signalled that we were 6 minutes to our target. Just as i was fiddling with trim knobs and trying to keep the lumbering bomber in formation, a spectacular lightshow unfolded before our eyes. the dark sky lit up with exploding German 88mm flak shells and beams of searchlights, lighting up parts of the dark grey clouds in the night sky.

Abandoning all past effort in keeping formation, i pulled the Lancaster into another climb. Shrapnel from exploding shells showered all over the bomber as flak exploded in front of us, causing a deafening sound that could be likened to hailstones hitting a zinc roof. A beam from a searchlight illuminated the Lancaster off the starboard wing, and seconds after, flak exploded all around it as i banked the aircraft to port to prevent our aircraft from being hit. The targeted bomber exploded in half as shrapnel tore into its fuel tanks, lighting up the flammable liquid stored within. 3 parachutes could be seen emerging from the forward parachute escape hatches. 3 men out of 7. Flames from the engines of the stricken bomber, now in a death spiral, lit up one of the parachutes, and that unfortunate crewman plummeted 20,000 feet to the ground. Looking up, the peaceful looking, endless constellations of stars were in stark contrast to all the flak exploding violently, and carnage happening all around us.

The thunder of flak exploding around us reached a crescendo as we came directly above the city. A loud bang reverbrated through our bomber, as flak exploded off our port wing, and the number one engine exploded in flames. I feathered the prop blades on that engine and activated the fire extinguisher for that engine, as we pulled into a shallow dive to increase speed and put out the flames. Rudder trim was applied to counteract the lack of power on one wing. Just then the lead bomber radioed in "bombs away". Bombers were still falling from the sky as the formation released the bombs, as 14,000lbs of high explosive rained down onto Germany from every bomber. As the bombardier yelled "bombs gone", the acceleration of the Lancaster was felt as the bomber got 14,000lbs lighter. I pulled the Lancaster into a steep left bank as the formation headed home. The lead bomber was hit by flak, and its starboard wing was ripped off as it dived to the ground, crewmen bailing out.

As what was left of the formation headed home for England, i looked out of the cockpit at the bombers around us. most of them had varying degrees of damage from the heavy anti-aircraft gunnery. The Lancaster closest to us had its port vertical stabilizer blown off; some aircraft were leaking coolant or hydraulic fluid, and ours was trailing black smoke from a dead number one engine. As i relaxed my grip on the control wheel, the tail gunner yelled over the intercom: "Corkscrew!" I threw the bomber into a spiral dive to starboard, as the thunder of the quad .303in machine guns in the rear turret opened fire. Leveling the bomber, i saw a flight of multiple twin engined German night fighters, probably Messerschmitt Bf110s or Heinkel He219s night fighters streak past, opening fire on other bombers in the formation. Explosions rocked our bomber, as cannon shells fired from a fighter on our six ripped through the thin aluminium fuselage and our port wing and exploded. i looked back as i saw the mid-upper gunner lying dead in his turret, the bombardier and radioman badly wounded, and the port wing torn to pieces. Realising the bomber was losing altitude and flight controls were shot up, i gave the order for the crew to bail out.

Snap back to reality. The wheel i was holding wasn't one from an RAF Bomber Command Avro Lancaster bomber. It was from a Singapore registered but parked in mat land Toyota Corolla Altis saloon. i checked the time. woohoo, it was 1645hrs, not in the middle of the night. and i had spent dunno how long fooling around with my imagination =D all thanks to reading that book (Tail-End Charlies, abt WW2 bomber crews) and watching pearl harbor (the part abt the doolittle raid) before i came =D wee.

the lil cousins were annoying as usual, and the older cousins just watched tv. had dinner at 1800 and went home. lol my aunt and my mum talk a lot. yes. then there was a huge jam at second link at the singapore side. i have no idea why. the mat land side cleared it rather quickly though.

bah. one more week of holidays. okay all you ac peeps, can you tell me what work we were given? i have totally no idea.

haha. good day, and goodnight!