In the South West Pacific theater, the P-38 was the primary long-range fighter of United States Army Air Forces until the introduction of large numbers of P-51D Mustangs toward the end of the war.

[12] The Lightning was extremely forgiving in flight and could be mishandled in many ways, but the initial rate of roll in early versions was low relative to other contemporary fighters; this was addressed in later variants with the introduction of hydraulically boosted ailerons.

[19][20] The Lockheed design team, under the direction of Hall Hibbard and Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, considered a range of twin-engined configurations, including both engines in a central fuselage with push–pull propellers.

Another factor was the sudden required expansion of Lockheed's facility in Burbank, taking it from a specialized civilian firm dealing with small orders to a large government defense contractor making Venturas, Harpoons, Lodestars, and Hudsons, and designing the Constellation for TWA.

Once caught in this dive, the fighter would enter a high-speed compressibility stall and the controls would lock up, leaving the pilot no option but to bail out (if possible) or remain with the aircraft until it got down to denser air, where he might have a chance to pull out.

The first solution tried was the fitting of spring-loaded servo tabs on the elevator trailing edge designed to aid the pilot when control yoke forces rose over 30 pounds-force (130 N), as would be expected in a high-speed dive.

[49] Late in 1943, a few hundred dive flap field-modification kits were assembled to give North African, European, and Pacific P-38s a chance to withstand compressibility and expand their combat tactics.

[55] Due to reports the USAAF was receiving from Europe, the remaining 36 in the batch were upgraded with small improvements such as self-sealing fuel tanks and enhanced armor protection to make them combat-capable.

[60] Everything changed after Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, after which the United States government seized some 40 of the Model 322s for West Coast defense;[61] subsequently all British Lightnings were delivered to the USAAF starting in January 1942.

Petit had already used Miss Virginia to defeat two Nakajima A6M2-N "Rufe" floatplanes in February and to heavily damage a Japanese submarine chaser in March, which he mistakenly claimed as a destroyer sunk.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, eventually about 100 P-38Es were sent to a modification center near Dallas, Texas, or to the new Lockheed assembly plant B-6 (today the Burbank Airport), to be fitted with four K-17 aerial photography cameras.

Arnold was likely aware of the flying radius extension work being done on the P-38, which by this time had seen success with small drop tanks in the range of 150 to 165 US gal (570 to 620 L), the difference in capacity being the result of subcontractor production variation.

Led by two Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, the first seven P-38s, each carrying two small drop tanks, left Presque Isle Army Air Field in Maine on 23 June 1942 for RAF Heathfield in Scotland.

[87] On 12 June 1943, a P-38G, while flying a special mission between Gibraltar and Malta, or perhaps, just after strafing the radar station of Capo Pula, landed on the airfield of Capoterra (Cagliari), in Sardinia, from navigation error due to a compass failure.

[103] After some disastrous raids in 1944 with B-17s escorted by P-38s and Republic P-47 Thunderbolts, Doolittle, then head of the U.S. Eighth Air Force, went to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, asking for an evaluation of the various American fighters.

While the P-38 could not out-turn the A6M Zero and most other Japanese fighters when flying below 200 mph (320 km/h), its superior speed coupled with a good rate of climb meant that it could use energy tactics, making multiple high-speed passes at its target.

On 2–4 March 1943, P-38s flew top cover for 5th Air Force and Australian bombers and attack aircraft during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, in which eight Japanese troop transports and four escorting destroyers were sunk.

Two P-38 aces from the 39th Fighter Squadron were killed on the second day of the battle: Bob Faurot and Hoyt "Curley" Eason (a veteran with five victories who had trained hundreds of pilots, including Dick Bong).

On 27 June 1954, this aircraft dropped napalm bombs that destroyed the British cargo ship SS Springfjord, which was loading Guatemalan cotton[123] and coffee[124] for Grace Line[125][failed verification] in Puerto San José.

White Lightnin' was severely damaged in a crash landing following an engine fire on a transit flight, and was bought and restored with a brilliant polished-aluminum finish by the company that owns Red Bull.

However, early variants were hampered by high aileron control forces and a low initial rate of roll,[131] and all such features required a pilot to gain experience with the aircraft,[41] which in part was an additional reason Lockheed sent its representative to England, and later to the Pacific Theater.

A dozen of the planned P-38G production were set aside to serve as prototypes for what became the P-38J with further uprated Allison V-1710F-17 engines (1,425 hp (1,063 kW) each) in redesigned booms, which featured chin-mounted intercoolers in place of the original system in the leading edge of the wings and more efficient radiators.

At the higher boost levels, the new engine's charge air temperature would increase above the limits recommended by Allison and would be subject to detonation if operated at high power for extended periods of time.

The turbosupercharger intercooler system on previous variants had been housed in the leading edges of the wings and had proven vulnerable to combat damage and could burst if the wrong series of controls was mistakenly activated.

In the P-38J series, the streamlined engine nacelles of previous Lightnings were changed to fit the intercooler radiator between the oil coolers, forming a "chin" that visually distinguished the J model from its predecessors.

The leading edge of the outer wing was fitted with 55 US gal (210 L) fuel tanks, filling the space formerly occupied by intercooler tunnels, but these were omitted on early P-38J blocks due to limited availability.

[133] The final 210 J models, designated P-38J-25-LO, alleviated the compressibility problem through the addition of a set of electrically actuated dive recovery flaps just outboard of the engines on the bottom centerline of the wings.

[134] Lockheed manufactured over 200 retrofit modification kits to be installed on P-38J-10-LO and J-20-LO already in Europe, but the USAAF C-54 carrying them was shot down by an RAF pilot who mistook the Douglas transport for a German Focke-Wulf Condor.

This and other aircraft were used by a handful of Lockheed test pilots including Milo Burcham, Jimmie Mattern, and Tony LeVier in remarkable flight demonstrations, performing such stunts as slow rolls at treetop level with one prop feathered to dispel the myth that the P-38 was unmanageable.

On 28 July 1944, Lindbergh shot down a Mitsubishi Ki-51 "Sonia" flown by the veteran commander of the 73rd Independent Flying Chutai of the Imperial Japanese Army Captain Saburo Shimada.