It was P-38Gs of the 339th Fighter Squadron which, on 18 April 1943, flew the mission which resulted in the death of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.

On the morning of 18 April, despite urgings by local commanders to cancel the trip for fear of ambush, Yamamoto's planes left Rabaul as scheduled.

Afterwards, another pilot, Capt Thomas George Lanphier, Jr., claimed he had shot down the lead bomber, which led to a decades-old controversy until a team inspected the crash site to determine direction of the bullet impacts.

Headquarters moved up from New Caledonia at the end of 1943; and the following month the group moved from Guadalcanal to Stirling Island to support ground forces on Bougainville, assist in neutralizing enemy bases at Rabaul, and fly patrol and search missions in the northern Solomons.

Escorted bombers to oil refineries on Borneo; bombed and strafed airfields and installations on Ceram, Amboina, Boeroe, Celebes, and Halmahera.

Received a Distinguished Unit Citation for a series of long-range bombing and strafing raids, conducted through intense flak and fighter defense, on the airfield and shipping at Makassar, Celebes, in November 1944.

The 339th Squadron was attached to the 8th Fighter Wing at Kimpo Airfield, near Seoul South Korea to stem the North Korean advance.

This was the first air-to-air kill of the Korean War, and, incidentally, the first aerial victory by the newly formed United States Air Force.

As more jets, especially the all-weather Lockheed F-94 Starfire, became available the F-82s were deligated to ground attack missions before eventually being withdrawn from the Korean Theater, modified, and reassigned to bomber escort duties at Ladd AFB, Alaska.