FLYING ON A SPECIAL D-DAY – Julien Lepelletier
An escort P47, over Utah Beach, on the background “La pointe du Hoc” (6th June 1944). The ‘special’ refers to the additional tasking missions that were added to support the landings. One of the ‘tales’ told was that all possible escort acft got the alternating paint scheme and pilots were told in the days leading up to D-Day to standby for ‘special’ tasking. They weren’t told until the night before what their actual missions were to be.
Using the technology available, the “invasion stripes” were a good idea, much like the IFF beacons that aircraft use today. Easily painted, visually demanding, easy to tell the difference. I always thought they were a great idea.
I always liked the P-47. If I was going to war, I think that I would have liked doing it in a P-47. Once they added a 4 bladed prop, the bubble canopy, etc. it became a real war machine.
Whatever failures occurred, the air war part was nearly flawless.
With respect, I have to disagree. Both the naval bombardment and air bombardment missed their targets at the edge of the beach and hit further inland on Omaha Beach. This was one of the reasons troops were pinned down by pill boxes much longer than on other beaches.
Paw- Yep, quick and easy IFF! At that point visual was better than anything else!
LL- Oh yeah, it at the F-4U Corsair.
WSF- Other than missing some drop zones, you’re right.
I enjoy your blog, but I have to scroll down half way to read your blog. Is it me or is that your blogs doing??
+1 WSF
Rob- Dunno, it shouldn’t be doing that. What browser are you using?
Rick- agreed!
Hey Old NFO;
The P47 was the first fighter that escorted the B17’s into Germany with drop talks they had the endurance and man they could take a beating. I remembered reading about a U.S. Pilot that came home after a German fighter tried to shoot his plane down. The P47 was already damaged and couldn’t maneuver so it was a sitting duck for the German whom proceeded to dump his entire ammo supply into the P47 and failed to shoot the plane down. The plane was legendary for absorbing battle damage.
Yup. Here’s the story–
The P-47 had a four blade from the outset, all the way back to the XP-47B.
I’m not finding a single mention of using a three blade in any source I have.
The heart of the P-47–
“During durability testing of the C series R-2800 by Republic, it was decided to find out at what manifold pressure and carburetor temperature caused detonation. The technicians at Republic ran the engine at extreme boost pressures that produced 3,600 hp! But wait, it gets even more amazing. They ran it at 3,600 hp for 250 hours, without any failure! This was with common 100 octane avgas. No special fuels were used. Granted, the engines were largely used up, but survived without a single component failure. Try this with Rolls Royce Merlin or Allison V-1710 and see what happens.”
Excerpt from here, one of the best articles I’ve found on the P-47—
http://www.cradleofaviation.org/history/aircraft/p-47_thunderbolt_aviation_darwinism.html
Our oldest loves planes…I like showing him your aviation art posts…he thinks its cool. He was building models for a while
But now he has discovered HO trains, so I think his interest are moving into that direction.
Got your Thanksgiving message…our day was good and hope yours was too
All- Thanks! LCB your point is a good one, thanks!
Posted from my iPhone.
RHT
Fascinating article on the P47. Thanks.
My father worked for P+W in the 1940’s ,till they decided to draft him. He always said the company culture was to build engines that would wear out, rather than break.