Of the thousands of P-38 Lightning fighter planes manufactured, less than 30 are still in existence. With a wingspan of 52 feet and powered by two 1,425-hp liquid-cooled engines, the plane had a top speed of 414 mph. It had twin tails and a center fuselage pod housing the pilot. When it was introduced in 1939, the Lockheed design immediately made every other fighter aircraft obsolete. Its price in 1941 was $134,284. The value of the Bong Heritage Center's restored, non-flyable P-38 is close to $1 million.

The P-38 was the first fighter to feature a tricycle landing gear, first with an all-metal flush riveted skin, first to have power-boosted controls, and the first turbo-supercharged fighter aircraft to enter squadron service. At the time it was the fastest and longest-ranged fighter in the world.

Preserving and providing appropriate shelter for the P-38 Lightning on display outside the Bong Memorial Room in Poplar, Wisconsin became the inspiration for the Richard I. Bong WWII Heritage Center. Between 1994 and 1997 volunteers at the Minnesota Air National Guard in Duluth carefully removed the vintage plane from the pylons to start the lengthy restoration project. To the volunteers the restoration was a labor of love and an important community project. Lt. Colonel Bill Bordson was the project officer. Master Sgt. Bill Ion was the project NCO who coordinated the work of volunteers from the Air National Guard and civilian volunteers.

Sgt. Ion also was in charge of locating missing parts, with the help of a maintenance manual and information from a set of plans owned by Bob Cardin of Middlesboro, Kentucky, who got them from the Smithsonian Institution. Cardin is part of the team that restored "Glacier Girl" - a P-38 found under the Greenland Ice Cap on August 1, 1992 - part of the "Lost Squadron."

"There is a whole network of P-38 buffs and people who collect them out there," Sgt. Ion said during the restoration project. "The more you get into this the more contacts you make. Some parts are simply not available and we have to make them. Many people are helping us find them. Bob Cardin is giving us a nose landing gear he had sent from England. An instrument panel is being sent from California, and we're sending the cockpit frame to another place in California that will put the glass in. When we do have to buy parts, people are giving us a decent price because the plane is going into the Bong Heritage Center."

Volunteers Bob Hinz of Hibbing and Al Samsa of Chisholm drove the three-hour round trip from Minnesota's Iron Range each week to work on the restoration project. They said they would love to have been able to do more. Samsa, a former Air Force pilot in World War II and Korea, and an anchor pilot in Vietnam, put in a total of 23 years in the service. "I wasn't fortunate enough to fly the P-38, but I wanted to," he said. "So did everyone else. This was the baby. It could carry long-range tanks, so you could get home if you got one engine shot out. It could outdive the Zeros."

Bob Hinz was a mechanic in the service, attached to the 345th Bomber Group. He served in Australia, New Guinea, the Philippines and an island off Okinawa. "For me to get my hands on a P-38 is really something," he said. " I didn't work on them much during World War II."

To Colonel Bordson, restoring the P-38 and building the planned Bong WWII Heritage Center was extremely important. "The younger generation may have read about the war in history books, but they probably don't know anything about Major Dick Bong and others who served. It's important to build the Center before the veterans are gone. I think kids from all over Minnesota and Wisconsin will take field trips to the Center to learn about World War II."