P-38 National Association
July 2011
Hi all,
Well, this summer is flying by, starting with our annual membership meeting at the Planes of Fame, Grand Canyon, where several lucky P‑38 fans got to fly in their favorite plane. More about that later. For now, let's get this show on the road!
PS -- A reminder that if there is a larger version of a photo, you an access it by clicking on it.
Special thanks to aviation artist Jack Fellows, who has given us his permission to use his creations to benefit our non-profit P‑38 National Association.
Buy Jack's
original aviation art here.
Those of you who have been following the story of Lt. Montgomery A. Coddington, the P‑38 pilot who was shot down over France, and the memorial that was recently erected in his honor there, can now view the final outcome here.
The nice folks in France are famous for dedicating memorials for fallen U.S. pilots, and there is another one coming up next year for Dennis Chamberlain, and we're hoping to be able to send a representative to this one! If you'd like to help make that happen, you can do so here:
P‑38 Assn. member Linn A. Garber has sent us some photos of his P‑38F RC model, which he will finish up with some scratch built items to make a correct "F" model. We're only including one photo here, but you can be sure that they will all be going up in the P‑38 modelling section of our redesigned website. Fantastic job, Linn!
And for those of you who love RC models, here's a thread from the RCGroups.com forum where a guy (handle is D‑Rock) is building his P‑38 from scratch. You can follow him throughout his progress. After all his hard work, you have to forgive him for initally deciding to paint a "Glacier Gal" (huh?) scheme. (Following posts do get the name right, though.) Forgive also because he tells a great story about sitting at the kitchen table as a young man with a ruler and pencil and sketching out the basic design of his first P‑38 -- made from plastic soda bottles. Great forum.
We're pretty excited to get the modelling section of the website going because there are SO many P‑38 fans out there who love this aircraft and want to build a model or fly an RC model. We'll have an advice column as well as a forum. Something to look forward to. We need VOLUNTEERS! Our all-volunteer staff has too much on our plates. A good problem to have, I guess.
And if you'd like to find out how to finish your model with aluminum foil (?) you can do so here.
NOTE: If you are using Internet Explorer, these videos may not be available for viewing. I.E. for some reason makes it difficult to view many YouTube and other videos. (Which is why we prefer to use the Mozilla Firefox browser! Do yourself a favor and download it now.) If you see a "Active X" warning when you load this newsletter with I.E., just click on the "Allow" button and it should allow you to view the videos. Maybe. Gotta love Microsoft...
360° of P-38
Interesting video of a 360° view of the P‑38 -- from inside the cockpit!
There is a very cool new video from David Taylor of the Red Bull P‑38 at the recent air show in Duxford. check it out here.
P-38 Dive
Here's a pretty neat video of a dive of a P‑38 crash site. It's written in French but my Googe language tool tells me it is "great diving on the P38 Lightning; very good visibility in April 2009." I muted the sound because I found it distracting, but be sure to watch it in full screen mode. Very cool. (Just roll your mouse over the menu along the bottom of the video and you'll see where to click for "full screen" mode.)
Glacier Girl At Oshkosh
Little late out of the gate on this one, but there's a nice article here about Glacier Girl's trip to Oshkosh at the end of July, and, although it's an old one, it includes a nice back-story video and interivew with Bob Cardin & Steve Hinton. Thanks to Lee Henderson.
Neat P-38 Animation
We love it when we receive P‑38 photos that we've never seen before. Here's one given to us by “Bud” Kelly whose Dad, Rochester “R.V.” Kelly, was a Lockheed mechanic at the (camoflaged) Burbank plant in the early 1940's. You can view the enlargement and see his dad (4th from the left).
Planes of Fame 2011
This is a gorgeous shot of a P‑38 from this year's Planes of Fame air show. As you can see by the watermark, it was taken by a professional photographer, and it's available on his website. Seems like the USPS should issue it as a postage stamp, it's so beautiful!
If you live in the Southern CA vicinity, you'll have a chance to see two P‑38s in the air at the "Wings Over Camarillo" air show. They had hoped for three, but most of us would settle for seeing just one in the air. It takes place Aug 20‑21, so you still have time to make plans. Visit their website for full details and keep an eye peeled for Bob Alvis (Pres) and Dayle DeBry (PR), who will be there representing the P‑38 National Association.
If you live in the Los Angeles area and happen to be driving West on the Ventura Freeway, you'll be within eyesight of a rather famous P‑38 crash site. Fans of the P‑38 will already know about the first cross-country flight that Ben Kelsey took in the XP‑38, which wound up in a golf course ravine just short of the runway in NY.
But one of the "joys" of being a test pilot is that sometimes flights don't turn out like you had hoped they would. Such was the case with the dive flap test flight Kelsey took on April 9, 1943. You can read the results here. So the next time you're heading west on the 101, glance off to the north towards the LA Pet Memorial Park in Calabassas and be thankful that another test pilot made it out safely.
Well, we have a bit of a mystery going on here. One of our readers, Jim Follis, is a collector of poker chips and has come across two chips with P‑38s on them that he can't find listed in any of his resource material. He posted the chips on a gaming memorabilia board and found out that there are even more P‑38 chips, with one being issued fairly recently by Harrah's (Reno) to commemorate the annual air race there. Here are all of the chips. If anyone has any background on this chips, let us know and we'll put Jim in touch with you. (Click on chips to see larger view.)
And speaking of fun P‑38 stuff, who knew there was a P‑38 arcade game (view on Youtube) back in the day when video games actually took up floor space and were called arcade games? Thanks to P‑38 Association PR Director, Dayle DeBry, for this find!
Speaking of the Duxford Air Show, most of you have probably already heard about the mid-air collision that happened between a Mustang and a Skyraider at their air show this year. (Here's the news coverage on the crash.) Just after it happened, we got a call from Steve Hinton (who was flying in the show) to let us know it wasn’t him, and all pilots are safe. The Skyraider lost a chunk of wing, but the Mustang was a total loss. The Duxford Air show is one of the better and most popular European air shows; but it seems at times like they are snake bit since that’s where the P‑38 (California Cutie) was lost a few years back. Pilot not so fortunate in that one, of course.
Stephen Rodolph sent us a factinating story of his Dad, Capt. John H. Rodolf, of the 17th Photo Recon Sqdn who spent 11 days in a life raft with six other members of the Squadron, two of whom died during the ordeal. Here's a pic of his Dad, and we'll have the entire story on the website when it's done. Stay tuned.
(Man, were they young! )
I've seen some interesting paintings of P‑38s in my day, but this caught me off guard. The artist is Randy Nagle, and in the two P‑38 paintings I saw, one of them was under water and one was crashed in the jungle. Interesting perspective, and if you like unusual paintings of our favorite plane, check out his website by clicking on the painting below.
Significant Days in the History of the P‑38
I have toyed with the idea of a P‑38 chronology for ever so long, and now I am going to indulge my whimsy at the expense of the dear readers of our newsletter.
It taxes my organizational skills to make lists – omissions and unjustified inclusions have embarrassed me endlessly in the past – but here goes for just the fun of it.
January is the first logical choice, and subsequent entries shall canvass the rest of the Gregorian calendar.
- January 27, 1939: The XP‑38 flies for the first time.
- January 6 -8, 1943: More than thirty Japanese aircraft were claimed by P‑38s of the 9th and 39th Fighter Squadrons for the first impressive showing for the Lockheed fighter over Lae convoys.
- January 29, 1944: The 20th Fighter Group has its best day with the P‑38, and the best day for the P‑38 so far in the ETO when ten German interceptors are claimed for four American losses.
- January 1, 1945 : Southwest Pacific victories over the Philippines include twelve Japanese aircraft claimed by VFC P‑38s. Among these victories were a Dinah and a Tojo for Col. Charles MacDonald’s 25th and 26th victories.
John Stanaway (See a selection of John's published books.)
If you'd like to support the P‑38 Association (any donation helps, no matter the size), just click the button below. Thanks! We appreciate it.
The generous donations from our Association members and P‑38 Newsletter subscribers as well as the "legacy" donations made to us by the families and friends of those who have taken their last flight, have enabled us to continue our mission of keeping alive the memory of the P‑38 and all those involved with her throughout the war years and beyond. And we thank you.
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Thanks to all of you for helping to keep us thriving. The supporters with a star ★ by their names are our special donors, who have made especially generous donations of $100 or more.
Brad Ball
Richard Boone
Robert G. Carlton
Daniel Davis
Ralph Maloof
Michael Novak
Stephen Rodolf ★
Al Schneider
Patrick Swift
In Memory of Norma SmitH
Kathy Joiner
Denise Kass
Jon Lester
Another One in the Can
Well, we've put another annual meeting under our belts, and this one was better than ever. We had increasing numbers of members attending, several of whom bought flights in "23 Skidoo" the P‑38 from Chino which was flown over just for our meeting.
You'll be able to read all of the details in the next issue of our membership publication, Lightning Strikes. If you weren't able to attend the meeting, but would like to order a copy of the Souvenir Program, we have a few left that will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. It includes 16 pages of content and photos and is a nice keepsake from the meeting.
(Includes the cost for the Souvenir Program and the postage.)
Our keynote speaker this year was Sharon Estill Taylor whose father, 1Lt Shannon E. Estill, was shot down over Germany just weeks before the end of the war. He was the last man killed from the 428th Fighter Squadron, and she shared his story and her journey to find his crash site and his remains with us on the last night of the Annual Meeting. She also screened for us the documentary that was made about this journey of exceptional devotion. Do yourself a favor and visit her website (My Phantom Father) to learn the whole touching, remarkable story.
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Here are a few pictures from the Annual Meeting (except the one of Quentin Roberts). Just click on the photo to see the enlarged version. Photos were contributed by Sharon Taylor, Dayle DeBry and Marjorie Blake. | ||
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Board Meeting |
The jacket was created by Jerri Bergen of Victory Girl |
 Think it's easy crawling into |
Think again... |
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Check out our Facebook page for even more great photos from the Annual Meeting, and keep an eye out for the next edition of Lightning Strikes! as well.
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Our long-anticipated book is finally at the publisher and should be ready to ship in the next few days. If you'd like to place your order now, you can do so from this page of our website, and it will be shipped out as soon as we receive them. After they are ready to go you'll also be able to purchase them directly from Amazon.com and we'll have the link available on the same page.
Richard Boone
Peter Blukey
John Coppage*
John Deden
Chris Fahey
Davifd Gresham
Jana Lucas
Gale Marrone
Jim McClellan
Deane Mitchell
Robert Nishimura
Ken Phillips
Kyle Riddle, Jr.
Johnny Roth
Ronald van de Sandt
Dr. Sharon Estill Taylor
Mark Tietjen
Marlon "Wass" Wasemiller
Colette & Patrice Weiss
Drew Wiley
*Upgraded to Life Member!
P‑38 LIGHTNING
& PILOT INTERVIEWS
(Includes DVD and CD-ROM)
CD-ROM includes wartime photos and present day P‑38 restorations, history and interviews with two P‑38 restorers, including Robert Cardin who restored the famous Greenland P‑38 "Glacier Girl."
DVD includes interviews with eleven P‑38 veterans from ETO, Italy and all regions of the Pacific.
$22
(Regular Price: $25)