"and they promptly disappeared into the murk."
Chugalug2,
One of my memories about the F-104 was that any formation created it's own murk to disappear into.
One of the other posters remarked on the aircraft being called the "Widow Maker". I was told that as a percentage we lost more Lightnings. I don't know how true that was but certainly the Luftwaffe had quite a number of Starfighters.