Posted on 10/29/2025 6:49:59 AM PDT by Red Badger
367,442 views Oct 26, 2025 #worldwar2 #ww2history #ww2 Why one aircraft mechanic installed unauthorized piano wire in P-38 control systems during WW2 — and saved 80 to 100 American pilots' lives. This World War 2 story reveals how a six-inch piece of wire changed aerial combat in the Pacific.
August 17, 1943. Technical Sergeant James McKenna, an aircraft mechanic with the Fifth Air Force at Dobodura airfield, New Guinea, watched another pilot prepare for a mission against Japanese Zeros. The P-38 Lightning was fast and powerful. But it couldn't turn with a Zero. The control cables had slack. A three-eighths inch delay between stick movement and aircraft response. That tiny delay was killing pilots. Every training manual said the cable tension was within specifications. Engineering officers called it acceptable tolerance.
They were all wrong.
What McKenna discovered that August morning wasn't about following regulations. It was about physics and leverage in a way that contradicted everything the Army approved. He bent a six-inch piece of piano wire into a Z-shape and installed it as a cable tensioner without authorization. Lieutenant Hayes flew the modified aircraft that morning and destroyed three Zeros in seven minutes. By September, forty P-38s had the modification spreading mechanic to mechanic across the Pacific. And pilots survived.
This technique spread unofficially through fighter squadrons crew chief to crew chief, improving kill ratios from two-to-one against Americans to nearly even before Lockheed integrated it into the P-38J model. The principles discovered at Dobodura continued to influence aircraft control systems through the Vietnam War.
34 Minute Video of One Man's actions that saved the lives of many pilots..............
Here is the problem I have with all these brand new WWII vids that are out there.
They’re brand new.
They’re AI generated.
Are they based in reality?
Give me an original source for this information.
One of the top comments is “There’s no historical record of any of this.”
As Abraham Lincoln said, “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet!”
Now with AI-generated video content, you can’t believe what you watch.
FR has been a means to get around Fake News since its inception. We need to bring back those ways of thinking, big time. Because there is a lot of new Fake News being thrown around out there.
Laz, you’ve been doing a bit of an AI deep dive, any comments?
Great story !!!
Very cool. Lesson and example for all of us! Thank you.
I loved this story - the silent heros
This is why capitalism beats central planning. This happened throughout the war as the tip of the spear was where the best ideas happened while communists were waiting for approval up the chain.
The Tokyo Dodgers?
Even when the unauthorized modification was discovered by an inspector, the report was sent up the chain and sat on someone’s desk for over a month..................
Might be a kernel of truth to the story, but in the history of the ETO, there was never a P-38 that could outmaneuver a Zero or Oscar… didn’t happen. The 38s ran up big scores with energy tactics, not maneuvering fights.
The internet is suddenly filled with these “one weird trick” and “Japanese we’re terrified of the 1911 pistol and here’s why” stories of WWII. They are morality fables about how one lowly soldier suddenly won the war and left the engineers in slack jawed amazement.
These fables were everywhere in the USSR.
The internet is suddenly filled with these “one weird trick” and “Japanese we’re terrified of the 1911 pistol and here’s why” stories of WWII.
AI?
“A three-eighths inch delay between stick movement and aircraft response. That tiny delay was killing pilots.”
Sounds bogus. Don’t know about WW2 aircraft, but I had no problem moving the stick of an F4 a lot more than 3/8” in no time at all...
Exactly. Tons of AI morality fables out there suddenly.
They got Yamamoto before Lindbergh went to the Pacific.
we need people who think like you do.
Don’t believe something just because it makes us feel good and we want to believe it.
Might be a kernel of truth to the story, but in the history of the ETO, there was never a P-38 that could outmaneuver a Zero or Oscar… didn’t happen.
Better is still better. little things added up.
[there are no (or shall we say zero) search hits for this Tech of the Fifth Air Force, but that could easily happen, I’m sure there isn’t a specific page for all for the millions who served; anyway, from the wiki-wacky:]
Many of the British order of 524 Lightning IIs were fitted with stronger F-10 Allison engines as they became available, and all were given wing pylons for fuel tanks or bombs. The upgraded aircraft were deployed to the Pacific as USAAC F-5A reconnaissance or P-38G fighter models, the latter used with great effect in the operation that shot down Admiral Yamamoto in April 1943. Robert Petit’s G model named Miss Virginia was on that mission, borrowed by Rex Barber, who was later credited with the kill. Petit had already used Miss Virginia to defeat two Nakajima A6M2-N “Rufe” floatplanes in February and to heavily damage a Japanese submarine chaser in March, which he mistakenly claimed as a destroyer sunk. Murray “Jim” Shubin used a less-powerful F model he named Oriole to down five confirmed and possibly six Zeros over Guadalcanal in June 1943 to become ace in a day.[62]
The British name was retained over Lockheed’s original name Atalanta, the swift-running Greek goddess, following the company tradition of using mythological and celestial figures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_P-38_Lightning
Notable pilots:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_P-38_Lightning#Noted_P-38_pilots
https://search.brave.com/search?q=Dobodura&summary=1
https://ww2db.com/facility/Dobodura_Airfield
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobodura_Airfield_Complex_(1942)#Kenney_Airfield_(Dobodura_No._7)
This story is not even remotely plausible let alone an accurate narrative of real events.
Might be a kernel of truth to the story,
If the pilots thought it made a difference, it did in their mind. Hawthorne effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
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