Was this not the plane depicted in the movie and book “The Flight of the Phoenix?” In this movie, travelers crashed their P-38 in the desert and finally made it out by building a new plane out of one of the “booms”.
I think that was a cargo plane the Fairchild C-82 Packet, a twin-engined high-wing, twin boom, twin-tailed tactical freighter and troop transport. Total of 220 built.