A Foggy Parade of Lightnings

On a cold, foggy, rainy English morning, a parade of Lockheed Lightnings move slowly down the cobblestone streets. They have just been unloaded from a ship, after crossing the Atlantic from America, and are being towed to the airfield where they will be reassembled and flown into the fray. This official Lockheed Aircraft photo is hand-date 5-27-43 on the back.

The only hint at the location that I can see in the photo is the sign that says "S" on the opposite street corner, behind the left boom. In small letters (discernible in the hi-res scan, but not this low-res web version) that sign also says "Shelton" with an arrow pointing to the left. If this is referring to Shelton, Staffordshire, that puts this scene quite aways inland, and I'm not sure why the planes would have been towed so far. If anyone wants to figure out a more precise location for the shot, I'd love to hear from you!

Wikimedia Commons has a photo of Lightnings, which can be seen at this link, with similar wrapping sitting on a baby aircraft carrier in New York, just before leaving for their trans-Atlantic voyage to England.

Pacific Photo Lightnings

The qualities that made the Lockheed P-38 Lightning such an excellent long-range fighter quickly were quickly recognized as the same ones needed as a successful photo reconnaissance aircraft. So throughout the long production run of the P-38, a number of aircraft were either purpose-built or converted into unarmed photo birds, and given the designation F-4 (for the very early ones) or F-5.

From left to right, the aircraft are: 44-26427 (nose number 7), unk, 44-26424 (nose number 20), 44-2644? (nose number 21)

Today's photo, from an island airfield "somewhere in the Pacific", shows a group of F-5G Photo Lightnings waiting for their next mission. These were converted from a group of regular production P-38L models, which had been the most numerous variant of Lightning produced.

The print that the Archive owns is quite small, with the actual image area shown in the main photo above being only about two inches across. Yet the prints's resolution is amazingly high, so that a good digital scan clearly shows details of the aircraft, including tail numbers.

The F-5G-6 aircraft were all post-production conversions of the P-38L-5 version, performed at Lockheed's Dallas modification center (the F-5B had been the last of the purpose-built recon aircraft; all subsequent F-5 models were post-production mods). The "G" models differed from ealier F-5s in that they had a larger, more bulbous nose designed to accommodate a wider variety of cameras. The nose included a forward-looking window, several downward looking ports, and a large trapezoidal window on each side. According to Aerofiles, no records remain of what serial numbers were converted.

8/19/2012 update: Two of the aircraft shown, 44-26424 and 427, were later destroyed during a typhoon on June 20, 1946, while in storage on Guam.

Alaska wrecks, Part 1: Lightning 88

Judging by the toolbox on the wing and the cables being rigged
to apparently hoist the aircraft and the work that's going on, it
appears that these two photos show a salvage/recovery
team stripping the wrecked Lightning.

Over the next month or two, we'll on-and-off be taking a look at a series of photos of WWII-era aircraft wrecks in Alaska. The photos in this series came from a larger collection taken by an Army soldier who served in Alaska. Although most of the photos that he left behind are of non-aviation subjects - he seems to have been in a unit that operated heavy equipment - one of his group's duties appears to have been wreck salvage.

First up in our series are these two photos of a P-38 crash scene. The only unit in the Aleutian Theater during WWII that flew the Lightning was the 54th Fighter Squadron. The unit has the distinction of being the first one to down an enemy aircraft with the P-38, the first kill going to a Lt. Stanley Long, against a Japanese four-engine flying boat. Flying in that part of the world had its challenges. The weather for most of the year was horrible, and far more aircraft were lost to accidents and weather than to combat.

Presumably this was one of those. I know nothing about the scene shown here, no idea of the location nor the date, so there's not much of a story to tell. The only discernible markings are the nose numbers, barely visible in the image on the left, which appears to be "88".

By enhancing the contrast and rotating
the photo 90deg to the left, it appears
that the nose number of this aircraft
is "88".

Of course, I'd love to know more. If anyone has any info as to the location, the identity of the pilot or the date when this happened, please let me know!

(The National Park Service has a nice tribute web page to the 54th here.)