“The harmonic vibration of the two Allison engines turning big black-and-yellow-tipped

counter-rotating propellers in unison was the only sound I heard. I watched in awe as a
factory fresh-looking, olive drab-colored Lockheed P-38 Lightning waddled over uneven
grass to its parking spot.”1

The P-38 was a truly revolutionary plane, which played a key role in the skies of
World War II. One of the planes most famous fights resulted in the shooting down of two
Japanese bombers, one of which carried the infamous Admiral Yamamoto, the
mastermind behind the attack on Pearl Harbor. Furthermore, the P-38 Lightning was used
by the Allies during World War II for battles such as Guadacanal and New Britain, and it
proved to be a key technological turning-point in the progression of the war. This plane
provided a way for new types of planes to be created, allowing for the Allied victory in
the war to be achieved. The P-38 Lighting was one of the first, yet most important planes
in World War II. Other planes that the P-38 impacted were the P-51 Mustang, the Bell P-
39, and the P-47 Thunderbolt.

P-38 Design and Technological Innovations

In the year 1937 the United States Army Air Corps requested a plane to be created
for their men to use to invade and strike enemy aircraft down. Lockheed, a popular plane
designing business decided to accept the request from the US military for a fighter plane
to be created that would attack enemy planes. The specifications of this new plane was
for this plane to be able to fly up to 20,000 feet above sea level within six minutes after
takeoff and for this plane to reach a minimum top speed of 360 miles per hour. Lockheed
was determined to be the first company to submit a new plane to the Army Air Corps.

Designers Clarence Johnson and Hall Hibbard needed for there to be enough
power in this new aircraft from Lockheed to meet the Air Corps standard. They both
agreed that no single engine plane would meet the Air Corps specifications. They
designed and revolutionized the concept of a twin-engine feature for the new plane.
Those two engines were Allison V-1710 engines that could achieve a total of 1000
horsepower at 150 hours per engine. The two engines would be placed on both the left
and right sides of the cockpit. The propellers would each be powered by one of the two
engines of the plane. There would also be one .30 and .50 caliber machine gun that shot
300 rounds each. However, the P-38 had a 23-mm Madsen cannon containing 50
explosive shell rounds and four of the .50 caliber Colt MG-53 machine guns. The total
amount of rounds for the machine guns in the P-38 was 4,000 rounds and they shot 3,200
rounds a minute.

The first prototype of this new plane was the XP-38. The XP-38 was able to reach
speeds higher than 400 miles per hour while diving in the air. This prototype of the P-38
was an easier to control plane than any other plane ever created before. Test pilot
Marshall Headle stated that “This is a very fast airplane.” “In all my experience as a pilot,
it’s the easiest plane I have had to fly.” Tony LeVier, another test pilot who flew the P-
38 was reported saying, “ in World War II, the Army grabbed our first P-38 to set a new
transcontinental speed record. It was a grand idea, but the only thing a speed record
would give them was some newspaper headlines for a day and that’s about all.” When the
P-38 engaged tailwind it traveled at 460 miles per hour. This high-speed capacity of the
P-38 would make the plane very useful in pursuing enemy planes and for running away
from enemy planes. The original designers of the twin-engine concept used in the P-38
were Hall Hibbard and Clarence Johnson. They thought that they should in order for
them to make a plane to meet the Air Corps standards that they should make not one but
two engines so that the plane could have enough power to go at least 360 miles per hour
at an altitude of 20,000 feet.

Compressibility came as a problem to the designers of the P-38 Lightning. Tony

LeVier described compressibility as being “a giant phantom hand that seized the plane
and sometimes shook it out of the pilot’s control.” When a plane reaches a high speed the
air around the plane pushes against the plane with a tremendous force of wind. The force
of the wind is so strong that when a plane reaches 425 miles per hour, the air hits the
wings instead of going over the wings causing for the plane to be uncontrollable. This
force of compressibility was a vital problem for the P-38, for when the P-38 encountered
compressibility it was completely destroyed. The force of compressibility was most often
seen in the P-38 when it dived from high altitudes to low altitudes sharply. Hibbard and
Johnson conducted a series of experiments with the P-38 that produced an answer to the
problem of compressibility in the P-38. They found that the P-38 needed a dive flap to be
implanted on the primary wing of the plane. The dive flap allowed for the P-38 to pull up
into the air after a sharp dive and allowed for the pilot to maintain control of the plane.
After the dive flap was placed on the P-38 orders for the new P-38’s were placed by the
British, French, and the United States. The British ordered 667 P-38’s, the French bought
417 P-38’s, and the Americans purchased a large amount of the P-38 Lightning’s. The
original factory that made the P-38’s was not able to produce all of the P-38’s at a fast
rate. In 1938, the president of Lockheed expanded the P-38 production site to a distillery.
In the winter of 1938 the P-38’s were being made in mass production for General George
Kenney of the Army Air Force to keep the Japanese from infiltrating the Aleutians. This
has been known as the Snowman Project. Lockheed was using 3.5 million square feet of
property in the United States at the time to create airplanes including the P-38.

The flight characteristics of the P-38 Lightning were superb to any other planes
ever created before it. The P-38 was able to chase other planes for long distances at a
time. The P-38 was known to have engines blow out while the plane was in pursuit of
enemy aircraft. Whenever one engine blew out, the P-38 would still be able to pursue the
other planes on just one engine. In fact, James M. Morris of the 20th Fighter Group had
his engine of his P-38 destroyed and he was heading back to base to get a new engine. On
the way he encountered four German fighter planes at different times on his journey to
the base. He used the element of surprise on the unsuspecting German fighter planes to
destroy all four of them with only one engine, achieving a new record for the U.S. Air
Corps. On many occasions, the P-38’s destroyed multiple German and Japanese fighter
planes while only losing up to two of their own planes in the process.
 One of the disadvantages that the P-38 possessed during World War II was that
the P-38 couldn’t succeed in was doing tighter loops than the Japanese Zeros. The
Japanese Zeros were the most formidable plane that the P-38 ever encountered during
World War II. The Zeros were the fighter planes that attacked Pearl Harbor on December
7, 1941. The Zeros were the main fighter plane used by Japan and they were deadly to the
P-38. The Zeros did have some desirable characteristics that the P-38 didn’t have. The
Japanese Zeros were extremely maneuverable and were able to make sharp turns in a
matter of seconds, making it very hard to follow the Zero very far. When the Zero is
engaged by another plane it might try to make a loop to get away from the chasing
aircraft. It would be able to loop around quickly and tightly in order to evade their
enemies. The P-38, though fast, was not as maneuverable as the Japanese Zero. This lack
of maneuverability would cause for the P-38 to go into a wider loop and take longer to
reach the Zero than it would if it had been a smaller plane. The smallness of the Zero
allowed for it to be more agile while it was in the air. The P-38 is able to beat the agile
Zero by not following the Zero through all the loop but going only part of the way
through the loop and then leveling out and speeding up to catch the Zero. The P-38 would
be able to tail the Zero at a close distance and take shots at the Zero.

The P-38 Lightning was able to maneuver itself flexibly and quickly when it
encountered an enemy craft. Many times during the war, the P-38 upon encountering
enemy airplanes would move so that it had an advantage over the opposing aircraft. The
P-38 was very useful in out-climbing their opponents and having the other person run out
of air first before they did. The P-38 had a pressurized cockpit that leveled itself out
whenever it felt that there was not enough oxygen in the plane. Oxygen would be pushed
out of the pumps located in the cockpit of the plane. Through the use of dive flaps the P-
38 was able to lead an enemy into a steep dive then pull-up at the last minute saving you
but dooming your opponent. The P-38’s bulky design allowed for the plane to be
recognizable and feared by all that fought it. The Germans were so fearful of the P-38
that they used the name Fork-Tailed Devil. The P-38 possessed many undesirable
features such as compressibility, difficulty to manage strange engines that randomly shut
off during a battle making the ship to be more likely to crash.

The P-38 Lightning was seen as the apex of military aviation during World War II.
Compared to the P-38 planes such as the German Fw190 and the Messerschmitt Bf 109
used by the Germans were not as fast or as powerful as the P-38 Lightning was during
World War II. Compared to other planes the P-38’s huge size made it able to carry more
guns and ammunition on the plane than other planes could hold. The two engines were
able to balance out the weight of the plane by producing a large amount of power to the
plane that made up for the bulky size. Even though other aircraft such as the F6F Hellcat
was a dominant plane in World War II, the P-38 Lightning was still able to exceed the
375 mile per hour maximum speed that the Hellcat had. The P-38 showed enemy planes
how speed and agility could win a battle.

The P-38 Lightning was among one of the key bomber escorts during World War
II. Its duties included making sure that the bombers that they escorting got to the location
that they needed to bomb at, destroying all enemy craft that may hinder the bomber’s
progress, and helping the bombers destroy enemy bases. In fact the P-38 was the first
U.S. plane to shoot down a Nazi airplane following the United States entrance in the war
after Pearl Harbor. Many Germans during the war saw the P-38 as the “Fork-Tailed
Devil”. P-38’s would swoop in and destroy all of the enemy planes, making the people of
the world fear the P-38 Lightning. At the battle of Guadacanal the P-38’s were
experiencing some technical problems with their systems, but with the help of the U.S.
Navy the P-38’s were able to destroy the Japanese planes. The P-38’s were fighting to
protect the Allied base at Guadacanal from being destroyed by the Japanese forces. In the
Solomon’s a fleet of sixteen Allied fighter planes took off in order to suppress the
Japanese aircraft at Shortland-Poporang. Ten of the sixteen Allied planes had technical
problems and they all had to abort the mission. The six operational planes, five of which
were P-38’s and one was a Corsair, under the influence of Captain Thomas G. Lanphier ,
Jr., from the 70th Fighter Squadron, they all moved ahead to the Shortland-Poporang area
to complete their mission. Upon destroying the Shortland-Poporang Japanese aircraft
base, the six fighters saw a Japanese destroyer and through the combined efforts of all six
pilots the destroyer was desecrated.

The most noteworthy P-38 victory was the killing of Japanese Admiral Isoroku
Yamamoto, who had been the mastermind behind the attack on Pearl Harbor. Admiral
Yamamoto had a set of plans that he possessed that would surely lead the Japanese to
victory in World War II. Yamamoto knew that the secret to winning the war was through
aircraft and not big warships. In order for Yamamoto to have his way and destroy Pearl
Harbor he threatened to resign from his job as admiral. He commanded the Japanese fleet
to go slowly towards Pearl Harbor sending false radio signals to fool the Americans that
might be listening. Yamamoto used his intellect to keep the battle from starting until
opposition between the United States and Japan had been declared in Washington. Then
at eight o’clock on December 7, 1941 Yamamoto gave the signal for the battle to begin.
Since then, Yamamoto has become known, as a maniac who needed to be stopped at all
costs necessary.

Three P-38 pilots helped decide the fate of Yamamoto, Rex Barber, John
Mitchell, and Thomas Lanphier. They had at the time of Pearl Harbor just gotten into the
Army Air Corps and they didn’t know what was going to happen to them during the next
seventeen months. Rex Barber quite college a few weeks before he would have received
his degree from Oregon State and he enlisted in the Army as a private. Barber was
encouraged by his uncle Edgar King to join the Army Air Corps. He allowed for his
actions to show what kind of person he was. Barber was controlled and disciplined and he
showed his true talent in the skies. John Mitchell tried to get into West Point but he failed
the entrance exams, so he enlisted as a private in the Army. Thomas Lanphier had always
wanted to be a pilot and he started going to Stanford University but the great depression
happened and he had to pay for college by working various jobs including a ranch hand
and a journalist for the San Francisco News. After joining the Army he became a great
pilot who could tell lots of stories.
Yamamoto had his plans intercepted for his transport of him to move from Rabaul
to Buin by the U.S. airforce decoders. This plan would consist of three transports
carrying various admirals and other high-rank officials being escorted by Zeros to Buin.
Thirty-six P-38’s were assigned to work together to take down Admiral Yamamoto. Just
two minutes had passed since takeoff and the amount of P-38’s was lessened to only
sixteen planes. Mitchell was the leader of the Yamamoto mission and he along with other
pilots including Rex Barber and Thomas Lanphier. Mitchell was so determined to have
Yamamoto destroyed that he won’t let anybody stop for anything. Lanphier and Barber
were both gaining on two of the three transport bombers. Barber almost rammed into one
of the transports and nearly destroyed his P-38 in the process. He shot the transporter in
the engine and with the help of a fellow P-38 pilot made the transport bomber fall to the
ground. What Barber didn’t know was that the transport that he had shot was the one with
Yamamoto in it. Lanphier, however did not take down the bomber because he had seen
the Zeros that guarded the transport bombers and had decided to destroy the Zero’s
instead of trying to get rid of Yamamoto. Shortly afterward, Lanphier would claim to
have shot-down Admiral Yamamoto’s transport bomber. What the reality of the event
was that Thomas Lanphier never shot down any of the transports and that the report of
the mission was written solely by him. In fact, Lanphier would be recalled stating, “I got
him! I got that son of a…! I got Yamamoto!” The accounts for this event are very
controversial and much disagreement has arose over who killed Admiral Yamamoto but
the fact is that the plane that killed Admiral Yamamoto was definitely a P-38 Lightning.

The P-38 helped set the way for a whole new era of airplanes that were created in
the years to come. One of the key components that the P-38 passed on to planes created
in the future was the use of elevators. The elevators, or dive flaps (as mentioned earlier),
proved to be a key technological invention for the stabilizing of a plane from a dive.
Today, the elevators are used in every kind of aircraft including commercial airplanes to
keep them from crashing into the ground. Another innovation that the P-38 incorporated
was the creation of a tricycle landing system. The tricycle landing system is a landing
mechanism, which is used instead of the old, unsafe method of landing. The tricycle
landing gear has made it easier for planes to land quickly and safely numerous amounts
of time. The twin-boom engines used in the P-38 proved to be both powerful and fast.
Examples of the engine design being used in other planes are through the creation of
planes such as the Messerschmitt Me 609, the Focke-Wulf FW 189, and the C-119 Flying
Boxcar. These planes and many more all possessed the twin-boom engines that allowed
for higher speed and greater stability in the plane. This engine design helped for planes to
chase and capture enemy planes. The twin-boom design originally developed by Hibbard
and Johnson has helped make many individual planes in the wars survive.

The P-38 influenced the fate of the war through the killing of Admiral Yamamoto
of the Japanese fleet. Yamamoto was very highly respected amongst the Japanese
peoples. He was seen as an icon of their freedoms and the joy that he brought to the
country of Japan. His death brought great sorrow to Japan. He was so highly honored in
Japan that he was given a state funeral, which was extremely rare with only 12 people in
the history of Japan achieving that high honor. His wife had not really gotten to know
him all that well and did not see his death as being surprising at all. After World War II
had ended the P-38 was the first plane to land there after the war was over. The P-38
showed its true colors the day that the plane shot down Admiral Yamamoto.
 The P-38 possessed many desirable characteristics, which made the P-38 very
useful in the war. Whenever the P-38 was used in battle it could be used for both a
fighter, a night flyer, and a photo reconnaissance plane. The P-38 was used to capture and
follow enemy aircraft so that the pilots of the P-38 could keep the enemy from advancing
any further. The P-38 was used as a night flyer during 1943 when the Fifth Air Force
modified two P-38s to where it had an SCR540 radar on the left and right sides of the
nose of the plane. This plane was known as the P-38M and was converted from a one seat
to a two-seat plane because the controls were easier to manage with two people in the
plane than with one person in the plane. This plane was able to reach speeds of up to 406
miles per hour at an altitude of 15,000 feet. This plane proved to be more successful in
night flight than the Northrop P-61A Black Widow had been. The guns of the P-38 had to
be made so that there was flash eliminators built into them. This characteristic allowed
for the pilot to maintain constant vision at all times in the plane. There were 80 of these
planes created by the end of the war and they proved beneficial in determining the
outcome of the war. The P-38 was also used as a photo reconnaissance aircraft during
World War II. This P-38 had all its guns taken out and high-speed cameras put into the
plane. This plane was specifically useful in spying on enemy bases and aircraft
production sites and figuring-out how to destroy those places in the future. The P-38s
used for photo reconnaissance were named first the F-4s and then later as the F-5s photo
reconnaissance planes. The F-4s and F-5s were an eighth of the total P-38 production
during the war.

One of the most famous P-38s after World War II was the Glacier Girl P-38. Two
squads of P-38s were assigned to guard a Boeing B-17 on a trip to Iceland in 1942. The
planes would make their way to Iceland by crossing over the East Mountains of
Greenland and the ice caps that were in the area. This historic flight took-off on July 15,
1942 and the group successfully reached a height of 12,000 feet when some storm clouds
rolled in causing problems for the pilots. The pilots tried to bypass the bad weather by
flying over the clouds. However, when the planes got higher in the air conditions became
even worse than they had before. They were now at –10º Fahrenheit and were struggling
to keep warm. Some of the planes went under the clouds to see what the conditions were
like and they found that the snowstorm was getting worse than it had been before. They
were within an hour of Reykjavik but through the bad weather they had to turn back and
go back the way that they came. One of the pilots was running out of fuel and would only
have fuel for twenty more minutes longer and that he had to land fast. The entire group
decided to land and call for more fuel to be sent to them. When the first plane landed it
had its wheels locked causing for the plane to crash into the ice. This crashing of the
plane also made the plane flip over. The pilot survived though rather confused and
seemed to be unharmed. The planes, once landed were able to divide up the food into
rations for two weeks. A Morse code message was sent out from the B-17 that called for
a cargo plane to fly over them and drop food and supplies for them to use. When the first
drop wasn’t successful another drop was arranged which this time the pilots received the
drop successfully. A group of men were sent from a surrounding base to pick up the
stranded pilots and take them to their base. The pilots had all decided to leave their planes
there and go with the rescue pilots to the base. All of the pilots were able to make it to
safety and were able to return to the United States.

In July of 1992, one of the pilots who was in the crash fifty years ago came back
to the site of the crash and decided that he wanted to get a P-38 out of the ice and bring it
home with him. He had a whole group of people help him excavate the P-38 out of the
ground. It took several days to get all parts of the P-38 out of the ice. When they had
finally gotten the P-38 out of the ice they shipped it to the United States where they were
able to start restoring the P-38 that was being called the Glacier Girl. The plane had to be
taken completely apart and then put back together. If a piece of the plane didn’t work any
more then the Glacier Girl restorers would have to scour the country in search for that
missing part of the P-38. Finding all of the parts necessary for the P-38 was difficult, but
in the end the restorers found all of the parts that they needed for the plane. The Glacier
Girl was scheduled to takeoff again on September 17, 2001 at Middlesboro, Kentucky. A
large crowd of spectators gathered around to watch the P-38 fly once more.
1