BY MARSHALL WAINWRIGHT

Republic XP·47N at the company's Farmingdale factory with a IOOO-lbbomb under each wing.

By the late spring of 1944,

Republic Aviation, with busyplants humming at Farmingdale,New York, and Evansville,

Indiana, had already produced some 9000P-47 Thunderbolt fighters and was wellon its way to turning out nearly 7000 ofthe mammoth fighters in that year alone.Not bad for an organization that hadn'teven existed five years before, had just thesingle prototype XP-47B to show for1941, and had only delivered 526 P-47sin all of 1942.

If ever an enterprising company hadproven its ability to mass-produce a quali­ty product on time and, often, ahead ofschedule with few bottlenecks or delays,Republic, under sales and engineeringgenius, C. Hart Miller, was the company.But times were changing and from anundermanned, auxiliary air arm desper­ately crying for thousands of modernplanes and their associated equipmentand, therefore, willing to accept a signifi-cant number of inferior types in order to P-47N Waveltofthe 19th FS honors the flag as well as USN WAVES.

38 AIR CLASSICS

_ . 11

P-47N RED-E RUTH of the 19th FS.

Thisunusual view shows the P-47N's extended wing and square tips to advantage.

finally acquire the ones it really needed,America's emerging air force was begin­ning to pick and choose.

Amid this newly-found furor to bemore selective and cost-conscious, nowthat it appeared America and her Allieswere on the verge of winning the air war,ruinously expensive contracts awarded fordubious products were being sharply ques­tioned, investigated, cut back or outrightcancelled. After four years of eagerly pass­ing out money indiscriminately to allcomers, the guardians of the US Treasurywere, at last, having second thoughts.

There were valid grounds for thischange in thinking. During the hectic,confused early months of 1941, US warplanners had made a number of bonehead,often scandalous, mistakes. In the midst of

shifting to a wartime economy, they hadordered vast numbers of ineffective and

second-rate designs into production - in

the hope of having something to fightwith when the planes eventually material­ized. Two years later, still trying to cope

AIR CLASSICS 39

Republic P-47N having its .50-calBrownings bore sighted.

Escort carrier loaded with factory-freshP·47Ns heads toward Pacific bases.

with the pressures of truly gargantuan out­put and, despite embarrassing flightreports, they had kept them there. Amongsuch questionable projects, in no particularorder, were: The Vultee Vanguard fighterand Vengeance dive-bomber, the Bell P­39 Airacobra, the Brewster Bermuda and

Buccaneer dive-bombers, and, perhaps theultimate boondoggle of the war, theGeneral Motors XP-75 Eagle, a long-rangefighter, and the experimental Allison V­3420 engine that was to power it.

Although the mighty automotive

Another factory photograph illustrating a P-47N equipped with eight .50-cal machine guns, ten HV ARs, and two IOOO-ibbombs.

40 AIR CLASSICS

The P-47N's huge cowl was ideal for artwork. Willie was operated by the 333rd FS, 318thFG, at Ie Shima during 1945.

giant was perfonning yeoman work turn­ing out tens of thousands of provenAllison engines for P-38s, P-39s, P-40sand P-51s before and during the war,thousands of license-built Grumman FM

Wildcat fighters and TBM Avengers tor-

pedo-bombers, as well as a number ofother products vital to the war effort,including subassemblies for the designs ofothers, it wanted a project all its own.The P-75 Eagle, together with its massivein-line engine, was to be that reward.

This Flying Frankenstein, initially uti­lizing parts from the Vought Corsair(landing gear), Douglas SBD (tail), andCurtiss P-40 (outer wing panels), was atrue monstrosity. Yet, even with theinsider backing of War Production BoardPresident Charles "Bucky" Knudsen ­fonnerly chainnan of General Motors andnow a general himself; a brand-new,built-for-the-purpose factory atCleveland, Ohio, constructed at govern­ment expense; the blessings of AirMaterial Command, whose personnelconsistently ignored all criticism of theproject; plus an energetic and powerfullobby in Washington, of 2500 P-75sordered only six would be completed.When finally revamped as a long-rangefighter and test flown in the late summerof 1944 - after failing as a generic fighterten months before - the forlorn Eaglewould only manage perfonnance ratingslong since surpassed by operational fight­ers. Among these aircraft was Republic'sP-47 Thunderbolt.

Even though the Thunderbolt had farexceeded the expectations and hopes setout for it in 1941, when designerAlexander Kartveli had completely

Before the 1947 National Security Act and the resulting organization of the USAF as a separate branch, Guard aircraft were identifiedby the letters NG for National Guard. After September 1947, NG rapidly gave place to ANG. This P-4N was assigned to the 142ndFighter Squadron, Delaware National Guard.

scrapped earlier, less ambitious conceptsto conceive the startling 7-ton brute, theentire P-47 program was suddenly and, forno valid reason, at risk. Along with twonew manufacturing plants completed just3D-months earlier to produce the design,the P-47 was to be sacrificed in order that

the P-75 Eagle succeed. At least, this wasthe plan, but the complete failure of the

P-75 and its engine to even remotely ful­fill the promises made for them, was toprovide Republic with the opportunity to

take what looked like disaster for the com­

pany and the Army Air Force, and turn itinto a vindication of its brawny fighter.

In the fall of 1943, as General Motors'

Fisher Body subsidiary began tooling upfor serious large-scale manufacturing ofthe unproven P-75, Republic was wellinto the delivery of more than 12,600 Dmodel Thunderbolts. It was then that thebombshell hit.

At that stage of the war, the 8th AirForce based in England did not have suffi-

cient long-range fighters to escort itsbombers to targets inside Germany.North American's new P-5lB Mustangwas only just beginning to reachAmerican fighter groups stationed inBritain and their squadrons would not flytheir first missions with the plane untilDecember. Furthermore, these were earlymodel Merlin-engined Mustangs. Withinternal fuel of l80-gal, all in the wing,they did not have the required range. Apair drop tanks containing l50-gal of

laden with fuel, P-SI D Mustangs also joined the N models on the ultra-long range missions. The name on this 72nd FS Mustang wasmost appropriate considering the length of the missions.

42 AIR CLASSICS

Classic view of P-47N·I·RE 44-88104 framed by the .50·cal gun of a White half track atRyukyo Retto during 1945.

Bombed-up 19th Fighter Squadron Nmodels prepare to taxi out for a missionfrom Ie Shima.

additional fuel boosted combat radius to

700-mi, maximum; but the 1000-mi com­

bat radius solution for long-range escortwould not appear until the summer of1944, when the P-51D was introduced

with its large 85-gal fuselage tank (retro­fitted to the earlier Bs and Cs), giving theMustang an aggregate 415-gal of fuel.

It might be helpful to note that com­bat radius is much different from maxi­

mum range. The latter basically describesthe distance an aircraft can travel from

one point to another at low cruise speedand still arrive with 30-min fuel in

reserve. By contrast, combat radius spellsout how far an aircraft can fly from itsbaseand return, given time to takeoff andclimb to an assembly point, cruise out to aspecified destination to operate at WarEmergency Power for at least 5-min ofcombat, loiter for 30-min, or continue to

fly for an additional 15-min at militarypower, turn around and return to base atcruisepower, and then descend and landwith 30-min of fuel remaining.

Given those daunting parameters andrequirements, up until the spring of 1944only Lockheed's P-38H Lightnings hadthe requisite combat radius to escortbombers on deep penetration raids intoGermany and return.

Unfortunately for the 8th Air Force,there were only five groups of P-38s in allof Europe, and three were spoken for inthe Mediterranean Theater. Given those

odds and a lack of fighter escort, it is not

SPECIFICATIONS

REPUBLIC P-47NSpan 42-ft 7-in

Length

36-ft I-in

Height

14-ft 8-in

Wing Area

322-sq-ft

Empty Weight

II.OOO-ib

Loaded Weight

20.700-lb

Max Speed

467-mph

Cruise Speed

300-rnph

Ceiling

43.000-ft

Climb

3000-fprn

Range

800-rni standard

Powerplant

P&W R-2BOO-S7/-73/

-77 of 2BOO-hp

difficult to see why the 8th's bombergroups suffered such devastating losses inthe fall of 1943.

On 8 October 1943, 156 8-17s and B­24s were dispatched to Bremen and 14were lost. On 10 October, 30 B-17s werelost out of 197 sent to bomb Munster. On

14 October, of 200 8-17s launched againstSchweinfurt, 60 were shot down by an alertLuftwaffe and 138 were damaged.Bloodletting like this could not be sustained.

After backing off from heavily-defend­ed industrial centers for nearly four weeks,switching the focus of its attacks to closer

targets in France and western Germany,the 8th returned to Bremen on 18

November, losing 16 out of 143 bombersdispatched and also suffering 22 damagedaircraft. Without escort fighters to protectits bombers, implementing 8th AirForce's daylight strategic bombing plan fordestroying Germany's war-making capa­bility was proving prohibitively costly.

AIR CLASSICS 43

Fitted with bombs and HVARs, a P-47N pilot await~ his next Pacific mission.

As America's strategic air arm wres­tled with the tough proposition ofprocuring a reliable long-range fighterand supplying it with suitable drop tanksand doing so quickly, before its bomberforce was decimated, back atFarmingdale, C. Hart Miller and hisengineering staff were carrying out testson a converted P-47C. They increasedits normal40-ft 9.75-in wingspan by 4.5­ft, a program that would take the betterpart of seven months, until May 1944, tofully implement. The insertion of 27-instubs into each inner wing panel hadbeen done originally to see if the P-4Tsmaneuverability could be improved. Itcould, and there was more to come.

Although the Thunderbolt had provento be a powerful, heavily-armed fighter, ithad limited range and was, in fact, a gas­eating hog. In its later bubble-canopied 0models, the plane had an internal fuelcapacity of 370-gal stored in four fuselagetanks. That was 40-gal more than a P-518with both full internal fuel and 150-gal intwo drop tanks; yet the king-size P-47D at14,500-lbs loaded - 2.5-tons heavier thana similarly loaded P-518 - had a combatradius of barely 500-mi, 200 less than theP-518. In late 1943, as more P-47s arrived

in Europe on their way to outfitting ninefull fighter groups, they were still withoutadequate auxiliary drop tanks for rangeextension. By the following spring thenewer 0-22 and 0-23 models would have

a 750-mi combat radius capability withtanks, but even with these they would notbe capable of loitering over Berlin withthe bombers and then returning home. Forthat critical extra endurance, a still newermodel was needed.

While work on General Motors' reluc­

tant Eagle went forward at enormous cost,in a futile attempt to fill this vital gap inUSAAF inventory and North AmericanAviation was busy installing 85-gal fuse­lage tanks, Republic engineers, with theencouragement of Project Officer Capt.George Colchagoff, but without govern­ment funding, looked into the possibilityof installing wing tanks in the 27-in winginserts stubs on the P-47C test bed which

they had experimented on in 1943, anexperiment they had neglected to followthrough with when the revised wingexhibited sluggish maneuverability.

Their venerable test bed had also beenmodified to test a new R-2800c series radi­

al. Previous to that, the company had beenworking on the XP-47], a high-altitudesprinter that reached a top speed of 507-

mph at 34,300-ft. When that project wasdropped in favor of the yet more powerfulXP-72, the new General Electric CH-5supercharger developed for the XP-47] wasincluded in a revised Pratt & Whitney R­2800-57 that was to go into the YP-47M(there was no X model for the M).

Developing 2100-hp at 2700-rpm, withWar Emergency Power the mighty radialcould generate 2800-hp for quick bursts.

This increased horsepower meant thatP-47M pilots would be able to pass thefastest Mustangs at altitude, but it wouldbe at a price since the radial running atfull power would consume an astonishing330-gal per hour. New engine controls,however, would aid the P-47M pilot inreducing the aircraft's fuel consumptionat cruise to about 100-gph, which was animprovement over earlier models.

After the war, many Air National Guard units were equipped with D and N model Thunderbolts. These F-47Ns (redesignated in 1947) wereassigned to the 10 Ist Fighter Squadron, Massachusetts Air National Guard. They were photographed at Logan Airport on 17 November 1949.

44 AIR CLASSICS

P·47N·25·RE 44·89403 assigned to the 54th Fighter Wing, 128th Fighter Squadron,Georgia Air National Guard. Photographed at Marietta during May 1946.

Only 130 Ms were produced and the56th FG received virtually the entire pro­duction run, but trouble soon followed.

With the constant rush of wartime pro­duction, complete testing was sometimesnot undertaken. What worked under

hasty factory testing would not functionunder operational conditions. In opera­tional conditions, P-47M pilots were hor­rified to find the engines stopping com­pletely or cutting in and out once theyreached cruising altitude.

Missions were hastily aborted andmaintenance men were puzzled. Otherengine problems began to manifest them­selves, including corrosion and low cylin­der head temperatures, which affected thecorrect operation of the engine. Theproblem grew to nightmare proportionswhen it became obvious since every P­47M operated by the 56th was strickenwith the same problem.

In the Pacific, the P·47N fought alongside D model Thunderbolts such as P·47D-28-RA 42-29064 seen landing at Naha, Okinawa duringSeptember 1945.

A P-47N from the 414th Fighter Group escorts a Boeing B-29 from the 6th Bomb Group. The 414th was the last P-47N group to enteraction. Assigned to defensive fighter escort missions with the B-29s, the unit was only in action for about a month when the war ended.

AIR CLASSICS 45

The Virginia National Guard's 149th Fighter Squadron operated the P-47D and It was common to see Nand D models flying togetherduring NG exercises.

Captain John Vogt and his P-47N Drlnk'n Sister flew with the 19th FS. The pilot became an aceon 28 May 1945 when he shot down five Zeros.

Work began around the clock tocure the problem. Ignition leadswere suspect and they were replacedwith a different type, but the engineproblems continued and it seemedlike the -57 was an engine thatwould not run.

Airflow to the cylinders wasmodified so that the heads could

heat to the most efficient tempera­tures. It was discovered that the sen­

sitive engine/turbosupercharger con­trols were not being correctly oper­ated so additional training wasrequired along with some modifica­tions. A great deal of minor modifi­cation and engine fine tuning meantthat the -57 eventually gained adegree of reliability but, eventuallyplagued by just too many problems,the engines of every operational Mwere changed in an attempt to gaincombat readiness. For all its speedand power, the P-47M remained a "limit­ed production" aircraft.

Republic planned to keep the growth ofthe Thunderbolt advancing after the Mceased production and the next variant onthe line was the P-47N, considered by manypilots to be the ultimate Thunderbolt.Designed with the Pacific and extra rangein mind, the P-47 had its fuel capacityincreased by ZOO-galof fuel held in thewing. In addition to the eight Brownings,the N had stub; and wiring for eight or ten

46 AIR CLASSICSThe Delaware NG P·47N had Its USAAF markings roughly painted over.

Towards the end of the war, P-47Ns roamed freely over a destroyed Japan as theysearched for targets of opportunity.

5-in High Velocity Aerial Rockets(HV AR) mounted under the wings.

To add further lifting capability, thespan was increased by 18-in and its squarewing tips became a P-47N recognitionfeature. In order to distribute the increased

weight, the landing gear was redesignedand the tread was increased by 24-in.

Power came from the same R-2800-57

that had given the 56th FG so much trou­ble, but refinements in production and acomplete ~evision of power and turbosu­percharger controls made the -57 reliable.

To reduce the strain of long overwaterflights, a General Electric C-l autopilotwas installed in the cockpit and proved tobe very useful. The aircraft's extra weightbecame very noticeable in the takeoff runand almost 1000-ft more was required tobecome airborne when fully loaded.

In an amazing demonstration ofendurance, the XP-47N, with a pair of

300-gal drop tanks under the wings andfull internal fuel totaling 1170-gal, flewfrom Farmingdale, New York, to EglinField, Florida, in 3-hr 44-min. Once

there, it dropped the tanks, engaged inmock combat for 20-min at full militarypower, and headed back for New York!Poor weather forced the plane to land inNew Jersey, but after covering 1980-miand spending 20-min in a combat situa­tion, the fighter still had 120-gal in itstanks. Despite demonstrating a takeoffweight of more than ten tons with fullarmament and drop tanks - a configura­tion that once reached an astounding22,500-lb in tests - operational missions

with more than two large drop tanks wererare and it was not necessary to danger­ously overload the N for desired range.

Combat-ready P-47Ns were comingoff the Farmingdale line by the end of1944, while Evansville kept building Dsand did not convert to the N until almostthe end of the war. The first unit to

receive the P-47N was the 318th FighterGroup on the small island of Ie Shimawhere the pilots immediately began toencounter enemy aircraft.

As the mighty American task forcesapproached Japan, the enemy began tounleash some of the aircraft they held inreserve and the powerful P-47N proved tobe particularly valuable since it could hitthe enemy in the air and on the ground.With its load of weapons, two 300-galdrop tanks under the wings, and a IIO-galcenterline drop tank, this Thunderboltvariant became the heaviest single-enginefighter ofWWII - exceeding 21,OOO-lb

Ie Shima, where a sniper killed famedjournalist Ernie Pyle, is located off thecoast of Okinawa only 325-mi from theHome Islands. This distance enabled the

P-47Ns to roam freely over mainlandJapan where enemy fighters rose with reg­ularity to oppose the invaders. The quali­ty of the individual Japanese aviator hadfallen greatly by 1944, but the survivingolder aviators were still very dangerous.The new P-47Ns had so much power athand that individual American pilotswere often able to inflict disproportionatedamage on the enemy - such as during

(continued all page 66)

~gN ..G RAN.G.~.R .(COlltilluedfrom page 47)

May 1945 when two P-47N pilots fromthe 31Sth FO became instant aces when

they each destroyed five Japanese aircraftduring one mission.

Ie Shima began to receive moreThunderbolts as the war against themainland intensified and two new groups,the 413th and 507th, were formed. SinceOkinawa was becoming a main American

staging base, the Japanese had somethingspecial in mind for the contested island:The Divine Wind.

Japanese kamikazes attacked Okinawaand the fleet during May 1945 and the p­47Ns of the 31Sth were constantly air­borne, attempting to destroy the enemyaircraft before they could hit the ships.Even though the P-47N pilots did a mag­nificent job, the suicide aircraft accom­plished their mission with deadly precision.

On 25 May, the Japanese came inforce and the 31Sth accounted for 34

knmikazes in the space of just 4-hr as vir­tually every type of enemy combat aircraftwent on a one-way trip against theAmerican fleet. The extra power from the-57 was particularly useful as the P-47sdove on the low-flying targets that weregoing full-throttle at the nearestAmerican ships. The fighting becameheavy and desperate even though theeventual outcome was not really in doubt.One P-47N pilot managed to blow akamikaze out of the air with an underwingrocket after he had run out of .50-calammunition - this was the first time this

type of victory had been credited to apilot in the Pacific.

The Japanese did not have a sufficient

supply of aircraft or pilots to keep up thesuicide attacks and by June it was fairlyrare to see an enemy aircraft heading forthe fleet. The Thunderbolts, at this point,

began to rove on every increasing search

and destroy missions during which anepic IS00-mi flight took the P-47Ns ofthe 507th FG all the way to Korea.Eighteen enemy aircraft were destroyedon this flight for the loss of one P-47N.

Since aerial targets were rapidly disap­pearing, the P-47Ns concentrated onanything that moved on the ground and,as in Occupied Europe, Japanese rail androad traffic was decimated.

The atomic bomb settled the questionof invasion and the last P-47N victory ofthe war was scored by a 31Sth FO pilotwho clobbered a Frank fighter near Osakaon 14 August 1945.

The end of the war in the Pacific saw

P-47Ns as part of the occupying air forcebut, as with many other aircraft compa­nies, orders for new Thunderbolts wererapidly axed at Farmingdale andEvansville. Over 6000 P-47D and P-47N

aircraft on order were dropped whilework on the remaining machines rapidlycompleted. After the war, the P-47N,along with D models, formed the back­bone of a number of Air National Guard

fighter units. AC

During the late 1970s, the I 56th TacticalFighter Group of the Puerto Rican AirNational Guard restored this P-47N backto airworthy condition.

\

With the war over, this factory-fresh P·47N sits parked at Clark Field during October 1945. As can be seen, the Thunderbolt had noteven been assigned to a unit when the atomic bombs ended the war.

66 AIR CLASSICS