The mission that possibly changed the course of the war was the action at the Salween Gorge in late spring of '42. The Japanese Red Dragon Division was moving on the Burma Road towards the capital of Kunming. They were in the process of building a pontoon bridge, as theh Chinese had blown the original bridge. The Chinese army had only been able to slow them down. Had the Japanese crossed the Salween, it is very likely that the capital would have been captured and China could have been knocked out of the war, leaving untold numbers of Japanese free to fight elsewhere against the allies, causing tens or hundreds of thousands of allied casualties. Four of the new P-40E models, fitted with bomb racks and six .50 caliber wing guns attacked the column, while four others flew top cover. Tex Hill and Ed Rector were among the four ex-Navy pilots with dive bombing experience. They blew down the mountainsides at the head and rear of the column, leaving the Japanese trapped. For next several days, small sorties were flown against the column, bombing and strafing, decimating it as an effective fighting force. It turned it’s remnants around and headed back up the Burma Road. This can be considered their most important single mission during they’re 6+ months of combat.
bleakly I was unaware that anyone knew of oil-reserves in Libya and Algeria before the 1950s.
I think Rommel would have been intrigued.