P 38 Lightning | Lockheed single-seat, twin piston-engined fighter aircraft | Upscaled Video

this warbird was a lethal weapon its main purpose for being the reason for its existence was to attack the enemy in the air on the ground or at sea and that it did with a vengeance it ranked with the fastest fighters of world war ii it was tough durable and versatile it was called the p-38 lightning so the p-38 was the fastest fighter in the early stages of the war and the first fighter useful for a long-range escort it was called upon at different times to perform very different roles and in each case passed with flying colors the p-38 was a good airplane it was not a major player in the european theater it was a far better player in the pacific because it had very good range characteristics it was excellent for slashing attacks for basically energy management type attacks where it would evade an enemy's more agile and more maneuverable lighter fighters by basically positioning itself with speed and altitude to seize the initiative against an opponent it had a concentrated armament package it had relatively dangerous high-speed dive characteristics because it was one of the first aircraft to approach what we would call sonic conditions not the speed of sound it was not an airplane that could fly very close to the speed of sound but it would exhibit some of the problems that you had from transonic airflow changes around an aircraft as it begins to fly close to the speed of sound but it was by no means an inferior airplane it was a very fine aircraft the p-38 had a 52-foot wingspan with a total length of just over 37 feet its height was 12 feet 10 inches it was powered by two allison v 1700 engines and it had a maximum speed of 415 miles per hour it weighed 14 one hundred pounds empty and seventeen thousand five hundred pounds loaded for battle with a ceiling of forty thousand feet and a range of two thousand two hundred sixty miles it could go the distance and deal out a great amount of damage where the p-38 really excelled as i said earlier was in the pacific campaign because there the combination of twin engines uh very long range really served that aircraft very very well the highest uh the highest scoring american fighter pilots uh flew in the pacific theater and uh the top three uh all flew the p-38 for that matter it may have even been more than the top three there were certainly a number of leading aces in the pacific theater who flew the p-38 the japanese were driving toward port moresby one of the few bases still in allied control this was just north of australia if this area fell it threatened to push the allies into the sea general douglas macarthur quickly reset the stage for an allied offensive he relied on general george kenny new commander of allied air who was reorganizing the fifth air force after the beating it had taken early in the war macarthur ordered the troops rushed into battle one regiment took 36 hours to go by water a battalion took five weeks by foot but sixty planes could carry an entire australian infantry battalion in one day if the p-38 could protect them macarthur thought it just might work specially designed airborne equipment such as pint-sized bulldozers and graters helped lay out six airstrips around balbadora they scraped out runways less than 16 miles from the front when construction was completed the p-38 moved in to protect the entire operation the southwest pacific air forces still under the direction of veteran air leader george kinney and fighter commander emmett whitehead had decided upon a tough fast tactical weapon which would stem the tide of japanese aggression the p-38 lightning the p-38 was the one airplane fighter pilots in new guinea wanted kenny and others begged washington to spare them a few of these high-flying speedy lightning rods when they finally got them the ground crews had a big job on their hands fuel tanks superchargers armaments all required major adjustment or repair earlier in the war general kenny had warned the pentagon that the japanese were two days from their factory to the combat zone and they might swarm all over him on december 27th the japanese did just that about 11 30 hours they gave the p-38 pilots the alert they received the word that the allied radio station at domidora had picked up a number of japanese aircraft approaching the target area the pilots had waited a long time for this moment and with the help of their crews they got going in a hurry it had taken more than three months to get the p-38s ready for combat the maintenance crews had worked hard and now the pilots were about to put the lightnings to the test as part of the 39th fighter squadron they had flown some patrol and escort missions with the p-38 however this was to be their first important combat operation 12 brand new p-38s were being dispatched to intercept the invading force of unknown strength both sides were in for a surprise at 12-10 hours they cited the japanese they were out in force separating into three flights of four each the p-38 pilots got on top at ten thousand feet the zeros didn't appreciate the view the p-38 lead flight peeled off to dive in and break up the formation with his throttle wide open this p-38 latched on to a japanese and then the first lightning struck when the air battle was finally over the 12 p-38 lightnings had shot down 11 japanese fighters and bombers this was a dramatic debut for the p-38 in the southwest pacific the tide was turning but one battle didn't win a war and one fighter could not do all the work but the p-38 had proved its worthiness the p-38 proved invaluable elsewhere in north africa it was used to fight off the nazis and protect the local population these street scenes were photographed by a concealed camera and reveal the true and varied reactions of the public during the raid a spitfire takes to the air this is one of the allied airfields in the vicinity of bow american p-38 rise to the attack e38 and spitfires against mr schmidt and junkers [Music] out of control this is a messerschmitt most of the bombs fell in the city [Music] b stands for victory everywhere [Music] [Music] uh the crew of this one was captured the final score 14 nazi planes shot down against the loss of four of our own another role that the p-38 played was as a photo reconnaissance airship for the allied forces the 17th photo reconnaissance squadron stationed on guadalcanal had an excellent record of supplying the fighter command bomber command and the naval and ground forces with the particular and valuable type of intelligence information that photo reconnaissance could obtain the plane the air commanders chose for this delicate work was a converted p-38 here a radio man tests the communication system and gets a line check from the squadron control station a maintenance man was responsible for the condition of the camera because of the extremely humid climate of the tropics the cameras had to be removed from the plane after every mission and taken to the camera tent for a complete check nearby was the operations board on which all missions were noted the operations officer would receive a call asking for information concerning a certain area he would list the data destination area to be flown number of photos desired etc and then walk over to the board and then call the pilot and write in his name and mission after this the pilot would be briefed on this area map the route would be pointed out these are the solomons and the course would be an elliptical route from guadalcanal covering the islands to the northwest and their adjacent waters particular information was needed about enemy activity at buna island furthest west in the solomon group the operations officer with additional information brought in from similar missions advised the pilot as to which course to take and was shown the spots where enemy flack and fighters would probably be encountered the crew was then notified and the proper camera and films made ready the modified p-38 could accommodate five cameras on this mission two verticals and two obliques were used for defensive purposes most of the pilots carried a 45 caliber revolver except for a machete this was all the armament these p-38 pilots carried on a mission all armor and armaments had been stripped from the plane to accommodate the camera the pilot's only protection was his speed which was enough the p-38 was the fastest photo reconnaissance plane in world war ii general twining commanding officer of the 13th air force had stated that the 17th photo reconnaissance paid for itself by relieving heavy bombardment aircraft from reconnaissance missions on which several such heavy aircraft have been lost in comparison only one p-38 had gone down in four months of daily reconnaissance flights the last item before takeoff is the cleaning of all glass through which the cameras shoot it is interesting to note that only one belly tank was used on this recon it was preferable not to limit the plane's speed by taking along two tanks though most pilots felt the p-38 handled less well with one tank so [Music] so [Music] almost as quickly as the chalks were shoved under the wheels the film magazine was emptied no time was lost in getting the film to the field lab and rushing prints to the photo intelligence officer for interpretation it is possible that one or more of these negatives held information that was of life and death concern to every man in the guadalcanal area photographs can show things that the human eye cannot easily detect at times a whole fighter or bomber squadron could fly over an enemy installation and never see it furthermore photos were examined carefully with stereoscopes and by more than one person they were checked with other photos taken previously to catch minute changes in the arrangement of the terrain and to detect carefully camouflaged installations organizing the intelligence which the p-38 pilot had brought in the intelligence officer gave his superiors a summary of the report half an hour had elapsed from the time the p-38 pilot returned from his mission already a fighter squadron was rolling out to the runway ready to act upon the information obtained by photo reconnaissance it may be that the photographs and the verbal report disclosed that the enemy was open for attack at tonalai perhaps it was discovered that enemy transports destroyers or bombers were sneaking up the channel so out rolled the p-38s fighters this time not real there were many examples of where the stripped-down p-38s doing reconnaissance were able to tell the fully armed lightnings where and when to fight one of the best examples was a mission where for three days in a row p-38 pilots were sent on a low-level attack to knock out rabao on new britain island here pilots are shown waiting for the weather to clear at forward stage shortly after 100 hours the tower gave them the go-ahead and the bombers got underway then the p-38s got ready from six squadrons of lightnings two squadrons had orders to sweep simpson harbor the other four were to attack the land batteries in all 80 p-38 lightnings scrambled off in good flying weather allied bombers held their formations as they headed toward raval once over the solomon sea the plan went into effect as the p-38 scanned the skies they spotted what they were looking for japanese zeroes the lightnings swept in ahead of the bombers to clear the area the p-38 could out-climb out dive and fly faster than the zero in all the p-38s bombed 24 japanese ships and strafed 17 on this particular mission these pilots claimed 42 shot out of the sky the cost 45 american flies and 17 american planes in the space of 12 minutes a formidable japanese sea and air armada was attacked and decisively defeated the p-38 lightning made it possible after two years of war the japanese strategic plan had been fatally upset but the allies knew the war was far from over the armies of japan still controlled much conquered territory general hap arnold told the world there are many roads that lead right to tokyo and we're not going to neglect any of them relentlessly the allied attack continued spearheaded by the p-38 and the striking power of the u.s army air force as the war dragged on the p-38 continued to play an important role and not just in the pacific for example in the famous second raid on the pusty oil fields in march of 1944 the p-38 lightning was called upon to lead the fighter attack [Music] for hours the p-38 lightnings buzzed the balkans this was an all-out effort on the part of allied pilots and crews when they got within striking distance the p-38 pilots climbed to bombing altitude and dumped their wing tanks so that they could maneuver better against the sleek messerschmitts [Music] the p-38 pilots destroyed 29 nazi planes and damaged three refineries in spite of its success in operations like the plus d oil fields some critics and a few pilots worried over the fact that the p-38 had two engines some felt this was a plus in case one engine failed others believed it would be hard to fly with only one engine and impossible for the pilot to bail out in case of emergency you know there's this whole joke in aviation development that the second engine takes you to the scene of the crash uh one of the problems you have with a twin engine airplane is that unless you have a very clean airplane when you lose an engine on a twin-engine airplane very often you're almost in a controlled crash type situation the p-38 under most combat circumstances when you lost an engine that was a very serious occurrence the other problem with the p-38 is that there was an engine reliability problem with those boosted allisons and so sometimes p-38s will lost in combat simply because of engine failure the army air force felt that a two-engine airplane did not mean that it was a difficult airplane to fly they believed that the two engines were able to give it a wide range of performance and extra margins of safety for those who insisted that it was impossible to bail out of the 38 because of the twin booms and rudders and because of the horizontal stabilizers span the army and most pilots disagreed they felt that it was no easier or harder to bail out of the p-38 than out of any single-seater fighter bailouts were made either by turning the plane on its back and dropping out or by getting out the left window and sliding down the wing pilots were told not to stand on the wing to jump as any pilot will acknowledge the object wasn't to bail out of the plane but to make the other guy bail out of his the p-38 was a weapon that helped the pilots do just that it carried plenty of firepower and unlike the zero had self-sealing fuel tanks and armor plating to protect the pilot in short the lightning was tough rugged and reliable its speed performance was well known but its control at most speeds was equally spectacular from the point of view of performance if one engine did fail there was still a workable single engine under the pilot there was no difference in flight technique with either engine failing right engine is there trimming rudder tab closing right press stone shutter and right oil cooler flap how's about setting the controls for unfeathering feathering switch in normal position manual propeller switch in fixed position right governor control in low rpm all set and smooth as silk nice going now circle for landing 2600 rpm with 20 inches tap control set at zero year down at 160. 50 flats it's in the bag the p-38 was a weapon that did not have to take a back seat to any plane in the wool [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] you

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Id: WCKCmrE2bYg

Length: 28min 39sec (1719 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 03 2022