Well, first of all, you probably should have done a better job of keeping your wingmates alive during The Great Hunt.
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There's an option in FS2 that allows you to replay the mission prior to a red-alert mission; I can't recall if it's available in FS1, but if it is, I'd highly advise it. If that's not available, then I'd suggest giving the mission a try at Easy difficulty; I never had any real trouble beating it at that level.
(For the record, the strategy I've always found to work best in The Great Hunt is to order all of my wingmates to form on my wing and then fly to the Sol jump node as a group, pausing to order them to take out wings of enemy fighters that jump in along the way. That way, you're almost guaranteed to get just about all of them to the node.)