Lockheed P‑38 Lightning

The Plane that Changed the Course of History!

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“The Plane that Changed the Course of History!”

Quite a bold statement, true. But as you visit this website dedicated to the P‑38 Lockheed Lightning, I’m pretty sure you’ll agree that we never would have won WWII without the help of this extraordinary aircraft.

Contrary to what some think, the P‑38 was not just a fighter, although it was the fighter of choice for many pilots, including the top American “Aces” of the war. But, the P‑38 was so versatile it could also be a bomber (carrying high explosive and incendiary bomb loads), a photo reconnaissance plane and a state-of-the-art radar escort.

There’s very little it couldn’t do. It flew at amazing speed and altitude for its time, faster and higher than any other.

The sight of a P‑38 Lockheed Lightning so terrified the enemy that the Luftwaffe dubbed it the “der gabelschwanz-teufel” (fork-tailed devil). Guess they knew there’d be hell to pay if a P‑38 crossed their path!

More about the 38’s versatility later, but let’s start at the beginning

Great Gift Idea

P‑38 Lightning
Vintage Style Watch

P-38 Lightning Watch

All profits from the sale of any product on our website go directly to support the  mission of the P‑38 National Association.

Help Save the P-38 Museum

It’s no secret that the March Field Air Museum is a massive. multi-million dollar operation. The P‑38 Museum is a small, non‑profit membership-supported association with no government grants or sponsorships. We continue to operate on membership dues and donations from our website and Museum visitors. This dispute has been going on since February and the legal fees are mounting fast! We need your help to cover these charges and continue our fight to keep our P‑38 Museum in the hands of the people that built and maintain it instead of some large corporation. If you can help, we would appreciate any amount you can afford. Just click on this link or the beautiful P‑38 photo above to get to our fundraiser links. Thanks

Non-Profit Status

The P-38 National Association is a 501(c)(19) non-profit, tax–exempt organization, but we are curremtly in the process of changing that to the more common and easily recognized 501(c)(3) designation. We will update this when the change is official.

Save the P-38

Help Preserve the
P-38's Place in History...

Select an amount from the links below, you will be taken to our secure PayPal donation page, where you may use a credit card to make the donation amount of your choosing.

If you prefer to mail in a donation by check or money order, please make your payment payable to:

P‑38 National Association
21392 Palomar Street, Unit 56
Wildomar, CA 92595-5004

Once we receive your donation, we will be notified and add your name to our donors page.

If you wish to make a donation in honor of someone or in memory of them, you can provide us the "Name of Honoree" instead.

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