Interesting article on the P-38. I knew it had problems in Europe as to the cold weather and the Supercharger freezing. The problem with the Alison was that it had a single stage supercharger. So, above 20,000 ft, it dogged out. The P-38 has the additional supercharger. I think the P-47 had a similar setup.
I am not sure as to the fighters take off procedure. I fly RC planes. At one club meeting, we had a speaker, who flew B-17's in Europe. He said there would be possibly 5 airports in a county. So, you could no fly straight out and climb. You had to take off, then circle up.
I also wonder about the range. I read somewhere, that at a certain point auxiliary fuel tanks were aluminum. Since this was a critical and reusable material, it was not wanted to be dropped over German territory. Then came the compressed paper auxiliary tanks. The P-38 did fly missions over the Aleutian Island that were 8 hour flights or more.
I'll also take acceptation that the Japanese pilots were not at the level of the Germans. Just reference Saboro Sakia. 100 or so kills. The best German pilot in the Western theater only had 78. I think Gunther Rahl.

Back to the original post. The women who flew ferry missions, these were dangerous missions. Some did die. There could be weather hazards too. Some of these planes were/are a handful. Some are even wrecked by experience pilots today.