The
Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a
World War II American
fighter aircraft built by
Lockheed. Developed to a
United States Army Air Corps
requirement, the P-38 had distinctive
twin
booms and a single, central
nacelle
containing the cockpit and armament. Named "fork-tailed devil" by
the
Luftwaffe and "two planes, one pilot" by the Japanese,
this unique aircraft was used in a number of different roles
including
dive bombing,
level bombing, ground
strafing, photo
reconnaissance missions, and extensively as a
long-range escort fighter when equipped with
drop tanks under its wings.
The P-38 was used most successfully in the
Pacific Theater of Operations
and the
China-Burma-India
Theater of Operations as the mount of America's top
ace,
Richard Bong (40
victories) and
Thomas McGuire (38
victories). In the
South West Pacific
theater, the P-38 was the primary long-range fighter of
United States Army Air
Forces until the appearance of large numbers of
P-51D Mustangs toward the end of the war.
The P-38
was the only American fighter aircraft in active production
throughout the duration of American involvement in the war, from
Pearl
Harbor
to VJ
Day.
Design and development
Lockheed YP-38 (1943), one of 13 constructed.
Lockheed designed the P-38 in
response to a February 1937 specification from the
United States Army Air Corps.
Circular Proposal X-608 was a set of aircraft
performance goals authored by
First
Lieutenant Benjamin S.
Kelsey (later
Brigadier General) and First Lieutenant
Gordon P. Saville (later
General) for a twin-engine, high-altitude
interceptor aircraft having "the
tactical mission of interception and attack of hostile aircraft at
high altitude." Kelsey recalled in 1977 that he and Saville drew up
the specification using the word "interceptor" as a way to bypass
the inflexible Army Air Corps requirement for pursuit aircraft to
carry no more than 500 lb (227 kg) of armament including
ammunition, as well as the restriction of single-seat aircraft to
one engine. Kelsey was looking for a minimum of 1,000 lb
(454 kg) of armament. Specifications called for a maximum
airspeed of at least 360 mph (580 km/h) at altitude, and
a climb to 20,000 ft (6,100 m) within six minutes;
Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Retrieved: 21
January 2007. the toughest set of specifications USAAC had
presented to that date. The unbuilt
Vultee XP1015 was designed to the same
requirement, but was not advanced enough to merit further
investigation. A similar single-engine proposal was issued at the
same time:
Circular Proposal X-609, in response to
which the
Bell P-39 Airacobra was designed. Both proposals
required liquid-cooled
Allison V-1710
engines with turbo superchargers and
tricycle landing gear.
The Lockheed design team, under the direction of
Hall Hibbard and
Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, considered a
range of twin-engine configurations including both engines in a
central fuselage with push-pull propellers.
The eventual configuration was rare in terms of contemporary
fighter aircraft design, with only the
Fokker
G.1 and later
Northrop P-61 Black
Widow having a similar planform. The Lockheed team chose twin
booms to accommodate the tail assembly, engines, and turbo
superchargers, with a central nacelle for the pilot and armament.
The nose was designed to carry two .50 in (12.7 mm)
M2 Browning machine guns,
with 200 rpg, two .30 in (7.62 mm) Brownings, with 500
rpg, and an
Oldsmobile 37 mm cannon with 15 rounds. Clustering all the
armament in the nose was unlike most other U.S. aircraft which used
wing-mounted guns with trajectories set up to crisscross at one or
more points in a "convergence zone." Guns mounted in the nose did
not suffer from having their useful ranges limited by pattern
convergence, meaning good pilots could shoot much farther. A
Lightning could reliably hit targets at any range up to , whereas
other fighters had to pick a single convergence range between 100
and . The clustered weapons had a "buzz saw" effect on any target
at the receiving end, making the aircraft effective for strafing as
well.
The Lockheed design incorporated tricycle undercarriage and a
bubble canopy, and featured two 1,000
hp (746
kW)
turbo-
supercharged
12-cylinder Allison V-1710 engines fitted with
counter-rotating propellers to
eliminate the effect of engine
torque, with
the superchargers positioned behind the engines in the booms. It
was the first American fighter to make extensive use of stainless
steel and smooth, flush-riveted butt-jointed aluminum skin panels.
It was also the first fighter to fly faster than .
Lockheed won the competition on 23 June 1937 with its
Model
22 and was contracted to build a prototype
XP-38O'Leary, Michael. "
Conquering the Sky!"
Air Classics,
April 2005. Retrieved: 26 January 2007. for US$163,000, though
Lockheed's own costs on the prototype would add up to US$761,000.
Construction began in July 1938 and the XP-38 first flew on 27
January 1939 at the hands of Ben Kelsey.
Kelsey proposed a
speed dash to Wright Field
on 11 February 1939 to relocate the aircraft for
further testing. General Henry "Hap"
Arnold, commander of the USAAC, approved of the record attempt,
and recommended a cross-country flight to New York.
The flight set a speed
record by flying from California to New York in seven hours and two
minutes, but was downed by carburetor icing short of the Mitchel
Field runway in Hempstead, New York
, and was wrecked. However, on the basis of
the record flight, the Air Corps ordered 13
YP-38s
on 27 April 1939 for US$134,284 apiece. (The initial "Y" in "YP"
was the USAAC's designation for a "
prototype" while the "X" in "XP" was for "
experimental".) Lockheed's Chief
test pilot Tony
LeVier angrily characterized the accident as an unnecessary
publicity stunt. According to Kelsey, the loss of the prototype,
instead of hampering the program, speeded the process by cutting
short the initial test series. The success of the aircraft design
contributed to Kelsey's promotion to captain in May, 1937.

Mechanized P-38 conveyor lines.
Manufacture of the YP-38s fell behind schedule, at least partly due
to the need for mass-production suitability making them
substantially different in construction than the prototype.
Another
factor was the sudden required facility expansion of Lockheed in
Burbank
, taking it from a specialized civilian firm dealing
with small orders to a large government defense contractor making
Venturas, Harpoons, Lodestar, Hudson, and designing the Constellation airliner for TWA. The first YP-38 was not
completed until September 1940, with its maiden flight on 17
September. The 13th and final YP-38 was delivered to the Air Corps
in June 1941; 12 aircraft were retained for flight testing and one
for destructive stress testing. The YPs were substantially
redesigned and differed greatly in detail from the hand-built
XP-38. They were lighter, included changes in engine fit, and the
propeller rotation was reversed, with the blades rotating outwards
(away) from the
cockpit at the
top of their arc rather than inwards as before. This improved the
aircraft's stability as a gunnery platform.

Cockpit view of a P-38G.
Note the yoke, rather than the more-usual stick.
Test flights revealed problems initially believed to be tail
flutter. During high-speed
flight approaching Mach 0.68, especially during dives, the
aircraft's tail would begin to shake violently and the nose would
tuck under, steepening the dive. Once caught in this dive, the
fighter would enter a high-speed
compressibility stall
and the controls would lock up, leaving the pilot no option but to
bail out (if possible) or remain with the aircraft until it got
down to denser air, where he might have a chance to pull out.
During a test flight in May 1941, USAAC Major Signa Gilkey managed
to stay with a YP-38 in a compressibility lockup, riding it out
until he recovered gradually using
elevator
trim. Lockheed engineers were very concerned at this
limitation, but first they had to concentrate on filling the
current order of aircraft. In June 1941, the Army Air Corps was
renamed the
U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF)) and a total of
65 Lightnings were finished for the service by September 1941 with
more on the way for the USAAF, the
Royal
Air Force (RAF) and the Free French Air Force operating from
England.
By November 1941, many of the initial assembly line challenges had
been met and there was some breathing room for the engineering team
to tackle the problem of frozen controls in a dive. Lockheed had a
few ideas for tests that would help them find an answer. The first
solution tried was the fitting of spring-loaded servo tabs on the
elevator trailing edge; tabs that were designed to aid the pilot
when control yoke forces rose over 30 lb (14 kg), as
would be expected in a high-speed dive. At that point, the tabs
would begin to multiply the effort of the pilot's actions. The
expert test pilot, 43-year-old Ralph Virden, was given a specific
high-altitude test sequence to follow, and was told to restrict his
speed and fast maneuvering in denser air at low altitudes since the
new mechanism could exert tremendous leverage under those
conditions. A note was taped to the instrument panel of the test
craft, underscoring this instruction. On 4 November 1941, Virden
climbed into YP-38 #1 and completed the test sequence successfully,
but 15 minutes later was seen in a steep dive followed by a high-G
pullout. The tail unit of the aircraft failed at about during the
high-speed dive recovery; Virden was killed in the subsequent
crash. The Lockheed design office was justifiably upset, but their
design engineers could only conclude that servo tabs were
not the solution for loss of control in a dive. Lockheed
still had to find the problem; the Army Air Forces personnel were
sure it was flutter, and ordered Lockheed to look more closely at
the tail.
Although the P-38's
empennage was
completely skinned in aluminum (not fabric) and was quite rigid, in
1941, flutter was a familiar engineering problem related to a
too-flexible tail. At no time did the P-38 suffer from true
flutter. To prove a point, one elevator and its vertical
stabilizers were skinned with metal 63% thicker than standard, but
the increase in rigidity made no difference in vibration. Army
Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth B.
Wolfe (head of Army Production Engineering) asked Lockheed to try
external mass balances above and below the elevator, though the
P-38 already had large mass balances elegantly placed within each
vertical stabilizer. Various configurations of external mass
balances were equipped and dangerously steep test flights flown to
document their performance. Explaining to Wolfe in Report No. 2414,
Kelly Johnson wrote "... the violence of the vibration was
unchanged and the diving tendency was naturally the same for all
conditions." The external mass balances did not help at all.
Nonetheless, at Wolfe's insistence, the additional external
balances were a feature of every P-38 built from then on.
P-38 pilot training manual compressibility chart shows speed limit
vs. altitude.
After months of pushing
NACA to provide
Mach 0.75 wind tunnel speeds (and finally succeeding), the
compressibility problem was revealed to be the center of lift
moving back toward the tail when in high-speed airflow. The
compressibility problem was solved by changing the geometry of the
wing's underside when diving so as to keep lift within bounds of
the top of the wing. In February 1943, quick-acting dive flaps were
tried and proven by Lockheed test pilots. The dive flaps were
installed outboard of the engine nacelles and in action they
extended downward 35° in 1½ seconds. The flaps did not act as a
speed brake, they affected the center of pressure distribution so
that the wing would not lose its lift.
Late in 1943, a few hundred dive flap field modification kits were
assembled to give North African, European and Pacific P-38s a
chance to withstand compressibility and expand their combat
tactics. Unfortunately, these crucial flaps did not always reach
their destination. In March 1944, 200 dive flap kits intended for
European Theater of
Operations (ETO) P-38Js were destroyed in a mistaken
identification incident in which an RAF fighter shot down the
Douglas C-54 Skymaster bringing the shipment to
England. Back in Burbank, P-38Js coming off the assembly line in
spring 1944 were towed out to the tarmac and modified in the open
air. The flaps were finally incorporated into the production line
in June 1944 on the last 210 P-38Js. Despite testing having proved
the dive flaps were effective in improving tactical maneuvers, a
14-month delay in production limited their implementation with only
the final 50% of all Lightnings built having the dive flaps
installed as an assembly line sequence.
Johnson later recalled:
Buffeting was another early aerodynamic
problem, difficult to sort out from compressibility as both were
reported by test pilots as "tail shake". Buffeting came about from
airflow disturbances ahead of the tail; the airplane would shake at
high speed. Leading edge wing slots were tried as were combinations
of filleting between the wing, cockpit and engine nacelles. Air
tunnel test number 15 solved the buffeting completely and its
fillet solution was fitted to every subsequent P-38 airframe.
Fillet kits were sent out to every squadron flying Lightnings. The
problem was traced to a 40% increase in air speed at the
wing-fuselage junction where the chord/thickness ratio was highest.
An airspeed of at could push airflow at the wing-fuselage junction
close to the speed of sound. Filleting forever solved the buffeting
problem for the P-38E and later models.
Another issue with the P-38 arose from its unique design feature of
outwardly rotating counter-rotating propellers. Losing one of two
engines in any twin engine non-
centerline thrust aircraft on takeoff
creates sudden drag, yawing the nose toward the dead engine and
rolling the wingtip down on the side of the dead engine. Normal
training in flying twin-engine aircraft when losing an engine on
takeoff would be to push the remaining engine to full throttle; if
a pilot did that in the P-38, regardless of which engine had
failed, the resulting engine torque and
p-factor force produced a sudden uncontrollable
yawing roll and the aircraft would flip over and slam into the
ground. Eventually, procedures were taught to allow a pilot to deal
with the situation by reducing power on the running engine,
feathering the prop on the dead engine, and then increasing power
gradually until the aircraft was in stable flight. Single-engine
takeoffs were possible, though not with a maximum combat
load.
The engines were unusually quiet because the
exhaust were
muffled
by the
General Electric
turbo-superchargers on the twin
Allison V12s. There were early
problems with cockpit temperature regulation; pilots were often too
hot in the tropic sun as the canopy could not be fully opened
without severe buffeting, and were often too cold in northern
Europe and at high altitude, as the distance of the engines from
the cockpit prevented easy heat transfer. Later variants received
modifications (such as electrically-heated flight suits) to solve
these problems.

P-38 at sunset.
On 20 September 1939, before the YP-38s had been built and flight
tested, the USAAF ordered 66 initial production P-38 Lightnings, 30
of which were delivered to the USAAF in mid-1941, but not all these
aircraft were armed. The unarmed aircraft were subsequently fitted
with four .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns (instead of the
two .50 in/12.7 mm and two .30 in/7.62 mm of
their predecessors) and a 37 mm (1.46 in) cannon. They
also had armor glass, cockpit armor and
fluorescent cockpit controls. One was completed
with a pressurized cabin on an experimental basis and designated
XP-38A. Due to reports the USAAF was receiving
from Europe, the remaining 36 in the batch were upgraded with small
improvements such as
self-sealing
fuel tanks and enhanced armor protection to make them
combat-capable. The USAAF specified that these 36 aircraft were to
be designated
P-38D. As a result, there never were
any P-38Bs or P-38Cs. The P-38D's main role was to work out bugs
and give the USAAF experience with handling the type.
In March
1940, the French
and the
British
ordered a
total of 667 P-38s for US$100M, designated Model
322F for the French and Model 322B for
the British. The aircraft would be a variant of the P-38E.
The overseas Allies wished for complete commonality of Allison
engines with the large numbers of
Curtiss
P-40 Tomahawk both nations had on order, and thus ordered for
the Model 322 twin right-handed engines instead of counter-rotating
ones, and without turbo-superchargers. After the fall of France in
June 1940, the British took over the entire order and christened
the plane "
Lightning". By June 1941, the War Ministry had
cause to reconsider their earlier aircraft specifications, based on
experience gathered in the
Battle of
Britain and
The Blitz. British
displeasure with the Lockheed order came to the fore in July, and
on 5 August 1941 they modified the contract such that 143 aircraft
would be delivered as previously ordered, to be known as "Lightning
(Mark) I", and 524 would be upgraded to US-standard P-38E
specifications, to be called "Lightning II" for British service.
Later that summer, an RAF test pilot reported back from Burbank
with a poor assessment of the 'tail flutter' situation, bringing
the British to cancel all but three of the 143 Lightning Is.
Because a loss of approximately US$15M was involved, Lockheed
reviewed their contracts and decided to hold the British to the
original order. Negotiations grew bitter and stalled.
Everything changed
after December 7,
1941
when the United States government seized some 40 of
the Model 322s for West
Coast defense, subsequently all British Lightnings were
delivered to the USAAF starting in January 1942.
The USAAF
loaned the RAF three of the aircraft which were delivered by sea in
March 1942 and were test flown no earlier than May at Swaythling,
Boscombe
Down and Farnborough
. These three were subsequently returned to
the USAAF; one in December 1942 and the others in July 1943. Of the
remaining 140 Lightning Is, 19 were not modified and were
designated the USAAF as
RP-322-I ('R' for
'Restricted', because non-counter-rotating props were considered
more dangerous at takeoff), while 121 were converted to
non-turbo-supercharged counter-rotating V-1710F-2 engines and were
designated
P-322-II. All 121 were used as
advanced trainers; a few were still
serving that role in 1945. A few RP-322s were later used as test
modification platforms such as for smoke-laying canisters. The
RP-322 was a fairly fast aircraft under and well-behaved as a
trainer. Some of the fastest post-war racing P-38s were virtually
identical in layout to the P-322-II.
One positive result of the failed British/French order was to give
the aircraft its name. Lockheed had originally dubbed the aircraft
Atalanta in the company tradition of naming
planes after mythological and celestial figures, but the RAF name
won out.
Operational service
P-38s deck-loaded on CVE, ready for shipment, cocooned against
salt, at New York.
The first unit to receive P-38s was the
1st
Fighter Group.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor
, the unit joined the 14th Pursuit Group in San
Diego to provide West Coast defense.
Entry to the war
The first Lightning to see active service was the F-4 version, a
P-38E in which the guns were replaced by four K17 cameras. They
joined the 8th Photographic Squadron out of
Australia on 4 April 1942. Three F-4s were
operated by the
Royal
Australian Air Force in this theater for a short period
beginning in September 1942.
On 29 May
1942, 25 P-38s began operating in the Aleutian Islands
in Alaska
. The
fighter's long range made it well-suited to the campaign over the
almost 1,200 mi (2,000 km)–long island chain, and it
would be flown there for the rest of the war. The Aleutians were
one of the most rugged environments available for testing the new
aircraft under combat conditions. More Lightnings were lost due to
severe weather and other conditions than enemy action, and there
were cases where Lightning pilots, mesmerized by flying for hours
over gray seas under gray skies, simply flew into the water. On 9
August 1942, two P-38Es of the 343rd Fighter Group,
11th Air Force, at the end of a
1,000 mi (1,609 km) long-range patrol, happened upon a
pair of Japanese
Kawanishi H6K "Mavis"
flying boats and destroyed them, making them the first Japanese
aircraft to be shot down by Lightnings.
European theater
After the
Battle of
Midway
, the USAAF began redeploying fighter groups to
Britain as part of Operation
Bolero, and Lightnings of the 1st Fighter Group were flown
across the Atlantic via Iceland
. On 14 August,
Second Lieutenant Elza Shahan of the 27th
Fighter Squadron, and Second Lieutenant Joseph Shaffer of the 33rd
Squadron operating out of Iceland shot down a
Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Kondor over the
Atlantic. Shahan in his P-38F downed the
Kondor; Shaffer,
flying either a P-40C or a P-39, had already set an engine on fire.
This was the first
Luftwaffe
aircraft destroyed by the USAAF.
P-38
Lightnings had a number of lucky escapes, exemplified by the
arrival of the 71st fighter squadron at RAF Goxhill
(Lincolnshire
, England) in July 1942. The official
handover ceremony was scheduled for mid-August, but on the day
before the ceremony, Goxhill experienced its only air raid of the
war. A single German bomber flew overhead and dropped a very well
aimed bomb right on the intersection between the two newly
concreted runways, but it didn’t explode and the aircraft were able
to continue their mission. (As it turned out, the bomb could not be
removed and, for the duration of the war, aircraft had to pass over
it every time they took off.)
After 347
sorties with no enemy contact, the 1st, 14th and 82nd Fighter
Groups were transferred to the 12th Air Force in North Africa as
part of the force being built up for Operation Torch
. On 19 November 1942, Lightnings escorted a
group of
B-17 Flying Fortress
bombers on a raid over Tunis. On 5 April 1943, 26 P-38Fs of the
82nd destroyed 31 enemy aircraft, helping to establish air
superiority in the area, and earning it the German nickname
"
der Gabelschwanzteufel" – the Fork-Tailed Devil. The P-38
remained active in the Mediterranean for the rest of the war.It was
in this theatre that the P-38 suffered its heaviest losses in the
air. On 25 August 1943, 13 P-38s were shot down in a single sortie
by
Jagdgeschwader 53
Bf 109 without achieving a
single kill. On 2 September, 10 P-38s were shot down, in return for
a single kill, the 67-victory ace
Franz
Schiess (who was also the leading "Lightning" killer in the
Luftwaffe with 17 destroyed).
Experiences over Germany had shown a need for long-range escort
fighters to protect the
Eighth Air
Force's heavy bomber operations. The P-38Hs of the 55th Fighter
Group were transferred to the Eighth in England in September 1943,
and were joined by the 20th, 364th and 479th Fighter Groups soon
after.
Because
its distinctive shape was less prone to cases of mistaken identity
and friendly fire, Lieutenant General Jimmy Doolittle, Commander 8th Air Force, chose to pilot a P-38 during
the Invasion of
Normandy
so that he could personally assess the progress of
the air offensive over France. At one point in the mission,
Doolittle flick-rolled through a hole in the cloud cover but his
wingman, Earle E. "Pat" Partridge (later
General), was looking elsewhere and failed to notice Doolittle's
quick maneuver, leaving Doolittle to continue alone on his survey
of the crucial battle. Of the P-38, Doolittle said that it was "the
sweetest-flying plane in the sky".

P-38s of the 370th Fighter Group
A little-known role of the P-38 in the European theater was that of
fighter-bomber during the invasion of Normandy and the Allied
advance across France into Germany. Assigned to the IX Tactical Air
Command, the
370th Fighter Group
and its P-38s initially flew missions from England, dive-bombing
radar installations, enemy armor, troop concentrations, and
flak towers. The 370th's group commander
Howard F. Nichols and a squadron of his P-38 Lightnings attacked
Field Marshal Günther von Kluge's headquarters in
July 1944; Nichols himself skipped a 500 lb (227 kg) bomb
through the front door.
The 370th later operated from Cardonville
France, flying ground attack missions against gun
emplacements, troops, supply dumps and tanks near Saint-Lô
in July and in the Falaise
-Argentan
area in August 1944. The 370th participated
in ground attack missions across Europe until February 1945 when
the unit transitioned to the P-51 Mustang.
Italian pilots in the Mediterranean theater started to face P-38s
from late 1942 and considered it a formidable foe compared to other
fighters, including the
Supermarine
Spitfire. A small number of P-38s fell into the hands of German
and Italian units and were subsequently tested and used in combat.
Regia Aeronautica chief
test pilot
Lieutenant Colonel
Angelo Tondi used a P-38G that landed in Sardinia due to a
navigation error. Tondi claimed at least one B-24, downed on 11
August 1943. The P-38 eventually was acquired by Italy for postwar
service.
If faced by more agile fighters at low altitudes in a constricted
valley, Lightnings could suffer heavy losses.
On the morning of
June 10, 1944, 96 P-38Js of the 1st and 82nd Fighter Groups took
off from Italy for Ploesti
, the third-most heavily-defended target in Europe,
after Berlin and Vienna. Instead of bombing from high
altitude as had been tried by the
Fifteenth Air
Force, USAAF planning had determined that a dive-bombing
surprise attack, beginning at about with bomb release at or below ,
performed by 46
82nd Fighter
Group P-38s, each carrying one bomb, would yield more accurate
results. All of
1st Fighter Group
and a few aircraft in 82nd Fighter Group were to fly cover, and all
fighters were to strafe targets of opportunity on the return trip;
a distance of some , including a circuitous outward route made in
an attempt to achieve surprise. Some 85–86 fighters arrived in
Romania to find enemy airfields alerted, with a wide assortment of
aircraft scrambling for safety. P-38s shot down several enemy
including heavy fighters, transports and observation aircraft. At
Ploesti, defense forces were fully alert, the target was concealed
by
smoke screen, and
anti-aircraft fire was very
heavy—seven Lightnings were lost to it at the target, and two more
during strafing attacks on the return flight. German Bf 109
fighters from I./JG 53 and 2./JG 77 fought the Americans. One
flight of 16, the 71st Fighter Squadron, was challenged by a large
formation of Romanian single-seater
IAR.81C fighters. The fight took place at and
below in a narrow valley. Herbert Hatch saw two IAR 81Cs that
he misidentified as Fw 190s hit the ground after taking fire
from his guns, and his fellow pilots confirmed three more of his
kills. However, the outnumbered 71st Fighter Squadron took more
damage than it dished out, losing nine aircraft. In all, the USAAF
lost 22 aircraft on the mission. The Americans claimed 23 aerial
victories, though Romanian and German fighter units admitted losing
only one aircraft each. Eleven enemy locomotives were strafed and
left burning, and flak emplacements were destroyed, along with fuel
trucks and other targets. Results of the bombing were not observed
by the USAAF pilots because of the smoke. The dive-bombing mission
profile was not repeated, though the 82nd Fighter Group was awarded
the Presidential Unit Citation for their part.
The P-38 performed well overall in Europe, though the aircraft
suffered regular engine failures in the first months of deployment
due to overheating. Many of the aircraft's problems were fixed with
the introduction of the P-38J; by September 1944, however, all but
one of the Lightning groups in the Eighth Air Force had converted
to the
P-51 Mustang. The Eighth AF
continued to conduct reconnaissance missions using the F-5
variant.
Pacific theater
Col. MacDonald and Al Nelson in the Pacific with MacDonald's
P-38J.
The P-38 was used most extensively and successfully in the Pacific
theater, where it proved ideally suited, combining excellent
performance with very long range. The P-38 was used in a variety of
roles, especially escorting bombers at altitudes between
18-25,000 ft (5,500-7,600 m). The P-38 was credited with
destroying more Japanese aircraft than any other USAAF fighter.
Freezing cockpits were not a problem at low altitude in the
tropics. In fact, since there was no way to open a window while in
flight as it caused buffeting by setting up turbulence through the
tailplane, it was often too hot; pilots
taking low altitude assignments would often fly stripped down to
shorts, tennis shoes, and parachute. While the P-38 could not
out-maneuver the
A6M Zero and most other
Japanese fighters, its speed and rate of climb gave American pilots
the option of choosing to fight or run, and its focused firepower
was even more deadly to lightly-armored Japanese warplanes than to
the Germans'. The concentrated, parallel stream of bullets allowed
aerial victory at much longer distances than fighters carrying wing
guns. It is therefore ironic that
Dick
Bong, the United States' highest-scoring World War II air ace
(40 victories solely in P-38s), would fly directly at his targets
to make sure he hit them (as he himself acknowledged his poor
shooting ability), in some cases flying through the debris of his
target (and on one occasion colliding with an enemy aircraft which
was claimed as a "probable" victory). The twin Allison engines
performed admirably in the Pacific.
On 2-4 March 1943, P-38s flew top cover for
5th Air Force and Australian bombers and
attack-planes during the
Battle of the Bismarck Sea, a
crushing defeat for the Japanese. Two P-38 aces from the 39th
Fighter Squadron were killed on the second day of the battle: Bob
Faurot and Hoyt "Curley" Eason (a veteran with five victories who
had trained hundreds of pilots, including Dick Bong).
General
George C. Kenney, commander of the USAAF Fifth Air
Force operating in New
Guinea
, could not get enough P-38s, though since they were
replacing serviceable but inadequate P-39s and P-40s, this might
seem like guarded praise. Lightning pilots began to compete
in racking up scores against Japanese aircraft.
Isoroku Yamamoto
The
Lightning figured in one of the most significant operations in the
Pacific theater: the interception, on 18 April 1943, of Admiral Isoroku
Yamamoto, the architect of Japan's naval strategy in the
Pacific including the attack on Pearl Harbor
. When American codebreaker found out that he was flying to
Bougainville
Island
to conduct a front-line inspection, 16 P-38G
Lightnings were sent on a long-range fighter-intercept mission,
flying from Guadalcanal
at heights from 10–50 ft (3–15 m) above
the ocean to avoid detection. The Lightnings met Yamamoto's
two
Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" fast
bomber transports and six escorting Zeros just as they arrived. The
first Betty crashed in the jungle and the second ditched near the
coast. Two Zeros were also claimed by the American fighters with
the loss of one P-38. Japanese searchers found Yamamoto's body at
the jungle crash site the next day.
Service record
Pilot and aircraft armorer inspect ammunition for the central 20 mm
cannon
The P-38's service record shows mixed results, but usually because
of misinformation. P-38s have been described as being harder to fly
than single-engined planes, but this was because of inadequate
training in the first few months of the war. The P-38's engine
troubles at high altitudes only occurred with the Eighth Air Force.
One reason for this was the inadequate cooling systems of the G and
H models; the improved P-38 J and L had tremendous success flying
out of Italy into Germany at all altitudes. Up until the -J-25
variant, P-38s were easily avoided by German fighters because of
the lack of dive flaps to counter compressibility in dives. German
fighter pilots not wishing to fight would perform the first half of
a
Split S and continue into steep dives
because they knew the Lightnings would be reluctant to
follow.
On the positive side, having two engines was a built-in insurance
policy. Many pilots made it safely back to base after having an
engine fail en route or in combat. On 3 March 1944, the first
Allied fighters reached Berlin on a frustrated escort mission.
Lieutenant Colonel Jack Jenkins of
55FG led the group of
P-38H pilots, arriving with only half his force after flak damage
and engine trouble took their toll. On the way in to Berlin,
Jenkins reported one rough-running engine and one good one, causing
him to wonder if he'd ever make it back. The B-17s he was supposed
to escort never showed up, having turned back at Hamburg. Jenkins
and his wingman were able to drop tanks and outrun enemy fighters
to return home with three good engines between them.

P-38J-10-LO,
42-68008, flying
over Southern California.
In the ETO, P-38s made 130,000 sorties with a loss of 1.3% overall,
comparing favorably with ETO P-51s which posted a 1.1% loss,
considering that the P-38s were vastly outnumbered and suffered
from poorly thought-out tactics. The majority of the P-38 sorties
were made in the period prior to Allied air superiority in Europe
when pilots fought against a very determined and skilled enemy.
Lieutenant Colonel Mark Hubbard, a vocal critic of the aircraft,
rated it third best Allied fighter in Europe. The Lightning's
greatest virtues were long range, heavy payload, high speed, fast
climb, and concentrated firepower. The P-38 was a formidable
interceptor and attack aircraft and, in the hands of any pilot,
dangerous in air-to-air combat.
In the Pacific theater, the P-38 downed over 1,800 Japanese
aircraft, with more than 100 pilots becoming aces by downing five
or more enemy aircraft. American fuel supplies contributed to a
better engine performance and maintenance record, and range was
increased with leaner mixtures. In the second half of 1944, the
P-38L pilots out of Dutch New Guinea were flying , fighting for 15
minutes and returning to base. Such long legs were invaluable until
the
P-47N and
P-51D
entered service.
Postwar operations
The end of the war left the USAAF with thousands of P-38s rendered
obsolete by the jet age. 100 late-model P-38L and F-5 Lightnings
were acquired by Italy through an agreement dated April 1946.
Delivered, after refurbishing, at the rate of one per month, they
finally were all sent to the AMI by 1952. The Lightnings served in
4
Stormo and other units including 3
Stormo,
flying reconnaissance over the Balkans, ground attack, naval
cooperation and air superiority missions. Due to unfamiliarity in
operating heavy fighters, old engines, and pilot errors, a large
number of P-38s were lost in at least 30 accidents, many of them
fatal. Despite this, many Italian pilots liked the P-38 because of
its excellent visibility on the ground and stability at takeoff.
The Italian P-38s were phased out in 1956; none survived the
inevitable scrapyard.
Surplus
P-38s were also used by other foreign air forces with 12 sold to
Honduras
and fifteen retained by China. Six F-5s and
two unarmed black two-seater P-38s were operated by the Dominican
Air Force based in San Isidro Airbase, Dominican Republic in 1947.
The majority of wartime Lightnings present in the continental U.S.
at the end of the war were put up for sale for US$1,200 apiece; the
rest were scrapped. P-38s in distant theaters of war were bulldozed
into piles and abandoned or scrapped; very few avoided that
fate.
Lockheed test pilot
Tony LeVier was
among those who bought a Lightning, choosing a P-38J model and
painting it red to make it stand out as an
air racer and
stunt flyer. Lefty Gardner, former
B-24 and B-17 pilot and associate of the
Confederate Air Force, bought a
mid-1944 P-38L-1-LO that had been modified into an F-5G. Gardner
painted it white with red and blue trim and named it
White
Lightnin ; he reworked its turbo systems and intercoolers for
optimum low-altitude performance and gave it P-38F style air
intakes for better streamlining. P-38s were popular contenders in
the air races from 1946 through 1949, with brightly colored
Lightnings making screaming turns around the pylons at
Reno and
Cleveland.
F-5s were bought by
aerial survey
companies and employed for mapping. From the 1950s on, the use of
the Lightning steadily declined, and only a little more than two
dozen still exist, with few still flying.
One example is a
P-38L owned by the Lone Star Flight Museum
in Galveston, Texas
, painted in the colors of Charles H. MacDonald's
Putt Putt Maru.
Two other
examples are F-5Gs which were owned and operated by Kargl Aerial
Surveys in 1946, and are now located in Chino,
California
at Yanks Air Museum, and in McMinnville,
Oregon
at Evergreen Aviation Museum
.
Variants
Version and total manufactured
Variant |
Produced |
Comment |
XP-38 |
1 |
Prototype |
YP-38 |
13 |
Evaluation planes |
P-38 |
30 |
Initial production plane |
XP-38A |
1 |
Pressurized cockpit |
P-38D |
36 |
Fitted with self-sealing fuel tanks/armored windshield |
P-38E |
210 |
First combat-ready variant, revised armament |
F-4 |
100+ |
reconnaissance planes based on P-38E |
Model 322 |
3 |
RAF order: twin right-hand props and no turbo |
RP-322 |
147 |
USAAF trainers |
P-38F |
527 |
First-fully combat-capable P-38 Fighter |
F-4A |
20 |
reconnaissance plane based on P-38F |
P-38G |
1,082 |
Improved P-38F fighter |
F-5A |
180 |
reconnaissance plane based on P-38G |
XF-5D |
1 |
a one-off converted F-5A |
P-38H |
601 |
Automatic cooling system; Improved P-38G fighter |
F-5C |
123 |
based on P-38H |
P-38J |
2,970 |
new cooling and electrical systems |
F-5B |
200 |
reconnaissance plane based on P-38J |
F-5E |
605 |
P-38J/L conversion |
P-38K |
1 |
paddle props; new engines |
P-38L-LO |
3,810 |
Improved P-38J new engines; new rocket pylons |
P-38L-VN |
113 |
P-38L built by Vultee |
F-5F |
- |
reconnaissance plane based on P-38L |
P-38M |
75 |
night-fighter |
F-5G |
- |
|
Over 10,000 Lightnings were manufactured in all; becoming the only
U.S. combat aircraft that remained in continuous production
throughout the duration of American participation in World War II.
The Lightning had a major effect on other aircraft; its wing, in a
scaled-up form, was used on the
L-049 Constellation.
P-38D and P-38Es
Delivered and accepted Lightning production variants began with the
P38-D model. The few "hand made" YP-38s initially
contracted were used as trainers and test aircraft. There were no
Bs or
Cs delivered to the
government as the USAAF allocated the 'D' suffix to all aircraft
with self-sealing fuel tanks and armor. Many secondary but still
initial teething tests were conducted utilizing the earliest D
variants.
The first combat-capable Lightning was the
P-38E
(and its photo-recon variant the
F-4) which
featured improved instruments, electrical, and hydraulic systems.
Part-way through production, the older
Hamilton Standard Hydromatic hollow steel
propellers were replaced by new Curtiss Electric duraluminum
propellers. The definitive (and now famous) armament configuration
was settled upon, featuring four .50 in (12.7 mm) machine
guns with 500 rpg, and a 20 mm (.79 in)
Hispano cannon with 150 rounds which
replaced the unreliable 37 mm (1.46 in) Oldsmobile cannon
that had been tested on the P-38D.
While the machine guns had been arranged symmetrically in the nose
on the P-38D, they were "staggered" in the P-38E and later
versions, with the muzzles protruding from the nose in the relative
lengths of roughly 1:4:6:2. This was done to ensure a straight
ammunition-belt feed into the weapons, as the earlier arrangement
led to jamming.
The first
P-38E rolled out of the factory in October 1941
as the Battle of
Moscow
in the Eastern
Front Campaign of WW-II filled the news wires of the
world. Because of the versatility, redundant engines, and
especially high speed and high altitude characteristics of the
aircraft, as with later variants over a hundred P-38Es were
completed in the factory or converted in the field to a
photo-reconnaissance variant, the
F-4, in which
the guns were replaced by four cameras. Most of these early
reconnaissance Lightnings were retained stateside for training, but
the F-4 was the first Lightning to be used in action in April
1942.

Ground crew members of the 459th
Fighter Squadron, nicknamed the "Twin Dragon Squadron", working on
a Lockheed P-38 at an air base in Chittagong, India - January
1945
P-38Fs and P-38Gs
After 210 P-38Es were built, they were followed, starting in April
1942, by the
P-38F, which incorporated racks
inboard of the engines for fuel tanks or a total of 2,000 lb
(907 kg) of
bombs, and the aircraft was
still experiencing extensive teething troubles as well as being
victimized by "urban legends", mostly involving inapplicable twin
engine factors which had been designed out of the plane by
Lockheed. In addition to these, the early versions had a reputation
as a "widow maker" as it could enter an unrecoverable dive due to a
sonic surface effect at high sub-sonic speeds; this problem was
resolved by design of a "dive brake" which was sent out as a
retrofit kit modification to all P38s in the field only the
European kits were all lost at sea when the cargo ship was
torpedoed and sunk. Consequently, Lockheed dispatched it's chief
test pilot,
Tony LeVier, to England to
train and lecture about the fighter, and when he arrived in England
he had the clout to send replacement kits by priority shipment
albeit a few months later. The 527 P-38Fs were heavier, with more
powerful engines that used more fuel, and were unpopular in the air
war in Northern Europe despite being the longest ranged fighter
first available to the 8th Air Force in sufficient numbers for long
range bomber escort duties. Since the heavier engines were having
reliability problems and with them, without external fuel tanks,
the range of the P-38F was reduced and drop tanks themselves were
in short supply as the fortunes in the
Battle of the
Atlantic hadn't yet swung the allies way the plane became
relatively unpopular in minds of the bomber command planning staffs
despite being the longest ranged fighter first available to the 8th
Air Force in sufficient numbers for long range escort duties.
Nonetheless, despite such controversies rooted into the wrecked
prototype and subsequent rushed production models despite being the
longest ranged fighter first available to the 8th Air Force in
sufficient numbers for long range escort duties,
General Spaatz, then commander of the 8th
Air Force in the UK, said of the P-38F: "I'd rather have an
airplane that goes like hell and has a few things wrong with it,
than one that won't go like hell and has a few things wrong with
it." A total of 527 P-38Fs were built.
The P-38F was followed in early 1943 by the
P-38G,
utilizing more powerful Allisons of 1,400 hp (1,040 kW)
each and equipped with a better radio. The P-38G was followed in
turn by the
P-38H, with further uprated Allisons
(1,425 hp/1,060 kW each), an improved 20 mm cannon
and a bomb capacity of 3,200 lb (1,450 kg). The Eighth
Air Force was also experiencing high altitude and cold weather
issues which while not unique to the plane, were perhaps more
severe as the
superchargers upgrading
the Allison's were having their own reliability issues making the
planes more unpopular with senior officers out of the line a
situation unduplicated on all other fronts where the commands were
clamoring for as many P-38s as they could get. These models were
also field-modified into
F-4A and
F-5A reconnaissance aircraft. An F-5A was
modified to an experimental two-seat reconnaissance configuration,
with additional cameras in the tail booms. Both the P-38G and P-38H
models' performance was restricted by an intercooler system
integral to the wing's leading edge; one which had been designed
for smaller engines. The new engines could heat up too much and
were subject to explosive detonation in the carburetor if operated
beyond recommended limits.
Early variants did not enjoy a high reputation for maneuverability,
though they could be agile at low altitudes if flown by a capable
pilot, using the P-38's forgiving stall characteristics to their
best advantage. From the P-38F-15 model onwards, a "combat
maneuver" setting was added to the P-38's
Fowler flap. When deployed at the 8°
maneuver setting, the flaps allowed the P-38 to out-turn many
contemporary single-engined fighters at the cost of some added
drag. However, early variants were hampered by high aileron control
forces and a low initial rate of roll, and all such features
required a pilot to gain experience with the aircraft, which in
part was an additional reason Lockheed sent its representative to
England, and later to the Pacific Theater.
Lightning in maturity: P-38J, P-38L

Four P-38s flying in formation
The definitive
P-38J was introduced in August
1943. The
turbocharger intercooler system on previous variants had been
housed in the leading edges of the wings and had proven vulnerable
to combat damage and could explode if the wrong series of controls
were mistakenly activated. In the P-38J model, the streamlined
engine nacelles of previous Lightnings were changed to fit the
intercooler radiator between the oil coolers, forming a "chin" that
visually distinguished the J model from its predecessors. While the
P-38J used the same V-1710-89/91 engines as the H model, the new
core-type intercooler more efficiently lowered intake manifold
temperatures and permitted a substantial increase in rated power.
The leading edge of the outer wing was fitted with 55 gal
(208 l) fuel tanks, filling the space formerly occupied by
intercooler tunnels.
The final 210 J models, designated P-38J-25-LO, alleviated the
compressibility problem through the addition of a set of
electrically-actuated dive recovery flaps just outboard of the
engines on the bottom centerline of the wings. With these
improvements, a USAAF pilot reported a dive speed of almost
600 mph (970 km/h), although the indicated air speed was
later corrected for compressibility error, and the actual dive
speed was lower.
The P-38J-25-LO production block also introduced
hydraulically-boosted ailerons, one of the first times such a
system was fitted to a fighter. This significantly improved the
Lightning's rate of roll and reduced control forces for the pilot.
With a truly satisfactory Lightning in place, Lockheed ramped up
production, working with subcontractors across the country to
produce hundreds of Lightnings each month.
There were two
P-38Ks developed in 1942–1943, one
official and one an internal Lockheed experiment. The first was a
battered RP-38E test mule fitted with paddle-bladed "high activity"
Hamilton Standard Hydromatic
propellers similar to those used on the P-47. The new propellers
required spinners of greater diameter, and the thrust line was
slightly higher. New cowlings were fashioned to properly blend the
spinners into the nacelles. The aircraft also received the chin
intercoolers developed for the P-38J.
The first prototype's performance led to an official request for
the second aircraft, a modified P-38G-10-LO (re-designated
P-38K-1-LO) fitted with the aforementioned four-blade propellers
and new Allison V-1710-75/77 (F15R/L) powerplants rated at at War
Emergency Power.
The AAF took delivery in September 1943, at
Eglin
Field
. In tests, the P-38K-1 achieved at military
power and was predicted to exceed at War Emergency Power with a
similar increase in load and range. The initial climb rate was /min
and the ceiling was . It reached in five minutes flat; this with a
coat of camouflage paint which added weight and drag. However, the
War Production Board refused to authorize P-38K production due to
the two- to three-week interruption in production necessary to
implement cowling modifications for the revised spinners and higher
thrust line. Some doubted Allison's ability to deliver the F15
engine in quantity. As promising as it had looked, the P-38K
project came to a halt.
The P-38L
was the most numerous variant of the Lightning, with 3,923 built,
113 by Consolidated-Vultee in
their Nashville
plant. It entered service with the
USAAF in June 1944, in time to support the Allied
invasion of France on
D-Day. Lockheed
production of the Lightning was distinguished by a suffix
consisting of a production block number followed by "LO," for
example "P-38L-1-LO", while Consolidated-Vultee production was
distinguished by a block number followed by "VN," for example
"P-38L-5-VN."
The P-38L was the first Lightning fitted with zero-length rocket
launchers. Seven
high
velocity aircraft rockets (HVARs) on pylons beneath each wing,
and later, ten rockets on each wing on "Christmas tree" launch
racks. The P-38L also had strengthened stores pylons to allow
carriage of bombs or drop tanks.
Lockheed modified 200 P-38J airframes in production to become
unarmed
F-5B photo-reconnaissance aircraft, while
hundreds of other P-38Js and P-38Ls were field-modified to become
F-5Es,
F-5Fs, and
F-5Gs. A few P-38Ls were field-modified to become
two-seat
TP-38L familiarization trainers.
Late model Lightnings were delivered unpainted, as per USAAF policy
established in 1944. At first, field units tried to paint them,
since pilots worried about being too visible to the enemy, but it
turned out the reduction in weight and drag was a minor advantage
in combat.
The P-38L-5, the most common sub-variant of the P-38L, had a
modified cockpit heating system which consisted of a plug-socket in
the cockpit into which the pilot could plug his heat-suit wire for
improved comfort. These Lightnings also received the uprated
V-1710-111/113 (F30R/L) engines, and this dramatically lowered the
amount of engine failure problems experienced at high altitude so
commonly associated with European operations.
Pathfinders, Night Fighter and other variants
The Lightning was modified for other roles. In addition to the F-4
and F-5 reconnaissance variants, a number of P-38Js and P-38Ls were
field-modified as formation bombing "pathfinders" or "droopsnoots",
fitted with a glazed nose with a
Norden
bombsight, or a
H2X radar "bombing
through overcast" nose. A pathfinder would lead a formation of
other P-38s, each overloaded with two bombs; the entire formation
releasing when the pathfinder did.

Lockheed Model 422 P-38M-6-LO Night
Lightning (
44-27234, c/n 422-8238).
A number of Lightnings were modified as night fighters. There were
several field or experimental modifications with different
equipment fits that finally led to the "formal"
P-38M night fighter, or
Night Lightning.
75 P-38Ls were modified to the Night Lightning configuration,
painted flat-black with conical
flash
hiders on the guns, an AN/APS-6 radar pod below the nose, and a
second cockpit with a raised canopy behind the pilot's canopy for
the radar operator. The headroom in the rear cockpit was limited,
requiring radar operators who were preferably short in
stature.
The additional external clutter imposed surprisingly little penalty
on the P-38M's performance , and it remained faster than the
purpose-built
P-61 Black Widow
night fighter. The Night Lightnings
saw some combat duty in the Pacific towards the end of the war, but
none engaged in combat.
One of the initial production P-38s had its turbochargers removed,
with a secondary cockpit placed in one of the booms to examine how
flightcrew would respond to such an "asymmetric" cockpit layout.
One P-38E was fitted with an extended central nacelle to
accommodate a tandem-seat cockpit with dual controls, and was later
fitted with a laminar flow wing.

Proposed floatplane P-38E testbed,
41-1986, c/n 222-5204, shown with second version of
upswept tail designed to keep tail out of water upon takeoff
Very early in the Pacific War, a scheme was proposed to fit
Lightnings with floats to allow them to make long-range ferry
flights. The floats would be removed before the aircraft went into
combat. There were concerns that saltwater spray would corrode the
tailplane, and so in March 1942, P-38E c/n 5204 was modified with a
tailplane raised some 16-18 in (41–46 cm), booms
lengthened by two feet and a rearward-facing second seat added for
an observer to monitor the effectiveness of the new arrangement. A
second version was crafted on the same airframe with the twin booms
given greater sideplane area to augment the vertical rudders. This
arrangement was removed and a final third version was fabricated
that had the booms returned to normal length but the tail raised .
All three tail modifications were designed by George H. "Bert"
Estabrook. The final version was used for a quick series of dive
tests on 7 December 1942 in which Milo Burcham performed the test
maneuvers and Kelly Johnson observed from the rear seat. Johnson
concluded that the raised floatplane tail gave no advantage in
solving the problem of compressibility. At no time was this P-38E
testbed airframe actually fitted with floats, and the idea was
quickly abandoned as the U.S. Navy proved to have enough
sealift capacity to keep up with P-38 deliveries to
the South Pacific.
Still another P-38E was used in 1942 to tow a
Waco troop glider as a demonstration. However,
there proved to be plenty of other aircraft, such as
C-47s, available to tow gliders, and the
Lightning was spared this duty.
Standard Lightnings were used as crew and cargo transports in the
South Pacific. They were fitted with pods attached to the underwing
pylons, replacing drop tanks or bombs, that could carry a single
passenger in a lying-down position, or cargo. This was a very
uncomfortable way to fly. Some of the pods weren't even fitted with
a window to let the passenger see out or bring in light, and one
fellow who hitched a lift on a P-38 in one of these pods later said
that "whoever designed the damn thing should have been forced to
ride in it."
Lockheed proposed a carrier-based
Model 822
version of the Lightning for the
United States Navy. The Model 822 would
have featured folding wings, an arresting hook, and stronger
undercarriage for carrier operations. The Navy was not interested,
as they regarded the Lightning as too big for carrier operations
and did not like liquid-cooled engines anyway, and the Model 822
never went beyond the paper stage. However, the Navy did operate
four land-based F-5Bs in North Africa, inherited from the USAAF and
redesignated
FO-1.
A P-38J was used in experiments with an unusual scheme for
mid-air refueling, in which the fighter
snagged a drop tank trailed on a cable from a bomber. The USAAF
managed to make this work, but decided it was not practical. A
P-38J was also fitted with experimental retractable snow ski
landing gear, but this idea never reached operational service
either.
After the war, a P-38L was experimentally fitted with armament of
three .60 in (15.2 mm) machine guns. The .60 in
(15.2 mm) caliber cartridge had been developed early in the
war for an infantry
anti-tank rifle,
a type of weapon developed by a number of nations in the 1930s when
tanks were lighter but, by 1942, the idea of taking on a tank with
a large-caliber rifle was considered to be somewhere between
"outdated" and "suicidal".
The cartridge was not abandoned, with the Americans designing a
derivative of the German 15 mm (.59 in)
MG 151 cannon around it and designating the
weapon the "T17", but though 300 of these guns were built and over
six million .60 in (15.2 mm) rounds were manufactured,
they never worked out all the bugs, and the T17 never saw
operational service. The cartridge was "necked up" to fit
20 mm projectiles and became a standard U.S. ammunition after
the war. The T17-armed P-38L did not go beyond unsuccessful
trials.
Another P-38L was modified after the war as a "super strafer," with
eight .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns in the nose and a pod
under each wing with two .50 in (12.7 mm) guns, for a
total of 12 machine guns. Nothing came of this conversion,
either.
A P-38L was modified by
Hindustan
Aeronautics in India as a fast VIP transport, with a
comfortable seat in the nose, leather-lined walls, accommodations
for refreshments and a glazed nose to give the passenger a
spectacular view.
Operators
Military
Civil
Noted P-38s

P-38J Lightning
YIPPEE
YIPPEE
The 5,000th Lightning built, a P-38J-20-LO,
44-23296, was
painted bright vermilion red, and had the name
YIPPEE
painted on the underside of the wings in big white letters as well
as the signatures of hundreds of factory workers. This aircraft was
used by Lockheed test pilots
Milo
Burcham and
Tony LeVier in
remarkable flight demonstrations, performing such stunts as slow
rolls at treetop level with one prop feathered to show that the
P-38 was not the unmanageable beast of legend. Their exploits did
much to reassure pilots that the Lightning might be a handful, but
it was by no means a "widow maker."
In-flight footage of the YIPPEE P-38 can be seen in the pilot
episode of the
Green Acres
television series.
Survivors
Noted P-38 pilots
Richard Bong and Thomas McGuire
The American ace of aces and his closest competitor both flew
Lightnings as they tallied 40 and 38 victories each. Majors
Richard I. "Dick" Bong and
Thomas J. "Tommy"
McGuire of the
USAAF competed for the top
position, a rivalry made interesting by the contrast in
personalities of the two men. Both Bong and McGuire were very
aggressive and fearless in the air. After dogfights, their P-38s
would be warped out of shape by overstress. On the ground, they
were completely different men. Dick Bong was a modest, quiet,
almost shy man, while the egotistical McGuire was "an unpleasant
individual with a talent much bigger than he was" , as one of his
colleagues remembered him.
Bong was rotated back to the States as America's ace of aces, after
making 40 kills. He was killed on 6 August 1945, the day the atomic
bomb was dropped on Japan, when his
P-80 Shooting Star jet fighter flamed out
on
takeoff.
McGuire had been killed in air combat in
January 1945 over the Philippines
, after racking up 38 confirmed kills, making him
the second-ranking American ace. Both men were awarded the
Medal of Honor.
Charles Lindbergh
The famed aviator
Charles
Lindbergh toured the South Pacific as a civilian contractor for
United
Aircraft Corporation, comparing and evaluating performance of
single- and twin-engined fighters for
Vought.
He worked to improve range and load limits of the
F4U Corsair, flying both routine and combat
strafing missions in Corsairs alongside
Marine pilots. In
Hollandia, he attached himself to the 475th FG flying P-38s so that
he could investigate the twin-engine fighter. Though new to the
machine, he was instrumental in extending the range of the P-38
through improved throttle settings, or engine-leaning techniques,
notably by reducing engine speed to 1,600 rpm, setting the
carburetors for auto-lean and flying at
indicated airspeed which reduced fuel
consumption to 70 gal/h, about 2.6 mpg. This combination
of settings had been considered dangerous; it was thought it would
upset the fuel mixture and cause an explosion. Everywhere Lindbergh
went in the South Pacific, he was accorded the normal preferential
treatment of a visiting colonel, though he had resigned his Air
Corps Reserve colonel's commission three years before. While with
the 475th, he held training classes and took part in a number of
Army Air Corps combat missions. On 28 July 1944, Lindbergh shot
down a
Mitsubishi Ki-51 "Sonia"
flown expertly by the veteran commander of 73rd Independent Flying
Chutai,
Imperial Japanese Army Captain Saburo
Shimada. In an extended, twisting dogfight in which many of the
participants ran out of ammunition, Shimada turned his aircraft
directly toward Lindbergh who was just approaching the combat area.
Lindbergh fired in a defensive reaction brought on by Shimada's
apparent head-on
ramming attack.
Hit by cannon and machine gun fire, the "Sonia's" propeller visibly
slowed, but Shimada held his course. Lindbergh pulled up at the
last moment to avoid collision as the damaged "Sonia" went into a
steep dive, hit the ocean and sank. Lindbergh's wingman, ace Joseph
E. "Fishkiller" Miller, Jr., had also scored hits on the "Sonia"
after it had begun its fatal dive, but Miller was certain the kill
credit was Lindbergh's. The unofficial kill was not entered in the
475th's war record. On 12 August 1944 Lindbergh left Hollandia to
return to the States.
Charles MacDonald
The seventh-ranking American ace,
Charles H. MacDonald, also flew a Lightning
against the Japanese, scoring 27 kills in his famous aircraft, the
Putt Putt Maru.
Robin Olds
Robin Olds was the last P-38 ace in the Eighth Air Force and the
last in the ETO. Flying a P-38J, he downed five German fighters on
two separate missions over France and Germany. He subsequently
transitioned to P-51s to make seven more kills. After WWII, he flew
F-4 Phantom IIs in Vietnam, ending his career as brigadier general
with 16 kills.
Clay Tice
A P-38 piloted by
Clay Tice was the first
American aircraft to land in Japan after VJ-Day, when he and his
wingman set down on Nitagahara because his wingman was low on
fuel.
Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Noted aviation pioneer and writer
Antoine de Saint Exupéry
vanished in a F-5B-1-LO,
42-68223, c/n 2734, of
II/33 Squadron, out of
Borgo-Porreta,
Bastia, Corsica, a reconnaissance variant of
the P-38, while on a flight over the Mediterranean, from Corsica to
mainland France, on 31 July 1944. His health, both physical and
mental (he was said to be intermittently subject to depression ),
had been deteriorating and there had been talk of taking him off
flight status. There have been suggestions (although no proof to
date) that this was a suicide rather than an aircraft failure or
combat loss.
In 2000, a French scuba diver found the
wreckage of a Lightning in the Mediterranean off the coast of
Marseille
, and it was confirmed in April 2004 as Saint
Exupéry's F-5B. No evidence of air combat was found. In
March 2008, a former
Luftwaffe
pilot, Horst Rippert from Jagdgruppe 200, claimed to have shot down
Exupéry.
Adrian Warburton
The RAF's legendary photo-recon "ace", Wing Commander
Adrian Warburton DSO DFC, was the pilot of
a Lockheed P-38 borrowed from the USAAF that took off on 12 April
1944 to photograph targets in Germany. W/C Warburton failed to
arrive at the rendezvous point and was never seen again. In 2003,
his remains were recovered in Germany from his wrecked USAAF P-38
Lightning.
Specifications (P-38L)
Popular culture
Harley Earl arranged for several of his
designers to view a YP-38 prototype shortly before World War II,
and its design directly inspired the tail fins of the 1948–1949
Cadillac.
The P-38 was also the inspiration for
Raymond Loewy and his design team at
Studebaker for the 1950 and 1951 model-year
Studebakers.
The Lockheed P-38 has been the "star" of a number of contemporary
movies including:
- Von Ryan's Express
(1965) begins with main protagonist, USAAF Colonel Joseph Ryan
(Frank Sinatra) crash landing a P-38
in WWII Italy, where he is then captured as a POW.
- A Guy Named Joe (1943)
has Spencer Tracy returning as a
guiding spirit looking after young P-38 pilot Van Johnson.
- Flight
Characteristics of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning (1943,
color, 34:00). Lockheed's top World War II test pilots do the
checkout on this very thorough pilot training film.
- Yamamoto shot down!
(1944, B&W, 4:00) The P-38 Squadron that shot down Admiral Yamamoto in an incredible long
distance interception in the Pacific, is depicted. The film
includes purported P-38 gun camera footage of the Admiral's Betty
bomber going down in flames.
- Dick Bong: Pacific
Ace (1944, B&W, 4:00) This short documentary film pays
tribute to Richard "Dick" Bong, the
leading American P-38 ace of World War II.
- P-38 Reconnaissance
Pilot (1944, B&W, 29:00) Starring William Holden as Lt. "Packy" Cummings, this
short feature shows that photo recon pilots (photo Joes) had one of
the riskiest, highest impact jobs in the war.
- Angel in Overalls
(1945, B&W, 15:00) This film was developed to show US Lockheed
P-38 production line workers in a
wide variety of roles.
Scaled Composites Pond
Racer (1991-1993), built by
Burt
Rutan, echoed the design of the P-38 in a radical way.
See also
References
Notes
- Gunston 1980, p. 133.
- P-38 Lightning. Retrieved: 21 January
2007.
- Stanaway 1997
- PTO/CBI Pilots of WWII, Top American aces of the
Pacific & CBI: 5th, 13th and 14th Air Force fighter pilots,
Mostly P-38 Lightning pilots, also some P-47, P-40 and P-51
aces Retrieved: 8 May 2007.
- Bodie 1991, pp. 16–17.
- Bodie 1991, p. 14.
- Bodie 1991, p. 19.
- P-38 National Association & Museum. XP-38 Design
Drawings. Retrieved: 21 January 2007. A diagram of the
configurations considered for the prototype.
- Loftin, L.K. Jr. Quest for Performance: The Evolution of Modern
Aircraft. NASA SP-468. Retrieved: 22 April 2006.
- Bodie 2001, p. 32.
- Bodie 2001, p. 33.
- Lockheed P-38 Lightning - USA. Retrieved: 21
January 2007.
- Knaack, Marcelle Size. Encyclopedia of US Air Force
Aircraft and Missile Systems: Volume 1 Post-World War II Fighters
1945-1973. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1978.
ISBN 0-912799-59-5.
- Bodie 1991, p. 51.
- P-38
National Association & Museum. About the P-38: Early
Years. Retrieved: 21 January 2007.
- "Lockheed P-38J-10-LO Lightning".
Collections Database: National Air and Space Museum.
.Retrieved: 6 February 2009.
- Ralph Virden obituary
- Bodie 2001, p. 58.
- Bodie 2001, p. 57.
- Baugher, Joe. "Lockheed YP-38 Lightning." Joe Baugher's
Encyclopedia of American Military Aircraft, 13 June 1999.
Retrieved: 29 January 2007.
- Bodie 2001, pp. 174–175.
- Ethell et al 1984, p. 14.
- Bodie 2001, p. 210.
- Baugher, Joe. "Lockheed P-38 Lightning." Joe Baugher's
Encyclopedia of American Military Aircraft, 13 June 1999.
Retrieved: 29 January 2007.
- Baugher, Joe. "Lockheed XP-38A Lightning." Joe Baugher's
Encyclopedia of American Military Aircraft, 13 June 1999.
Retrieved: 29 January 2007.
- Baugher, Joe. "Lockheed P-38D Lightning." Joe Baugher's
Encyclopedia of American Military Aircraft, 13 June 1999.
Retrieved: 29 January 2007.
- Bodie 2001, p. 46.
- Bodie 2001, pp. 45, 47. Note that turbo-superchargers weren't
secret or restricted by the United States government. Related
designs were known from French and Swiss firms. France and the UK
didn't want turbo-superchargers; they had never employed them and
they knew the American ones were in short supply.
- Bodie 2001, p. 60.
- Bodie 2001, p. 63.
- Bodie 2001, p. 61.
- Bodie 2001, p. 64.
- Baugher, Joe. "Lightning I for RAF." Joe Baugher's Encyclopedia
of American Military Aircraft, 2 December 2002. Retrieved: 29
January 2007.
- Baugher, Joe. "P-38
in European Theatre." Joe Baugher's Encyclopedia of
American Military Aircraft, 13 June 1999. Retrieved: 4
February 2007.
- Maloney 1968, p. 4.
- Stanaway 2001, p. 43.
- Stanaway, John C. P-38 Lightning Aces of the ETO/MTO.
New York: Osprey, 1997. ISBN 1-85532-698-1.
- Scutts 1994, p. 61.
- Tillman 2004, p. 8.
- Hotlinecy.com. Interview with General James H.
Doolittle. Retrieved: 6 February 2009.
- Lockheed, Of Men and Stars (1958), p. 11.
- Army Air Corps, World War II, Living History Group.
370th Fighter Group.
- Achtung Jabos! The Story of the IX TAC. Stars and
Stripes Publications, Information and Education Division, Special
and Informational Services, ETOUSA, 1944.
- Cesarani, David; Sarah Kavanaugh. Holocaust: critical
concepts in historical studies, Volume 5, pp. 234–235,
Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0415318718
- Stanaway 1998, pp. 43–46.
- Hatch, Herbert. An ace and his angel: memoirs of a World
War II fighter pilot, pp. 59–67. Turner Publishing Company,
2000. ISBN 1563115743
- Neulen 2000, pp. 113-114.
- 82nd Fighter Group. "Mission No. 702 / 10 June 1944 / Romana Americana Oil
Refinery, Ploesti, Rumania." Retrieved on August 27, 2009.
- Stanaway 1997, p. 14.
- Bodie 2001, p. 223.
- Bodie 2001, p. 214.
- Bodie 2001, p. 217.
- Bodie 2001, p. 234.
- Sgarlato 2000
- Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Retrieved: 23
January 2007
- Johnson, Clarence L. "Kelly". Kelly:
More Than My Share of it All. Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Books, 1985. ISBN 0-87474-491-1.
- Caidin, Martin. Fork-tailed Devil, New York:
Ballantine Books, 1983, ISBN 0-345-31292-9.
- Baugher, Joe. "Lockheed P-38J Lightning.." Joe Baugher's
Encyclopedia of American Military Aircraft, 5 June 1999.
Retrieved: 29 January 2007.
- Bodie 2001, pp. 169–171.
- Archived version of P-38 Lightning online:
P38K from 21 October 2007. Retrieved: 6 February
2009.
- Bodie 2001, pp. 118–121.
- Kirkland 2003, p. 29-35.
- Charles Lindbergh and the 475th Fighter Group
(from the book Lightning Strikes)
- Scutts 2006, p. 130.
- Aero-relic.org Riou island's F-5B Lightning,
Rhône's delta, France. Pilot: Commander Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry
- "How a German wartime flying ace discovered he shot
down his hero." Sunday Daily Mail, 17 March 2008.
- United States Air Force Museum Guidebook 1987, p.
54.
- Holls, Dave and Michael Lamm. A Century of Automotive
Style: 100 Years of American Car Design. Stockton, CA:
Lamm-Morada Publishing Co., 1996. ISBN 78-0932128072.
- "The P-38 prowls the highway." Hemmings
Motor News, courtesy of Studebaker.
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External links