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..............
Find a need and fill it, became CREATE a need and fill it..............
There are a lot of overblown videos about WW2 weapons. Field mods — authorized or not — were pretty common. Yeah, there was always a maintenance officer saying that you couldn’t do them, often backed up by a tech rep from the manufacturer. But it was absurd to say, “performing a field mod would void the warranty” as this video did. These pilots are going into combat.
There’s a famous story about Col. Charles Lindergh touring frontline P-38 units and teaching them how to safely run leaner to gain extra range and not damage those engines. Yeah, the crew chiefs were reluctant — but they did it.
Agree, I stopped watching those AI generated videos. The audio seemed so scripted, the videos didn’t match the text, and it seemed that I had read the audio that was spoken during the video, in some other reference before. Very repetitive information. Pure schlock.
EXACTLY RIGHT. ALL ENGINEERS BELONG TO A HIVEMIND AND WE SPEAK AS ONE.
WE ALSO HAVE PERFECTED A TELEPATHIC ABILITY TO MAKE THOSE CATCHING ON TO THE TRUTH OF ENGINEERS TO ALWAYS ENGAGE THE CAPLOCKS KEY.
IT ALLOWS US TO INDENTIFY TRANSGRESSORS, AND SEND NEUTRALIZATION SQUADS TO VISIT THEM.
Cuz at one time, someone thought it would be a good idea. Or, more likely, someone figured out dupes would buy unnecessary things and created a whole bunch of unnecessary things to sell to the dupes.
Yeah, I watched the whole thing and knew immediately it was Ai-generated. It's just so easy to churn this stuff out with a few keystrokes and mouse clicks.
Some of it might've been true. It might've been entirely fiction. Who knows?
The P-38 was always my favorite WWII aircraft, so I loved Martin Caidin’s book and still have a copy. I liked his other aviation writing, too, including what I’ve read about Iron Annie.
If ETO stands for European Theater Operations, then I think no Japanese Zeros or Oscars would have been an issue...
Or perhaps I misunderstood what you mean by ETO.
When I was a kid, I read Martin Caidin’s book Thunderbolt about Robert Johnson and the 56th Fighter Group (”Zemke’s Wolfpack”). The P-47 is my favorite WW2 plane. It was heavy and used twice as much gas as the P-51. It was tough, had 8 50’s, carried bombs and rockets, and could out dive all other WW2 planes. The P-47 was the best ground attack single engine plane until the Skyraider.
The P-51A, P-38, and P-40 with the Allison engine had good performance up to 15,000 feet. Fighter combat was mostly at high altitude in the ETO but at low and medium altitudes in North Africa and the Pacific. The P-38 had Fowler Flaps which could be used to tighten turns. These were in the original design. The only other WW2 plane with Fowler Flaps was the Japanese KI-43 Oscar.
One of the most famous field modifications for WW2 aircraft was when Pappy Gunn’s team created the B-25 strafer gunships with 8 50’s. North American then created the B-25 version with the strafer nose which devasted Japanese shipping in the South Pacific. The B-25G/H gunship models included a 75mm cannon and 10 50’s. The B-25J gunship version did not include the 75mm cannon.
Correction : The P-38 Fowler Flaps were not part of the original design. They started with the P-38F.
That was a good book. I read my oldest brother’s copy. I think it was in that book where I read that the P-47 could also out-roll most if not all other WWII fighters, including the Spitfire.
My other brother once met Pappy Boyington at an airshow, around 1980, and still has an autographed copy of Boyington’s autobiography.
Funny how I’ve read several very thorough books on the P38 and this has never been mentioned.
YouTube is now filled with these “WW2” stories that no one ever heard of before. Almost like they are being invented out of thin air.
I met Pappy Boyington in the late 1970’s at an airshow in California. I have read his book.
I moved from California to the Dallas area in 1991. Cavanaugh Flight Museum in Addison had spring and fall airshows in the 1990’s. I met Paul Tibbits (Enola Gay pilot), Robert Morgan (Memphis Belle pilot), Joe Engle (astronaut), Hoot Gibson (astronaut), and Tex Hill (Flying Tigers pilot). Hoot Gibson’s wife was in space abord the Space Shuttle while he was at this airshow. We drove to Oshkosh in 1978 when I was a teenager and stayed in the campground for a week across the street from the airshow.
I believe it was in California where my brother met him, and it might have been a little before 1980. There’s at least a small chance that the two of you were at the same show.
You’re lucky to have met so many of those people. I never did, though a former roommate met Hanna Reitsch at an airshow one time.
We used to go to EAA airshows at Healdsburg, Watsonville, and Merced. I don’t remember which show I met Pappy Boyington.
Tex Hill lived in Sherman, TX in the 1990’s so he was at many of the DFW airshows. I made the mistake of asking Tex Hill about Boyington. That was the end of our conversation. They both flew with the Flying Tigers. He and most of the other Flying Tigers hated Boyington.
Yeah, I’ve heard that Boyington was not the best-liked guy in the Flying Tigers.
Mechanics with dirty hands who actually work on machines see things that the engineers miss.
= = =
Let the engineer work on the machines and get dirty hands.
And he will learn.
McKenna should have got the Medal of Honor.
I’ve often felt the automotive industry should hire a few shop technicians. The engineers aren’t always right.
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