Why did US pilots love the Thunderbolt so much?

in 1942 when our American friends came to help with a war effort around 90 bases all over East Anglia were turned to house our American friends doxford became station 357 home of the 78th Fighter Group from 1943 to 45 and initially their weapon of choice was the P-47 Thunderbolt this was the best armed aircraft World War II [Music] the Thunderbolt was designed by Alexander carpelli built by Republic in America entered service in 1942 and first saw action in the European theater of operation in April 43. the P-47 wasn't without its flaws it was quite slow in a climb and had pretty slow and sluggish acceleration but was fantastically fast in a dive and could absorb an incredible amount of punishment from enemy airplanes and still keep flying superb in ground attack rolls and probably one of the best fighters that America had at the time for ground support the nickname given to the Thunderbolt was jug that was either short for Juggernaut or milk jug depending on what source you actually believe by the end of the second world war the Thunderbolt was responsible for the destruction of over 7 000 enemy airplanes the Thunderbolt served in all theaters of the second World War after fifteen thousand Thunderbolts made about 13 000 were D models the BNC model they only made a couple hundred and uh of the D models of which about 13 000 range about half of them had the old racerback what we called it a canopy and about half of them had the bubble canopy so we're here in Hangar 3 now at Imperial War Museum Duxford one of our original 1917 hangars where the 78th Fighter Group Thunderbolts would have been stored at some point in this very hangar the Thunderbolt as you can see is quite substantial to put things in perspective here's one of our little Spitfires and over here the Thunderbolt so with the fuselage wrapped around a huge air cooled radial Pratt and Whitney r2800 engine a huge 12 and a half foot propeller the Thunderbolt was a sizable piece of Kit because of the Thunderbolt strength and its power it was also a very successful fighter bomber capable of carrying bombs under its Center Line and its wings well over two and a half hundred kilos so basically like three Japanese thousand CT Superbikes dangling under each aircraft it was also ferociously well armed with eight 50 caliber machine guns four in each wing no other Air Force had an airplane equivalent to the P-47 it was 850 caliber which is the best power Firepower than any fighter had the bomb carrying capability we never fired um anything but two guns in training so the first time I fired the guns on a combat Mission there was a kick to it we are told that straight level if all eight guns are fired and it would slow the airplane 35 miles an hour so with an all-up weight of around 8 tons capable of carrying 2 500 pounds thereabouts of bombs a top speed of well over 400 miles an hour a service ceiling of around 40 000 feet the Thunderbolt could take the battle to just about anything the Germans had with a propeller at the front the Pratt and Whitney r2800 air cooled radial that the Thunderbolt has hugely Powerful 2 000 horsepower one good thing about the air cooled engine of course doesn't have a radiator for water cooling so in the event that the Achilles heel may have been for the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine the hitting the coolant the glycol the radiator of course you're going to have a very serious problem there are stories of thunderbolts coming back to their air bases Crash Landing or indeed Landing perfectly well with literally half cylinder heads missing by the time of Christmas 1944 a lot of the wings were being replaced with the P-51 Mustang but because the pilots were so in love with their Thunderbolts they wanted to keep them the 56th Fighter Group being the only Fighter Group at the end of the war in Europe still equipped with the P-47 the safety of the P-47 was in its strength one old tale was one way to avoid an enemy contact was when the bullets were hitting your airplane because there's so much room in the cockpit unstrap your harness and run around inside the cockpit therefore avoiding the bullets because the Thunderbolt was such a big powerful and quite thirsty airplane putting drop tanks on it gave it extended range for the escort duty of the b-17s and b-24s based around East Anglia here's one of these tanks going into action filled with petrol and leaving the plane when empty fighter range was once restricted to this now it's doubled so due to the Thunderbolt size of course we've got a huge powerful airplane slow rate of climb sluggish acceleration sometimes struggling in a dogfight if for instance a fat wolf pilot who was well known for dogfighting with Thunderbolts if he knew he got a thunderbolt on his tail he would open the throttle pull back on the stick put it into a massive climb knowing the Thunderbolt couldn't follow but going back to its strings working out on its superb rate of dive very fast very strong ludicrously well armed Pilots could exploit its strengths the airplane was underpowered and they couldn't seem to get the proper match between the 2800 horsepower engine and a propeller and so to get an airplane that would take off and perform at low altitude wasn't worth it down at High house too so they eventually but this was not until after we'd been in combat for about six months got what was called a paddle blade propeller plus water injection to the engine and water injection to the engine when you shot the water to the engine that increased your horsepower by about a third during D-Day there was some Fierce fighting obviously involved Allied troops getting pinned down in difficult positions close air support was going to be a massive morale boost with the site of the RAF typhoon or the P-47 Thunderbolt taking out your target right in front of you the P-47 Thunderball obviously still well thought of within the United States government unarmed forces so much so that they're A10 Thunderbolt 2 airplane is along similar lines albeit considerably more updated of course to the Modern Age very heavy not specifically fast quite maneuverable but enabled to take an incredible amount of punishment by the end of uh hostilities in 1945 over 15 000 of the old jugs were produced more than any other American fighter so as well as being favored for its ground attack role as a fighter bomber and as a fighter destroying over 7 000 enemy airplanes kind of goes to show that this really was one heck of an airplane [Music]

Channel: Imperial War Museums

Views: 768,889

Keywords:

Id: K5H2m6a3Ypw

Length: 8min 46sec (526 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 05 2023