Looking for serial #s for Gerald Johnson's P-38s

I wish I had my books available, or Joe were still with us - but Joe Baugher site is a great idea.

In his s/n list, it may break down which Es were converted to Fs.

Hello,

Dave, if you don't mind, I think it's best to continue and condense here the discussion we have there = GB 59 - WW2 Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO) - Aug 1, 2023 to Dec 3, 2023.

le_steph40 said:

Jan, if you mean "black 83" with 15 victory flags flown during October-November 1944, it is "very probable" that this aircraft was an L-1.
Explanations/infos here
View attachment 732367

Maybe one day we'll can see the original photo of the one above right and maybe the serial will be readable...

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le_steph40 said:

Regarding the L-5 "Barbara" I found a profile by Zbigniew Kolacha
View attachment 732375
But the serial would be more probably 44-25460 or 44-25463(?)

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Davecww1 said:

Interesting profile, but no 83 anymore? Did 9th FS change from the red/white striped tail in the earlier photo to just blue tips?

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le_steph40 said:

It seems that the blue vertical stripe and the white and red horizontal stripes was only used by the 49FG HQ.

Regarding the profile of "Barbara", hard to explain but it seems that from Spring 1945 the 49thFG' HQ's aircraft could have blue/white spinner. But this fact would have been used before, the P-40L flown by Johnson during October 1944 have worn 2 kinds of painting of the propeller spinner; 2 colors => blue (or red ?) and white and then all blue (or red) with a white stripe.

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N4521U said:

So what's Johnson's P-38 look like?

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le_steph40 said:

P-38F-5 "Sooner" SN42-12655 July 1943
View attachment 733125

P-38H-1"83" SN? previously "92" when flown by Maj. Sidney Woods who was replaced by Johnson during August 1943. It is possible that this aircraft wore 2 thin oblique bands on the vertical tail when it was flown by Woods... Maybe Johnson kept it as an OC...? But if we look at the tail, it seems that there is a darker oblique band/thin line above the "3", maybe white markings repainted over with fresh OD...?
View attachment 733126

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I found that

from here.
But It seems that this aircraft was no longer flown by Johnson during November 1943. It seems weird to me that 42-12655 was coded "83" when flown by Haniotis... IMHO, it's probable that "83" was wore by the aircraft flown by Johnson at the period (probably a P-38H...?, maybe the same as flown from August 1943 seen on the previous post above).

Other point, some sources stated that this aircraft was written off late in July 1943 after combat with Ki-61 but it's indicated lost on 5 November 1943 on Joe Baugher's website which corresponds to the info on the site earlier in this post.
If "Sooner" was really the first P-38 assigned to Johnson, if I'm not mistaken, here are the possible options (June/July 1943)

Great profiles Steph. Unfortunately I want to do the later L flown by Johnson, his early F/H planes look almost exactly like Bong's H #79. So I probably won't do 2 H models that look so similar.
Dave