The Fork-Tailed Devil..History of the P-38

[Bergjon12]

Which Armored commander would this be? I don't think the the M4 Sherman was ever considered a "undergunned death trap" - or was it?

Only by forking devils!

 

[Greg Boeser]

Which Armored commander would this be? I don't think the the M4 Sherman was ever considered a "undergunned death trap" - or was it?

In March, 1945, General Eisenhower was upset about bad press about the M4. He asked his armored division commanders to respond to the allegations. Major General Maurice Rose, commander of the 3rd Armored Division responded by quoting the opinions of the men who had to take them into battle. All identified the inadequacy of the 75mm gun against Panzer Vs and the inability of the M4 to withstand enemy fire. They pointed out that nearly all Panzer V kills were delivered by artillery or air strikes.
Rose personally observed: "It is my personal conviction that the present M4 and M4A3 tank is inferior to the German Mark V." And that they could only be defeated by a combination of air, artillery, smart maneuvering and good gunnery. But this resulted in an "excessive number of losses."

 

[special ed]

As an aside, Gen. Rose was honored by his men, because he led from the front, being the first in to a town they took. The General died in the battle, so he was strapped onto the hood of a jeep to be the first in, when enemy left the town.
I read this many years ago, so memory may be hazy.
I also had a unit history when he was a National Guard Colonel, however book was a casualty of Katrina.

 

[larrymc]

With regard to "postwar," The Lockheed ad was published in Aviation magazine in March, 1945; the "Fork-tailed Devil" article was published in Flying magazine in August, 1945.
Neither addresses the origin of the term.

 

[tomo pauk]

With regard to "postwar," The Lockheed ad was published in Aviation magazine in March, 1945; the "Fork-tailed Devil" article was published in Flying magazine in August, 1945.
Neither addresses the origin of the term.

Larry - can we hope for the re-vamp of your site?

<prays>

 

[larrymc]

Larry - can we hope for the re-vamp of your site?

<prays>

It seems unlikely. However, if someone is willing to take it over, I am willing to sell pretty cheap. The site itself is about 5-1/2 GB; the scanned (and mostly processed, but not incorporated) research material is 25GB more, plus 22-1/2GB of TOs (not all of which are WWII, but most are.)
They would have to have a BluRay reader and it would probably amount to 4 discs.
The site is coded in bare-metal HTML -- not even CSS, much less Java or Javascript. Most pages are either HTML, PDF or PNG; scanned documents that haven't been incorporated are mostly TIFF. Completing it would be a lot of work and would have to be a labor of love. I have pretty much aged out of that camp.

 

[larrymc]

On the topic of P-38 and compressibility, this article was published in Air News magazine in February, 1944

 

[tomo pauk]

I've given a 'like', but I'm sad - if understanding - for the last sentence.

 

[Barrett]

Did the Germans ever call it that?

No.
To repat: No.
It's from the Lockheed PR shop the way "Whistling Death" was from the Vought PR shop.
NONE of the Luftwaffe survivors I knew or interviewed were aware of the reputed Gabelschwanz Teufel. They included Galland, Rall, Steinhoff, and Stigler.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Luftwaffe pilots I knew, referred to them as "Lightnings" or "Lockheeds".

Overall, the Germans referred to Allied aircraft by either their given name or the manufacturer's name.