Who became an "ace in a day" with a P-38F named "Oriole"?

In June 1943, over Guadalcanal, Murray "Jim" Shubin shot down five confirmed Japanese Zero fighters, and possibly a sixth, flying a P-38F he had named Oriole. With five victories in a single day he became an "ace in a day." He did it with an F model, less powerful than the later versions of the Lightning.

The Pacific was the theater in which the P-38 performed best. There it shot down more than 1,800 Japanese aircraft, and more than a hundred of its pilots became aces by downing five or more enemy aircraft. American fuel contributed to better engine performance and maintenance, and leaner mixtures increased its range. Its armament, concentrated in the nose, with four Browning M2 machine guns and a 20 mm cannon, could hit reliably at up to 1,000 yards (900 m), without depending on a convergence point.

In the same theater, other named P-38s left their mark. Miss Virginia took part in the mission that shot down Admiral Yamamoto in April 1943, flown by Rex Barber, to whom the kill was eventually credited. Its pilot, Petit, had already used it to down two Nakajima A6M2-N "Rufe" floatplanes in February and to badly damage a Japanese submarine chaser in March, which he mistakenly claimed as a sunk destroyer.

The P-38 was also the aircraft of the theater's top American aces: Richard Bong, with 40 victories, and Thomas McGuire, with 38. The 475th Fighter Group alone shot down more than 551 Japanese aircraft during the war, at the cost of 56 of its own aircraft. It was also the only American fighter manufactured on a large scale throughout the country's entire participation in the war.