If you didn't make it to the Reno Air Races last week, take a gander at this beautiful photo of the "Heritage Flight," which included the P-38 "Glacier Girl."

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’38 HARDSTAND -- John Stanaway


When we were youngsters just starting out with this passion for World War II fighter planes Steve Blake and I had the time of our lives at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California. We reveled in the aerial smorgasbord of American, British, German and Japanese types whirling over our heads. Steve gave me a special thrill by photographing me around the P-38J painting in the colors of Colonel Charles MacDonald’s PUTT PUTT MARU.

We didn’t much care that this version of PPM would actually have been an L model or that some of the colors may not have been dead right on. It was as good as being there in the Philippines with the good Colonel and his famous mount. However, the intervening years have not been kind to the cause of authentically reproduced color schemes on the proper model Lightning. I for one am a bit chagrined at the carelessness with which schemes have been applied as of late.

It was grating to see PORKY II markings applied to a P-38J, but now Perry “Lucky” Dahl’s 23 SKIDOO with its politically incorrect red-nosed American Indian has been painted on the same P-38. Both PORKY II and 23 SKIDOO were H models with the streamlined intakes under the propeller spinners. (The jet fighter museum in Australia was working on a recovered 475th Fighter Group H model in Dahl’s colors, but nothing recently has been heard from that quarter.)

For the sake of us purists who want the most authentic representation possible on any renovated, renewed or rebuilt P-38, I would offer some of the following schemes that could be applied to any P-38J with assurance of historical accuracy. The first scheme would carry a caveat in terms of the special status of P-38J-25 sub series. Remember that the J-25 was the only model in that range to sport the underling flaps and landing light on the port wing leading edge. That J-25 was the one flown by Larry Blumer in the 9th Air Force (SCRAPIRON IV) and was the only P-38 to claim five Fw 190s in a single combat.

Another P-38J to achieve some degree of recognition was PAT III flown by Colonel Obie Taylor of the 14th Fighter Group in the Mediterranean. Both of these P-38s are well documented in photos and other documents, so reasonably accurate reproductions are possible. Either one would represent a distinguished combat tested P-38 in the arena against the Axis in Europe.

Other worthy schemes that could be accurately represented include Jay Robbins’s JANDINA III or IV, Joel Paris’s GEORGIA BELLE, or the gaudily camouflaged MISS V of Wally Duke with the 459th Squadron of the 10th Air Force in the CBI. The list of other 11th, 13th and 14th Air Force examples would make strikingly appropriate examples, and would take the teeth of this old P-38 fanatic off edge.

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John Stanaway has written two best-selling volumes in the Aces series both covering the exploits of the greatest Pacific fighter of them all, the P-38 Lightning.  In this one, he talks about the 475th, which was formed with the best available fighter pilots in the Southwest Pacific. From the time the group entered combat in August 1943 until the end of the war it was the fastest scoring group in the Pacific and remained one of the crack fighter units in the entire US Army Air Forces with a final total of some 550 credited aerial victories. Amongst its pilots were the leading American aces of all time, Dick Bong and Tom McGuire. Get your copy here.