Customer Reviews

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning

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Warren Bodie's book is a marvel of completeness, including photos of all series and one-offs, and favorably presents what was arguably the best all-around fighter of World War Two. All the subjective criticisms of the famous Lockheed twin-boom plane are clearly discussed in their proper historical context, with ample support from the main historical actors. The book also demonstrates that the P-38, as a good child of Clarence "Kelly" Johnson's genius, was several years ahead of its time both in its technology and in the capacity of air strategists and pilots to fully exploit the advances it had over current aviation designs, as well as to foresee its potential. For example, the P-51 Mustang was a pig (and used the same Allison engine of the P-38) before being refitted with the famous Rolls-Royce Merlin engine which made it the masterpiece we know; just imagine a P-38 with two Merlins, something that never happened but that could have dramatically changed the air war before 1944 in all theaters. Bodie demonstrates that the P-38 was already the long-range fighter the Allies needed a couple of years before the P-51D and P-47N, but was stupidly underused and underdeveloped; its firepower was overwhelming and almost unparalleled throughout the war; it could turn with any enemy fighter and outrun most of them and, finally, having another engine was a priceless safeguard in the long flights over the Pacific Ocean and the Mediterranean. Highly recommended reading about my favorite fighter plane.

If you had to select only one P-38 book from the 50+ on the shelves, this is the one. Excellent quality from author Warren Bodie, outstanding quality in production, details that just don't quit, and a ton of photos. What more can I say. If there is one fault with this book, it has so much information, an index would be nice.

I have been a fan of the P-38 Lightning for many years, despite having no personal ties to it. I had been looking for a book on the Lightning which would combine pictures and text to tell its story. Bodie's book is well written and shows his passion for the subject. It is well organized and there are many excellent pictures (including a color section) accompanied by wonderfully informative captions. If there is a fault with the book, it is that Bodie spends perhaps too much time on the period before the P-38 was developed. Background is important, but I felt that it was somewhat excessive. Still, this is a required book for any Lockheed P-38 Lightning fan's bookshelf. I struck up a correspondence with Bodie after reading the book and found him to be very friendle and helpful in my research on the P-38.

This book is a must for anybody researching the P-38. It gives perfomance data and is packed full of tech data. It also gives you a picture of how the plane performed against german and japanese fighter during ww2

Let us just say that this is probably the most outstanding work that you shall ever run across regarding the remarkable Lightning pursuit plane.

May I allude to the fact that the late Warren Bodie became my mentor two years before his untimely death early in 2009. And as such assisted this old coot in compiling technical blurbs on "Glacier Girl" and etc for "Lightning Strikes," an aviation pub. of "P-38 National Association."

Warren's treatise still stands as an ideal source as he happened to be head of Tech Pubs Division at Lockheed Burbank for almost 40 years.

And now to the meat of it... this piece may not be the most organized rendering you have ever encountered but one shall find jewels hidden within the text which are truly astounding... e.g., Kelly Johnson's 13 anomalies [which Warren should have extensively elaborated upon] regarding the Lightning... some major, but only until the Model J Block-25 came out in '44... i.e., when the serious compressibility problem was finally ironed-out, in a remarkably simplistic manner, that is truly worth your attention if the truth be known.

Warren concurred with Kelly Johnson that the Lightning from mid-44 on... especially in the hotly-contested [vying with the Mustang and Thunderbolt] ETO or European Theatre of Ops, was one of the most formidable platforms to lock horns with as it by then had hydraulically-assisted ailerons... no matter what a handful of habitual Lightning naysayers attributed to it after the war....

This book lives up to its claim to be a definitive history of the P-38 Lightning. Not being any more of aviation buff than Walter Mitty, I learned a very great deal both from the text and the pictures, and I still return to the book for reference. It can be recommended without hesitation, but with a warning that it could have been made easier to read by better editing and layout. Things that I would have liked to see, besides fewer typos, include a diagram of the plane with its visible exterior parts labeled, and better anticipation of questions that occur to readers as they wade through the text, such as what are the features that distinguish at a glance the F type plane from the J type, etc. It's true, the answers are all there or can be inferred by study, but not every reader may be as willing as I was to tease the story out. I'm glad I did!

Warren Bodie has done his research and brought together a wonderful collection of pictures of the P-38. There is a vast amount of detail, which sometimes becomes repetitive. Included are production and testing history, and some highlights of the P-38 operations in WWII. This book is not for the casual reader unless you just want to look at the pictures.