It is July 26th of 1943 and over the South Pacific a flight of twin engine aircraft flown by the American Army Air Force storms across the maram valley in New Guinea.

Soon they spot their targets: Japanese fighters recently reported in the area.

These aircraft—Ki 43 Oscars and Ki 61 Tony from the 68th centai—are some of the best aircraft in Japanese hands.

But today they would be in for trouble.

In an aircraft named Mar was a young man by the name of Richard Bong.

In his hands and many other pilots as well, this new fighter—the P38 Lightning courtesy of the locked company—was making waves all across the Pacific.

Today would be no different.

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On this occasion Bong would add four more kills to his team tally, making for one of the best days of his career and bringing his kill tally to 15 for the conflict.

But how did we get here? Where did this new fighter come from, and had she always seen success like this?

In reality, this popularized portion of her history is only a fraction of the story.

More so than any other aircraft in the war, the tale of the P38 Lightning is a complicated one with highs, lows, and many misconceptions.

In 1938, the United States Army aircore sent out a proposal titled circular proposal x608.

This was a request for a new aircraft design authored by two young men who were apparently well ahead of their time.

This would be Lieutenant Benjamin S Kelce and Lieutenant Gordon P Seville.

These two minds saw a hole in the arsenal of the United States Army airp and sought to fill it.

This was a high altitude fighter with serious power and a heavy armament capable of reaching and destroying highflying enemy aircraft—and this set of standards was no small order.

According to Circular proposal x608, the Army aircore wanted a rare twin engine fighter plane that could reach 360 mph at altitude and climbed to 20,000 ft in just 6 minutes.

This would have been on its own a daunting set of parameters.

But in addition to that, head engineer Benjamin Kelce was also searching for at least 1,000 lb of combat armament.

This was actually one of the biggest problems with his design ambitions as the United States Army Air Corp had a relatively arbitrary set of requirements that stated that any pursuit aircraft (now more commonly known as fighters) had to have no more than 500 lb of armament.

Thus Kelsey drew up the specifications using the word interceptor as the aircraft type rather than pursuit in order to bypass this requirement.

Then to finish off the proposal, Kelsey and Seville also stated that any designs had to utilize the liquid W cooled Allison v710 engines with superchargers, and that any aircraft with tricycle landing gear would also be preferred.

This was easily one of the most ambitious and unique design proposals ever set forth by the US Armed Forces.

But fortunately one company would rise to the challenge.

Loed in their attempt to meet these requirements, a few different design options were considered.

But in the end a famous design would be selected: a twin boom with the cockpit in the center Nel as well as the armament.

In these early prototype designs—the xp38 and the YP 38—weaponry was still being decided.

Originally larger cannons were used but would later be drawn back to a smaller 20 mm Hispano Cannon supplemented by four Browning M2 machines machine guns.

This was one of the most powerful armaments outfitted onto a combat aircraft at this point and would surely deal a heavy blow to any target that it found.

Interestingly, if you look closely at the later combat models of the P38 these guns are actually staggered, protruding from the nose at different distances.

This would be a change done after the D model, as it allowed for the guns to be straight fed, eliminating a jamming problem that was encountered on early models.

These allowed such a powerful armament to fire reliably and withstand the rigors of combat.

But that’s not all the design offered.

In addition to a powerful armament, the XP 38 exceeded the requirements for speed by a large margin.

In fact after the contract was awarded to loed and the first prototype flew for the first time in 1939 at the hands of Lieutenant Benjamin Kelce himself, it topped at a speed of 420 mph and set a transcontinental speed record by crossing from coast to coast in just 7 hours in 2 minutes.

However upon finally reaching the destination airfield, Kelsey was caught in a slow landing pattern and the engines began to ice, causing Kelsey to fall short of the runway, making a belly landing into a creek nearby.

Fortunately however, the impression had already been made.

The speedy aircraft had already impressed the Army aircore and an order was made for the P38 at Atlanta—the original name given to the model dubbed after the speedy running Greek goddess.

These first models of the P38 were produced in the summer and fall of 1941.

And here we can see an article from The New York Times from November just two weeks before Pearl Harbor.

In the photo we can see one of the first public displays of the brand new aircraft as a few Allied fighters are presented for the public to view.

However, we can still see the secrecy being undertaken in the caption: although two British fighters were included in the display group, attention was directed toward a twin engine locked P38 interceptor that has two fuselages because the quality and quantity of its armament is still a secret.

Observers were unable to determine the unusual craft’s gun placements.

A twin engine fighter like this was not a totally new innovation to aerial warfare, but it was one that had yet to see true success especially as an interceptor.

This would certainly be one of the reasons that an aircraft like this would have caught the eyes of the public in a special way.

The Germans had recently implemented the mmid bf10 to the front lines.

But in reality this design would always struggle as an air superiority fighter, as it lacked the maneuverability of British hurricanes and Spitfires.

And even though it was faster than many of its adversaries like the P38, it lacked acceleration and also was easily spotted by the enemy being a larger and easier to identify aircraft.

But the locked company in the United States Army Air Corp would attempt to prove that a twin engine fighter could indeed fight on the front lines in an air superiority role—but this would be easier said than done.

One of the first to attempt to put this theory to the test was the royal Air Force who saw the Allison engines as a great way to ensure cohesiveness across aircraft as it was the same engine that was used by the P40 which they already had a large number of on order.

Upon looking into the P38, the British ordered hundreds of the new aircraft.

Upon delivery and recognition of its highp speed the RF dubbed the new fighter the lightning—a name that would stick and replace LED’s name of the Atlanta.

However what would not stick is the P38 with the Royal Air Force.

Unfortunately, shortly after arrival to England the British began to discover some very serious problems with the lightning.

For starters, the RAF decided that they wanted a specific version of the fighter with engines that rotated the same direction unlike the standard design which had counter rotating props.

This was done so that all of their Allison engines would be the same configuration but it made the aircraft difficult to control on the ground.

Furthermore, and even more serious of an issue, was a newly discovered problem with compressibility.

Both British and American test pilots had recently begun to realize that there were issues when entering compressibility, which was the intense lockup of controls during a high-speed dive.

When this point of a dive was reached, the nose of the aircraft had a tendency to dive even further, increasing the speed and steepness of the already problematic dive.

This would then cause the tail to shake violently and pilots had no choice but to bail out or attempt to gradually pull out at the denser air of low altitude.

Because of this issue and a few others, the Royal Air Force canell their orders for the P38.

Locked went to immediate work trying to fix the main issue—compressibility—but it wasn’t easy.

With a few solutions tried and one test pilot killed, eventually the issue was solved: quick acting dive flaps were added which allowed pilots to better control the aircraft during an intense dive.

And although the issue was not completely fixed, the high-speed compressibility control was greatly improved and pilots could now have a good chance of pulling out of an intense dive.

Despite this however, the Royal Air Force declined in any further orders for the new fighter.

Fortunately for locked, with the attack on Pearl Harbor the United States Army Air Corp immediately purchased all of the p38s that had been ordered by the British and then placed additional orders for more.

Just like that, the lightning was back on track.

The first place that the P38 was sent to serve in a combat role with the United States Army was in Alaska, operating out of the uan islands in the summer of 1942.

Here p38s of the 343rd Fighter Group would score the first success of the lightning on August 9th when their pilots would stumble upon two large Japanese h6k Mavis flying boats and shot them down for the P38 first kills in history.

At the same time, additional p38s had begun to arrive in the the United Kingdom once again, but this time they would be flying for the US Army Air Force.

Coincidentally, here just 5 days after the first P38 kill in the Pacific, her first victory against the L vava would also come.

And once again it would be another large transport plane, this time in the form of a fuo 200 Condor falling over the Atlantic at the hands of second Lieutenant l sheahan.

This would be the first L Rafa aircraft to be shot down by a US Army aircraft—but it would not be the last.

Soon P38 Lightnings would be delivered to North Africa where they would see the cold hard truth about combat with the lwaa…

But before that another special delivery was recently made—this one to my room here, one that made all the other guys at the air base jealous—and that’s my new comfy mattress from Brooklyn beding the sponsor of this video…

[Đoạn quảng cáo Brooklyn Bedding giữ nguyên nội dung; nếu bạn muốn mình có thể tách nhỏ hơn nữa theo câu.]

Now where were we.

Shortly after this in late 1942 p38s were sent to join the Mediterranean theater serving with the 12th Air Force.

Here the P38 saw its first real baptism by fire over North Africa.

Lightning pilots met experienced and skilled Germans and although some p38s scored victories and aces were made, more losses were taken.

The American fighter doctrine at this point was still young and pilots were lost due to poor tactics and inexperience.

Eventually in this theater American p38s took such high losses that large groups of aircraft had to be brought in from England to bring squadron numbers back to fighting strength.

As 1943 came along more of the same took place as the battle moved towards Italy in southern Europe.

With American B24 liberators now operating out of North Africa, fighter escorts were ordered.

But here American doctrine at the time still lagged behind and saw fighters remaining alongside the bombers during the mission leaving them exposed and vulnerable to German interceptors.

Furthermore German f ERS quickly discovered the problems that the P38 had with compressibility.

These German pilots in dog fights figured out that if they did not want to fight with a lightning or found themselves in a disadvantaged position, they could simply enter a dive and almost always the p38s would avoid following.

This left the German 1 109’s and 190s with more kills than losses at the hands of the American P38 in the Mediterranean.

It was clear to the air force that the P38 was in need of some good publicity.

So in the spring of 1943 they made sure to find some.

In April the 82nd Fighter Group flew a mission in which they claimed 31 German aircraft destroyed—a somewhat rare successful day for the P38.

And supposedly reported by a Life Magazine reporter, an interesting story was captured: a famous phrase uttered by one of the downed German pilots upon being captured.

Fortunately I have hunted down this exact edition of Life magazine and found the story.

In August of 1943 an article reads as follows on page 51: “P38 Lock’s twin tailed fighter lives down its hudu to sweep enemy skies…”

Now hudo here basically means voodoo or cursed bad luck.

This shows how bad the P38 is currently struggling in regards to perception and name.

Continuing the reading below we can see more: “The P38 had the unhappy reputation of being the most hoodooed war plane in aviation history…”

… “the forktail devil…”

The German was talking about the P38.

During the 6 months between Mr buffon’s happy night in Iceland and the incident of the hysterical German in Tunisia, the P38 had dispelled its jinx and proven itself to be the most versatile fighting plane in the air.

Quite a statement—but is it true?

Well there is some debate.

According to most historians it seems that there is little verification or evidence to back this claim… it instead seems almost certain that this article was a piece put together to try and repair the damaged reputation of the P38.

This seems even more likely when we look at what many of the other German pilots said about the P38 later on.

Esteemed ace ad of galand said it had similar shortcomings in combat to our bf10.

“Our fighters were clearly superior to it.”

Likewise fellow high-scoring lwaa leader Hans bar said the p38s were not difficult at all… easy to outmaneuver and generally a sure kill.

However not everyone believed that they were quite so easy an adversary.

France Stigler… detailed his thoughts…: “the lightning could turn inside of us with ease and they could go from level flight to climb almost instantaneously…”

… “one cardinal rule we never forgot was to avoid fighting the P38 headon—that was suicide.”

So the only thing that was truly clear at this point was that the verdict on the P38 Lightning was still undecided.

Nonetheless, the US Army Air Force now needed fighter aircraft in England for their newly formed ath Air Force—and the P38 was currently the most readily available high altitude fighter aircraft at their disposal.

So in late 1943 the P38 began to arrive for use in the escort role in the bombing of the re.

Fortunately for LED and the US Army Air Force, the brilliance of Lieutenant Benjamin Kelsey once again shine through in making this a possibility.

When locked was producing the first models of the P38 in 1941, Kelsey discreetly went to the company and convinced them to enable the aircraft to carry drop tanks.

He did not put this in writing but instead kept the request to himself, as the Army Air Force had a strict policy at the time implemented by the bomber Mafia commanders…

Thus Kelsey actually risked his career in doing so.

But because of his courage and forward thinking, by the time the P38 began to arrive in England in substantial numbers many were the G model which had the ability to now carry drop tanks.

Because of this the p38s were now able to join the American bomber offensive and participate in some of the first escort missions out of England.

By this time American tactics and training had begun to see some improvement.

More prepared pilots were now filling cockpits and many of the early teething problems of the P38 had been remedied.

In addition, it had become clear that with the P38 weaponry also being completely oriented in the nose it allowed sharp shooting pilots to fire from farther out than with other aircraft as they did not have to calculate for convergence.

Also when targets were hit they were often totally destroyed by the Lightning’s powerful armament.

This can be clearly seen from gun camera footage…

[Đoạn mô tả gun camera giữ nguyên; nếu bạn muốn mình có thể tách nhỏ hơn theo câu.]

However, even with these features it doesn’t mean that the P38 was yet seeing success.

There were still issues that the P38 couldn’t seem to escape.

For one, with the colder climate in England her unique design and shape had the cockpit located far from the warmth of her engines, and P38 pilots were complaining that they were too cold—freezing in the cockpit without the heat generated from an engine directly in front of them.

In addition, some rumors had started to develop that the P38 was impossible to bail out of due to its design.

The fear was that pilots exiting from the cockpit would hit the horizontal stabilizer.

Although there was some truth to the fact that bailing out of a P38 required caution, it was hardly more dangerous than a normal fighter.

Nonetheless locked felt the need to include a section in a training video about how to address this common myth:

“Some hanger experts insist that it is impossible to bail out of the 38…”

Furthermore, on the 38 there’s no vertical stabilizer which can get in the way.

In addition, many of Germany’s best pilots were now being moved to the Western Front to combat the Allied heavy bombing campaign.

This left the lightning struggling to compete with faka 190s and mmid 109s that were still plentiful.

When Jimmy Dittle was finally given command of the eth Air Force in early 1944 he sought an evaluation from the RAF… he himself was quite a fan of the P38 and even flew one himself to observe D-Day…

…Friendly fire being the greatest threat on D-Day, Jimmy Doolittle himself took off in a lightning and watched the Allied invasions from above.

He was one of the few advocates of the lightning and even called it the smoothest flying aircraft in the SK guy.

So when it became clear that the P38 was underperforming against the rwaa, he reached out to British intelligence to try and determine why.

The results came back… One RAF test pilot clearly stating: “We had found out that the BF 109 and the fw190 could fight up to a mock of 0.75… We checked the lightning and it couldn’t fly in combat faster than 0.68 so it was useless…”

“We told dittle that all it was good for was photo reconnaissance and had to be withdrawn from escort duties…”

As the shortcomings of the lightning were made clear, there was at least one role mentioned here that the P38 fulfilled in Europe with great success: photo reconnaissance.

With the F4 and F5 models of the P38, the guns were removed and in their place advanced cameras were inserted, allowing the aircraft to grab valuable photos of enemy installations, troop movements, and bombing results.

This was a crucial job that the lightning fulfilled perfectly, using its high speed to get in and out before enemy interceptors could arrive and reach it.

Because of this photo recon models were used prominently all throughout Europe.

But unfortunately this did not improve the situation or perception there as a combat fighter.

To try and remedy the situation in one last attempt, an elite locki test pilot Tony lav went on a 4month tour of P38 bases in Europe in 1944…

Unfortunately this would come too late to save the lightning in Europe and the Mediterranean.

Soon the P38 was replaced by the p47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang throughout both theaters.

But like was previously mentioned, the story was entirely different on the other side of the world, thousands of miles away.

American aviators were having the opposite experience.

The lightning had begun to arve in this theater in late 1942 and here General George Kenny commander of the Fifth Air Force found the P38 to be perfectly suited for the job at hand.

In the massive battlefields of the Pacific the long range of the P38 was an ideal fit.

The twin engine design was also here an advantageous feature as with long flights over the ocean an engine failure was a disaster…

This made the second engine a safety feature, getting more pilots home after mechanical issues or battle damage.

Interestingly the temperature of the cockpit played an important role here as well, as the unheated cockpit was a welcome feature in the tropical climate.

However the tradeoff was that a pilot could actually get too hot as they were unable to open the sliding canopy windows because if they did it actually caused the aircraft to become unstable in flight…

But this was a trade-off they were willing to make—especially since the gun armament on the P38 was even more deadly against the thinly armored Japanese aircraft.

Especially once elite pilots determined that they could fire from further distances even more accurately with the lightning.

Because of all these features, success in the Pacific was found rather quickly for the P38.

And perhaps no better success story of the P38 would ever be found than the downing of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in April of 1943…

…a group of p38s—the only aircraft with the range to fulfill the mission—would pull off an unlikely and brilliant interception…

Appropriately this news and the glory of the P38 was pled bed all over newspapers and news reels back in the States.

April 18th 1943…

On the trails of this news, aces in the Pacific began to make a name for themselves and the early top scorers in the theater were nearly all flying p38s.

None of these would become more famous than Richard bong, the highest scoring American ace in history.

In his P38 Marge, bong had become the most popular pilot in the Army Air Force.

He had arrived in the Pacific in the fall of 1942 and on December 27th of that year scored his first kill.

On many missions like that of July 26 1943 where bong claimed four kills, he would continue to rack up victories.

He would use the P38 Lightning to score every one of his 40 victories.

By 1945 bong was a household name—as was his P38 Marge.

But he would not be the only Pacific P38 scorer making headlines: Jack Maguire 38 kills… Charles McDonald 27 kills… and J Robbins 22 kills…

In 1945 he became such a valuable figure thanks to his success in the P38 that he became one of the only American pilots pulled off of frontline duty in the middle of a tour specifically for his propaganda and morale value…

Again helping to solidify some positive publicity around the hudood Lightning.

By this point, despite shortcomings in the European theater, the reputation of the lightning had been restored thanks to an incredibly successful record in the Pacific.

And even though her record in Europe would be debatable and she was not quite as well received, it is often noted by historians that during her primary period of service her pilots were less trained and going up against a far better adversary…

…at a point in time when the lwaa maintained air superiority.

When the war ended in 1945, the P38 Lightning would go down as the only American fighter that was in production for the entire war.

Despite this, shortly after the end of the conflict the P38 would be retired from military service as the entry into the jet age rendered her obsolete.

But throughout American aviation history there has perhaps never been a more recognizable and storied fighter aircraft.

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As always I’m TJ thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time