They came home shot full of. Holes too numerous to count. with chunks of engine missing and hydraulic fluid bleeding through gaping tears in their aluminum skin. Love them or hate them, nobody's ever questioned the Republic P-47 Thunderbolts ability to bring a pilot back safely. It absorbed, as I said, a tremendous amount of damage and would still fly. The inline engine wouldn't absorb anything. The radial engine, you know we've had, we had cases of people losing several cylinders and still coming back. They would really take, like I said, really take a beaten from being shot up for anything more than any other aircraft. They were. They were really a tough bird. There was one case when I was waiting for takeoff and the plane came in and landed and it had been hit in the engine. And one piston was flipping up and down on the in the air and the other piston was gone and the plane flew in and landed and the guy pulled off the runway. He didn't taxi it and he got out. 47 was a great airplane for that and it absorbed tremendous damage and still fly. The group commander took it through a tree. Literally the aircraft went through and the tree was the loser and the wings didn't come off. But you know, he just forgot what he was flying and what altitude he was at and went through a pretty large tree. Lots of damage, structural damage on the wings, but the aircraft came home. I don't think that I know a 51 wouldn't have done it. I don't think a 40 or I don't think a 38 would have done it. So it was that kind of an aircraft. I had dropped my bomb, done my job. I headed home. I get back and I land and people are running alongside the aircraft pointing at as I taxied and I lean out and look and the whole side is covered with oil and when I got out I got a whole a foot big in the engine and two cylinders missing but it ran fine. For two critical years, the P-47 Thunderbolt served as the backbone the U.S. Army Air Force's fighter force. Battling on every front in in very conceivable climate and terrain. The P-47 played a major role in the defeat of the Luftwaffe the skies of Europe. Yet since the end of World War II, the P-47. has been overshadowed by the fame and glamour of the Lockheed P-38 and North American P-51 Mustang. I think it's it's comparing A racehorse to a plow horse. The P-47 was the, I think you could describe. It as the bare knuckles brawler. It wasn't the sleek thoroughbred, as the Spitfire. It wasn't the graceful, you know, prewar design of the of the P-38 that was like the Buck Rogers. Fighter plane of World War II. I mean, the P-38 was what everybody dreamed of, the Thunderbolt. I think what endeared itself most involved with pilots was the fact that it had tremendous firepower. It could carry a huge load for ground support, which is exactly what it was best at, I think. And it could take incredible amounts of battle damage. I mean that you've seen pictures of airplanes that have hit trees, they've got cylinders knocked off the engines, the cowlings gone, the the wings are canted back, just a leading edge of the wings are just beat off. The gun barrels are, are, are torn from the airplane and it flies all the way home and brings the pilot back. I think that is the greatest quality of the airplane. By wars end over fifteen thousand six hundred, P- 47s had been produced. More than any other American aircraft, save the consolidated B-24 Liberator. Even today, the P-47 Thunderbolt. Inspires intense emotions amongst the pilots assigned to fly it after sharing the air with a 47. A pilot either came back a devoted convert or appalled that Republic ever designed such a monstrous fighter. When I took my training, I took it at Bradley Field in Connecticut and her P-40 pilots that were there and they didn't really didn't. They didn't fly with you and all they did was check you out and they weren't. They weren't really too enthused with the P-47. So when I went overseas, I did not want to fly the P-47. I want to get out in the 38s eights or 51s. When I got to this base, a P-47 came over there and he went that cross that base. He pulled up and did one roll and we just were in awe, you know, my God, that thing will fly. And I went from one inch tall to 10 foot tall. It was a great experience looking back on a flying the 47. It was a very forgiving aircraft but. And the work that we flew it like used it for, it was great. But you know, it's like anything a driver of a car, airplane drivers are the same way. You fall in love with something and you don't want to trade, you don't want to get rid of the things. And then you know we weren't smart enough to know that. Well, it's probably going to save their life many more times than a 38 Might because of it's not as vulnerable as an inline engineer craft. There's a 40,51, Or 38, but it still was not my first love by any means. The models that I flew were very sluggish in climbing. In fact, I don't. I didn't consider it very good until you got to higher altitude, you know where your supercharge engine is a big advantage. I think a pilot fighter pilot probably live longer in a P-47 than any other fighter. It's More rugged by far than any other fighter, and we only had them for a short time and they gave us our P-40s or we were flying P-40s at the time, all the time that we were transitioning into the 47s. And they just decided to take the P-47s away and let us continue with the P- 40s. And I think we were all happy about that. Love or Hate the P-47 everyone agreed on one thing... It was the toughest fighter ever built. Practically everyone who flew the Thunderbolt has a story to tell about its legendary durability. They speak of Holes hacked out of the wing by a light Flak that were so big ground crewman posed with their heads poking through them. Others remember cannon shells severing controls, tearing great gouges out of the Cowling. They remember feeling the thumping of bullets as they slammed into the armor plating behind their seat. And they remember thanking God and Republic for building the P-47 like a brick outhouse, tough enough to handle the dirtiest of dirty work and built to survive a Kansas tornado. The P-47 owes its genesis to a Russian emigre turned aircraft designer named Alexander De Seversky. He had come to the United States between the wars and had started his own aircraft company in the 1930s. He was a Russian immigrant who flew during World War I and was a great proponent of the pursuit of aviation. The P-35 was his original fighter low wing, all metal retractable landing gear. The second aircraft was the P-43 Lancer, which was a further refinement of the P-35 design. The ultimate was the P-47, which was the final derivative. Just before World War II Seversky Aviation became Republic Aviation and the same design team that worked on the P-35. went with Republic and began working on their first major project, which was the P-43 Lancer, and you can see a real clear lineage in the development of the P-47 based on these three designs. The P-35, the P-43, the P-47 all share common characteristics and and resemble each other. Well, the P-43 went into production shortly after World War II began and it served as an export fighter. It wasn't something that the US Army Air Force could use, so Republic sent it overseas to the Chinese, where it did not have a very distinguished service career by any means. Designed to be a high altitude fighter, The P-43 had a top Speed of 350 mph and could carry a pair of 50 Caliber machine guns in the nose and four 30 calibers in the wings. Initially delivered in September 1940 the P-43 impressed. Some with its high service ceiling of 38,000 feet. Nonetheless, the Lancer proved inferior to most fighters of the day and the Army Air Corps used them only for tactical. Reconnaissance Training in the United States. The P-43 was a failed design. There was no way Republican look at this as anything but a failure. And here they were in the middle of wartime America. They needed to to be able to come up with a design that would be effective not just from a cost standpoint and a contract standpoint, but also they were interested in building a war winning aircraft, and they chose to go the evolutionary route. So they studied their their design, they studied the failure, they examine the reasons why. They got back reports from from operational units and decided to progress In a slightly different course, but they did extract some of the the better attributes of the P-43 and they applied them to what became the P-47 program. In 1939, the Army Air Force issued a request for a high altitude fighter that could use the new turbo supercharger that Boeing had developed for the B-17 heavy bomber Such an installation on a fighter would Require the plane to be huge indeed, but that didn't deter Republic. After studying the Army Air Force's requirements the company's chief designer quipped," It'll be a dinosaur, but a dinosaur with good proportions". Because of the army specifications on this new fighter, Republic chose to design the P-47 around two main features: the first was a brand new engine called the Pratt Whitney R-2800 which was an 18 cylinder radial engine. It was just monstrous and it provided 2000 horsepower which was far more than most any other engine of its day. So it was a very revolutionary engine. The other thing that that they needed to design around was the fact that the Turbo Supercharger took up a lot of space. So the reason why this the fuselage for the P-47 is so deep is because of the fact that the engine was so enormous to begin with and the ductwork and the all the accoutrements for the two turbo supercharger required a massive amount of space. Dubbed the XP-47B, the new fighter possessed enormous gate as it sat on its wide long landing gear It reminded some of a giant milk Jug on wheels. As a result, throughout the war, pilots and ground crew rarely referred to the P-47 as anything other than 'The Jug'. In June of 1940 This is a year and a half before the war starts. The US Army Air Corps places an order for 773 P-47s with Republic. And this 56 million Dollar contract is really a rich plum for Republic to to get. But it's it represents quite a risk on the part of the Air Corps with the slender resources that are available at the time. Not only was it risky, but it was a it was a leap of faith that Republic could actually deliver at the same time. The fact that they did this a year before the prototype flew was also symptomatic of a larger problem, which was there were so few combat capable aircraft, especially fighter designs being conceived of and built in the United States at the time that the Air Force had to take the risk. There really wasn't very many other options. Republic's early test flights of the prototype revealed tremendous potential and more than justified the Army's leap of faith. Though, it weighed over five tons the XP-47 could reach speeds Over 400 mph. In fact, at altitude It was the fastest fighter ever built for the Army Air Force up to that time. Tests also show that the P-47 was an excellent formation aircraft. The 47 when you pull the power on it, that huge nose out there was like running into a haystack. Suddenly equipped. What was easy to fly formation. Because 38 you come in and overrun everybody. It's the first thing that we all learned when we left inline engine. You want to slow down early and sneak up on your flight leader. But on the on the 47 it was a beautiful airplane for flying close very close. We tracked or trapped our flight leader one time. Two of us coming up there, Awadi river ran into the overlapping wings and he would go like this, you know, but you wouldn't dare do that in an aircraft that wouldn't stop or start as quickly as at 47. In close formation, you're leading, you're leading on. Three guys are flying on another guy. They're not taking their eyes off of it. They're flying on him all the time. They're looking at him all the time. Especially you get into clouds. If you fly in the clouds, you got to be in tight formation. Otherwise you can run into one another and you have a mission. We had a mission one time. I think it was a five hour mission. We were probably four hours in the clouds. And two flights finish the finish the mission. The guy was leading the group and my flight. The rest of them went home, got in trouble and went home. The first production Thunderbolts rolled off Republic's. Assembly lines in early 1942. That Spring, the Army Air Force decided that the 56th Fighter Group would be the inaugural P-47 outfit in the service. It was a historic decision that laid the foundation for one of the greatest legacies in Air Force history With its P-47 Thunderbolts, the 56th Fighter group would, by war's end, become one of the highest scoring outfits in history. With dozens of aces in its ranks, the 56th became better known as the Wolf Pack. In the spring of 1942, the recently formed 56th fighter group that had been training with a motley collection of P 40s, P-39s and AT-6s was given the first production batch of Thunderbolts. Known as Zemke's Wolfpack, after the commander Hub Zemke, The 56th fighter group would Fly P47s for three years straight. While building up a combat history that has become legendary since the war. Hub Zemke was one of those rare pilots who possessed a very interesting blend of talents. One of the things that he is remembered for is his uncanny marksmanship, who's a great shot. He was also a great aviator. He was a tremendous pilot, had phenomenal talent there. But what really makes him stand out and gives him kind of a uniqueness not found in other aces is the fact that he was a great leader of men as well. He could inspire and lead like few men of World War II and because of that and plus his other talents in the air. Those combined really made him one of the great combat air leaders of World War II. 56 had most of the aces most of the time and the 56 wound up with the highest air to air victories of any group in the over the 8th Air Force. And I think any group in the war and they had they were second or total aircraft destroyed but they were first in air, air to air combat. I was assigned to the 63rd Squadron, which was Comstock Squadron and factors was four of us got there was it was four or five and we all finished our tours and none of us were shot down. I bailed out once and now the other kids may have gotten the wounded, but no, we all finished our tours and that was really pretty good. In 1942, while still training in the States, the Wolf Pack received the first P-47s. The unit's pilot soon discovered the new plane could be a handful with some dangerous characteristics. The Thunderbolts could kill unsuspecting or inexperienced pilots with frightening frequency. You got going real fast and you approached the speed of sound. The plane started tucking. What do you do when it tucks? Straight down. And of course the minute you, you start feeling that you pull the power off and usually by the time you've changed the air a little bit, it'll start coming out and you're all right. I don't know of anyone know. No, I there were a couple cases where people did not get the power off fast enough and they went right straight into the ground. The 56th fighter group suffered many accidents. In the course of working up with the P-47 in 1942. The reason for these accidents are pretty varied, but basically the bottom line was this. The pilots who were flying this new airplane were used to T-6s and B-13s fairly benign aircraft, and the P-47 represented a new level of power and performance that they really were frankly ill equipped to deal with. So it was a tricky plane to fly By the time they went to Europe, they had lost over a dozen pilots in training, which represents about 10% of the group dying before they even got into combat. The pilots had to learn that size didn't matter. The P-47 was simply huge. Weighing in at over 13,500 pounds when loaded with a wingspan of 40 feet A length of 36 feet, and sitting 15 feet off the ground. The P-47 towered over the spindly legged P-39s and sleek P-40 as the 56th had been flying. The P-47 was probably what was the heaviest fighter that they built and weighed 14,000 pounds loaded and when you're going to take off on combat. Despite its size at high altitude, the men of the 56th discovered their new fighter could outperform every other American aircraft, Army, Air Force or Navy of its day. It's broad wing gave it tremendous. agility at heights other aircraft could hardly maneuver ineffectively. Some converts were made right there. Fast and Brutish looking, the P-47 was the type of plane that looked like it could get into a toe to toe, fight, take a beating, but always come out on top. And it could dish out far deadlier punishment than any other World War II fighter with eight 50 caliber machine guns, The Thunderbolt's firepower was truly awesome. I strafed trains one day and tipped the box car over on its side, not exploded, just tipped it over from the impact. So the tremendous firepower of those eight 50 Clayton Gross, a 354th Fighter Group Mustang ace, recalls being on the receiving. End of a P-47 attack when he was mistaken for an Me 109 P-47s coming in, had thought they had two 109 and so they picking me off. They shot my canopy off. It was gone. My plane did a snap, roll was involuntary and and so I well, I'm still alive. So I did a spin. I went into a spin. I did a recovery and pulled out and here came the P-47's again and I rocked my wing frantically and this guy pulls up alongside of me and goes oh and takes off and leaves me there and I didn't know how badly my plane had been hit, the radio worked, the controls worked, I came back and that the the plane had almost 100 holes in it, some entry, some leaving, but it was like a sieve. With terrific firepower, excellent high altitude performance and an airframe built to withstand massive amounts of damage. The men of the 56th Fighter Group gradually grew to love their P-47 Thunderbolts. By the time the group deployed to New England to join the 8th force Force in early 1943. Its pilots were some of the fiercest P-47 advocates in the Army Air Force When the 56th fighter group reached England in January of 1943 its pilots were dismayed to learn that they weren't going to be the first, P 47 unit into combat after all. As it turned out, the 4th Fighter Group beat them to the punch. Formed from the famous Eagle Squadron the previous year, The 4th Fighter Group converted to Thunderbolts just a few days before the 56th arrived in England. And here the love, hate relationship that characterized a pilot's relationship with the P-47, began The man of Don Blakesley's 4th Fighter Group had been used to light and Nimble Spitfires. None of them wanted to part with their spits, especially not for something as huge and ungainly as the Thunderbolt. As much as the 56th fighter group loved their P-47s the 4th despised theirs. The The first combat Missions flown by P-47s took place in the Spring of 1943. The 8th Air Force had several Thunderbolt groups by then, and the units began flying sweeps over France to get acquainted with air combat. These early P-47. operations in the fighter sweeps over France were plagued by several difficulties. First of all, this was a new aircraft that had its fair share of mechanical problems that had to be worked out. Secondly, the American pilots were simply green and inexperienced at this point in the war and lastly, and probably most significantly, they were up against some of the best German fighter pilots at the time. And therefore some of the best in the world- and they were flying FW-190 A's and Messerschmitt 109G, some of the best fighter aircraft in the world at the time. Then on April 15th Tax day, Uncle Sam finally received payback for all the money Invested in the P-47. A squadron from the 4th Fighter Group while on patrol over France caught two Fw-190s in the air and shot them both down. Those would be the only victories the Thunderbolt would have for quite some time. In the first two months of combat operations The three P-47 groups flew 2,279 sorties resulting in 10 German planes claimed as destrtoyed In return, 18 47s had been lost. Both to enemy fire and by catastrophic engine failure And the 56 which had been the biggest supporter of the Thunderbolt had yet to get its first victory. Finally, on June 12th, 1943, the 56th fighter group shot down its first plane and Fw-190. That seemed to break the pilot's bad luck. From then on, the thirteen pilots from the 56th Surprised the formation of Fw-190s and blasted three of them from the sky without a loss. From then on, the 56th went on a rampage, more than earning the nickname 'The Wolfpack'. I had a 109, got a 109 I think in December. We'd chased him from altitude on down and we were really moving going down. And so I just stayed with him and then I he went into the clouds So I pulled back up because I knew I'd overrun him and sure enough there he come out of the clouds and I went back down in him again and got on him and hit him right in the right wing and he started smoking and went on into the crashed into the trees. So I don't know whether I killed the pilot, didn't see a shoot. The 190 I got. The guy bailed out and the Heinkel 111, I don't know whether I don't think anybody bailed out of that. I didn't see anybody. I think we'd been escorting and then if we had a little bit of gas, we might go down and see if we could find up a target of opportunity and we ran across these guys, about twenty of them. We tangled with him and we got fifteen. And we one guy chased one guy but he couldn't catch him. And we were on the deck working on the deck and I think we could out fly him on the deck. He couldn't, he couldn't get away from me. I could turn in and keep right with him and so he I just had him going and going and he finally decided better get out than to get shot down. Toward the end of the summer of 1943 the P-47C was gradually replaced by the D model. Initially little distinguished the two versions. Prior to the fall of 1943. The P-47 including the D Version had really not proven itself to be effective as an escort fighter for the 8th Air Force. And the major problem was that they had this fuel guzzling engine and it limited their range So that they were unable to provide cover for the bombers into the main targets inside Germany. And this problem really isn't resolved until the P-47 D15 model arrives in England. This model has the ability to put wing tanks underneath each of the wings. Each of those wing tanks is 108 gallons and that gives the P-47 D15 the extra range it needs to begin to be effective as an escort fighter for the heavy bomber Force. The Thunderbolt now had almost Twice the amount of fuel of earlier versions, P-47 soon appeared over Germany within 150 miles of Berlin, wreaking havoc wherever they went. By the spring of 1944. the Thunderbolt had come into its own as a high Altitude escort fighter. Yet just as it reached Its zenith, It was eclipsed by the longer legged P-51 Mustang As more P-51 Mustangs flooded in New England, the Thunderbolts rapidly disappeared from the 8th Air Force's inventory until only the 56th fighter group continued to fly them. The 56th refused to change over. They love their 47s, especially after new wide bladed propellers arrived that greatly enhanced the plane's climb rate and acceleration. But also by this point Republic started to produce a lightweight, more powerful version of the P-47 that only the 56th Fighter group used in combat. Designated the P-47M, it was the ultimate Thunderbolt. was about 150 of them made and they all came to the 56th fighter group, except maybe a couple a couple generals got. Actually, it was the best propeller plane that was actually in the war. And I think it was it was clocked at the fast I think about 470 or 480, I think the 351 is about 460. It was supposed to be the when we were the fastest actually was the fastest plane that that they had. The P-47M also came with a dramatically increased range thanks to the advent of larger capacity external fuel tanks. This the ultimate version of the Thunderbolt in Europe was finally able to stay with the bombers all the way to Berlin and back. You just cruise back and forth. If you're top cover, you just kind of weave back and forth. Or if you were maybe the over the at the target, you'd go over the target and you just kind of weave back and forth over the target until all the bombers left and then you'd go back. Usually you'd you'd either have a duty of taking them in. You could pick them up a certain point, you take them to a certain point, then another group would relieve you. And then because we couldn't stay up there that long, see the Bombers fly, what, eight, nine, ten hour mission and depending how far it is, and then you'd go home and they they would take them so far and then somebody else would pick them up and bring them home. Even in the war's waning months The P-47 proved to be a formidable air to air adversary and continued to rack up an impressive toll against the Luftwaffe's best and latest fighters. My Squadron flew one mission where I think they shot down eleven long nosed F-190s. eight, eight P-47s Shot, down eleven, long nose 190s. and didn't lose anybody but I was on the Riviera on R&R on that mission, so. By war's end, the 56th Fighter Group had become the top scoring 8th Air Force unit in Air to Air victories While the group lost 128 P-47s in Combat, its pilots shot down 674 German planes and destroyed another 300 on the ground. With almost a 1,000 planes to its credit. The Wolf Pack had more than proven that when used right the P-47 could be a terror to all its foes. Throughout 1944 as its long range escort role diminished the 9th Air Force. Adopted the P-47 for a new role... Ground attack. Never designed for low altitude work. Pilots weren't sure how the Thunderbolt would function down on the tree tops shooting up German targets on the ground. Though it didn't perform. As well on the deck as it did at 25,000 feet, the P-47 soon more than proved its worth in its new role. In fact, by wars end it had compiled a record so remarkable that it easily became the best American fighter bomber of the war Among its many contributions was as a a premier American ground support machine. This was the the close air support fighter par excellence in the Normandy campaign. In fact, saving Private Ryan I thought was an excellent movie. But at the end, where the Tank Busters arrive and save the day they're P-51 Mustangs, it would have been, yeah, I think more accurate and more representative of what actually happened to have those be P-47 thunderbolts doing the the ground support mission. Because the the P-47 was a true ground support star. Was the P-51? Yes, it did those missions, but but that wasn't its major contribution. On the deck the 47s ruggedness was its greatest asset, Many of the Thunderbolt Pilot survived a Holocaust of Flak and machine gunfire thanks to the Sheer toughness of his plane's height I was the number four pilot, being the youngest or the newest I should say and tooling along and suddenly the field out in front just lit up like a christmas tree. I took something in the right wing that blew off every shell I had out there. I know I had not fired around at that time, but it every it, it had to have been of incendiary nature because there wasn't any ammunition left when it was all over. It blew the gun tray lid on the four guns out in the right wing up about that high and of course holes all over the thing headed for home Decided the damn thing was flying and I would stay with it. Let down then oh, probably about 20-30 miles from home. Put the wheels down, way out. Everything worked fine except that the stall speed was all screwed up. Landed. Whether I burned the brakes out or not I really didn't care. They classed 2060 airplane. Anyway, they didn't have repairs for them and it was that wing the way it was. I guess I was forever thankful that the darn gear went down. But you know,1800 rounds and they they you could see visible flame in there from whatever hit it, set it all or set the ammunition off. And that was, you know, be real proud, even though he didn't like the 47, but having come from 38s. But it absorbed tremendous damage as far as I was concerned. It was a testimony to the manufacturing talent of the Republic. The Thunderbolt's powerful engine could drag aloft A dizzying array of bombs and rockets, making it amazingly versatile in the fighter bomber roll. We had two 500 pound bombs and then normally we carried A frag fragmentation bomb on the belly.. 260 pound frag bomb. Which was an anti personnel bomb. Carried a wide variety of bombs and what have you. We carried two 500 pound bombs. We carried napalm. We carried 1000 pound straight GP's. We carried 1000 pound. They were in a shell similar to a 50 gallon drum just pure dynamite. There were concussion instruments because some of the areas that we were dive bombing in and on against troops were steep enough that the concussion and the blast would kill people. It just depended on what the particular ground support mission requested. As the P-47's role as an escort fighter was eclipsed by the P-51, so grew its role as a ground attack weapon. 9th Air Force P47s played a tremendously important. role from D-Day through the end of the war supporting the ground troops as they pushed forward into the right We were almost entirely there to support. Troops on the ground. In my case, we were in what we call 29th TAC. United Air Force is organized into 3 tactical air forces. 9th, 19th and 29th. The 9th was on the South end, 19th was in the middle and 29th was on the North end of the U.S. Forces as we were going across, toward across France and Germany and. So we supported the troops that were in 9th Army. You would go out and they'd say armed reconnaissance. And what that Meant essentially was if you see anything moving go shoot, go hit it because by that Time in the war. The Germans. There were no civilian vehicles moving in Germany. They were all, really the military in some way, even though horse drawn and all that was usually carrying ammunition or or food or something for the troops and anything from a single staff car to a convoy of trucks would be a target if it was, if it was moving and we were there. I can recall a mission where we were strafing there about four or five large trucks. They weren't semis, they were big vans on a on a truck chassis and. just going down the road in convoy and my and we were strafing those and There's they were coming to an intersection and 90 degree intersection in the road. And in the in one corner of that was the woods. And as my flight commander Is playing off the target he he just hadn't looked. Down the woods is. Hey, that woods is full of airplanes. So next time around he we had a pass on the woods strafing. And we hadn't had a shot fired at us to the last min and then the whole sky lit up and He got 104 or five holes in the squadron commander's airplane in a process Lost a cylinder of his engine. Lost his radio and I was flying his wing, and he hollered at us don't come in and none of the rest of us did. So he's the only one that got hit, but he got It home with 104 holes in the airplane and one Cylinder missing off the engine and so on. Then the next day they went back out and and and bombed the airfield itself and knocked it out. Tanks were flying targets for the rolling bands of Thunderbolt pilots. During the Battle of the Bulge The P-47 squadrons helped blunt the German attack on those few days when the weather cleared enough to get planes aloft. Our target ended up being was five, might have been six tiger tanks that were. parked in in open view of snow on the grounds, and they were Probably very hot, very visible. Parked in an open field. And I think probably because of the fuel situation they were out of the Germans had no fuel. They were out of fuel. And they had parked them there and lined them up. And were using them as artillery But those were our targets and the guy, It's a it's a kind of a story in my group, but or my squadron, I just saw the guy yesterday. Dropped a 500 pound bomb right down the open hatch of a Tiger tank. It just happened to go right in the Hatch. During the crossing of the line the 9th Air Force's P-47s. once more played a key role in the overall operation Yet the Germans with all their proficiency were able to strike back with desperate intensity. We went up there with bombs and guns and waited to be hollered at for a target. We watched the paratroopers go In. The Germans actually when the paratroopers crossed. Went across. I don't know how high they were, but I would guess five or six thousand feet. The Germans actually lowered the 88s, the 80 aircraft 88s and fired so that the shells broke in the Amongst the parachutes after the guys were out of the airplane. Their chutes were open. And it was. It was. Pretty bad we could. Just see that and the gliders came in. They were getting hit too. But and and while we were doing that I'm waiting for a target to be called. We had a squadron of British Lancasters come over ahead and open a Bombay doors and start dropping bombs just almost through our formation. There was a lot of a lot going on. It wasn't all coordinated as well as it could have been, we, nobody got hit or hurt, so we were okay. By war's end Thunderbolt units had destroyed more targets than any other British or American fighter bomber. Tens of thousands of trucks. Hundreds of tanks Thousands of aircraft, troops, and supplies went up in flames as a result of marauding. P-47 attacks. No other aircraft packed as devastating a punch and nothing in the air could take the amount of ground fire and get its pilot home as could the beloved P-47 When the world celebrated VE Day the Jug pilots in the 8th 12th, 15th and 9th Air forces could look back with pride on their accomplishments, knowing that they played a significant role in defeating the Nazi war machine. While the P-47 played an integral role in the war in Europe, Thunderbolts had less success in the Pacific theater until very late in the war. Major thing that stymied the 47s operational use against the Japanese was its massive fuel consumption What really shook us up when we were getting P-47s in New Guinea was the way that thing consumed gasoline. Just fuel consumption was enormous, you know, compared to a P-40 The P-47 represented a lot of challenges to the guys in the 5th Air Force, one of which was the fact that it consumed fuel at such a rapid rate. But when the 348 fighter group arrived in the Southwest Pacific, its commanding officer, Neil Kirby became one of the advocates for the Thunderbolt, and he went all over to different fighter units in the 5th Air Force. To try to convince he was almost evangelical about it, to try to convince the other fighter leaders that this was a terrific aircraft type. He he was met by stiff resistance. But eventually there were several Thunderbolt groups that were deployed into the Southwest Pacific, and they gradually figured out ways to work around the fuel consumption issues. Half a world away, Claire Chennault's 14th Air Force in China was offered the P -47th. Chennault, with his crippling fuel shortage, was not impressed. They took the 47, they ferried them across and to and to China, and when Chennault found out the kind of fuel consumption of 47 had he kicked them out of there in one big hurry. Just couldn't afford that kind of a drain on his limited fuel supplies. Though the P-47 Never saw widespread use In China it turned out to be an excellent fighter bomber for Burma. Here as in other theaters The 47's legendary ruggedness saved many lives. Meanwhile, as the front moved closer to Japan in the Central Pacific, The P-47 squadrons of the 7th Air Force were in the vanguard of the advance. When the Marines and Army landed in the Marianas Islands in June of 1944, the P-47s of the 318th Fighter Group were operating. from the island within just a few days after the invasion of Saipan. Getting to Saipan, however proved to be a great challenge unable to ferry them in from any forward Central Pacific air bases. The 7th Air Force resorted to Putting the 318th's P47 on escort carriers. The baby flattops sailed to the Marianas laden with the ungainly Thunderbolts. Once off of Saipan, the men of the 318th climbed into their P47s. and catapulted off the narrow carrier decks. Miraculously, not a single P-47 was lost. During the operation and the 318th was soon operating. In support of the ground troops from Isley Field on Saipan. It was the only time in history where thunderbolts were launched from aircraft carriers and had been a rousing success. At war's end, the 7th, 13th, and 5th Air Forces P-47 groups were being marshaled around Eshima and Okinawa. Preparation for the invasion of Japan flying ground attack, combat air patrol, and long Range escort engines right up to the Japanese surrender, the Pacific Thunderbolts had given a solid, if unspectacular account of themselves. In one of the last great Thunderbolt fights the 318th fighter group Managed to shoot down 34 Kamikazes of Okinawa in a running four hour battle. The last major production variant of the P-47 was the end month and about 1800 were built, and Republic Aviation had designed them specifically to overcome the vast distances involved in the Pacific War. The P-47N had a much greater internal fuel capacity and they were capable of escorting B-29s all the way to Japan and back from bases on Iwo Jima and Okinawa when Japan finally surrendered in August of 1945 The Thunderbolt had become the most heavily produced American fighter of its generation. With over 15,000 being produced. As an escort aircraft and ground attack weapon the P-47 formed the backbone of the Army Air Force's fighter commands through the tough Middle years of World War Two In the post war years the P-47 quickly disappeared. by the early 1950's. The once omnipresent P-47 had become as scarce as the dodo bird. As the war faded into memory, the Thunderbolt and its accomplishments were. steadily obscured by the P-51 Mustang. For 55 years. the P-47 Has lived in the P-51 shadows. In reality, no other fighter contributed more to victory than the Thunderbolt. It did The Dirty work. The trying ground attack and close air support missions that held no glory, but saved the lives of countless G.I.s. in the process The P-47 helped crush the Luftwaffe in the air and on the ground. Setting the stage for total allied air superiority by leading Workhorse loved by some, despised by others. The P-47 ranks as one of the greatest aerial weapons to have ever existed in World War II. He grew up in tiny Oil City, PA, the son of immigrant parents. He showed no interest in flying until 1938 and his college days at Notre Dame. And nearly no one described him as a natural pilot. But he was a natural warrior. He was one of a handful of fighter pilots who launched themselves against the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. His first air combat was fought in a British Spitfire with a Polish fighter squadron, but he would make his mark with the P-47 Thunderbolt. Emerging from World War II has the top ace in the European theater with 31 German kills. He would go to war again in Korea and achieve his aces status a second time, this time in jet fighters. His experience led him to create a completely new set of air combat tactics that saved American lives. He was born Francis Gabryszewski third of five children of his Polish immigrant parents. They lived in a small town north of Pittsburgh called Oil City and ran the local grocery store. They changed the name to Gabreski to make it easier to pronounce, but the boy who would become one of America's greatest air aces spoke his entire life with a pronounced Polish accent. Francis Gabreski graduated high school in 1938, just as Hitler's legions marched into Austria. He says his eyes were focused on college, on Notre Dame and eventually medical school, like his older brother. After Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, Gabreski knew the United States would be going to war, and when it did, he was determined his weapon would be an airplane. He joined the Army Air Corps as a cadet in 1940. He trained in PT-17 Stearman biplanes with sleek blue and yellow paint. Gabreski admits he was not a natural pilot. He was nervous, always trying to wrestle the airplane around in the sky, compensating for the torque of the radial engines. He nearly didn't make the grade, but he did qualify, and after some advanced training was allowed to select his first assignment. He chose some place that sounded glamorous, exciting. I chose Hawaii. Well one, of course. I mean, it was a glamorous place. I read about it from Travelodge and so forth. It's a beautiful climate. The people are nice and tan, beautiful and so forth. And the girls are even Prettier. But Gabreski found himself in at the start of the war he knew was coming. I was getting ready for church and I could hear the bombardment off in the distance. And I paid no attention to it because the Navy does have a ranch in the mountains and they work seven days out of a week. Sunday, Sundays is one day they probably drop a few of the practice bombs. And then all of a sudden I heard machine gun fire. And that machine gun fire was right next over me. And I looked at the window and sure enough there was a zero? flying with this machine guns wide open And so forth, strafing everything before him. And I saw the rising sun, and that was my first indoctrination into World War II. And of course there's no question about being scared. I was scared stiff, but at the same time I was trained to do a job. We looked at the line and of course the buildings that some of the hanger lines are going up in flames. The flight line was going up in flames. Our number one job was just move away the intact airplanes, away from the burning airplanes. And of course that wasn't easy because all our ammunition was in the hangar line. The hangar line was up in flames and it was just like Roman candles in. In other words, you could see the the tracers coming up and firing and they were more scary than they were destructive. So we did our work. Airmen as well as officers shoved out the airplanes away from the burning airplanes and by the by the end of, say, an hour, an hour and a half, while we were able to save about 75 of the 150 airplanes that were parked on the line. We did become airborne about two hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was a very, I would say, somber flight. I looked down from about 6000 feet over Pearl Harbor and saw all those airplanes. It's over, off from their side, over, going up and in flames. And there was just a big filling black smoke all over Pearl Harbor. With much of the air power of the Pacific gone and the Navy clearly in charge, Gabreski felt out of the action. The Air Corps found itself trying to salvage what was left of its Pacific bases. Gabreski filled his time reading up on the war in Europe. The Battle of Britain Action reports showed that the fighter squadrons with the highest kill ratios against the Germans were Spitfires, piloted by members of the Polish Air Force. Gabreski had an idea. He would use his language skills and attach himself to a Polish squadron to learn their combat tactics. He would then pass them along to the Americans when they arrived in Europe. His idea turned him a trip to Washington and a promotion to captain on his way to London. I came over as a casual, I came over as an individual fly with the Polish Air Force to gain experience. So I joined the 315 squadron that was flying spit nines and it was a just a super airplane, so I flew with them on 20 missions. In February 1943, Gabreski left the Polish squadron. The Americans were arriving in England in force, and it was time to put the lessons learned to the test. He joined the 56th Fighter Squadron of the USA Air Force and met his new aircraft, the P-47 Thunderbolt. After the tight quarters and sleek lines of the Spitfire, the Thunderbolt was a battleship. After 20 missions with the with the Polish Air Force, I joined the 56th which was the first air, first group that was coming in intact from the United States of America with a brand new airplane a P-47. So you can imagine when I went from a Spitfire, which is nothing more than I bought a seven 7,500 pound airplane to this great big belly tub that I saw. I said, my God, what a big airplane! It was twice the size of the Spitfire, but it turned me off immediately, but that was the only thing I had to fight, fight in and that I was going to learn to fly it. So I took the airplane up and it was a good airplane. It was a good airplane because I had a turbine supercharger I could arrive at 2000 horsepower at sea level as well as up to 30,000 feet. When the velocity of the of the turbine supercharger would not accelerate any faster because it would deteriorate. I mean disintegrate. Unlike the mission of the Spitfire to intercept and shoot down attacking German bombers and fighters, the role of the Thunderbolt was clear. Protect the bombers of the USA Air Force. Also, unlike the Luftwaffe and the RAF, he was about to command a unit in a uniquely American Air Corps. We were all amateurs. The Germans were all pros. The RAF, they were pros and all the Belgium, all the other Allied forces, they were pros by the time that we were there, so we were going to learn from them and it took us quite a few missions before we felt very comfortable in the operating field where we knew what we were doing. The US 8th Air Force was in Europe to carry out daytime strategic bombing of the enemy. The P-17s were slow, long range bombers, and the 56th Fighter Group was to escort those bombers to or from the target to protect them from German fighters the best way they could and come home. After a noncombat injury sidelined him for several months, Gabreski came back with a vengeance. On August 24th, 1943, he scored his first confirmed victory at FW-190. On September 2nd, he scored his second. You're not out there to glamorize the destruction of fighter aircraft. You're there on a specific mission to keep those bombers from being shot down. In other words, if you could scare away, which we have on many occasions. Where the Focke-Wulf 190s and 109s would break off because we'd start coming in head on to them. And with our guns wide open, and so forth, firing at them. So they'd turn over and get down to the deck, we wouldn't follow. Naturally. I mean, because we did our job. In January 1944, General Jimmy Doolittle, fresh to the 8th Air Force from his North African experience commanding the 15th changed the general orders for US Fighter Command. The only way to beat the Germans was to eliminate their aircraft and pilots. The role of the fighters was no longer to simply escort bombers. Now they had clearance to pursue and flame every German aircraft they could in the air or on the ground. In February 1944, the 56 went on a binge. Gabreski called it the big week. Now flying missions over Germany using extender tanks, the P-47s of the 56 scored 59 kills in five missions. Gabreski owned three of them, running his number to 11. He was now an ace twice over. Now he was racking up kills faster than his crew could keep him in swastika decals. In May, he scored three more kills in a single day, with a fourth listed as probable. By D-Day, June 6th, 1944, Gabreski was in contention for the highest ranking ace in the Eighth Air Force. Truth be told, he was anxious to match the numbers set by a pilot from his group who had been sent home after 27 air victories. A month later, Gabreski did the impossible. He beat the record with the 28th Air victory. He could now go home. Gabreski had been overseas nearly two years and flown 165 missions. His fiance was waiting, with plans to get married as soon as he got home. Gabby was ecstatic. With the exception of an injury to a pinky finger, he had come through without a scratch. Gabreski collected his orders, packed and scheduled to begin the long journey home July 20th, 1944. He stopped by the operations cut on his way out to say goodbye. They were busy preparing to fly another escort mission over Germany. It looked like the kind of mission where a hot pilot could run up another couple of kills. He had 31. Could he score more? Gabreski decided he had one more mission to fly. They found an airfield West of Koblenz and decided to let each of the flights take a crack at it. Gabreski let his flight team down, and during his pass exploded a German bomber. He turned to make another pass, hugging the ground too close. The propellers hit, and Francis Gabreski, America's hottest air race, was down in Germany. He would spend the rest of the war in a German POW camp. Stalag Luft was freed on May 13th, 1945. A year later, Lieutenant Colonel Gabby Gabreski, 26 years old and credited with 31 kills, retired from the Army Air Corps But that's not the end of the story. Like many returning vets, Gabreski was anxious to complete his college degree and take up his married life. He and his wife thought the civilian life looked good, and he managed to snag a job with Douglas Aircraft. It lasted less than a year. Gabreski missed the cockpit and flying. He applied for a permanent Commission and in April 1947 returned to the Army Air Force, as a Lieutenant Colonel. Less than a year later, he was assigned to command the 56th Fighter Group, his old combat unit, and with it came promotion to full Colonel. It was peacetime work, but not for long. The tension in Korea finally exploded into open warfare, and Gabby found himself watching from the sidelines. The war went back and forth, and it looked like it would be over once MacArthur landed at Incheon. But in mid 1950, a new weapon launched into the skies, and the Americans found themselves fighting a hot new fighter, the MiG 15. Gabreski's command had just made the transition to F-86 Sabre fighters, and he wondered more than once how the planes would stack up. He was going to find out. In May 1951, Colonel Gabreski reported to K-14, the air base near Kimpo, South Korea. Gabreski was assigned to the 4th Fighter Group as Deputy Wing Commander. They had only fifty F-86s and their mission was to distract the MiGs away from the slower Mustangs and F-80s. To do that, they flew the area the pilots called MiG Alley. When MiG 15 came into the theater that put another sort of dimension. That's when I went out to operate in the Europe in the Korean theater because the MiG 15 was so superior to any other airplane that we'd ever had there. So the only offset to that was a F-86, F-86 which which was a it was a Mach .9192 airplane, equivalent to the MiG 15. So that put us on par and it kept again the the Mig 15 from destroying the F-80s and the F-84. And if you get a bounce cutting off and driving in a range. When you get in a range, shoot. When you shoot, shoot to kill. Anybody get any questions? OK, let's go again. On April 1st, 1952, Gabreski led his group back into MiG Alley. Tiger. League Tiger two here. I got a couple of bogeys out there was one coming around in two levels. Alright, here, there. He told he's going down. You got him? Alright, alright, good deal. Uh, why did we got for him coming in here on at 7:00 Uh, hang. On I haven't. done him. But go ahead and take it and I'll cover you. Alright? I'm going in now. OK. He's down. Well, you got him too. He had four kills and one at his fifth. He went head to head with a MiG 15, and after three passes he watched the pilot pop his canopy and bail out. He was over his 100 mission limit, though he and another veteran had given orders that their sorties not be posted anymore. But he had had enough. With six and a half kills credited to him and his 31 from World War II, he is the third top air ace in American history. On June 4th the Air Force sent him home. He had a stop along the way. President Harry Truman called him to the White House and thanked him personally. I've had everything from a squadron to a group to a wing. And I've been in the cockpit up until I retired. Colonel Francis Gabreski ended his combat role that summer of 1952, but his career continued. He remained in the Air Force until 1967, commanding units at bases from Kadena to Hickam to Adana, Turkey. He had flown aircraft from the old P-40 to the heavy P-47, where he achieved glory. He made the transition to jet fighters in the F-86 and had flown everything up to the F-111 supersonic fighter bomber. His record of 37 a half killed stands today. He set standards for performance and tactics. For all his contributions to the US Air Force, Colonel Francis S Gabby Gabreski is a legend of air power.
