Lester James Maitland (February 8, 1899 – March 27, 1990) was an aviation pioneer and career officer in the United States Army Air Forces and its predecessors.

Although the recognition accorded them was less in comparison with the adulation given Charles Lindbergh for his transatlantic flight only five weeks earlier, Maitland and Hegenberger's feat was arguably more significant from a navigational standpoint.

His flight training took place at Rich Field in Waco, Texas, after which he received a rating of Reserve Military Aviator and was commissioned on May 25, 1918, as a 2nd lieutenant in the Air Service, National Army at the age of nineteen.

[4] Hegenberger had overseen the development of a number of navigation instruments that would make the trip feasible but like Maitland had also been transferred to Hawaii, where his repeated written requests for a transpacific flight were likewise refused.

[3] On June 15, 1927, Maitland and Hegenberger took the chosen airplane, an Atlantic-Fokker C-2 transport plane nicknamed the Bird of Paradise, and a team of aeronautical engineers cross country to check fuel consumption and the reliability of the aircraft and its navigational instruments.

[10][11] 23 hours into the flight, before dawn on June 29, the crew observed a lighthouse beam on Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands at their estimated time of arrival, but still in complete darkness, decided to circle until daybreak before landing at Wheeler.

[n 2] He then undertook writing Skyroads a serialized comic strip about aviation in 1929 with artist and fellow World War I pilot Dick Calkins.

[2] After his tour in Washington D.C. concluded in December 1929, Maitland served at Kelly Field, Texas, as a flight instructor in the Advanced Flying School.

Maitland served in various positions in the Training Command at Kelly, including senior instructor in Attack, to September 1934, when he entered the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field as a student in the comprehensive 845-hour, 36-week course.

Among Maitland's Air Corps peers were future generals Muir S. Fairchild, Barney Giles, Laurence S. Kuter, Haywood Hansell, and Hoyt S. Vandenberg; and aviation pioneer Major Vernon Burge, who as a corporal in June 1912 had been the first certified enlisted military pilot.

This created a serious morale problem that Maitland combatted at Clark, at the suggestion of a subordinate, by issuing an order in May 1941 that all base personnel (including himself) had to grow beards.

[18] Maitland was on the headquarters staff of the newly created Far East Air Force when the United States entered World War II.

[20] Reassigned to duty in the United States, Maitland was named to command the 386th Bomb Group, flying B-26 Marauders, upon its activation on December 1, 1942, at MacDill Field, Florida.

Over the following seven weeks the 386th embarked on an intensive training program covering aircraft recognition, flying control procedures, German fighter tactics, combat formations, and medium altitude bombing (between 10,000 and 15,000 feet (3,000 and 4,600 m)),.

[22] After flying four diversionary missions in mid-July, the 386th BG began combat operations on July 30, 1943, attacking the Luftwaffe fighter base at Woensdrecht Airfield in the Netherlands.

The group, attacking alone, suffered its first loss, a bomber at the rear of the formation nicknamed Wolf and carrying 2nd Lt. Cyrus S. Eaton, Jr., son of the investment banker.

On September 24, 1943, the 386h moved to a new base still under construction at RAF Great Dunmow, and flew its final mission as part of the Eighth Air Force on October 8, an attack on airfields in the vicinity of Lille that was abandoned because of bad weather.

On October 18 the 386th resumed operations from Great Dunmow as part of the Ninth Air Force, with Maitland leading the group in an attack on Beauvais-Nivillers airdrome in France.

At age 44, Maitland was one of the oldest pilots to see combat in World War II, personally leading four of first five missions of the 386th in a B-26 nicknamed the Texas Tarantula, but his tenure was cut short when he was relieved of command on November 18, 1943, possibly for excessive drinking.

Lieutenant Maitland, with full knowledge of the dangers and difficulties, traversed over 2,400 miles of the Pacific Ocean with marvelous accuracy of direction, and thereby demonstrated conclusively the practicability of accurate aerial navigation.