The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was designed in 1937 to a United States Army Air Corp (USAAC) requirement for a high altitude interceptor. The “P” represents “Pursuit,” as in a long range fighter. Today, the designation would be an “F.”

When America entered World War II in December, 1941, close to 100 P-38s were in service. The dominant airplane, at least in terms of quantity, at the onset of the war was the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, a plane also built to the same 1937 USAAC needs. The P-40 did not cost as much. But it was the P-38, the P-47, and the P-51 that would be the dominant fighters of World War II. Of the three, only the P-38 was a twin engine design.

Of the three planes, the P-38 was more that two years ahead of the P-47 and P-51 in design and development. Initial production first took off when both Great Britain and France placed an order, 667 planes in total. The moniker “Lightning,“ was dubbed by the Royal Air Force (RAF). Initially, Lockheed had wanted the plane to be called “ Atlanta .“

The models were labeled 322B ( Great Britain ) and 322F ( France ). The plane initially had been designed with engines that were turbo-charged for high-altitude performance. This was new state of the art technology for the time. But due to the demands of the war, both Great Britain and France were in a rush to received the plane. Both countries felt that the plane would primarily be used at medium altitude combat. Because of a longer lead time for the superchargers, and also because they felt that the turbo-charged engines were not necessary, both countries agreed to take a lesser engine in their planes. 143 airplanes were delivered in 1942.. The inferior engine combined with the twin boom design of the plane created handling problems for the 322s. A substantial portion of the order was never delivered to Europe .

Lockheed kept on working on the plane. In late 1941, with various improvements, the P-38E was produced and started to see combat. A variant, the F-4, was produced and served as a photo-reconnaissance plane.

The P-38 served in almost every theater during WWII with various levels of success.

The P-38F were used in North Africa in late 1942. The success of the plane was mixed; able to escort bombers on runs in Tunisia and later Italy was viewed as a success, inability to successfully engage German Luftwaffe at low altitudes in air battles was viewed as a negative.

Mixed reviews continued in Europe; it was an able escort for the B-17 and B-24 bombers on missions into Germany in 1943. But at lower altitudes, because of the overall large size (and target) of the plane, coupled with the relative lack of maneuverability in contrast to the German Luftwaffe, the plane had difficulties in dogfights. The P-38 was in time replaced by the P-51 in this theater.

It was in the Pacific that the P-38 made it's reputation. Here range was of greater importance. The revised P-38Js were able to deal with the quick Japanese Zeros better than the modest successes of the P-38F and P-38Gs against the German airplanes in Europe . The ability to dive from a high altitude, disperse rounds from the four 12.7 mm machine guns and one 20-mm cannon and then climb back up again served the P-38 Lightning well in the Pacific theater.

Although there were no P-38B nor P-38Cs ever manufactured, the variants including the F-4 and F-5 (also photo- reconnaissance) ran all the way to the P-38L. In total, almost 10,000 P-38 Lightnings were produced.

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