Battle Stations: P38 Lockheed Lightning (War History Documentary)

it was as deadly as it was beautiful the aircraft of choice for america's ace of aces it was the best damn airplane ever built as far as i am concerned it was like flying a cadillac automobile it gained an unparalleled reputation as the most versatile and lethal combat aircraft of its day it was the lockheed p-38 nicknamed the lightning it was just an aviator's dream to fly in a p-38 it made the war in the pacific designed as a fighter interceptor it was the p-38 that claimed the scalp of japan's most celebrated military strategist admiral yamamoto the mastermind behind the attack on pearl harbor using colour reenactments and archive film battle stations takes to the skies in the fearsome p-38 lightning as the wall street crash of 1929 plunged the us into the great depression its effects were felt worldwide japan heavily dependent on foreign trade was severely affected the resulting economic crisis spawned nationalist groups and the country focused on relieving its domestic troubles by colonizing her asian neighbors as japan emerged as a key power in the region rivalry with the united states over commercial and territorial interests grew bringing the risk of confrontation japan's aggressive expansion in the region was spearheaded by its sophisticated monowing fighters america's air corps equipped with obsolete biplanes needed to modernize and quickly in february 1937 the us army air corps issued proposal number x-608 calling for an advanced pursuit interceptor aircraft that would be able to perform at previously unheard of levels we had very few planes that could keep up with the speed of the german planes or even the japanese planes so they needed something that would be able to be competitive the specification called for a desired speed of 400 miles per hour 100 miles per hour faster than any other military airplane of the day and able to operate efficiently at altitudes of 20 000 feet or more it would be armed with a 20 millimeter cannon it was an ambitious proposal six contractors among them lockheed submitted designs a senior figure of lockheed's design team was a man who would become a legend clarence kelly johnson had joined the company in 1933 recognized as being a precocious talent kelly was given free reign to design an aircraft that fitted the specification realizing that a single engine aircraft could not possibly match the performance required johnson focused his attention on a twin-engine design kelly's initial concepts for the new fighter covered a range of configurations but he finally decided on profile with twin booms to accommodate the engines with the pilot and guns in a central nacelle superchargers were positioned in booms behind the engines and the armament was to consist of four machine guns in the nose clustered around a cannon it's really a beautiful looking machine very impressive couple of big engines lots of firepower all of it in the nose which would be very impressive if you're on the wrong end of it it was a visionary design he created something that hadn't even been conceptualized in other areas and the p-38 was a total radical design johnson's work paid off lockheed won the contract for an experimental prototype in june 1937 the prototype designated xp 38 went into production despite early problems realizing the futuristic design the plane was completed in just 18 months it was a top secret project that was shipped in by parts and trucks and assembled in a hangar despite flying for only 35 minutes the test was considered a huge success impressed the us army air corps decided to go after howard hughes transcontinental speed record and lieutenant benjamin kelsey was ordered to fly the prototype from marchfield california to mitchellfield new york as fast as he could the xp 38 smashed the record by 23 minutes the bad thing was they didn't tell the new york people the plane was coming and when it got there they were told to circle and we'll give you permission to land and ran out of gas and had to belly in on a golf course though kelsey survived the impact the aircraft did not lockheed's prototype xp-38 the only one of its kind was destroyed but it approved its worth as europe descended into chaos the us army air corps ordered 66 p-38s the first ever 400 mile per hour fighter was officially given the green light early in 1939 britain and france ordered 667 p-38s but the planes dubbed lightnings by the british were to be built without superchargers lockheed engineers protested this decision labeling the variant the castrated p-38 with the fall of france in 1940 britain took over the whole p38 order but their decision to remove the superchargers would have dire consequences having taken delivery of just three castrated lightnings the raf realized that the plane's performance was severely limited the british didn't like the airplane and they'd been in in conflict for quite a while and they knew airplanes and they didn't want that thing and it was a real dog it didn't have some turbo it didn't fly high all the props turned in the same direction faced with an inferior fighter britain cancelled the entire order from now on the p-38 would be solely an american fighter but its entry into service was not a smooth one as p38 pilots would soon find out its problems were just beginning as america's new p-38s rolled off the production line serious problems began to emerge we're not going to try to teach you how to fly you've all had good training in other ships we're simply going to show you how we handle a 38 one danger was compressibility causing the controls to lock up in a high speed dive leaving the pilot no option but to bail out the p-38 was having a problem uh credibility problem pilots are aspiring pilots and heard some things that weren't very complementary about the p-38 now as young cadets 20 21 years old we really didn't know what compressibility was at the time but that was one of those rumors that the p-38 was a dangerous airplane if it hit compressibility but the most dangerous problem by far was the tendency of the aircraft in the event of a single engine failure on takeoff to flip over and slam upside down into the runway most people were not used to flying anything faster than about 200 miles an hour so here you suddenly have a 400 plus mile an hour aircraft with very strong engines so if you lose an engine most people who are flying in the early days would panic and they'd roll over and just go right in modifications to the p-38s followed the plane's allison engines underwent a structural redesign and outward turning props were added to reduce the effects of torque these modifications would make the plane more stable during flight and in an effort to combat the p-38s image problems tony lavere lockheed's chief test pilot was drafted in to help they had some bad rumors out about about the aircraft uh wasn't a safe airplane to fly and so forth and tony come by and give us a demonstration of the p-38 him fly on single engine and do slow rolls to everything that you'd want to do with single engine aircraft and he did it on one engine had one dead and i think that was a real selling factor as far as i was concerned during the spring of 1941 the credibility of the p-38 was slowly being restored but kelly's fighter like the united states was not yet ready for war but on the morning of december the 7th 1941 everything changed in the days following the attack on pearl harbor the japanese guided by admiral yamamoto scored a series of crushing victories in the pacific the pacific fleet had been all but destroyed and macarthur's army in the philippines began its ill-fated retreat by capturing wake island dutch new guinea and the strategic port of rabul japan gained the upper hand across the pacific reeling from this series of body blows america prepared to send its aircraft to war in accordance with the allied europe first strategy the us sent its older p-39s to the pacific and its new p-38s to britain we who went to the southwest pacific any place in the pacific we were just sent there more or less as a holding detail to try to stem the flow and hold on to what we had and keep the jabs from capturing anymore but the lightning's performance in europe fell short of expectations operating at altitudes of around fifteen thousand feet far lower than it had been designed for the large twin-engined lightning proved to be considerably less maneuverable than smaller axis aircraft like the me-109 but the p-38's devastating firepower often compensated for its lack of maneuverability at low altitude now the u.s air force looked for a high altitude role for its p-38s in europe they soon found one 99 p-38s were modified for photo reconnaissance missions one of the main things you need is stability and if your camera is wobbling you're not going to get a good picture and the p-38 was so smooth and quiet there was no drift caused by the torque of the propellers and because it was such a stable aircraft you could get more accurate maps but flown without fighter escort these missions could be extremely dangerous we had cameras instead of guns but we also didn't have as much armor plating on our planes the theory was to cut down the weight to increase our speed so we were probably close to two thousand pounds lighter than the fighter version of the same aircraft we lost a lot of guys we had a 70 casualty rate but nobody ever considered we were doing anything brave because you're only taking pictures out there but on the other side of the world p-38s would face even greater dangers in the desperate days of early 1942 one aircraft dominated the skies of the pacific the performance of the mitsubishi a6m 0 in every major battle of the war to date confirmed its superiority as a fighter american airmen flying p-39s and p-40s were powerless to stop them the air force considered the p-39 as our number one fighter until they had to use it in combat and they found out then that it was not the aircraft for the job if i had been jumped by zeros in a p-39 back in those days the chances are i wouldn't be here talking to you that's about the way we all felt about it we had good pilots but they just did not have the equipment i wanted to be in an organization that did have the equipment in this case the p-38 so that our pilots had a fighting chance a new fighter group consisting entirely of p-38s was established now american airmen in the pacific had the equipment they so badly needed to settle old schools big thing is our country was fighting for its life japanese sneak attack on pearl harbor they were a hemi demi semi quaver away from attacking our homeland our country was being threatened what choice did you have even though lockheed's p-38 lightnings were being produced in greater numbers precious few were deployed to the southwest pacific despite this disadvantage the p-38 would play a key role in one of the most crucial missions of the war after japan's crushing defeats at midway and guadalcanal admiral yamamoto the strategic mastermind behind the infamous attack of pearl harbor planned a tour of frontline bases to restore flagging morale on april 13 1943 american code breakers intercepted a message which included explicit details of yamamoto's schedule a plan to intercept was devised we had broken the japanese code and knew that yamamoto was going to make this trip to one of his outposts and he they knew his habits was were very punctual and that's how they were able to put this mission together at eight a.m on the morning of april the 18th a flight of p-38s from the 339th fighter squadron took to the skies they sent the 16 p 12 of them would be top cover and four of the p-38s would be the attack group they would go down after the betty bomber that yamamoto was supposed to be in and the other 12 airplanes would chase off any japanese fighters just one and a half hours later the americans spotted yamamoto's flight of two betties and six zeroes four of the p-38s punched and in the ensuing battle both betties were hit and yamamoto's aircraft plunged into the jungle below america's lightnings had come out fighting but there was still a long way to go now it would face its toughest test yet against the battle-hardened japanese pilots in the skies of the southwest pacific with the death of japan's leading admiral america launched an all-out offensive against japanese air power in the south pacific the enemy's advance had been halted now the united states army air force would fight back from bases on the eastern coast of new guinea they would attack the fearsome aerodromes of weewak and rabol the swiftest and the most effective means of gaining control of the air was to bomb japanese airfields to destroy as many planes on the ground as possible such daylight strikes could only be accomplished with a fighter escort and the only plane in the allied arsenal with the range to escort the bombers was the p-38 for many of the pilots of the newly established 475th fighter group in new guinea it would be their first taste of combat this was kind of stupid but at that age we were actually looking forward to getting into combat and utilizing the training that we had been working on for some time intelligence photos provided by p38 reconnaissance aircraft pinpointed the targets we had a fifth air force uh briefing where the command would get up and brief the desires and give us the plan and it was to send the b-25s in low with p-38 cover and to destroy the targets we flew a long distance over water before we hit a target we were probably 200 miles away from a target before we climbed to altitude whatever our bombing altitude was we would pick up the fighters along the way they would s turn in front of us before we got to the target typically the japanese zeros would hit you before you got to your target you may see 50 100 fighters swarming up from below in every direction you know they're they're all climate headed for the bombers that's what they want they got to keep those bombers out of there and of course our job is to get in there and swarm with them and keep them off the bomb again and that's about what it looks like if you've ever seen a person getting hit by a swarm of bees that is what it looks like when you get incumbent because you've got airplanes coming in from every direction your own yours enemies everybody anybody that's had been in aerial combat and says well it doesn't bother them and they're not afraid are first-class liars all the time you're in a fight you're so full of adrenaline you need to know who you were because you're so concentrated in that cockpit and what's going on all the time your head's on a swivel for fear someone's gonna get you it reminded me of being chased around the block by someone with a gun in his hand you're really not really interested at all it's what caliber that damn gun is you're just running around that block just trying to get away and that's about the way combat was as the p-38s tangled with the fighters the bombers leveled out on their bomb runs you're flying in formation over a target you can't vary because you had six planes in a formation three in one formation and three lower you had to keep in your formation before you dropped your bombs so you couldn't veer off to the right of the left as you saw these bullets coming so you had to fly and watch these tracers hitting towards your plane flying at low level the b-25s dropped parafragmentation bombs each capable of tearing aircraft and personnel to pieces the b-24s thousand-pound bombs destroyed the runways depriving the japanese of any opportunity to fly in replacements but it wasn't just the bombers who did the damage as you're out there everybody's yelling at you jake that spine each guy was trying to pick off a plane of his own and i got behind one the first time i fired those guns it just about blew that plane right off the map of the world it just practically exploded as it went over the top of me parts were flying all over the place when the p-38s would fire all their machine guns they hit a japanese zero that zero generally blew up in flames that was the end of it i was just amazed it just it just tore holes all the way up there and when it hit the wing right the wings flew off the engine and all and of course he rolled over and went in that was close enough that i i realized that that 20 millimeter in that nose was so destructive throughout august 1943 pilots of the 475th fighter group flew hundreds of sorties to weewak destroying 41 enemy aircraft for the loss of only three lightnings the bombing campaign in the south pacific allowed the invasion forces to capture enemy positions without fear of aerial attacks as the japanese retreated the us army air force advanced occupying the bases that they had so mercilessly bombed it might take them three or four days to get to clean out an area to where we could get in after we'd blown everything into pieces the engineers went in and laid down a runway that we could use they'd go in there and have a base cleaned out and strip put in and in a couple of weeks it was unreal there was a bulldozing off of aircraft that were laying all over the place and when we went into atlanta man there were piles 50 feet high of japanese aircraft that they just those into a pile everything was destroyed of course we lived in tents everything was a tent i mean the mess hall was a tent your quarters were a tent your ops office was a tent everything was rolled up and packed despite the difficult conditions there was no respite for the pilots operating from these forward bases the p-38 squadrons were in the vanguard of the advance in the pacific even with the experience of the pilots combat missions over enemy held territory carried with them enormous risks you got to be off your rocker to want to be a fighter pilot because it's like these little dodging cars you see in these carnivals all where people are chasing around these dodgems and they're bumping into each other only visualize yourself sitting on top of a 55 gallon drum of gasoline chasing it around and like dodging and firing incendiary bullets at each other imagine what's going to happen you've got to be nuts there's two things the fighter pilot dreads the most losing an engine on takeoff when you've got a full load maybe carrying a couple of 1000 pound bombs and the other one is every pilot's nightmare is a mid-air collision i just happen to look off to my left and my god here's a p-38 staring me in the face right there staring me in the face so i just shoved everything forward as i did i got hit it was like being hit by a mack truck and the plane started flipping all over the sky doing all kind of crazy stuff so the first thing of course i try to do is get out of this airplane i've got the windows rolled down i'm going to get out now i forgot i got the oxygen mask on i still got the earphones hooked on and the main time the plane is flopping around not doing too well we were always told don't jump out because if we do and that stabilizer horizontal stabilizer back there hits you it'll break your neck or break your back and you're dead so the objective was to try to get out on a wing and slide down a wing so you'd slide underneath that stabilizer so i finally worked my way down get down to the wing down i went pull the rip cord and bingo opens the chute did no center open then here come two jet fighters after me they're coming in strafing tracer goes right by why they didn't hit me i don't know and the two of them right on by me i got to reach out and grab them and i thought this is no good this is ridiculous to stand here that's a terrible feeling to hang in and shoot and seeing somebody like that coming in so i climbed the shroud lines to dump the chute which i did i dumped it got the hell out of there down i go next thing i know i'm almost on top the tree so i let go of the shoot again and thank god it opened she opened up again and just as she opened up i hit the trees i remember just trying to kick my legs up underneath me just as i did it hit the ground and busted the right knee which wasn't too swift i was behind chapped lines and i thought oh boy i could hear the fighting going on fighting against the japanese in the south pacific if you went down your chances of returning to base was almost nil they just didn't they just didn't get back over there defying the odds lieutenant jake jakel survived and after 10 days in the jungle behind enemy lines was eventually picked up by a navy pby catalina by late summer 1943 the u.s had turned its attention to the mighty japanese stronghold of rabol once again the p-38s were called in to escort the bombers around the clock we knew that the japs had a huge base at rebel and they used that base to either hit the solomon's or come down to hit new guinea and it was their pearl harbor actually of the south if we could knock out reball why it'd be a big step forward for several months the battle to level rebel raged earning the pilots of the 475th 62 enemy kills the growing success of the lightning and its pilots was making headlines among those taking notice was the famous aviator charles a lindbergh his interest in the aircraft would soon have an unexpected impact on its performance and on the war in the pacific the p-38's formidable drive up through new guinea had attracted the attention of america's lone eagle charles augustus lindbergh in 1927 lindbergh's solo transatlantic flight had delighted the world only months before america entered the war the famous aviator a firm isolationist had resigned his colonel see in the army air corps reserve now eager to fly lindbergh had sought reinstatement but roosevelt's administration had refused in june 1944 without the knowledge of the white house lindbergh visited the 475th fighter group he was curious to find out more about america's only twin-engine fighter an aircraft he had never flown he was a consultant to design a twin-engine fighter for the navy and he was always asking questions what do you like about a twin engine fighter what kind of armament do you like you know what range do you think it off what kind of combat ability he wanted to know all the answers almost immediately lindbergh discovered a crucial variable that would affect the performance of the p-38 flying at the very limits of their range the p-38s needed to be airborne and in formation as quickly as possible with very small margins for error wasted fuel could claim lives we poured the coal on and started taking off on this mission and i get almost all the way around i look down there and there's an airplane on the runway blocking everybody blocking the runway forced the planes already in the air to circle overhead for several minutes wasting precious fuel and we're coming back in from that mission and most of us were sucking air from the bottom of our tanks as we came in and landing with very damn little fuel left we had a guy run out of fuel in the taxi ramp and i'm really upset and not being very smart i hadn't checked on my little roster to see who it was i just said okay who's the blankly blank you know that parked his aircraft on the runway and mr lindbergh stood up and about passed out i could if i could have gone through the floor i would have despite his embarrassment major warren lewis made his point fuel was not to be wasted years later he come up to the tent and he says major lewis he says can i come in and talk with you and i said sure come on in and he said i've figured out a way to save more fuel for you because of his transatlantic experience lindbergh was no stranger to issues of fuel economy he persuaded the group's ceo charles mcdonald to let him address the pilots we met in a large tent all the pilots and all our crew chief the ground crew everybody was there and colonel mack first talked to us and then lindbergh spoke to us and told us just bluntly this is what he was going to have us do to increase our range he said we check the tech order and we can cut the rpm down to 1400 rpm and use 30 inches of mercury and probably save maybe 50 to 100 gallons of fuel on a mission of course when our crew chiefs and all our line chiefs all heard this they thought ah come on it'll wreck the engine it says burn the engines out this is a dumb thing to do but how are you going to tell a man like lindbergh what's dumb what you think who you are you you're this big compared to lindbergh but nevertheless that's the way it came out that's what happened there were some really bitter questions towards limber questioning his theories and lindbergh finally shut everybody up by saying boys i am willing to fly with you under the conditions which i have outlined and it was as simple as that you can't fault somebody that is is willing to go on the mission he's not telling you what to do and then won't go with you he was willing to prove the theories along with us lindbergh was assigned a p-38 in which to test his theory and he only flew that thing and he flew in some mannerism that he was able to pull it back and do this and get much better uh mileage if you want to call it that we were getting and after the two weeks or so they had tore the engines apart and a maze not a damn thing around them we did it on the next mission and some guys had as much as 80 gallons more landing than we ever had so uh that's the kind of a man that mr lindbergh was he was always looking for ways to do things better and to make it easier for those who flew in just a few months the 475th famous guest had single-handedly increased the range of the lightning opening up new targets before the p-38s have been limited to a 900-mile round journey now they could fly a staggering 1 800 miles we were good for six to six and a half hours was our average range prior to lindbergh coming over him and after he had spent the three or four months with us our range was anywhere from 12 to 14 hours if we had to go that long lindbergh a civilian observer had already taught the p-38 pilots how to double their range but he was hungry for combat in july he got his chance flying unauthorized on a patrol with the 475th he shot down an enemy aircraft lindbergh had his kill but in so doing had broken his strict observer status fearful that the high-profile civilian would be killed in combat a public relations disaster the government immediately recalled him lindbergh's war was over but his contribution was not on october the 14th 1944 p-38s from the 475th flew an astonishing 1 800 miles to attack balikpapan in borneo the hub of japan's oil production in the pacific the long-range attack made possible by limburg settings stunned the japanese tipping the balance of power like nothing before if i had to name one person who contributed more to the war in the pacific i can honestly say it was charles lindbergh a civilian because he showed our pilots how to shift the aircraft into overdrive so to speak now the p-38 with its unrivaled range prepare for the final assault on the philippines from september 1944 onwards the american advance in the philippines focused on the very heart of japanese air power in the region p-38s using settings outlined by lindbergh had become the first long-range fighters to penetrate philippine airspace since the us withdrawal in 1942 now they would be deployed against leyte laity was to be the anvil wrote macarthur against which i hope to hammer the japanese into submission having fought their way up through new guinea the p-38 pilots have become one of the most skilled fighting units of the war the zero gained a wonderful reputation at the beginning of the war and that was partly our fault because we were using uh world war one tactics in other words we were dogfighting the idea of the so-called dogfight stuff that went on in world war one of one plane against the other plane was a no-no as far as we were concerned and fellas that broke out of the squadron after a [ __ ] plane all by himself usually he caught royal hell when he we got back on the ground again because that was not the idea it was important that everybody knew that you weren't out to run up your own score you were out there to work as a team and that's one of the things one of the big reasons in my judgment in addition to superior equipment that we had over the japanese was our tactics we tried to maintain 300 miles an hour and never tried to climb or turn with the job airplane because they get out climbing out turning and so you just you went away from them and then turned around and come back and took another shot and that discouraged the hell out of them you have a very high airspeed you made passes at them and they were always the hunted and we were the hunters in the philippines major thomas b maguire scored the group's first kill of the campaign his 25th of the war making him the leading ace of the group he was such a great shot he didn't need to go inside he just aimed the airplane and shot people down and he was probably the best in my estimation the best pilot ever flew a p-38 tommy was driven by a fierce aggressive strong attitude toward being a world's greatest fighter pilot and he was going to make it no matter how he did it and he was a great fighter this guy could shoot but leading the charge in the philippines was the group's co major charles macdonald every time we had the toughest mission coming up our first mission said to robal who led us was colonel mack he wasn't a desk operator sitting back and saying you guys do this you guys take that machine gun dust and that kind of stuff colonel back let us when we first went into wee whack colonel mack let us when we first went back the first missions we made the philippines all the way from new guinea who let us colonel back let us oh he was a terrific leader that was one of his attributes he was a great planter and he was a great fighter pilot some people are just national hunters you know and these were hunters of aircraft in the autumn of 1944 the us marines stormed ashore at leyte as almost 20 000 u.s troops from the sixth army tuffed it out to take and secure the heavily defended island airstrips p-38s played a key role strafing troop barges in support of the ground operations in the philippines the p-38 would claim more than 200 kills bringing its total to approximately 550 with the help of the p-38 us forces had systematically halted and then reversed the japanese advance in the south pacific we were at it every damn day keeping the japs from going into australia chasing them from rabbal back and back and back and back into the philippines it was the army air corps that was at it all the time without the p38 i don't think he'd have been as lucky to push the japs back as fast as we did in fact it's probably surprising to all including general macarthur how well the 38 cleaned the clock of the japanese over there on december the 25th 1944 macarthur fulfilled his promise and returned to the philippines the p-38 approved its worth in the pacific america's ace of aces the highest scoring army ace of the war with 40 kills to his name was dick bong a p-38 pilot tommy mcguire with 38 confirmed kills was second and major charles mcdonald with 27 ensured that the p-38 would have its place in history as the most deadly fighter of the war as final preparations were made for the invasion of the japanese home islands the p-38s remained at the heart of the allied stranglehold on japan herself but in august the us army air force dropped its atomic bombs now p-38 reconnaissance planes bore witness to the total destruction of the enemy we're up at about 18 thousand feet and we could see it for probably eight ten miles before it got there and it was very interesting because we had done a lot of bomb damage assessment where normally you can tell the type of bombs that were used it was sort of like wow that must have been one hell of a bomb and it it was something that left enough of an impact that it's forever burned in my memory the awesome power unleashed by the us had ended japan's resistance world war ii was over during its four years of combat the lightning had grown from an undesirable contender into a reliable champion in just two years no less than 41 p-38 aces had been created and the aircraft itself had destroyed more japanese planes than any other us fighter i think 38 was responsible for winning the war in the pacific almost i mean that's you know a big statement but it had an awful lot to do with it not only was it a good fighter it was a good dive bomber and i also had the f4 and the f5 which were the photo versions it was a wonderful aircraft as i like to say saved my butt down there in a world war ii the three leading aces in the theater flew p-38s and i feel strongly that the p-38 the good lord put that airplane over there it was perfect for that mission you

Channel: Military Learning

Views: 1,872,904

Keywords: p38, lockheed, lightning, cold war, aircraft, b17, bomber, bombers, d-day, normandy, tank, tanks, battle, war history, war, history, documentary, history documentary, ww2, wwii, world war, world war 2, germany, united states, educational, warfare, military, army, navy, air force, firepower, weapons, guns, technology, electricity, degree, credit, claim, classes, online, software, mortgage, lawyer, attorney, loans, loan, donate, rehab, soldier, soldiers, general, generals, greatest, best, coolest, awesome, world, time, historic

Id: 4Eq86xuVGW8

Length: 43min 56sec (2636 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 27 2014