How One Mechanic's "Stupid" Wire Trick Made P-38s Outmaneuver Every Zero

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.

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..............

I listened to a story about how Charles Lindbergh operated his engines opposite of what the military standard was to get way more fuel mileage (30% more). This allowed them to extend their range and hit targets that were once out of reach.

The military said he would destroy the engines. The engines actually had less damage.

It took several weeks for him to prove it and the fliers and local command to agree to it. (Lindbergh flew combat missions with his settings, kept up, performed better,etc.)

It took many of the fliers awhile to get used to flying against protocol and how it had always been taught to them. But once it caught on everyone switched, including the military protocols.

At least that is what the video said, which no doubt was some AI generated thing. Some of those AI videos are so stupid. “Japanese Nurses Held POW in America Couldn’t Believe it!” (There were no Japanese (or German) female POWS in the USA.)

Regarding the AI videos, I now always do a quick search to find some other evidence to see it the video account is plausible.

Quote:

By 1944 Lindbergh had became a consultant with the United Aircraft Company helping them with field testing of their F4U Corsair fighter.

The spring of 1944 found Lindbergh in the South Pacific teaching Corsair pilots how to dramatically decrease their plane’s fuel consumption and increase the range of their missions. His task required that he join the Corsair pilots on their missions in order to better understand and change their flying techniques. This is how Lindbergh, a private citizen, managed to make his way into the cockpit of a combat fighter, take part in over 50 missions and shoot down one Japanese plane.”

When General Doolittle took command of the Eighth Air Force in early 1944, he banished the P-38 (except for the reconnaissance version) from the Eighth Air Force. The P-38 squadrons were converted to P-51s. The P-38 was still used in the 9th and 15th air forces.

The P-38 performed well in North Africa, Italy, and the Pacific as the combat was a lower altitudes where the air temperature was warmer and compressibility was not an issue in high speed dives from lower altitude.

This article includes reference to the P38 as a new fighter, whereas the British had already toyed with the idea of buying them in the Battle of Britain timeframe, but blundered by insisting on saving money, pennywise and pound foolishly, by not buying the most important feature, its turbosuperchargers - which are hard to beat at high altitudes in particular.
Any way you look at it, having an advantage in high altitude performance is never going to hurt a pilot’s feelings - that just naturally gives him the ability to “boom and zoom” - to dive at high speed, take a shooting pass, and rapidly escape back to high altitude from which to dictate the terms of engagement, or retreat as the situation seems to demand.
The speed of sound varies with temperature, and the P38’s advantage in high altitude/high speed worked better in a warmer climate where the Mach effects which hindered the P38’s early design was not as much of a constraint in the Pacific as in northern Europe. The upshot is that as a general rule all P38 production should have been diverted to the Pacific immediately after Pearl Harbor. But at the time, it was politic to send them to Europe until Doolittle shook things up.
Another easy-to-overlook aspect of comparison between fighters is brute simple: price. It’s obvious that P38s must have been more expensive than most or all American fighters. Twin engines alone would tell you that - and turbosuperchargers as well. But among single engine fighters, there were significant differences as well. The P47 was a big plane for a fighter, but it was able to perform at high altitudes - again, a turbosupercharger will do that for you - and the testimony of high-scoring ace Bob Johnson was that its roll rate could be a significant advantage. Bombers wanted high altitude to be further from German FLAK batteries, which explains why so much of the air war over Europe was at high altitude. So, within its range limitations, the P-47 was quite good. The other factor was pilot survivability; heavy construction, armor, and a smooth belly to make belly landings less dangerous - plus an air-cooled radial engine less vulnerable to a single gunshot - meant that not every P47 pilot was eager to switch to anything else.
But the P-51 came along in 1944, and was not only a stellar performer but it was notably cheaper, including the mechanical drive supercharger. It became the star of the show, but that was partly because of the attrition the Luftwaffe pilots suffered fighting the P-47s in 1943.
In the Pacific, the Corsair had huge teething problems despite excellent battle success. The Hellcat wasn’t as fast a plane, but it was dominant over the Zero, which was good enough - and it was something like a third less expensive. In addition to being much simpler to land on a carrier.

The “piano wire fix” myth

The anecdote usually goes something like this:

A P-38 mechanic noticed slack in the controls, strung piano wire along the existing cables to stiffen them, and suddenly the aircraft became far more responsive.

That story’s never been verified by:

Official USAAF or Lockheed reports

Pilot memoirs like those by Richard Bong, Thomas McGuire, or Robin Olds

Any technical histories (like Warren Bodie’s “The Lockheed P-38 Lightning” or the AHT volumes)

It seems to be a case of hangar lore — a story that captures the spirit of WWII mechanics’ ingenuity but not an actual event tied to the Lightning.

Bottom line

✅ The P-38 had real control-feel issues (mostly aerodynamic).
❌ There’s no historical record of a “piano wire” fix for control slack.
💭 The story is best understood as a myth reflecting real mechanical creativity, not an authentic field modification.

—

✅ Things that do show up

There is a mention on a forum post of “Technical Sergeant James McKenna … watched … the P-38… the control cables had slack… he bent a six-inch piece of piano wire…” in New Guinea.
Free Republic

There are credible records of a “James J. MacKenna” on the Vietnam Veteran Memorial (though unrelated era & aircraft) which shows the name appears in military contexts, but unrelated to this World War II P-38 story.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund

❌ Key gaps / reasons for doubt

The forum post is not a primary historical source; it lacks documentation, unit records, or official engineering/maintenance reports.

I found no mention of “James McKenna” associated with P-38 units or maintenance sections in reliable WWII histories of the P-38 (for example in unit histories, technical bulletins or memoirs).

The story includes very specific claims (e.g., “a three-eighth inch delay”, “six-inch piece of piano wire”, “destroyed 3 Zeros in seven minutes”) which appear only in that forum post and not in vetted historical literature.

The timeline and attribution (Pacific theater, Dobodura airfield, Fifth Air Force) are plausible contextually for P-38 operations but there is no supporting record that ties a mechanic modification like this into the official record.

The broader claims (e.g., “improved kill ratios”, “Lockheed integrated it into the P-38J model”) also do not appear in engineering change logs or standard references on P-38 combat modifications.

🧮 Conclusion

While the story is intriguing and certainly captures the flavor of real field-mechanic improvisation during WWII, it remains unverified as historical fact. Specifically:

It’s possible that a mechanic somewhere in the Pacific theater improvised a cable-tension fix, but if so, it’s not documented in accessible historical records.

It’s very unlikely that the story as told (with all its details) reflects an accepted or widely recognised modification to the P-38’s control system.

Bah Humbug.

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