From the Usual USAF Source...
There's more detail at the "Elmendorf report" link, which is where the photo came from.
The world’s only existing P-38G Lightning fighter sits on vigilant watch over JBER as a subarctic dawn rapidly approaches, Wednesday. The World War II fighter was recovered in 1998 from Attu Island. (U.S. Air Force photo/Justin Connaher) Elmendorf's Lightning: A restored P-38G Lightning fighter from World War II now sits on permanent display near the 3rd Wing headquarters building at JB Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, announced base officials. This airframe is "the world's last example of a P-38G Lightning," according to their Oct. 3 release. The airplane, which went on display in July, was assigned to the 54th Fighter Squadron at Elmendorf Field during the latter stages of the war. In January 1945 during a training mission, 2nd Lt. Robert Nesmith was forced to make a wheels-up landing with it in a snow-covered valley on Attu Island in the Aleutian chain. While maintenance crews stripped the airplane of parts, the airframe was otherwise unrecoverable at the time, so it sat abandoned for the more than 50 years until 1998 when a team from Elmendorf set off to recover it, according to the release. In March of 2000, the 3rd Wing let the contract for construction of the memorial site at which the airplane now rests. (Elmendorf report by SSgt. Robert Barnett)
Great plane, great pic. Back in the neighborhood in E. Nashville from '48 to '52, all of us kids used to have intense arguments about fighter aircraft from WWII. Most of them defended the P-51 and a few argued for the P-47 since the TN Air Guard flew them over our neighborhood a couple of times a week. I always championed the P-38. It was so different from the other planes. A real beauty.
ReplyDeleteI'd be on the P-51 side, Dan... I think that's the most beautiful fighter that ever flew. Which is not to say that the P-38 is UGLY, just that the Mustang is prettier.
DeleteOriginal art didn't say, but did they name it, I wonder? The P-38F that they recovered from the Greenland icecap was christened "Glacier Girl" when restored& displayed.. LOTs of pub about that one, wonder why not so much for this one being P-38s are so rare? And of course being a tng bird, there was no "nose art" either--tho if there had been it would have been on left side of nose so out of sight to viewer anyway in this shot above..
ReplyDeleteGood question, Virgil. One would HOPE The Powers That Be named the plane.
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