Got me stumped.

The two aircraft in question are the B-24, first flew in Dec 29th, 1939 and the P-51, which flew first in Oct 26th, 1940. The designer of the B-24 wing, David Davis, in order to meet U.S. Army requirements of a bomber to replace the B-17, used a "Laminar Flow" wing design to meet speed requirements. Edgar Schmued, who designed the P-51 wing, did not know that he too, had designed a "Laminar Flow" wing, hence you have two different aircraft, one with 4 engines and one with 1 engine, but both born with a "Laminar Flow" wing! Niether of these two engineers knew what the other had designed, so by fate, both turned out to be 2 of the best performers in WW2.
While in another post I made on this forum about which aircraft had the best air to air kill record, the Navy's F6F, one must remember that the 51 had better opposition with the German a/c and pilots, than did the Japanese a/c and pilots!