NARRATIVE

Republic Aviation’s P-47 Thunderbolt was the biggest and heaviest armed single engine American fighter of World War II. Its sturdy construction and eight 50-caliber machine guns made it equally adaptive as a ground support aircraft or as a bomber escort fighter. P-47s often demonstrated their ruggedness and dependability by returning home with combat damage that would doom any other production fighter. The early P-47 couldn’t match the overall performance of the German fighters it faced in combat, but it could, because of its massive weight, out dive any airplane in the sky. Republic enhanced its performance by improving the turbo supercharger effectiveness in the “D” model and replacing the razor back canopy configuration with the bubble type variant that gave the pilot 360 degree visibility. A total of 15,683 Thunderbolts were built,at an average cost of $96,000, more than any other single engine fighter of the war, the “D” model being most plentiful. The P-47 saw action in every theater proving itself to be a devastating low-level ground attack aircraft and versatile enough to be an effective high altitude escort fighter as well. With its bulky shape, the Jug was a monster of a machine, yet it was fast and maneuverable.