P-38 Lightning Amazon Book Store

[The Last Mission]
(NOTE: French Language)
View Clip with P-38 Footage (End of film)

About the final mission of Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, famed author of "The Little Prince" who died in his photo recon P‑38.

Saint-Exupéry's last assigned reconnaissance mission was to collect intelligence on German troop movements in and around the Rhone Valley preceding the Allied invasion of southern France ("Operation Dragoon"). Although he had been reinstated to his old squadron with the provision that he was to fly only five missions, on July 31, 1944, he took off in an unarmed P‑38 on his ninth reconnaissance mission from an airbase on Corsica. To the great alarm of the squadron compatriots who revered him, he did not return, dramatically vanishing without a trace.

In May 2000 a diver found the partial remains of a Lockheed P-38 Lightning spread over thousands of square metres of the seabed off the coast of Marseille. On April 7, 2004, it was onfirmed that the remnants of the crash wreckage were, indeed, from Saint-Exupéry's Lockheed F-5B.

P-38 Lightning Movies These are all the movies we could find that have a P-38 in them. Some of them feature the Lightning promenently (like Iron Eagle III and A Guy Names Joe), and some include it briefly. But, it's fun to see our favorite plane show up on film, either way!

Iron Eagle III "Chappy" Sinclair, a pilot who flies a restored P‑38 in air shows. When he discovers a drug smuggling scheme operating between a Peruvian cartel and a US Air Force base he decides to recruit three senior citizen aces to shut down the cartel. Stars Louis Gossett, Jr. The plane featured so prominently in this film is the Planes of Fame P‑38 "23 Skidoo."	A Guy Named Joe A Guy Named Joe is a 1943 film released by MGM (my old alma mater). It tells the story of a B‑25 pilot who is killed in action, but is sent back to Earth so he can pass on his experience and knowledge to a P‑38 pilot in the South Pacific. Stars Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne. Watch it here on Amazon Video	Von Ryan's Express The action in this film mostly takes place on a train; however, there is some P38 action at the beginning. Stars: Frank Sinatra, Trevor Howard and James Brolin.
A Walk in the Sun Restored and uncut 1945 version. In the 1943 invasion of Italy, one American platoon lands, digs in, then makes its way inland to attempt to take a fortified farmhouse, as tension and casualties mount. Some P‑38 footage included. Stars Dana Andrews, Richard Conte	Saint-Exupéry, La Dernière Mission [The Last Mission] (NOTE: French Language) View Clip with P-38 Footage (End of film) About the final mission of Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, famed author of "The Little Prince" who died in his photo recon P‑38. Saint-Exupéry's last assigned reconnaissance mission was to collect intelligence on German troop movements in and around the Rhone Valley preceding the Allied invasion of southern France ("Operation Dragoon"). Although he had been reinstated to his old squadron with the provision that he was to fly only five missions, on July 31, 1944, he took off in an unarmed P‑38 on his ninth reconnaissance mission from an airbase on Corsica. To the great alarm of the squadron compatriots who revered him, he did not return, dramatically vanishing without a trace. In May 2000 a diver found the partial remains of a Lockheed P-38 Lightning spread over thousands of square metres of the seabed off the coast of Marseille. On April 7, 2004, it was onfirmed that the remnants of the crash wreckage were, indeed, from Saint-Exupéry's Lockheed F-5B.