- The US military first used jet aircraft in World War II with the P-80 Shooting Star fighter. Four early P-80s were sent to Europe as part of Project Extraversion in late 1944/early 1945 - two to England and two to Italy. - In England, one P-80 crashed during a test flight in January 1945, killing the pilot. The other was loaned to Rolls-Royce for testing and was later destroyed in a crash. - In Italy, two P-80s conducted some operational missions, including one flight north of its base for an unknown purpose. The P-80s returned to the US by June 1945 without seeing combat.

1. What were the long-term effects of the American Civil War on politics?
Monopolies and an aggressive American Empire. Lincoln created the Robber Baron
Oligarchy and only realized his mistake too late. The Oligarchs ran the Nation until Teddy
Roosevelt restored the Republic in 1900.
"We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end. It has cost a vast
amount of treasure and blood. It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in
the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the
safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of
corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to
prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is
aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety
for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my
suspicions may prove groundless."
The passage appears in a letter from Lincoln to (Col.) William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864.

2. How would a Civil War era United States military (Union and CSA combined) stand
compared to the other world militaries of the time?
Okinawa was eighty years in the future. There was no way to cross oceans with large armies
in the 19th Century. The Royal Navy might have been able to move 100K to Canada, but
that alone wouldn't have been enough to defeat either Civil War Army. We could have never
landed and supported that many in Europe or Asia.
That said, if Stuart's Cavalry scouted for McClellan's artillery while Hancock and Jackson
combined their Infantry, no Army on Earth could have beaten them. Europe had small
regard for American Military professionalism until WW I, when they started reading about
Lee's Trenches at Petersburg.
The US Navy lagged behind Victoria's. The Royal Navy was technologically years ahead in
propulsion, weapons and hull design. US Iron-Clads were not seaworthy as the Monitor
proved. Europeans were building seaworthy Iron-Clads by 1865.
A united America was impervious to a land attack, but we would have probably lost a fight
with the British Empire, at sea. The Civil War was among the hardest ever fought. The
Winning side in the Civil regularly took greater casualties than the losing side in
contemporaneous European Battles. Between World Wars many foreign powers sent
military students to study Lee, Forrest & Co.
Fastest ship of the Civil War, the British built CSS Alabama.

3. Which war was the first one in which the US military used jet aircraft?
Project Extraversion: P-80 Shooting Stars in World War II
An XP-80A flies over the Mojave Desert, ca. 1944. The P-80 Shooting Star was designed by
famed airplane engineer Clarence L. Johnson. Lockheed Martin photo
One of the untold stories of early jet aviation is about the four Locheed P-80 Shooting Star
fighters that reached Europe as early as January 1945. German jets, in particular the
Messesmitte ME 262 were shooting down allied Bombers When the P-80s arrived, it was not
yet clear how much longer the Allies‟ conflict with the Third Reich would last.

4. The jet-powered P-80 did play a role in the war.
Army Air Forces (AAF) boss Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold probably did not intend to throw
the P-80s into combat against the Luftwaffe, at least not until their numbers could be
increased, but the jet-powered P-80 did play a role in the war.
Four of these early American jets, properly known as YP-80A models, went overseas – two
each to England and Italy. They were fully operational. They were less successful in England
than in Italy and today their contribution is hardly remembered at all.
The P-80 (later to be called the F-80) was largely the work of Lockheed engineer Clarence L.
Johnson, called “Kelly” because he favored green neckties despite his Swedish ancestry.

5. Having failed to sell a jet aircraft design in 1939, Johnson got a second chance when US
army test officials at Wright field, Ohio, contacted Lockheed on June 18, 1943. With support
from Lockheed president Robert Gross and chief engineer Hall Hibbard, Johnson set forth to
design a new aircraft, built around a British jet engine. The Army Air Forces were already
testing the XP-59A Airacomet but – influenced by repo – wanted a more advanced jet
aircraft.
PROJECT EXTRAVERSION: P-80S TO EUROPE
Following Milo Burcham‟s first flight in the spinach-green XP-80 (44-83020) named Lulu
Belle on Jan. 8, 1944, Lockheed built two XP-80A models (44-83021/44-83022) and won an
AAF contract to build 13 service-test YP-80A airplanes (44-83023-83035). The first made its
initial flight on Sept. 13, 1944, and all had been delivered to the AAF by Dec. 31. Burcham
lost his life in a YP-80A (44-83025) on Oct. 20, 1944, but the program lost none of its
impetus.
The AAF boss, Arnold, was following jet development in Germany and was eager to get YP-
80As there. Asked when he wanted the YP-80A in Europe, Arnold said, simply: “Now.”
On Nov. 13, 1944, Col. George E. Price received the go-ahead for Project Extraversion, to
send four YP-80A service-test airplanes across the Atlantic – two to England in the European
Theater of Operations (ETO) and two to Italy in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations.
The word “extraversion” refers to a persistent personality trait that involves an outward
mental orientation, meaning a person who is the opposite of an introvert. So perhaps this
project was meant to symbolize reaching out. The four YP-80As were disassembled, put in
boxes, and put aboard ships.
Asked when he wanted the YP-80A in Europe, Arnold said, simply: “Now.”
It‟s unclear whether Arnold, Price and others expected these YP-80As to see combat. Clearly,
one purpose of their journey was to build the morale of Eighth and Fifteenth Air Force heavy
bomber crews. who were confronting German jets every day.
The pair for the ETO (44-83026/44-83027) arrived in England on Dec. 30, 1944. Ground
crews assembled them at Burtonwood.

6. Almost overlooked by historians are the four American YP-80A Shooting Star jet fighters
that reached Europe during World War II, two in England and two in Italy. They were
identical in appearance to this P-80A (Army serial no. 44-85000, Navy bureau number
29667) seen in this previously unpublished portrait during tests at Naval Air Station
Patuxent River, Maryland in 1945. Jim Hawkins photo
Their time in England, which might have yielded the stuff of high drama, turned out
to be was brief and tragic.
Col. Marcus Cooper and Maj. Fredrick Austin Borsodi, the Wright Field pilots assigned to the
project, began flying in January 1945, with Cooper making the first flight of any P-80 outside
the United States. Borsodi took a YP-80A into the air on Jan. 28, 1945, but a failure in
tension of the tail-pipe flange caused part of the hot gasses to vent inside the rear fuselage,
expanding and burning through tail surfaces and causing the tail section to disintegrate. The
aircraft crashed on a farm and Borsodi was killed.
Their time in England, which might have yielded the stuff of high drama, turned out to be
was brief and tragic.
The other YP-80A was available to be sent over the Reich if anyone wanted to use it to
combat the Messerschmitt Me 262. It‟s unclear whether the YP-80A had sufficient range to
reach Me 262 airfields, and it wouldn‟t have made much sense to send this single jet out on
its own on a combat sortie. A later version, the F-80C, would later be credited with the first
aerial victory in a jet-versus-jet battle (in Korea), but it was not destined to happen in 1945.
Instead of fighting Adolf Hitler„s jets, the sole YP-80A in England went off to Rolls Royce on
loan for flight tests with the Nene B.41 turbojet engine. It survived the war but was
destroyed in a crash landing after an engine failure – common in early jets – on Nov. 14,
1945.

7. P-80 INTRO IN ITALY
Possibly by coincidence, two YP-80As (44-83028/44-83029) arrived in Lesina, Italy in late
January 1945, around the time Arado Ar 234 reconnaissance jets based at Udine, Northern
Italy, began flying reconnaissance missions over Allied lines on the Italian front. It‟s clear the
YP-80As weren‟t sent in response to Ar 234B operations, but it isn‟t clear whether, if events
had unfolded differently, the Lockheed jets might have intercepted the Arado jets. Lesina,
with its single, pierced-steel planking runway, was part of the Foggia Airfield Complex, a
series of World War II military airfields located within a 25-mile radius of the city of Foggia.
A U.S. Air Force Lockheed P-80A-1-LO Shooting Star (s/n 44-85004) in flight in 1946 or 47.
The YP-80s in Europe lacked the tip tanks like those on this Shooting Star. U.S. Air Force
photo
Exact dates for the start of both YP-80A and Ar 234B operations in Italy are in dispute; dates
for the latter appear variously as January, February or March 1945 in various histories. “Pete
57,” a blogger who has studied both YP-80A and Ar 234B operations in Italy, wrote that,
“One cannot help but wonder if the delivery of the YP-80As to an operational unit, just
weeks after the beginning of the Arados‟ operations, was merely coincidental…”

8. Almost everything we know about Project Extraversion in Italy comes from a draftee just
past his 20th birthday. Albert James “Jim” Bertoglio was the official photographer for the
Italy-based 94th Fighter Squadron “Hat In The Ring,” a part of the 1st Fighter Group,
equipped with P-38j Lightning – and destined, later, to re-equip with P-80 Shooting Stars
in 1946. Bertoglio (1925-2012), who hailed from Medicine Lodge, Kan., was widely
interviewed after the war. He remembered that while both test and operational pilots flew
the YP-80As, civilians maintained them. Bertoglio is widely quoted as seeing a YP-80A flying
north of its base near Foggia, Italy on some mysterious mission that was never explained.
“The YP-80A operations were strictly off-limits to regular AAF personnel.”
According to Bob Esposito, a historian who studies the history of the P-80, the jet
deployments to Europe were already classified and became even more so after the Borsodi
crash in England. “The YP-80A operations were strictly off-limits to regular AAF personnel,”
Esposito said in a March 24 telephone interview. “The whole thing was very hush-hush.”
An official history of the 1st Fighter Group states that a 94th FS pilot, Maj. Ed LaClare, flew
“two operational sorties” in a YP-80A but “without encountering combat.” Other historians
speculate that the YP-80As would have been used in battle if they had encountered a
German adversary under the right circumstances.

9. This is one of two YP-80A Shooting Star fighters (44-83029) that went to Italy in Project
Extraversion, seen shortly after its return. Piloted by Maj. Steve Pisanos, the aircraft made an
emergency landing in a bean field in West Virginia. It was repaired and was about to take off
from the road. The aircraft was flying from Camden, N.J., to Wright Field, Ohio. Bob Esposito
photo
The two YP-80As that had been deployed to Italy were returned to the United States. One of
them (44-83028) is shown on its aircraft record card to have returned to Air Materiel
Command in Buffalo, N.Y., presumably en route to Wright Field, on June 16, 1945; it had a
long service life and eventually became a pilotless drone. The other (44-83029) is also listed
as returning stateside on June 16; it survived a crack-up in a cornfield only to be lost in an
Aug. 2, 1945 crash near Brandenburg, Ky. An official report spoke of wreckage being
scattered over a wide area……..