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dlsmall's review against another edition
4.0
3.5/5, rounded up from the nostalgia of my youth. This was one of those WW2 books that I loved in the 70s. I still found the first half to be pretty compelling, detailing the development of the various models of the plane in the European Theater. I found the back half, The Pacific, to be inferior in writing-style, often due to wholesale insertion of personal narratives…and the Pacific was where a ton of the plane’s legendary accomplishments took place.
joncoughlin's review against another edition
5.0
Deep mechanical detail. An admirable defense of the P-38 airframe design from an author who has written extensively about the air war in both the Pacific and Western Europe. Hard to walk away without loving the P-38 (if you didn't already).
davidpaige's review against another edition
4.0
The P-38 is one of my favorite aircraft, and it was even more so after reading this book. It's a pity that the air brakes destined for Europe went down with a freighter, or it might have been the dominant fighter plane in Europe, as well as in the Pacific.
komet2020's review against another edition
5.0
When I was growing up in the 1970s and taking pleasure in assembling model airplanes, I developed what has come to be a deep affection for the P-38 Lightning. It would be another couple of decades before I chanced across this book in a bookstore on the P-38 by Martin Caidin. It's a fantastic book offering a comprehensive history of this remarkably versatile aircraft which served on a variety of fronts during the Second World War with the United States Army Air Force (USAAF). The book is also enriched by the eyewitness accounts of pilots who flew the P-38 in combat and several illustrations.
For its time, the P-38 Lightning was a breed apart from its contemporaries with its twin boom configuration, "steering wheel" joystick, tricycle undercarriage, armament, high altitude performance, and two counter-rotating propellers. In 2015, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of V-E Day, I was fortunate enough to see a P-38 streak across the sky over the National Mall in Washington DC. "FORK-TAILED DEVIL" is a book that I could read again and again.
For its time, the P-38 Lightning was a breed apart from its contemporaries with its twin boom configuration, "steering wheel" joystick, tricycle undercarriage, armament, high altitude performance, and two counter-rotating propellers. In 2015, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of V-E Day, I was fortunate enough to see a P-38 streak across the sky over the National Mall in Washington DC. "FORK-TAILED DEVIL" is a book that I could read again and again.
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