Subject: Number Thirty-Eight in the Series--Lockheed P-38 Lightning (11 of 11)

From: [email-masked] (Joseph F Baugher)
Date: 7 Dec 92 14:45:34 GMT

>From Joseph F Baugher <[email-masked]>

This account of the Lockheed Lightning concludes with the story of
its service with the US Navy and a description of its operations
with foreign air forces.

The US Navy acquired four F-5Bs from the USAAF in North Africa.  They 
were designated FO-1 and were assigned the BuNos 01209/01212.  They 
were operated exclusively as land- based aircraft and never from 
carriers.  Lockheed had proposed a carrier-based version of the 
Lightning, the Model 822, with folding wings, arrester hooks, and a 
strengthened airframe.  However, the Navy looked askance at such a 
large aircraft on its carrier decks, and they disliked liquid-cooled 
engines for carrier-based planes.  Consequently, this project never 
got past the paper stage.  

The number of foreign operators of the P-38 were quite small.  Fifteen 
P-38J/P-38L fighters were delivered to China late in the war.  Later 
they were supplemented by a similar numbers of F-5E and F-5G 
reconnaissance aircraft.  I have no details of their service or their 
ultimate fate.  

The Royal Air Force never operated Lightnings on an operational basis.  
The RAF has initially ordered 143 Lightning Is and 524 Lightning IIs.  
However, they had received three Model 322 Lightnings and had found 
them completely unsatisfactory and canceled their order for all the 
rest.  The remainder of the cancelled British order was diverted to 
USAAF contracts.  

Three F-4-1-LOs were given to the Royal Australian Air Force in 
September 1942, and they were assigned to the No.  1 Photographic 
Reconnaissance Unit which them under the RAAF serial numbers A55-1, 2, 
and 3.  A55-1 and 3 were written off in landing accidents, while A55-2 
was returned to the USAAF three months after it had entered Australian 
service.  

The Free French also operated photographic Lightnings.  Six F-4s were 
assigned for conversion training to Groupe de Reconnaissance II/33 in 
Morocco in April of 1943.  The Groupe later re-equipped with F-5s and 
operated as as squadron attached to the 3re Photographic 
Reconnaissance Group of the Twelfth Air Force of the USAAF.  The 
best-known Free French F-5 pilot was the famous author Antoine de 
Saint-Exupery.  Saint-Exupery was lost off southern France on July 31, 
1944 while on a combat sortie in his F-5 from Corsica.  

After the liberation of France, GR II/33 was renamed GR I/33 "Belfort" 
and continued to fly reconnaissance Lightnings (F-5A/F-5B/F-5F/F-5G) 
for several years after the war.  They finally re-equipped with 
modified Republic F-84G Thunderjets in 1952.  

Two P-38s of the First Fighter Group had been forced to land at 
Lisbon, Portugal while being ferried from England to Algeria.  The 
Portuguese government obtained American permission to retain these 
planes and assigned them the serial numbers 300 and 301.  

There is at least one occasion in which Lightnings served with Axis 
forces, joining the list of aircraft which served on both sides during 
World War II.  The Regia Aeronautica managed to obtain an intact P-38G 
when it had been forced to land on Sardinia on July 12, 1943 due to 
navigation equipment problems during a flight from Gibraltar to Malta.  
The captured P-38G was repainted in Italian markings and was flown to 
the experimental center at Guidonia for evaluation.  It was flown from 
there on August 11, 1943 by Col Angelo Tondi to intercept American 
bombers.  Tondi is credited with possibly shooting down one B-24D 
Liberator.  However, the Italian P-38G was grounded shortly thereafter 
because of a lack of spare parts.  

The Italians acquired additional Lightnings in a more orthodox manner 
six years later.  When Italy joined NATO, the Aeronautica Militare 
Italiana received 50 Lightnings (P-38Js, P-38Ls, and F-5Es), which 
operated them until they were replaced by jets.  

The Fuerza Aerea Hondurena received a dozen P-38Ls in the late 1940s.  

With the end of the war, large numbers of Lightnings were scrapped.  A 
few were sold off as surplus.  Some of these were used for aerial 
surveys and some were flown in postwar National Air Races.  There were 
still a few P-38Js and P-38Ls still around when the USAF was formed, 
and in June 1948 they were redesignated F-38J and F-38L.  By 1949, all 
of these F-38s were out of service.  

Sources:

  Lockheed Aircraft Since 1913, Rene J. Francillon, Naval Institute Press,
  1987

  The P-38J-M Lockheed Lightning, Profile Publications, Le Roy Weber
  Profile Publications, Ltd, 1965.

  War Planes of the Second World War, Fighters, Volume Four, William Green,
  Doubleday, 1964.

  Famous Fighters of the Second World War, William Green, Doubleday, 1967.

  The American Fighter, Enzo Angelucci and Peter Bowers, Orion Books, 1987.

  Wings of the Weird and Wonderful, Captain Eric Brown, Airlife, 1985.

  United States Military Aircraft since 1909, Gordon Swanborough and Peter 
  M. Bowers, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.

Joe Baugher       AT&T Bell Laboratories    2000 North Naperville Road 
		  Naperville, Illinois 60566-7033.   (708) 713-4548