P47 Comparison

[ClydeM]

next thing you'll know, Clark Gabel didn't really say" frankly my dear I don't give a damn" or Lauren didn't ask " you know how to whistle don't you?"

[Matt C]

"90% of quotes on the Internet are made up." - Abraham Lincoln

[Lee_K]

"Beam me up, Scotty!"

Unfortunately that famous line was never uttered by William Shatner in the original Star Trek series.  I've got dozens of these famous lines that were never said, or at least never said the way we've heard them, like "Play it again, Sam."

Lee K

[Bill L.]

OK - Now just STOP right there!  Next you'll tell me there really isn't a galaxy far far away........(queue John Williams music) ............  or that life here began out there ...... or.... or.....



Bill L.

[Lee_K]

Sorry to burst that bubble.  While I'm on a roll, the Japanese didn't call the F4U Corsair "Whispering death", either.  It was just fanciful propaganda, I'm afraid.

Lee K

[Matt C]

Oh yeah -- don't get me started about Martin's writing of the Germans referring to the P-38 as "Fork-tailed Devil".  Didn't happen either.

No! All the airplane facts of my youth are a lie!

Very interesting, thanks for posting that info!

[Lee_K]

Yep, the P-47 was the biggest single-engined fighter of the war.  The long-range P-47N had a take-off weight approaching 20,000 pounds.  The big radial engine was preferred for ground attack and the turbo-supercharger allowed the airplane to perform quite well at high altitude.   It's climbing ability was quite poor, however.  Range was an issue before drop tanks were fitted.  There is a common perception that the P-51 was superior in every manner to the P-47, but the answer is much more complicated.  Spitfires and P-47s bore the brunt of the fiercest Luftwaffe attacks on the bomber formations in 1943 and into early 1944.  As P-51s came on-line in 1944, General Doolittle ordered commonality in the bomber escorts and the P-51 was the right tool for the job.  Other than the 56th Fighter Group, all 8th Air Force USAAF fighter groups switched over to the P-51.  That left the 9th and 15th Air Forces to utilize the tougher P-47 in the close air support role.

Contrary to virtually every book ever written on the Thunderbolt, the use of the nickname "Jug" was not common during the war (if it even existed at all).  Supposedly it came about from a shortening of "Juggernaut", or derisively from the British because of the airplane's likeness to the shape of a milk jug.  I have never, ever found any direct evidence (debriefing reports, Army correspondence) of pilots calling it anything other that either a "P-47" or a "Thunderbolt".  I questioned Hal Shook and other P-47 pilots I have met about this at length and they all agreed.  Also, you don't see any playful nose artwork on the side of P-47s that use the term.  Lots of nekkid women and references to breasts, but never, ever anything with "jug" on it.

I blame notorious stretcher-of-the-truth author Martin Caidin for his 1956 Robert S. Johnson book "Thunderbolt" for popularizing the nickname and it has taken hold.  Of course, modelers love the double-entendre of "jugs", but there isn't anything to support the claim that it was used during the war.

Oh yeah -- don't get me started about Martin's writing of the Germans referring to the P-38 as "Fork-tailed Devil".  Didn't happen either.

Lee K

[JonE]

Saw this posted on Props2Jets... what a beast!