Hi Ant,
The only referance I have of P-38 in Russian a few that came from Alaska.
The only countrys beside the US to fly them where the Free French, Portuguese,Australian and China. The Brits had a few but they came with out the turbos on them.
I’ll cross check my Lend Lease records to see if anything matchs up but I don’t recall Lockheed getting a contract for P-38s from the USSR.
Cheers
RER
About the Portuguese ownership of the P-38.
It’s a funny story as we had only 1 example of that particular plane. Actually, in the beggining there were 2….
The story goes like this. While in transit to north africa, two P-38 landed in Portela airport and were interned by the portuguese autorities (Portugal was a neutral state in WW2). While in custody one of the American flyers managed to escape from the guards and retake his aircraft and fled away. So we got only one of the P38s to reamin in Portugal. Not sure how it’s performance remained being a one of a kind aircraft here, without spare parts, but it did form a squadron called “OK”, made up with the P-38 and some other P39s that also were interned while in transit.
Cheers
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