Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator, was against America going

into WWII. After the Pearl Harbor attacks, however, he wanted to

do whatever he could for the war effort. President Roosevelt didn’t
want a national hero to be involved in any actual combat lest he
got hurt or killed. Also the president held some deep resentment
against Mr. Lindbergh because of Lindbergh’s activities before the
war.

So in May 1944 Charles Lindbergh became a Technical

Advisor/Consultant to the United Aircraft Company which
required him to Field Test the F4U Corsair with the Marine Corps
at Guadalcanal. He flew on 14 combat missions. Then in June
1994 he went to the lush tropical island of Emirau (also spelled
Emira). This island is in the St. Matthias Group or Islands, also
known as the Mussau Islands, in the Bismarck Archipelago that
makes up part of Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea is
approximately 125 north of Australia.

Lindbergh was stationed with the 475th Fighter Group which was
part of the 5th Air Force. This group was known as “Satan’s
Angels.” He would be flying the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. He
took part in 50 combat missions and even shot down 1 enemy
plane.

As an observer he quickly calculated that the combat radius of the

P-38 could be extended by 30%. A standard technique at the time
was to cruise at 2200 – 2400 rpm’s with a fuel/air mixture set to
auto-rich with the manifold pressure set to low. Lindbergh called
for only 1600 rpm with a fuel/air mixture set to auto-lean and a
manifold pressure set to high. This reduced fuel consumption to
between 63 and 70 gallons per hour from 90 to 100 gallons per
hour. The cruising speed was around 185 mph. The P-38’s used to
fly a five-hour mission and come back on fumes, but after taking
Lindbergh’s advice, the range of the P-38’s increased as much as
400 miles. The mission’s (bomber escort and loiter) time was
increased to nine hours with fuel to spare. I doubt that the pilot’s
enjoyed sitting in the cockpit for nine hours!

When Lindbergh first gave his advice for extending the range of
the P-38, the pilots and especially the mechanics were against it.
The mechanics thought that the engines would be put under too
much strain and that part’s of the engines would rapidly wear out.
But after the P-38’s came back from missions, the mechanics
would strip the engines down and find no abnormal wear or tear.
Lindbergh was vindicated, but he chose not to lord that over
anyone. He let his actions speak for him.