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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..............
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WWII awesome story!...................
AVIATION HISTORY PING!....................
And this is why Americans unleashed are unbeatable. If this happened during Vietnam, I bet that guy would be court-martialed....
The P-38 was an awesome twin engine airplane . My good friends father was a mechanic in the pacific Islands and worked on those planes. I wish he was still alive to ask him about this. I’m sure he new Sergeant James McKenna.
It’s proof that engineers don’t know everything. Mechanics with dirty hands who actually work on machines see things that the engineers miss.
What a wonderful story. Great find.
Same with Electronic Technicians.
Engineers create circuits, Technicians make them work..........
Explains most of today's vehicles. No designing them until you work on them for five years. Minimum.
Lindbergh also contributed by showing how to run higher boost at lower RPMs could add literally hundreds of miles to missions for free.
Democrats could learn a lesson about group think.
Necessity is the Mother of invention...................
American Exceptionalism!
I don’t think Yamamoto was a fan.
I don’t think Yamamoto was a fan.
Doesn’t he pitch for the Dodgers?
“I don’t care what the book says, they are idiots because this is just too loose!”.
OK, that’s funny right there, in a grim sort of way.
No, no, I think not!
“It’s proof that engineers don’t know everything. Mechanics with dirty hands who actually work on machines see things that the engineers miss.”
Absolutely! Yet they never listen and just keep doubling down on dumb...
Didn’t watch the video, but it sort of alludes to the change affecting turning radius as opposed to response. The P-38 utilized the same tactic that all US fighters did against the zero which was boom and zoom.
My good friend, top aviation author Jeff Ethyll’s father flew a P-38 all through WW-II, and Jeff was an expert on the plane. It and not the P-51 were his and my fav plane.
But in 1996 Jeff died flying one in Portland, OR preparing for an air show the next day.
A strong Christian and ordained minister, we all miss him.
I have most of his books - all autographed by him.
I happen to be currently reading Martin Caidin’s P-38 book.
The early P-38 versions had problems in the ETO. The Allison engine (also used in the P-39 and P-40) was a good engine at low altitudes but were terrible above 30,000 feet where most of the fighter combat took place in the ETO. The Allison engines blew up in the colder temps. The cockpit was also freezing cold. At high altitudes, the P-38 could not dive away from an ME-109 or FW-190 due to compressibility. The German fighters would Split S to escape a P-38 as the German pilots knew that the P-38 could not chase them in a high altitude dive.
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.
The P-38J was introduced in the spring of 1944. Many of the problems of the earlier P-38 versions were fixed starting with the P-38J. Of the 10,000 P-38 built total for all versions, 2,970 were P-38J’s and 3,810 were P-38L’s.
The dive flap modification was also added in late 1943. This modification kit was sent out in late 1943 to upgrade all of the existing P-38’s. In a high-speed dive, this flap was used to push the nose up enough so that the pilot could pull out of the dive. A lot of pilots were killed in high-speed dives before this flap was installed.
I have been reading about WW2 airplanes since I was a kid. My Dad was a private pilot and we went to many airshows and aviation museums. My Dad’s best friend was a B-24 pilot in the south Pacific. The airport in Northern California were my Dad’s friend kept his small plane also had a Stearman, PV-2 Harpoon, Republic Seabee, and and AT-6.
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