Summary
- The P-47 Thunderbolt was the top fighter of WWII for U.S. aces Gabreski and Johnson in Europe, with 31 and 27 kills, respectively.
- The P-47 stood out with its eight .50 caliber machine guns and a top speed of 426 mph, earning the nickname “Thunderbolt.”
- The P-47 Thunderbolt excelled at ground attacks with a large payload capacity, impressive firepower, low loss rate, and high survivability.
If you ask your typical WWII aviation buff what the most famous and iconic fighter plane of that monstrous conflict—particularly the European Theater of Operations—is, chances are he or she will answer with the North American P-51D Mustang.
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The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt: Flown By America’s Top 2 Aces in Europe During WWII
The P-47 gets less love than P-51 amongst WWII fighters. Yet it was the “T-Bolt” that was flown by the top two U.S. aces of the European Theatre.
But the Mustang was far from the only iconic American WWII fighter in Europe. The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt (AKA the “T-Bolt,” “Jug,” and “Flying Bathtub”) also achieved legendary status therein, and rightfully so. Simple Flying now takes another look at how and why this mighty warbird attained that status.
The “T-Bolt” as an air-to-air killer
As I reported in a previous Simple Flying article, the P-47 was flown by America’s top two aces of the European Theater, Col. Francis Stanley “Gabby” Gabreski (January 28, 1919 – January 31, 2002) and Lt. Col. Robert Samuel “Bob” Johnson (February 21, 1920 – December 27, 1998); Gabby attained a total of either 28 or 31 (depending upon which sources you consult) aerial victories against Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe, while Bob bagged 27 kills.
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But Cols. Gabreski and Johnson were far from the only American aces who blasted their claims to fame in the deadly skies over Europe while at the stick & rudder of the P-47. “Jug” pilots combined to tally more than 7,000 enemy aircraft destroyed—more than half of them in air-to-air combat, en route to a 4.6:1 kill ratio. This was largely due to two reasons (besides the obvious factor of the superb training of American fighter pilots):
- The plane’s eight Browning M2 “Ma Deuce” .50 caliber (12.7 mm machine guns)
- The plane’s speed
They named it the Thunderbolt for good reason. Though, on the one hand, the P-47 was the largest single-engine fighter built by any country during WWII, with a fully laden weight of over 17,500 lb (7,937 kg), it was also exceptionally fast as a fighter-bomber, with a top speed of 426 mph (426 km/h, 370.1 kn, Mach 0.55). The same pithy observation applies to the P-47 as later made of the supersonic F-4 Phantom II fighter jet, i.e. that “if you put enough thrust behind a brick you can make it fly.”
The “Flying Bathtub” as an air-to-ground killer
Gaining glory for America’s aerial aces wasn’t the only claim to fame for the “Jug.” It was also a superbly effective ground-attack warbird—arguably superior to the Mustang in that regard—thanks to its payload capacity of 2,500 lb (1,100 kg) of bombs or up to ten 5 in (127 mm) HVAR (High-Velocity Aircraft Rocket) unguided rockets. Not to mention, the eight .50 cals were every bit as handy for strafing as they were for air-to-air duels against enemy aircraft.
Nicknamed “Holy Moses,” the HVAR weighed 134 lb (61 kg) overall, with a warhead weight of 45.5 lb (20.6 kg). It packed 7.5 lb (3.4 kg) of TNT or Composition B (AKA Hexotol and Hexolite) high explosives.
With this deadly assortment of air-to-ground ordnance, P-47 drivers went on an absolute tear against Axis ground assets. David Kindy of Smithsonian Magazine states flat out:
“It was arguably the best ground-attack aircraft America had at that time.”
For some cold hard statistics that bolster Mr Kindy’s statement, we can turn to my late friend and fellow USAF veteran Robert F. “Bob” Dorr (September 11, 1939 – June 12, 2016; God rest his soul) author of the top-notch 2008 book “Hell Hawks!: The Untold Story of the American Fliers Who Savaged Hitler’s Wehrmacht.” In the book, Bob noted that T-Bolts belonging to units such as the 365th Fighter Group and the 405th Fighter Group destroyed a mind-numbing 86,000 railroad cars, 9,000 locomotives, 6,000 armored fighting vehicles, and 68,000 trucks! Thunderbolts ended up dropping 132,000 tons of bombs during the war.
“I have seen them in their T-Bolts
When their eyes were dancing flame
I’ve seen their screaming power-dives that blasted Göring’s name…”
–“Air Corps Lament” (1:39 mark) by Dick Jonas (Lt. Col, USAF, Ret.)
Took a Licking and Kept on Ticking
To paraphrase the famous old Timex TV advert slogan, the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt not only packed a wallop but could also take a walloping.
Another reason why the “Flying Bathtub” was so beloved by its pilots was its ability to absorb a tremendous amount and still come back home alive. It had an exceptionally low rate of loss—a mere 0.07 per mission; out of the 15,683 P-47s built between 1941 and 1945, only 3,499 were lost in combat.
“Don’t give me an old Thunderbolt
She gave many pilots a jolt
Don’t give me an old Thunderbolt!”
–“Give Me Operations” (1:56 mark) by Dick Jonas
The aforementioned Bob Johnson had arguably the most famous survival story of them all. One day, then Lt. Johnson ran afoul of a Focke-Wulf FW 190 piloted by Luftwaffe ace Oberstleutnant (Lt. Col). Egon Mayer (who finished the war with 102 kills). Herr Mayer emptied his entire ammo allotment into Johnson’s plane. Yet, Bob ‘n’ Bolt still returned safely to base. Johnson gave an absolutely harrowing account of this ordeal in his autobiography “Thunderbolt!: An Extraordinary Story of a World War II Ace,” co-authored with the aforementioned Martin Caidin.(September 14, 1927 – March 24, 1997; arguably the most prolific military aviation author of all time). Alas, I don’t have that excellent book handy to quote directly, so for the time being, we’ll have to settle for a citation from a Real History article instead:
“Mayer scanned the length of the Thunderbolt before shaking his head in astonishment that the thing was still in the air. Making eye contact with Johnson, Mayer waved his hand before peeling away…
Slivers of lead from bullets and cannon shells were embedded deeply in both hands, and two .30-caliber bullets had inflicted flesh wounds on his right thigh …
“Johnson initially tried to count the number of bullet holes but gave up after the tally passed 200 – without even moving around the plane.”
Like I said at the beginning, a rightfully earned legendary status!