The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was a World War II era fighter aircraft produced by the United States between 1941 and 1945. Its primary armament was eight .50-caliber machine guns and in the fighter-bomber ground-attack role it could carry five-inch rockets or a bomb load of 2,500 pounds (1,103 kg). When fully loaded the P-47 weighed up to eight tons (tonnes) making it one of the heaviest fighters of the war. The P-47 was designed around the powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine which was also used by two U.S. Navy fighters, the Grumman F6F Hellcat and the Vought F4U Corsair. The Thunderbolt was effective as a short-to-medium range escort fighter in high-altitude air-to-air combat and ground attack in both the World War II European and Pacific theaters.

Refinements to the Thunderbolt continued throughout its career, leading to the P-47D, which was the most produced version with 12,558 built. The "D" model actually consisted of a series of evolving production blocks, the last of which were visibly different from the first.

The first P-47Ds were actually the same as P-47Cs. Republic could not produce Thunderbolts fast enough at its Farmingdale plant on Long Island, so a new plant was built at Evansville, Indiana. The Evansville plant first built a total of 110 P-47D-1-RAs, which were completely identical to P-47C-2s. Farmingdale aircraft were identified by the -RE suffix after the block number, while Evansville aircraft were given the -RA suffix.

The P-47D-1 through P-47D-6, the P-47D-10, and the P-47D-11 successively incorporated changes such as the addition of more engine cooling flaps around the back of the cowl to reduce the engine overheating problems that had been seen in the field. Engines and engine subsystems saw refinement, (the P-47D-10 introduced the R-2800-63, replacing the R-2800-21 seen in previous P-47s) as did the fuel, oil and hydraulic systems. Additional armor protection was also added for the pilot.

The P-47D-15 was produced in response to requests by combat units for increased range. "Wet" (equipped with fuel plumbing) underwing pylons were introduced to allow a bomb or drop tank pressurized by vented exhaust air to be carried under each wing, in addition to the belly tank.

Pictured here is a 1:48 scale replica of a P-47D Thunderbolt fighter that was nicknamed "Bonnie", and attached to the 460th Fighter Squadron "Black Rams", 348th Fighter Group, then deployed to the Philippines during early 1945. Sold Out!

Dimensions:
Wingspan: 10-inches
Length: 8-3/4-inches

Release Date: April 2020

Historical Account: "We Shall Return" - After 18 months in New Guinea, the 348th Fighter Group boarded ships bound for the Philippines. One squadron, the 460th, arrived several weeks before the other three, and proceeded to roll up an imposing score of enemy planes, shipping, and personnel destroyed, providing cover for convoys, flying patrols, escorted bombers, attacked enemy airfields, and supporting ground forces. During a three-week period it sank 50,000 tons of enemy shipping, which was slightly more than one-tenth of all the shipping sunk by the entire Fifth Air Force during the year 1944. On November 10th, 1944, the 460th squadron deployed forward to Tacloban Airfield on Leyte, simultaneously escorting a group of B-25 bombers attacking a convoy loaded with an estimated 10,000 enemy troops en route to reinforce the Japanese army on Leyte. The squadron's planes were the first of the Army Air Force to fly over occupied Manila after the Japanese capture of the Philippines. A flight led by Colonel Dunham, made the first return flight on November 17th, 1944.

The group's greatest day, in point of total of enemy planes destroyed, was December 14th, 1944, when, in protection of the invasion fleet heading to Mindoro, five Japanese planes were shot down, an estimated 75 were destroyed and 20 more damaged, on the airfields of Negros Island only a few minutes flight from the Allied invasion force, which landed on Mindoro the following morning.

In aerial combat, the 348th's best day came on December 24th, 1944, when its planes -- escorting B-24 Liberator heavy bombers in one of the first bomber strikes on Clark Field -- met an attempted interception by an estimated 100 Japanese fighters. 32 of the enemy aircraft were destroyed, seven probably destroyed, with the remainder driven off. The bombers, undamaged in the attack, proceeded to carry out their mission.

Early in December 1944, while the group's planes were operating from Taoloban strip, the majority of group personnel were camped inland near Burauen when the Japanese landed several hundred paratroops on an uncompleted airstrip less than a quarter of a mile from the group's camp, cutting the only road leading from the camp. For several days the camp was isolated between the paratroops on the East and the Japanese patrols on the West. Two men on guard post were surprised and killed by an enemy patrol, but the camp defense's prevented any breakthrough and the paratroops were finally wiped out by infantry and tanks.

When U.S. troops landed on Luzon the 348th, now in process of conversion from P-47's to North American P-51 Mustangs, began operation from San Marcelino airstrip a few days after the landing at San Marcelino and Subic Bay. From this location the unit entered upon what many of its members consider its most outstanding work of the war, bombing and strafing in close support of ground troops. This work lacks the excitement and glamor of serial combat, or even of bombing and strafing of seen targets. Bombs and bullets are poured into areas where the enemy is reported to be, and day after day the mission reports stated "Results unobserved due to foliage". Only rarely were advancing ground troops able to tell what part of the damage found was done by a particular air strike.