Man-Made Thunderbolts Rip Wide a Path to Victory
The Republic P-4-7 Thunderbolt was planned in 1940 as the result of the Air Corps’ desire to strengthen our fighter squadrons. A study of the Nazis’ use of crushing air power in their attacks on Western Europe hastened our plans to build heavier and more powerful fighters.
At one of the Air Corps meetings with aircraft manufacturers at Wright Field in 1940, Alexander Kartveli sketched on the back of an envelope an idea for a super-fighter. Eight months later his idea had grown into the fastest and most powerful fighter ever built in this country.
Alexander Kartveli was chief engineer for Republic Aviation Corporation. His sketches were developed by his firm to produce the six-and-one-half-ton, 400-mile-an-hour P-47 fighter. The P-47 was the answer to the Army’s demands for a big, powerfully armed fighter which could out-fly and out-fight any warplane put into the skies by an enemy. More than 10,000 Thunderbolts have been built since 1940 and they have taken a terrific toll of Axis planes, both in Europe and in the Pacific. Pilots of one group of Thunderbolts that operated in the Pacific shot down Jap planes at the rate of 52 to 1.
The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt proved to be one of the most versatile airplanes developed in this war. It performs equally well at high or low altitudes. Armed with eight.50-caliber machine guns, it is a hard-hitting escort fighter which can out-fight any plane sent up to hinder our big bombers. When used for ground strafing it has no superior. With two 1000-pound bombs tucked under its wings it becomes a deadly dive-bomber. Armed with rocket tubes and its eight big machine guns blazing, it can blast enemy tanks, transport, and gun emplacements effectively.