The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II American piston-engined fighter aircraft. Developed to a United States Army Air Corpsrequirement, the P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a central nacellecontaining the cockpit and armament. Allied propaganda claimed it had been nicknamed the fork-tailed devil (German: 'der Gabelschwanz-Teufel') by the Luftwaffe and "two planes, one pilot" (2????1????? Ni hikoki, ippairotto?) by the Japanese,[7] the P-38 was used for interception, dive bombing, level bombing, ground attack, night fighting, photo reconnaissance, radar and visual pathfinding for bombers and evacuation missions[8] and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings.