Republic P-47D Thunderbolt
The P-47 Thunderbolt, which would become one of the most successful and widely produced fighters in history, began as the brainchild of two Russian aircraft designers who fled the Soviet Union—Alexander de Seversky and Alexander Kartveli. Kartveli had begun designing fighters for Seversky, including the P-35, and staying on with Seversky Aircraft after it was renamed Republic Aviation. Kartveli had designed the radial-engined P-43 Lancer and P-44 Rocket, and was working on the inline-engined XP-47 when the US Army Air Force cancelled all three programs in 1940, citing that they were inferior to the German Messerschmitt Bf 109.
Kartveli then proposed a new design based on the P-43/44, but much larger, with a turbocharged R-2800 Double Wasp engine, one of the most powerful radials available at the time. The size of the turbocharger and the engine meant that the fuselage had to be much larger as well; as the USAAF wanted an eight-gun fighter along the lines of the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane, the new design was equipped with elliptical wings containing eight .50 caliber machine guns. The resulting design, designated XP-47B Thunderbolt, was huge: it was 65 percent heavier than the P-43 and nearly twice the weight of the Spitfire. Even Kartveli himself referred to it as a “dinosaur.” When pilots saw it, they thought that its size and shape (and likely, its flying characteristics) resembled that of a milk jug, forever earning the Thunderbolt its moniker of “Jug.” Though the first XP-47B prototype crashed soon after its first flight in May 1941, its speed and performance were impressive.
Minor problems with the P-47B production version led to the P-47C, the first combat-ready version of the Thunderbolt, which arrived in England in January 1943. Assigned to the 4th Fighter Group, whose pilots were used to flying Spitfires, initially the Thunderbolt seemed a failure. It could not turn with either the Bf 109 or the new Focke-Wulf 190, and its climbing ability left much to be desired. Pilots hated the Thunderbolt’s size, its lack of performance as compared with the Spitfire, and its low ground clearance, though they did appreciate the comfortable and roomy cockpit, and especially the armor around it.
The indifferent performance of the P-47C and high accident rate led Republic to refine the design in the definitive P-47D variant, which introduced better cooling for the engine and, most importantly, paddle-bladed propeller blades. Now the Thunderbolt began to prove Kartveli’s faith in the fighter. The 56th Fighter Group, led by Hubert Zemke, had been trained from the start in the P-47 and benefited from earlier experience. Zemke, assisted by future aces Francis Gabreski and Robert Johnson, developed ambush tactics that emphasized the Thunderbolt’s advantage in weight; the P-47D’s improved engine and propeller gave it an edge over the Luftwaffe over 15,000 feet that the Germans were not able to equal until the introduction of the Messerschmitt 262 jet in 1944. This was a huge advantage for USAAF pilots, as the majority of air combat over Germany took place at altitudes of 20,000 feet. While the P-51 Mustang was more maneuverable, longer-ranged, and better in the vertical, it was Gabreski and Johnson, in their P-47s, who became the top American aces in Europe. In response to pilots complaining about the lack of rear vision in the “razorback” P-47D, Republic introduced the “bubbletop” version, which cut down the rear fuselage and added a P-51 style bubble canopy, giving the Thunderbolt pilot superb visibility.
What endeared the Thunderbolt to its pilots, however, was its legendary toughness. Since it was far more survivable than the inline-engined P-38 and P-51, much of the European Theater’s P-47s were shifted away from bomber escort and to 9th Air Force’s ground-attack force. Armed with rockets, bombs, and their eight machine guns, Thunderbolts proved to be devastating in this role, attacking anything that moved in Western Europe: by war’s end, ground attack P-47s had destroyed over 6000 tanks; it was especially deadly to trains, accounting for 9000 locomotives. 3752 German fighters became victims of P-47 pilots in the air. P-47Ds also served in the Pacific theater, though in fewer numbers compared to the P-38; nonetheless, they also turned in a stellar combat record, and the third highest ranking ace in the Pacific, Neel Kearby, was a Thunderbolt pilot. Allied air forces also flew P-47s, including the RAF (mainly in the Pacific), and expeditionary units of the Brazilian and Mexican Air Forces.
After war’s end, though more advanced “Pacific” versions of the Thunderbolt had been introduced in the P-47M/N, it was rapidly retired from service in favor of jets (namely the F-84 Thunderjet) and the P-51. A few lingered on until 1953 in Air National Guard service, when it was retired. France used a few P-47s during the Algerian War of Independence in the mid-1950s, while it persisted in South American air forces into the late 1960s. In 1993, Croatia seriously considered returning a museum-piece P-47 to active service during the Croat-Serbian War. 15,686 P-47s were produced, making it second only to the P-51 in US service; today, about 47 survive.
This P-47D is 45-49385, which was delivered to the USAAF less than a month before World War II ended. Deemed obsolete, it may have gone into storage immediately, or possibly served with an Air National Guard unit until 1953, when it was supplied to the Peruvian Air Force. It was retired in 1963, and once more went back into storage until 1969, when it was acquired by a warbird collector and shipped back to the United States.
45-49385 was restored back to flyable condition by 1973, and joined the Confederate (now Commemorative) Air Force, but was only with the CAF a year before being acquired by the Chino, California based Military Aircraft Restoration Corporation (MARC). 45-49385 suffered a crash in 1980 that led to six years of restoration, then went on display at the Mid-America Air Museum in Liberal, Kansas until 1990. Returning to Chino that year, it crashed again (though with less damage this time), and would be out of action until 1993. Finally, in 2004, it was acquired by Westpac Aviation, which did yet another restoration job, this time with original P-47 parts, including a turbocharger--making 45-49385 one of only three P-47s with a functioning one.
Since then, it's been part of the National Museum of World War II Aviation's collection, displayed (and still flyable) as an aircraft of the 78th Fighter Group, based at RAF Duxford, complete with invasion stripes. I saw 45-49385 in August 2020.
Republic P-47D Thunderbolt
The P-47 Thunderbolt, which would become one of the most successful and widely produced fighters in history, began as the brainchild of two Russian aircraft designers who fled the Soviet Union—Alexander de Seversky and Alexander Kartveli. Kartveli had begun designing fighters for Seversky, including the P-35, and staying on with Seversky Aircraft after it was renamed Republic Aviation. Kartveli had designed the radial-engined P-43 Lancer and P-44 Rocket, and was working on the inline-engined XP-47 when the US Army Air Force cancelled all three programs in 1940, citing that they were inferior to the German Messerschmitt Bf 109.
Kartveli then proposed a new design based on the P-43/44, but much larger, with a turbocharged R-2800 Double Wasp engine, one of the most powerful radials available at the time. The size of the turbocharger and the engine meant that the fuselage had to be much larger as well; as the USAAF wanted an eight-gun fighter along the lines of the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane, the new design was equipped with elliptical wings containing eight .50 caliber machine guns. The resulting design, designated XP-47B Thunderbolt, was huge: it was 65 percent heavier than the P-43 and nearly twice the weight of the Spitfire. Even Kartveli himself referred to it as a “dinosaur.” When pilots saw it, they thought that its size and shape (and likely, its flying characteristics) resembled that of a milk jug, forever earning the Thunderbolt its moniker of “Jug.” Though the first XP-47B prototype crashed soon after its first flight in May 1941, its speed and performance were impressive.
Minor problems with the P-47B production version led to the P-47C, the first combat-ready version of the Thunderbolt, which arrived in England in January 1943. Assigned to the 4th Fighter Group, whose pilots were used to flying Spitfires, initially the Thunderbolt seemed a failure. It could not turn with either the Bf 109 or the new Focke-Wulf 190, and its climbing ability left much to be desired. Pilots hated the Thunderbolt’s size, its lack of performance as compared with the Spitfire, and its low ground clearance, though they did appreciate the comfortable and roomy cockpit, and especially the armor around it.
The indifferent performance of the P-47C and high accident rate led Republic to refine the design in the definitive P-47D variant, which introduced better cooling for the engine and, most importantly, paddle-bladed propeller blades. Now the Thunderbolt began to prove Kartveli’s faith in the fighter. The 56th Fighter Group, led by Hubert Zemke, had been trained from the start in the P-47 and benefited from earlier experience. Zemke, assisted by future aces Francis Gabreski and Robert Johnson, developed ambush tactics that emphasized the Thunderbolt’s advantage in weight; the P-47D’s improved engine and propeller gave it an edge over the Luftwaffe over 15,000 feet that the Germans were not able to equal until the introduction of the Messerschmitt 262 jet in 1944. This was a huge advantage for USAAF pilots, as the majority of air combat over Germany took place at altitudes of 20,000 feet. While the P-51 Mustang was more maneuverable, longer-ranged, and better in the vertical, it was Gabreski and Johnson, in their P-47s, who became the top American aces in Europe. In response to pilots complaining about the lack of rear vision in the “razorback” P-47D, Republic introduced the “bubbletop” version, which cut down the rear fuselage and added a P-51 style bubble canopy, giving the Thunderbolt pilot superb visibility.
What endeared the Thunderbolt to its pilots, however, was its legendary toughness. Since it was far more survivable than the inline-engined P-38 and P-51, much of the European Theater’s P-47s were shifted away from bomber escort and to 9th Air Force’s ground-attack force. Armed with rockets, bombs, and their eight machine guns, Thunderbolts proved to be devastating in this role, attacking anything that moved in Western Europe: by war’s end, ground attack P-47s had destroyed over 6000 tanks; it was especially deadly to trains, accounting for 9000 locomotives. 3752 German fighters became victims of P-47 pilots in the air. P-47Ds also served in the Pacific theater, though in fewer numbers compared to the P-38; nonetheless, they also turned in a stellar combat record, and the third highest ranking ace in the Pacific, Neel Kearby, was a Thunderbolt pilot. Allied air forces also flew P-47s, including the RAF (mainly in the Pacific), and expeditionary units of the Brazilian and Mexican Air Forces.
After war’s end, though more advanced “Pacific” versions of the Thunderbolt had been introduced in the P-47M/N, it was rapidly retired from service in favor of jets (namely the F-84 Thunderjet) and the P-51. A few lingered on until 1953 in Air National Guard service, when it was retired. France used a few P-47s during the Algerian War of Independence in the mid-1950s, while it persisted in South American air forces into the late 1960s. In 1993, Croatia seriously considered returning a museum-piece P-47 to active service during the Croat-Serbian War. 15,686 P-47s were produced, making it second only to the P-51 in US service; today, about 47 survive.
This P-47D is 45-49385, which was delivered to the USAAF less than a month before World War II ended. Deemed obsolete, it may have gone into storage immediately, or possibly served with an Air National Guard unit until 1953, when it was supplied to the Peruvian Air Force. It was retired in 1963, and once more went back into storage until 1969, when it was acquired by a warbird collector and shipped back to the United States.
45-49385 was restored back to flyable condition by 1973, and joined the Confederate (now Commemorative) Air Force, but was only with the CAF a year before being acquired by the Chino, California based Military Aircraft Restoration Corporation (MARC). 45-49385 suffered a crash in 1980 that led to six years of restoration, then went on display at the Mid-America Air Museum in Liberal, Kansas until 1990. Returning to Chino that year, it crashed again (though with less damage this time), and would be out of action until 1993. Finally, in 2004, it was acquired by Westpac Aviation, which did yet another restoration job, this time with original P-47 parts, including a turbocharger--making 45-49385 one of only three P-47s with a functioning one.
Since then, it's been part of the National Museum of World War II Aviation's collection, displayed (and still flyable) as an aircraft of the 78th Fighter Group, based at RAF Duxford, complete with invasion stripes. I saw 45-49385 in August 2020.