P-38G lightning

[Luis Miguel Almeida]

Hi!!
I need some help with finding information of a P-38G lightning captured by Portuguese Army Aviation during WW2!

mostly i need photos or colour profiles to know what was the real color of this aicraft!
here is what i kow about it:

- P-38G-1-LO [LAC 322-7172] AAF Serial42-12738, piloted by Cpt. Jack Harmon

- captured 1942/Nov/15 and was from 94th Fighter Squadron / First Fighter Group

here is a picture in Portuguese army aviation use

 

[Wurger]

Hi mate,

I've found this profile only.Unfortunately it is of a bit poor quality.But looking at the P-38G in your pic and according to my info on P-38 painting I can state that the P-38 was painted like all P-38 up to H version and some of early J one.The standard USA painting for the period of time and P-38 versions was colour 41 Dark Olive Drab FS34086 or FS30118 on upper surfaces and colour 43 Natural Grey FS36270 or FS36173 on undersides.What is more these paints got other tonalities due to the weather conditions,especially the Olive Drab one what is quite good visible in the pic.Therefore for the paints you can use Humbrol 66,142,155,84 as Olive Drab and Humbrol 176,156 as Natural Grey.

 

[Luis Miguel Almeida]

Thank you Wurger!!!

I have that profile, but i´m searching the original american profile!
This plane was brought to discussion in portuguese modelers forums for a long time, and the conclusion we reached is the aircraft retained the original colour except for our natinal markings!
So what i´m searching is info of the original aircraft!!
By the way if you compare the profile with the photo i posted you will see that the profile is incorrect!!

 

[Wurger]

Yes ,You are right.Now I can see some differences.But generally these colours are correct.

 

[Jennings]

Dredging up a very old thread here, but I've been engaged in some in-depth research on the P-38 recently, and I have come to the inescapable conclusion that literally everything that has ever been published on the Portuguese P-38 is wrong. Notice in the photo that the aircraft has a side-hinged top canopy section. That absolutely 100% means that this aircraft is not a P-38G. All P-38s up through the P-38F-5-LO (all P-38Fs with FY41 and FY42 serial numbers) had the side-hinged canopy. Starting with the P-38F-13-LO and going all the way through the end of P-38 production in 1945, the upper canopy was hinged at the aft end.

On the day this aircraft arrived in Portugal (15 November 1942), there were actually two P-38s that landed. Every single story (including everything published in Portugal that I have been able to unearth) says that the first aircraft, which was a P-38F-1-LO (41-7587) flown by Capt. Jack Ilfrey, is the one that escaped while the second, P-38G-1-LO (42-12738) landed and was interned and eventually became OK-T/300 in the FAP.

As you can see, the aircraft has the side-hinged canopy, and if you look more closely at the details of the superchargers visible on top of the booms, they also match with the type fitted to the P-38F series. I'm not sure how the two aircraft could possibly have become confused, but stranger things have happened before. I have sifted through literally thousands of P-38 photographs in recent weeks, and I have yet to find a single P-38F-13 or higher with the side-hinged canopy. Not even one.

As for her camouflage colors, that is still the subject of *VERY* heated debated in Portugal. There are those who claim, with no real factual basis, that the aircraft was repainted into RAF day fighter colors (Dark Earth, Dark Green, Sky). It is known that those colors were in chronically short supply in wartime Portugal, so that seems awfully farfetched. There are others who swear it remained in its USAAF Olive Drab over Neutral Gray. I've analyzed the one known photo of it, and I'm convinced that at some point before the photo was taken, her US markings were in fact overpainted with a color that in that one b&w photo appears a slightly lighter tone than the US Olive Drab. As to exactly what color that might have been, barring someone unearthing a pristine Kodachrome from old Uncle Rogério's loft somewhere in Portugal, we will probably never know.

This is a fascinating aircraft with a fascinating history, but I think its history and its identity have been misquoted for going on 77 years now. Of that I am 100% positive.

 

[MIflyer]

"Happy Jack's Go Buggy" is a great book describing Jack Ilfrey's WWII experiences, including having to land in Portugal when his drop tanks would not feed on a trip between England and North Africa.