Tag Archives: P-38

Just Linda doing her part

Posted on by Leave a comment

The lovely lady taking a tour of what seems to be a P-38 Lightning, possibly at Lockheed’s Burbank plant circa 1943, has all the looks of a film noir femme fatal.

Well, that’s because she is Linda Darnell, an oft-forgotten tragic starlet of the 1940s and 50s.

In the 1949 movie A Letter to Three Wives, when told ​“If I was you, I’d show more of what I got. Maybe wear something with beads,” Linda replied, ​“What I got don’t need beads.”

During WWII, Ms. Darnell, described by Hollywood flacks as the “girl with the perfect face,” did her part for the war effort with a series of tours, Bond drives, lunch with returning GIs, and the like while at the height of her popularity in Zorro films, swashbuckling pirate movies, Westerns, and action adventures of the kind that the Joes and Bluejackets overseas delighted in watching to take their mind off the war.

She also was a featured pin-up in Yank magazine in 1944.

Linda Darnell – Yank Pin Up May 12, 1944

This, naturally, translated to ending up as nose art on Navy and Air Force planes.

A P-38, ironically, with the Yank profile of Ms. Darnell.

U.S. Navy PB4Y-2 “Privateer” Patrol Bomber Squadron VPB-118 “The Old Crows.” Crew 8 in front of BuNo 59380, “Summer Storm.” The “Summer Storm” nose art, based on Linda Darnell pinup art, was painted just before a B-29 lost power and crashed into her, destroying her (amazingly there were no fatalities). When Crew 3 went MIA they were flying Crew 8’s replacement plane, 59449. U.S. Navy Photo (Photo print courtesy of Guy Jones, son of Harold Jones; notes courtesy of Jack Leonard) Via VPB-118.com 

Sadly, Ms. Darnell died the day after she suffered burns over 90 percent of her body in an Illinois house fire in 1965, aged just 41.

P-38 101

Posted on by Leave a comment

I’ve always had a soft spot for P-38s (the guns, not the can openers, as I find the longer P-51 type a much better form of the latter and don’t even get me into the P-38 Lightning) since I was a kid.

With that, I had the great opportunity recently while in the GDC Vault to find examples made by all three WWII makers– Walther, Spreewerk, and Mauser– as well as some Cold War-era West German Ulm-marked guns.

There you go…

For insights into how to tell them apart and what to look for, check out my column at Guns.com. https://www.guns.com/news/2019/12/04/the-world-of-german-p-38s-walther-mauser-spreewerk-and-otherwise

One must follow zee rules, ja?

Posted on by Leave a comment

Those damned orderly Germans. A kid walking along the beach in Schleswig-Holstein after a storm last week stumbled upon something interesting in the sand– a box of 30 former Wehrmacht handguns ranging from P-38s to Astras and at least one Browning Hi-Power. So of course, he called it in and the local Kripo came by to dutifully cart them off for destruction.

But he did get some snaps of them before that occurred.

Honestly, the can they were in was likely sealed until very recently judging from the low level of corrosion.

More in my column at Guns.com

You know you want one

Posted on by Leave a comment

U.S. Army Air Forces Lockheed P-38L Lightning aircraft ( Serial Number – 44-25734 ) and a ground crew member of the 94th Fighter Squadron 1st Fighter Group, poses in his self-styled auto made from salvaged Lockheed P-38 Lightning parts including a fuel tank with wheels added and a plexiglass windshield.

Air Corps Photo #75830. Of note, P-38 #25734, while assigned to 1st FG, 71st FS, was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire near Munich on 15 April 1945.

It also reminds me of this captured Japanese Human Torpedo, probably made from a plane fuel tank, from this 1949 photo taken at Naval Air Station, Saipan.

80-G-452861-A

 

The Walther P38: Godfather of the modern combat handgun

Posted on by Leave a comment

When you think German Army pistol, the Luger comes to mind. The thing is, the Germans themselves wanted something better and came up with one of the great-unsung handguns of all time. You may call it the Walther P38 and its influence has been felt far and wide.

In the 1930s, the German military was quietly rebuilding. Even before Hitler came to power, the tiny Reichswehr had done extensive research into rearming their nation with the most modern of equipment. After Hitler came to power, this process got louder. One of the things the army wanted was a new handgun to replace the 1900-vintage Luger. While the Luger was a beautiful weapon, its toggle-action was prone to clogging, especially when dirty. It was also expensive, and every army in history had a budget.

Carl Walther, an up and coming firearms manufacturer who had just won a contract to supply his innovative PP and PPK pistols to the German police, threw a design from his workshop into the ring.

canadian soldier checking out a captured P38 during WWII
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com

WWII Aviation Mystery Solved

Posted on by One comment

Antoine Jean-Baptiste Marie Roger de Saint Exupéry was born to a wealthy family with ties to old France in 1900. At 21 he joined the army in a cavalry regiment but quickly transitioned to the fledging inter-war era French Air Force. After leaving the army in the mid-1920s he became a pioneering mail serve aviator and the author of many books including the Little Prince Le Petit Prince.

When war broke out in WWII and his country was overrun he joined the Free French Air force. As a reconnaissance pilot in an American made P-38 Lightening he was lost on a flight over the Mediterranean from Corsica July 31, 1944. His flight was to inspect the southern French coast for the coming allied invasion. For more than sixty years his ultimate fate has been a mystery. A drinker and branded a traitor by the Petain government in France it was thought that the author may have even committed suicide.

Now apparently it has been solved. In 1998 a fisherman found a bracelet given the author-aviator by his wife. Using that fisherman’s location a wrecked P-38 verified as being Saint-Ex’s plane was found in 2000. Now a researcher has found the man who shot down that plane, a German fighter pilot by the name of Horst Rippert. Antoine Jean-Baptiste Marie Roger de Saint Exupéry died a warrior’s death