Great story.
Also, in similar vain the British attacked the most powerful battleship in the world, Bismark, with bi-plane, cloth covered torpedo planes. They hit the rudder disabling the steering of the Bismark and kept her from making port and protective bomber cover off the coast of France, less than day’s sail away.
You never know unless you TRY. No one even tried!
And the assets available were far better than cloth covered bi-planes or outdated torpedo bombers!
I am sure you know this already, but other readers may not.
The reason it worked so well is that the new ‘guns’ on the Bismark had an automatic tracking/aiming system. They were precalibrated to the speed of the newer fighter aircraft. The old biplanes were so slow that the artillery fire had a very difficult time hitting them.