Osprey Aircraft of the Aces 14 : P-38 Lightning Aces of the Pacific and CBI

The P-38 was used on virtually every front to which the USAAF were committed, but enjoyed its greatest successes in the Pacific and China-Burma-India (CBI) theatres despite the fact that there were never more than about 15 squadrons of P-38s in the South and South-west Pacific at any one time - the CBI used only four! The speed, range and firepower of the P-38 made it the favourite of nearly all aircrew fighting in the Solomons, New Guinea and the Philippines, and over 1800 Japanese aircraft fell to its guns. More than 100 pilots scored at least five aerial victories in the P-38 over the Pacific and Asia, including the top American aces of the war. From the first encounters at the end of 1942 until the Lightning scored the final Fifth Air force victories in August 1945, these pilots made the Pacific skies very much their own battleground. Text by John Stenway with illustrations by Tom Tullis.

Contents

• Introduction
• Early Operations
• The Yamamoto Mission
• Wewak, Rabaul and Hollandia
• Lessons from Hollandia
• The Philippines
• P-38 Aces of the CBI
• Bong and McGuire
• Appendices