An American P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft from the US Air Force during an emergency landing at a French airfield in the Battle of France, World War II in Europe.
Western Front of the Wehrmacht.
The P-38 Lightning is an American heavy twin-engine fighter aircraft. The P-38 is designed in accordance with the concept of a heavy high-altitude fighter put forward by the US Army Air Corps in 1937. It was used as a long-range escort fighter, attack aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft.
The P-38 Lightning had an unusual design – the aircraft was built using a two-boom design with the cockpit and weapons located in a gondola between them. The Luftwaffe pilots called this aircraft “der Gabelschwanz-Teufel“, and the Japanese dubbed it “2飛行機、1パイロット Ni hikōki”, ippairotto. In addition to its use as a fighter, the P-38 was used for a variety of other missions: dive and level flight bombing, ground strikes, night operations, and photographic reconnaissance. In the Pacific theater of operations, it was often used as a long-range escort fighter (for this, additional jettisonable fuel tanks were attached under the wings).
Location: France
Time when the photo was taken: 1944