Lightning ACE!

In 1943, Second Lieutenant Robin Olds received his silver wings and proceeded to operational training. With another batch of West Pointers, he drew the Lockheed P-38, with an assignment to a remote, forlorn place in California. The following is excerpted from Olds’ autobiography completed by his daughter Christina.

I knew about Muroc Dry Lake because my father had been involved with building a bombing target there in the late 1930s. It was still there. Considering the ongoing rivalry at that time with the admirals in the surface navy, it didn’t surprise me that the target turned out to be a large wooden replica of a battleship.

Flying and ground school. Then more ground school, flying, and still more flying. The P-38 was incredible. Our days were filled with the wonder of the machines, even though the bulk of them were bent and battered, not even worthy of the distinguished status of “war wearies.” There were D models and E models. There were even some earlier C models. Each was unique, with instruments never in the same location, the throttle, mixture, and rpm controls mixed around on the power quadrant, and switches all over the place. Each switch had a placard that hinted at a bewildering variety of functions, mostly mysteries to us, and I suspect also to our instructors, as they seldom mentioned them. The differences, however, could sometimes be quite frightening. On takeoff you’d be looking forward, reach to reduce the power and of course, could shut down the engines if inadvertently pulled back too far. At least the oil and engine coolant shutters were automatic and required only an occasional cursory glance to be sure they were functioning.

Accidents were common. One morning we were outside the quarters playing jungle volleyball when two P-38s pitched out above us for landing. The game paused