The year is 1943 and the Germans are punishing the US Eighth Air Force during their daylight bombing campaign. Allied B-17’s and B-24 Liberators cannot get over Germany air space without leaving their fighter aircraft escorts who simply don’t have the fuel capacity to accompany the Flying Fortresses or B-24’s over their Germany targets. The P-47 pilots can give their FW-190’s and ME-109’s a good fight within effective combat range, but cannot pierce the skies over Germany. It is there that the Focke Wolf and Messerschmidt fighter begin to chop up bomber formations and inflict heavy losses.

It is a war of attrition that the Allies cannot support at the rate of loss and while the German industrial capacity remains intact! A desperate solution must be arrived at. Even the legendary P-40 Warhawk and all its variants can only be deployed for low level attacks due to all the Merlin engines being prioritized to the British Spitfires, though the Merlin engine is now being manufactured under license in the US now. A specification goes out to American defense contractors for a new air superiority fighter with height, range, and speed to defeat German fighter aircraft. Range is all important as bombers must be escorted against the gaggles of NAZI warplanes waiting to attack.

North American Aviation has been working since 1940 based upon a British request for a fighter capable of protecting the bombers in their deep penetration missions over Germany. The P-51 Mustang is finally born, a nimble aircraft heavily armed with six Browning 50 caliber machine guns, a laminar flow wing, and a powerful liquid cooled engine that can propel the Mustang to 430 mph. It can outclimb any other aircraft in the world beyond 40,000 feet allowing it to engage at will over any other opponents. It’s not until late 1943 until the first P-51’s are sent into front line service!

Since 1939 the Germans have enjoyed the advantage of their superior designs over the Allies, but now something different has emerged. As German fighter squadrons await the bomber formations expecting the escort fighters to drop off and return home, something else happens! As the seasoned German pilots rise to meet the B-17’s and B-24’s a previously unknow adversary flashes through the sky from above! ME-29 pilots see a swift silvery aircraft they cannot identify cutting through the sky with elegant dexterity! It easily out maneuvers the FW-190’s and Messerschmidt’s and the German aviators are quick to file reports and advise their superiors. Suddenly, experienced German combat pilots are falling out of the sky neatly stitched by the high rate of fire from the Mustang’s wing to wing mounted 50 caliber machine guns!  

Within weeks the P-51 pilots flown by well trained American pilots with excellent gunnery skills are exacting a terrible toll upon the German Luftwaffe! In months the P-51 Mustang flown by ace pilots like Chuck Yeager and George Preddy have not only achieved air dominance of the skies over Europe, but they are gradually destroying the fabric of the Luftwaffe infrastructure! As American manufacturers  produce 15,000 combat aircraft per month, German factories can only roll out 1,500 planes in the same period of time. The math is simple. The German war machine is losing its ability to supply the war effort while losing its veteran pilots to air-to-air losses. Now it’s apparent to the German aces that the Mustang pilots can pick and choose where and when they want to engage and do it with superior tactics, speed, and even altitude! With the high rate of fire and amount of ammo carried by the American pilot, the days of the Luftwaffe are soon numbered. The silver ghosts have become the dreaded Mustang that the Germans are being eviscerated by.

The Forked Tailed Devil

It is unclear whether the following account is actual or whether it was a planted piece of wartime propaganda for the morale of the Allied forces and their civilians. A German pilot was captured after being shot down during an engagement and was hauled in by US ground troops. When he was brought in for interrogation, he stammered hysterically in German so an interpreter had to translate, and what he said over and over again was, “The Fork Tailed Devil! The Fork Tailed Devil!” He told of an aircraft he had never seen before that outflew and outgunned its German opponents! The story was quickly broadcast as a news item and a legend in world war was hatched for public consumption. Did this story boost much needed morale-yes!

If one consults “Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1939” we can see that the P-39 Lightning was listed in the US military arsenal, but yet to be widely distributed. The Fork Tailed Devil was none other than the twin boom design fighter bomber. Lockheed had been building the Lightning since 1937 in their Burbank, California factory. The P-38 had it’s growing pains with engine improvements, cockpit temperatures needing to be improved for pilot comfort, and compressibility problems with control surfaces locking up in dives due to the extreme G forces and speeds. With 20-millimeter cannon and 50 caliber machine guns, the mid-air recoil was so great that pilots reported it almost felt as if the aircraft momentarily came to a halt in midair when the forward firepower was unleashed!

The P-38 Lightning first saw combat in the Pacific and was flown by America’s two leading “Aces” Major Richard “Dick” Bong (40 kills) and Major “Thomas McGuire” (38 kills). The Japanese were terrified by the mere presence of the aircraft with its unique appearance and incredible fire power! Once the incredible range of the combat plane was verified, not only did the P-38 become a deadly dogfighter and bomber, but also became useful in the bomber escort role in the skies over Europe for the Eighth Air Force!  It was the venerable P-38 that ambushed and killed Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto with a flight of 16 P-38’s that intercepted the two unarmed bombers of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto and his staff along with 6 escorting A6M2 Zeroes who were surprised and rapidly withdrew.  The  inspection flight to the island of Bougainville from the air center at Reboul was deciphered by US Naval code breakers.   

As it turns out, the P-38 did truly terrorize its opponents in the deadly skies of World War II. With a top speed, in later models of 443 mph. not only was the P-38 maneuverable, heavily armed, but it could out run any Axis power combat aircraft outside of the German ME-262 or the Komet rocket plane, both only in service toward the final months of the war, and had blown up many a German pilot with their unstable 40% Hydrogen peroxide and water alcohol mixture for fuel! P-51’s who could dive exceeding 500 mph. could simply wait for the ME-262 combat jets to run low on fuel and take them out if they so choose upon landing on their bomb battered runways.