{"id":97894,"date":"2024-07-31T04:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T18:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/role-p-38-lightning-pacific-theater-ww2\/"},"modified":"2024-07-31T04:00:12","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T18:00:12","slug":"what-role-did-p-38-lightnings-play-in-the-pacific-theater-during-ww2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=97894","title":{"rendered":"What Role Did P-38 Lightnings Play In The Pacific Theater During WW2?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                    The <a href=\"https:\/\/airandspace.si.edu\/collection-objects\/lockheed-p-38j-10-lo-lightning\/nasm_A19600295000\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" >National Air and Space Museum<\/a> calls the P-38 Lightning &#8220;<em>one of the most successful twin-engine fighters ever flown by any nation<\/em>.&#8221; During American involvement in <a href=\"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/tag\/ww2\/\">World War II<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/tag\/us-air-force\/\">US Army Air Force<\/a> flew P-38s in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific. They were also extensively used in aerial reconnaissance, and they are credited with around 90% of American aerial film taken over Europe during the conflict. America&#8217;s top ace pilot of the war, <a href=\"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/usa-ww2-ace-richard-bong-lockheed-p-38-lightning\/\">Richard Bong, stored 40 victories flying his P-38 against the Japanese<\/a>.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The P-38 Lightning was an exemplary American fighter which excelled in the Pacific War of WW2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,408,1624,412,1328,395],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aircraft","category-history","category-lockheed","category-military","category-united-states-air-force","category-ww2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97895,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97894\/revisions\/97895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}