The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II American fighter aircraft built by Lockheed. Developed to a United States Army Air Corps requirement, the P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a single, central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament. Named "fork-tailed devil" by the Luftwaffe and "two planes, one pilot" by the Japanese, this unique aircraft was used in a number of different roles including dive bombing, level bombing, ground strafing, photo reconnaissance missions, and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings.
The French Air Force operated F-5 recon variants; the French would continue to operate the type up to 1952. Unfortunately, since F-5s operated alone, when their missions went wrong, they generally disappeared without a trace. The noted aviation pioneer and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery vanished in an F-5 while on a reconnaissance mission over Lyon, France, on 31 July 1944. recently, a French scuba diver found the wreckage of a Lightning in the Mediterranean off the coast of Marseille in 2000, and it was confirmed in April 2004 as Saint-Exupery's.