March 15th, 1943, 20,000 ft above Germany, Captain James McKenna from Ohio watched the Messormidt 109 pull into a vertical climb.
Its pilot probably laughing at the fat American fighter trying to follow.
The P47 Thunderbolt looked like a flying barrel compared to the sleek German fighter.
Weighed seven tons empty.
The Luftwaffa called it the American Shreker, the American monster.
but not out of respect.
They thought it was a joke, a typical American mistake, building something so heavy it could barely turn.
McKenna let the German climb.
The Ohio farm boy, who’d learned to fly crop dusters before the war, knew something about physics the German didn’t.
Weight meant momentum.
Momentum meant energy.
Energy meant options.
He pushed the stick forward, diving away from the climbing messes.
The German pilot probably thought he was running.
The Thunderbolt picked up speed like a freight train going downhill.
400 mph.
450.
The airframe groaned but held.
Republic Aviation had built this thing like a bank vault.
McKenna pulled back hard, converting that dive into a zoom climb that brought him level with the now stalling Messersmidt.
The German pilot’s eyes went wide behind his goggles.
McKenna could see them clearly at 50 yards.
He squeezed the trigger.
Eight Browning 50 caliber machine guns spoke in unison.
Each gun fired at a rate of 800 rounds per minute.
Together they created a stream of lead so dense it looked solid.
The Messmitt didn’t explode.
It disintegrated.
One second it was an airplane, the next it was confetti.
The pilot never even had time to bail out.
McKenna flew through the debris cloud, bits of aluminum pattering against his windscreen like hail.
His hands were shaking, not from fear, from the vibration of those eight guns.
The whole airplane shook when you fired them all at once, like riding a jackhammer.
He’d been flying the P47 for 3 months now, part of the 56th Fighter Group, the first unit to take the Thunderbolt into combat over Europe.
Before that, he’d flown P40s in training, thinking those 650 cals were impressive.
The Thunderbolts eight guns weren’t just more.
They were excessive, ridiculous, beautiful.
Each gun carried 400 rounds.
That was 3,200 rounds total, enough ammunition to destroy a small village.
The guns were arranged, four in each wing, spread out to create a shotgun pattern at typical combat ranges.
At 200 yards, the cone of fire was 12 feet wide.
Anything inside that cone ceased to exist.
The radio crackled.
Blue leader, this is blue three, got two more climbing from your low.
McKenna rolled inverted to look down through his canopy.
Sure enough, two more 109s were climbing hard, trying to get to his altitude.
They were still 3,000 ft below.
in a Spitfire or a P-51.
He might have worried those planes had to fight in the horizontal, turning and burning, dancing with the enemy.
The Thunderbolt didn’t dance, it hammered.
He rolled upright and pulled the nose up slightly, bleeding off speed to let the Germans close the distance.
The big Pratt and Whitney R2800 engine rumbled in front of him.
2,800 cubic in of American muscle.
18 cylinders arranged in two rows, force-fed by a turbo supercharger that kept producing power all the way up to 30,000 ft.
The Germans had nothing that could match it at altitude.
Their engines gasped for air up here, while the Thunderbolts turbo kept cramming oxygen into those massive cylinders.
The 109’s were at 18,000 ft now, still climbing hard.
Their engines would be straining, the pilots having to manage temperatures carefully.
McKenna had 8,000 ft of altitude advantage.
In air combat, altitude was money in the bank.
You could spend it whenever you wanted, converting it to speed or position.
He had enough to make these Germans very poor.
He rolled inverted again and pulled through into a split S, a maneuver that reversed his direction while converting altitude to speed.
The Thunderbolt dove like it was born to it.
The air speed indicator wound up past 500 mph.
The controls got heavy, requiring real muscle to move them.
Republic had installed boosted controls in later models, but this early bird required farmer strength to fly in a dive.
Good thing McKenna had spent his youth wrestling hay bales.
The first 109 never saw him coming.
McKenna approached from directly above and behind the German fighter’s biggest blind spot.
At 100 yards, he squeezed the trigger for a half second burst, 40 rounds from each gun.
320 heavy bullets traveling at 2900 ft per second.
The 109’s tail section separated from the fuselage like someone had used a chainsaw.
The rest of the fighter went into an immediate flat spin.
McKenna saw the pilot trying to bail out, fighting against the G-forces.
The canopy finally came off at 8,000 ft.
The pilot tumbled free just before the fighter exploded.
The second 109 broke hard left.
The pilot finally realizing what was happening.
McKenna tried to follow, but the Thunderbolts turn radius at this speed was measured in counties, not yards.
He let the German go, using his excess speed to zoom climb back to altitude.
This was the Thunderbolt way.
You didn’t turn with enemy fighters.
You dove on them from above, fired those eight guns, and climbed away before they knew what hit them.
Boom and zoom, the pilots called it.
The Germans called it unfair.
As he climbed through 22,000 ft, McKenna did a fuel check.
The Thunderbolt carried 305 gallons internally, plus another 165 in an external belly tank.
That gave it legs, real range to escort bombers deep into Germany.
But those eight guns and that massive engine were thirsty.
Combat power burned fuel like pouring it on the ground.
He had enough for maybe 20 more minutes of fighting.
Then he’d need to head home.
Blueflight form up, he called over the radio.
We’re Winchester and 15.
Winchester was the code word for running low on ammunition.
It was also a lie.
He had plenty of ammo left, but the other flights needed their turn at the Germans.
The Thunderbolt could carry enough bullets to fight for almost a full minute of continuous fire.
Most pilots never used a quarter of their ammunition in a single mission.
The gun cameras showed that the average burst was less than 2 seconds.
2 seconds of those 850s was usually more than enough.
His wingman, Lieutenant Paul Harrison from Texas, pulled alongside.
Harrison’s Thunderbolt had nose art painted on the cowling, a buxom blonde in a bathing suit with Texas tornado written in flowing script beneath.
McKenna’s plane was undecorated except for seven small swastikas painted below the canopy rail.
After today, he’d add two more.
They headed west toward England, leaving the battlefield behind.
Below them, the bomber stream continued toward its target, B17s, in tight formation like aluminum clouds.
The Thunderbolts had done their job, breaking up the German fighter attacks before they could get to the bombers.
It wasn’t glamorous work like the Spitfire pilots got, dancing over the channel in their graceful machines.
This was brutal, methodical killing at 25,000 ft.
McKenna remembered his father’s advice before he’d shipped out.
His dad had fought in the trenches in 1918, knew what industrial war looked like.
“Don’t try to be a hero,” he’d said.
“Just do your job and come home.” The old man would have appreciated the Thunderbolt.
It was a tool, not a toy.
Built to do one job supremely well.
destroy enemy aircraft through overwhelming firepower.
As they crossed the Dutch coast, McKenna relaxed slightly.
They were still in range of German fighters, but unlikely to be jumped this far from the target.
He reduced power to crew settings, the big engine settling into a satisfied rumble.
The sun was getting low on the horizon, painting the clouds below in shades of orange and red.
Beautiful.
If you could forget that men were dying in those clouds.
Harrison’s voice crackled over the radio.
Lead.
I’m showing low oil pressure.
Might have caught some flack.
McKenna looked over.
Sure enough, a thin stream of black was trailing from Harrison’s engine.
Not catastrophic yet, but it would be soon.
The Pratt and Whitney held 55 gallons of oil.
Once that ran out, the engine would seize in minutes.
Can you make the coast? McKenna asked.
Think so, but I ain’t making England.
They were still over Holland, occupied territory.
If Harrison went down here, he’d either be captured or have to try to escape through the underground.
Neither option was good.
McKenna did quick calculations.
They were maybe 60 m from the water.
At their current speed, 15 minutes.
Harrison’s oil would last maybe 10.
Reduce power to minimum crews, McKenna ordered.
I’ll call air sea rescue.
Get them heading this way.
He switched to the emergency frequency and put out the call.
The British ran a efficient rescue service using high-speed boats and walrus flying boats to pluck down airmen from the channel.
They’d saved hundreds of pilots already, but they needed time to get in position, and Harrison was running out of it.
The oil stream got worse as they flew, going from a thin trail to a thick black banner.
Harrison’s engine was dying, eating itself from the inside.
At 40 m from the coast, it started to rough.
At 30 m, it was shaking the whole airplane.
At 20 m, it seized.
The Thunderbolt had the glide ratio of a brick.
Without engine power, Harrison had maybe 5 minutes before he hit the ground.
He was at 18,000 ft, losing 3,000 ft per minute, 6 minutes to impact.
The coast was still 10 minutes away.
“I’m going to have to jump,” Harrison called, his Texas draw calm despite the situation.
“Wait one,” McKenna said.
“He had an idea.
Crazy, but maybe crazy enough to work.” “Paul, can you still control it?” “Yeah, she’s flying.
Just coming down like a piano.
Stay with it.
I’m going to try something.
McKenna maneuvered his thunderbolt directly in front of Harrison’s, about 50 ft ahead and slightly below.
The slipstream from his fighter would create an updraft, a small one, but maybe enough to extend Harrison’s glide.
It was dangerous as hell.
If Harrison couldn’t maintain position, they’d collide.
7 tons of fighter plane meeting 7 tons of fighter plane at 200 mph.
Match my speed exactly, McKenna ordered.
Stay in my wake.
It worked.
Sort of.
Harrison’s descent rate decreased from 3,000 ft per minute to 2500.
Not much, but it might be enough.
They flew in tight formation.
McKenna making tiny adjustments to keep Harrison in the sweet spot of his slipstream.
The coast appeared ahead, a thin brown line that gradually resolved into beaches and dunes.
They crossed the beach at 2,000 ft.
Harrison would make the water, but just barely.
McKenna could see the rescue boat already heading their way, a white wake arrow pointing toward where Harrison would splash down.
The Texas pilot would have maybe 5 minutes in the 50° water before hypothermia set in.
The boat was 10 minutes away.
Soon as you hit, get out fast, McKenna advised.
That thing will sink like a stone.
Copy that.
Harrison’s voice was tight now.
The water was coming up fast, dark and cold looking.
Mac, if I don’t make it, tell my mama I wasn’t scared.
Tell her yourself, you dramatic bastard.
Harrison hit the water at 120 mph.
The Thunderbolt’s nose dug in immediately, the tail coming up and over in a violent cartwheel.
McKenna watched the fighter come apart, the wings separating, the fuselage breaking in half.
For a long moment, he couldn’t see Harrison.
Then a yellow dot appeared in the wreckage, the pilot’s May West life vest.
McKenna circled, watching Harrison swim away from the sinking remains of his fighter.
The rescue boat was still 5 minutes out.
The pilot from Texas was doing okay, waving up at McKenna’s circling fighter.
Then McKenna saw the other problem.
Harrison’s leg was bent at an impossible angle, broken in the crash.
He couldn’t swim properly, could barely keep his head above water.
The next 5 minutes lasted 5 hours.
McKenna circled and circled, watching Harrison struggle, willing the rescue boat to go faster.
Twice the injured pilot went under.
Twice he fought his way back to the surface.
His movements were getting weaker, the cold water sapping his strength.
The boat arrived just as Harrison went under for the third time.
Two sailors dove in immediately, no hesitation, pulling the unconscious pilot to the surface.
They got him aboard, started working on him right away.
McKenna could see them pumping his chest, breathing into his lungs.
For 2 minutes, nothing.
Then Harrison’s arm moved.
Then he was coughing up seaater.
McKenna waggled his wings and headed home.
He had just enough fuel to make it to base, maybe five gallons to spare.
The sun was setting as he crossed the English coast, painting everything gold.
Below the countryside looked peaceful, like the war was something happening to other people in other places.
But he could smell cordite in the cockpit, could feel the grit of burned powder on his face from where the gun gases leaked around the charging handles.
The war was here in this cockpit, in the oil under his fingernails, in the ache between his shoulder blades from wrestling seven tons of fighter plane around the sky.
He landed at Hailworth just as full dark fell, the runway lights guiding him home.
The crew chief was waiting as he shut down, already counting bullet holes in the fuselage.
The Thunderbolt had taken hits McKenna hadn’t even noticed.
Three 20 mm cannon shells had punched through the tail section.
One had missed the control cables by 2 in.
“How’d she handle, sir?” the crew chief asked.
“Like a dream, Sergeant.
Like a beautiful, violent dream.” He walked to the debriefing room where the intelligence officer waited with maps and forms.
Two confirmed kills to report.
Harrison safe but injured.
Mission successful.
Just another day in the thunderbolt.
Later in the officer’s club, McKenna nursed a warm beer and thought about the German pilot in the first 109, the one who’d climbed away, probably laughing at the fat American fighter.
He’d learned the hard way what those 850s could do.
3,400 rounds per minute, 57 rounds per second.
Each bullet weighing almost 2 oz, traveling fast enough to punch through an engine block.
The Germans had better planes in many ways.
The 109 was faster in level flight, could turn tighter, climb faster at low altitude.
The Faulk Wolf 190 was even better.
a superb fighter that could match the Thunderbolt in a dive.
But none of them had 850s.
None of them could reach out and touch you at 400 yards with enough lead to cut a bomber in half.
The Luftwaffa pilots were learning to respect the ugly American fighter, learning to avoid that cone of death it projected.
They had developed new tactics, trying to attack from below, where the Thunderbolts poor visibility made it vulnerable.
Some of them had success, but most who tried to turn with a thunderbolt to fight it like they’d fight a Spitfire ended up as aluminum confetti scattered across the German countryside.
McKenna finished his beer and headed to his quarters.
Tomorrow they’d do it again.
Escort bombers to Bremen or Hamburg or Berlin.
Fight off the German interceptors.
Try to bring everyone home.
The Thunderbolt would be ready.
Eight guns loaded, fuel tanks topped off, engine purring, seven tons of American industrial might, ready to prove once again that in aerial combat, there was no such thing as too much firepower.
He stopped by the flight line on the way to bed, wanting to check on his plane.
The ground crew was still working on it, patching the cannon holes, replacing a damaged tire.
The crew chief looked up as he approached.
found something interesting, Captain,” the sergeant said, holding up a piece of metal.
“It was a fragment of the German 20 mm shell, the one that had nearly cut his control cables.” “Looks like it was a dud hit, but didn’t explode if it had.” McKenna took the fragment, turned it over in his hands.
Such a small thing, 2 ounces of metal, that could have ended everything.
He thought about Harrison in the water, about the German pilot who never got out of his disintegrating fighter, about all the ways you could die at 25,000 ft.
Then he handed the fragment back.
“Keep it,” he said.
“Hang it in the ready room.
Remind everyone that lucky is better than good.” He walked back to his quarters, thinking about tomorrow’s mission.
The weather forecast was good.
Clear skies over the continent.
The Germans would be up in force, their new pilots eager to prove themselves against the Americans.
They’d come climbing up from their airfields, thinking they knew how to fight the Thunderbolt.
Some of them would learn.
Others would contribute to the aluminum recycling effort ongoing across the German countryside.
April turned into May and May into June.
McKenna’s score climbed steadily.
12 kills, 15, 20.
He became an ace four times over.
Learned every trick the Thunderbolt could perform.
How to use its weight in a dive to build energy no German fighter could match.
How to position the sun behind him so enemy pilots would be blind when he dropped on them.
How to conserve ammunition, firing short bursts that walked across an enemy fighter from nose to tail.
The 850s didn’t need long bursts.
A half second was enough to destroy any fighter.
A full second could cut a bomber in half.
He watched the new pilots arrive fresh from training in the States, eager and terrified in equal measure.
They’d practiced gunnery on towed targets, learned the theory of deflection shooting, studied the silhouettes of enemy aircraft.
But nothing prepared you for the first time 850s spoke in anger.
The whole airplane shaking, the sky in front of you turning into a stream of tracers.
Nothing prepared you for seeing another human being’s airplane disintegrate, knowing the pilot was still inside, still conscious for that last terrible second.
The new kids would come to him for advice, wanting to know the secrets of survival.
He’d tell them what his flight instructor had told him back in Texas.
Speed is life, altitude is insurance.
The Thunderbolt has both.
use them.
Then he’d add his own hard-earned wisdom.
Never turn with a German fighter.
Never give them a fair fight.
This isn’t a sport.
It’s industrial warfare.
You’re not a knight.
You’re a technician.
Your job is to apply those eight guns to enemy aircraft in the most efficient way possible.
Some of them listened.
Those ones usually survived.
Others thought they were better than the airplane.
Thought they could wrestle it into a turning fight.
make it dance like a spitfire.
Those ones usually went home in boxes if they went home at all.
June 20th, 1943.
The mission was Keel, the German naval base.
The B17s would hit the submarine pens while the fighters kept the Luftwaffa busy.
McKenna was leading the 61st squadron now.
12 Thunderbolts in three flights of four.
They crossed the Dutch coast at 27,000 ft.
So high the ground looked like a map.
The bombers were 5,000 ft below them, black specks against the white clouds.
The Germans were waiting.
McKenna counted at least 30 fighters climbing to intercept.
A mix of 109s and 190s.
The new Faul Wolf pilots had learned not to climb directly at the Thunderbolts.
Instead, they’d climb off set, building energy, then turn in for slashing attacks from the side.
It was smart tactics minimizing their exposure to those eight guns.
Bandits high, his wingmen called.
4190s had somehow gotten above them, probably launched from a forward field he didn’t know about.
They were diving now, building speed for a single pass through the formation.
Break right, McKenna commanded, hauling his Thunderbolt around to meet the attack head on.
This was the one thing you never wanted to do in aerial combat.
go head-to-head with an enemy fighter.
The closing speed would be over 600 mph.
You’d have maybe two seconds to shoot.
Miss, and you’d either collide or pass so close you could see what the enemy pilot had for breakfast.
But the Thunderbolt had 850s.
In a head-on pass, those eight guns created a wall of lead no fighter could fly through.
The Germans knew this, usually breaking off before committing to a true head-on.
Usually these four kept coming.
McKenna centered the lead 190 in his gun site, waiting for the range to close.
At 800 yd, he could see the German fighter’s spinner painted in spiral black and white.
At 600 yd, he could see the pilot hunched behind his armor glass.
At 400 yd, he squeezed the trigger.
The 850s roared.
The German pilot fired at the same instant.
four 20mm cannons and two machine guns.
The space between the two fighters filled with tracers, a tunnel of death 500 m per hour.
McKenna felt impacts, his thunderbolt shuttering as cannon shells found their mark.
His windscreen starred but didn’t shatter.
The armor plate behind his seat rang like a gong.
The faka wolf came apart in midair.
The concentrated fire of 850s at maximum rate turned it into scrap metal in less than a second.
McKenna flew through the debris cloud, his propeller chopping through pieces of the German fighter.
Something large and soft hit his windscreen, leaving a red smear.
He didn’t think about what it was.
The other three 190s had broken off, diving away.
McKenna’s wingman had gotten one, its wings separated at the route, the fighter spinning down like a maple seed.
The other two escaped, too fast to catch in a dive.
McKenna did a quick damage assessment.
His engine was running rough, but holding together.
The controls felt mushy, but responded.
He could see daylight through three holes in his right wing.
“Lead, you’re streaming something,” his wingman called.
McKenna looked back.
A white stream was trailing from his wing, hydraulic fluid.
That explained the mushy controls.
He’d lost his power boost.
From here on, it would be pure muscle power to move the control surfaces.
7 tons of fighter plane with no power steering.
I’m hit but flying, he reported.
Continue mission.
They pressed on toward Keel.
The Germans came up in waves trying to get to the bombers.
Each time the Thunderbolts dove on them, eight guns speaking with authority, the sky filled with falling aircraft, parachutes blooming like flowers, some German, some American.
The arithmetic of war playing out at 20,000 ft.
Overkil the flack was murderous.
Black puffs filled the sky, each one representing 90 lbs of high explosive and steel fragments.
The bombers plowed through it, steady on their bomb run.
McKenna watched a B7 take a direct hit.
The entire nose section disappearing.
The rest of the bomber went into a flat spin.
No shoots.
10 men gone in an instant.
The bombs fell away from the B7s.
Hundreds of them tumbling down toward the submarine pens.
McKenna watched them impact.
The ground erupting in flashes and smoke.
From 5 miles up, it looked almost beautiful.
You couldn’t see the people dying.
Couldn’t hear the screams.
just silent puffs of smoke and debris.
On the way home, they were jumped again, this time by 100 nines with belly tanks, giving them the range to pursue all the way to the coast.
McKenna’s damaged Thunderbolt couldn’t match their speed.
Couldn’t climb away.
He did the only thing left.
Turned into them.
Those 850s his only advantage.
The lead 109 misjudged the closure rate.
The German pilot started firing at 600 yd.
his rounds falling short.
McKenna waited until 400, then squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
He squeezed harder.
Still nothing.
The electrical firing system had failed, probably damaged in the earlier head-on.
The 109 flashed past, so close McKenna could read the pilot’s name painted on the fuselage.
Hopman Friedrich Miller.
A Hopman was a captain like McKenna.
Probably had a wife and kids.
Probably thought he was doing his duty defending his homeland.
McKenna would have killed him without hesitation if his guns had worked.
The flight home was the longest of his life.
No guns, damaged controls, engine running rougher by the minute.
The other Thunderbolts formed a protective circle around him, shephering him home.
They crossed the coast at 5,000 ft.
McKenna fighting to maintain altitude.
The engine was missing on at least three cylinders now.
The whole airplane shaking.
He made it to the first emergency field, a grass strip used by damaged bombers.
The landing was more controlled crash than landing.
The Thunderbolt bounced three times, ground looped, and came to rest with one wing in a hedge.
McKenna sat in the cockpit for 5 minutes before the crash crew could pry him out, his hands locked on the control stick from the strain of wrestling the damaged fighter home.
The Thunderbolt was a writeoff.
37 cannon holes, over a 100 machine gun strikes.
The main spar was cracked.
The engine had swallowed so much shrapnel it looked like a cheese grater inside.
By all rights, it should have fallen out of the sky over Germany, but it hadn’t.
The Republic engineers had built it to take punishment that would destroy any other fighter.
It had brought him home.
They gave him a new Thunderbolt fresh from the factory.
It even had that new airplane smell, oil, paint, and leather.
The crew chief, a master sergeant from Brooklyn, walked him around it like a used car salesman showing off the merchandise.
Latest model captain.
Paddleblade prop for better climb.
Water injection for emergency power.
And check this out.
They moved the guns closer together.
Tighter pattern at typical combat ranges.
McKenna climbed into the cockpit, ran his hands over the controls.
Everything was familiar but slightly different, like coming home to find your wife had rearranged the furniture.
It would take a few flights to get comfortable, to learn this new bird’s personality.
His first mission in the new plane was July 28th, 1943.
The target was Castle Deep in Germany.
The Luftwaffa was waiting with a new tactic.
Mass frontal attacks by heavily armed fighters.
They’d mount extra cannons, extra armor, and come straight at the ace.
Bomber formations trying to break them up before the escorts could respond.
McKenna saw them coming from 5 miles away.
At least 40 fighters in a rough line of breast, boring straight in at the lead bomber group.
The closure rate would give the Thunderbolts maybe 30 seconds to break up the attack.
Drop tanks and engage, he ordered.
The external fuel tanks fell away from 12 Thunderbolts.
Unbburdened, the fighters accelerated into their dives, engines screaming.
McKenna centered his gunsite on a 110 destroyer, a twin engine fighter the Germans had modified into a bomber killer.
It carried four forward-firing cannons and rockets under the wings.
At 500 yd, McKenna fired a ranging burst.
The new gun arrangement was immediately apparent.
Instead of a scattered pattern, the rounds converged into a stream no bigger than a dinner table.
The 1 to 10’s right engine exploded.
The fighter rolled inverted and went straight down.
Both crew members still inside.
He shifted aim to a 109 that was boring in on the lead B17.
The bomber’s gunners were firing, their twin 50s sparkling along the fuselage.
But the 109 kept coming, the pilot either brave or suicidal.
McKenna fired a long burst, walking the rounds from the fighter spinner to its tail.
The 109 came apart in sections like a fish being filleted.
The engine fell away, then the wings, then the tail.
The cockpit section tumbled past the B17’s nose, missing by maybe 20 ft.
The mass attack dissolved into individual combats.
Thunderbolts and German fighters tangled in a massive furball that stretched for miles.
McKenna found himself in a vertical rolling scissors with a wonder.
Both fighters climbing and rolling, trying to get behind the other.
It was exactly the kind of fight the Thunderbolt wasn’t built for.
The 190 could out roll the heavy American fighter would eventually get the advantage, so McKenna cheated.
At the top of a roll, instead of continuing the scissors, he pulled straight up into a hammerhead stall.
The Thunderbolt hung on its prop for a moment, then kicked over, reversing direction.
The 190 pilot, committed to the scissors, couldn’t follow.
McKenna dropped onto his tail and fired everything he had.
850s at maximum rate was like the hand of God.
The 190 didn’t just break apart, it vaporized.
One moment it was there, the next it was a cloud of aluminum dust and fire.
McKenna flew through the debris, his windscreen going opaque from the impact of small fragments he could barely see, flying by instruments and instinct.
When he finally cleared the debris cloud, he was alone.
The battle had moved on, leaving him in an empty cube of sky.
He could see contrails in the distance, the white tracks of fighters in combat.
Below a B17 was going down, its entire left wing on fire.
He counted six parachutes, four men still inside, riding it down.
He rejoined his flight, finding them covering a damaged B7 that was falling behind the formation.
The bomber had lost two engines and was struggling to maintain altitude.
The pilot was throwing out everything not nailed down, guns, ammunition, even the ball turret trying to reduce weight.
It wasn’t enough.
They were still over Germany, losing 100 ft per minute.
“How far to the coast?” the bomber pilot asked over the radio.
His voice was calm, matter of fact, like he was asking for directions to the grocery store.
120 miles.
McKenna replied, “We’re at Angel’s 14 and losing 100 per minute.
That gives us hell, we ain’t going to make it.
” The math was brutal and simple.
14,000 ft, losing 100 per minute.
140 minutes until they hit the ground.
At their current speed, they’d travel maybe 100 miles, 20 m short of the coast.
They’d have to bail out over Germany.
“What if we gave you a push?” McKenna asked.
“Come again?” It was the same trick he’d used with Harrison, but more extreme.
If he could position his Thunderbolt just right, the prop wash might give the bomber enough extra lift to stretch their glide.
It was insane.
A 7-tonon fighter trying to hold up a 30-tonon bomber, but it might work.
He explained the plan to the bomber pilot who laughed.
Hell, why not? Can’t make things worse.
McKenna moved into position behind and below the B17’s tail, so close he could see the rivets in the aluminum skin.
The prop wash from his threeblade prop created a cushion of air under the bombers’s elevators.
Immediately, their descent rate decreased from 100 ft per minute to 70.
Not much, but maybe enough.
They flew in formation for an hour, McKenna constantly adjusting position to maintain the effect.
His engine temperature climbed from the continuous high power setting.
His fuel gauge dropped toward empty, but the coast grew closer.
Mile by painful mile, they made it barely.
The B7 crossed the beach at 500 ft.
Wheels up and belly landed in a turnup field.
All 10 crew members walked away.
McKenna made it home with three gallons of fuel.
His engine so hot the crew chief couldn’t touch it for an hour.
August became September.
The missions blurred together.
Schwinfort, Regensburg, Stoutgart.
Names on a map that meant eight hours in the cockpit, most of it over enemy territory.
The Germans were getting better, developing new tactics to counter the Thunderbolts.
They’d attack from below where the big fighters visibility was poor.
They’d wait until the escorts were low on fuel, then come up in waves.
They’d modified some fighters with heavy armor and extra guns specifically to attack the Thunderbolts headon, trading aircraft one for one.
But for every new tactic, the Thunderbolt pilots developed a counter.
They flew in vertical stacks, covering each other’s blind spots.
They managed fuel carefully, always keeping a reserve for combat.
And those 850s remained the ultimate argument in any engagement.
No amount of armor could stop that much lead coming that fast.
October 14th, 1943.
Black Thursday, the second Schwinfort raid.
McKenna would remember this day for the rest of his life.
The target was the ball bearing factories vital to German aircraft production.
The Luftwaffa knew they were coming.
Every fighter in Germany was in the air.
McKenna’s squadron was assigned to the lead bomber group.
They crossed into Germany at 25,000 ft.
The temperature 60 below zero.
Ice formed on everything, the windscreen, the wings, even the guns.
The crew chiefs had mixed antifreeze with the gun oil, but McKenna could still feel the mechanisms sticking as he test fired.
The first attack came near Frankfurt.
60 plus German fighters coming from every direction.
The sky turned into a three-dimensional chess game played at 400 mph.
McKenna shot down two 109s in the first pass, both with short bursts that shattered their engines.
His wingman got a 110 that was lining up on a B7.
But for every German they shot down, two more appeared.
A B7 exploded directly in front of McKenna, hit by rockets from a 110.
The bomber simply ceased to exist, replaced by a ball of fire and debris.
He flew through the explosion, his thunderbolt bucking like a wild horse.
When he came out the other side, his windscreen was cracked and his left aileron was jammed.
He fought to control the damaged fighter, using rudder and elevator to maintain something like level flight.
A 109 dropped onto his tail, the German pilot sensing an easy kill.
McKenna couldn’t turn to engage.
All he could do was left and right, making himself a difficult target.
His wingman saved him, diving from above to rake the 109 with a long burst.
The German fighter canopy shattered, the pilot slumping forward over his stick.
The 109 went into a gentle dive that would end somewhere in the German countryside.
“Thanks, Tommy,” McKenna radioed.
“No sweat lead, but we got bigger problems.” McKenna looked where his wingman was pointing.
An entire staff of 190s was forming up for a mass attack on the bombers.
At least 12 fighters in perfect formation.
They’d punch through the escorts by sheer numbers, accepting losses to get at the B7s.
All Thunderbolts converge on my position, McKenna called.
Mass attack incoming, bearing 090.
Eight P47s responded, diving toward the German formation.
What followed was less a dog fight than a collision of metal and fire.
The two formations met head-on at a combined speed of 600 mph.
McKenna fired everything, holding the trigger down until the guns went silent.
His 850s put out 2400 rounds in the 30 seconds the guns fired.
The sky in front of him turned into a solid wall of tracers.
Three 190s exploded in the first second, two more in the second.
The German formation disintegrated, pilots breaking in every direction to escape the storm of lead.
But the math was simple.
Eight thunderbolts firing eight guns each meant 64 streams of 50 caliber death.
There was nowhere to hide.
When the smoke cleared, seven German fighters were falling.
The other five had fled, probably damaged, definitely out of ammunition.
The Thunderbolts had won this round, but at a cost.
McKenna was out of ammunition.
So was most of his flight.
They were deep over Germany with empty guns.
Useful now only as decoys.
They stayed with the bombers anyway.
The German fighters didn’t know their guns were empty.
Sometimes a thunderbolt diving toward them was enough to make them break off an attack.
It was a bluff, but it worked.
Sort of.
The bombers reached Schwinfort and dropped their bombs.
The ballbearing factories erupted in flame and smoke, but the cost was terrible.
McKenna counted the B7s as they turned for home.
They’d started with 291.
He could see maybe 200 still flying, 60 bombers lost, 600 men.
The trip home was a running battle.
The Germans threw everything at them.
Fighters, flack, even training aircraft armed with single machine guns.
Anything to bring down more bombers.
The Thunderbolts with ammunition fought.
Those without flew close escort, using their presence to deter attacks.
McKenna watched a B17 named Hell’s Angels fight off three separate attacks.
The bomber was shot to pieces, engines failing, tail surfaces gone, but it kept flying.
The pilot, a captain from Oregon, was flying by trim tabs and prayer.
German fighters pumped round after round into it, but the Boeing kept absorbing punishment.
Finally, inevitably, the B7’s luck ran out.
A 190 put a rocket into the Bombay, even though it was empty.
The explosion broke the bombers’s back.
It folded in half and fell, the two sections spinning down separately.
McKenna saw two parachutes, two out of 10.
They made the coast with fuel tanks reading empty.
McKenna’s engine quit 10 miles from the English shore.
He set up for a dead stick landing at the first field.
He saw a RAF base flying spitfires.
The British pilots watched in amazement as the massive American fighter glided in silent as a sail plane and touched down soft as a feather.
“Bloody hell,” one RAF pilot said as McKenna climbed out.
“How many guns does that thing carry? 850s.
Christ, no wonder you Yanks can’t turn.
You’re flying a bloody battleship.
McKenna wanted to argue to defend his fighter, but he was too tired.
He’d been in the air for 7 hours, fought for three of them, watched friends die, killed men whose faces he could see.
All he wanted was a bed, and 12 hours of sleep.
The losses from Black Thursday were staggering.
60 bombers lost, another 138 damaged, 600 men dead or missing.
Five fighters lost, including McKenna’s squadron mate, Tommy Harrison.
The kid from Texas who’d saved McKenna’s life had been shot down near Stoutgart.
Nobody saw a shoot for a week.
There were no deep penetration raids.
The Eighth Air Force needed time to recover to train replacement crews to repair damaged aircraft.
McKenna spent the time working with new pilots, teaching them the Thunderbolt way of war.
Speed is life, he’d tell them.
Same as always.
Altitude is insurance, but most important, trust the airplane.
It’s tougher than you are.
It can take more punishment than any fighter ever built.
and those eight guns.
He’d pause, remembering the wall of tracers, the way German fighters simply disappeared when caught in that stream.
Those eight guns are your salvation.
One second burst, properly aimed, can destroy anything that flies.
November 1943, the escort missions resumed, now with a new twist.
The Thunderbolts had drop tanks that gave them the range to go all the way to Berlin.
The Germans called it the day of the long knives when the first P47s appeared over their capital.
They’d thought they were safe that deep in the Reich.
They were wrong.
McKenna led his squadron over Berlin for the first time on November 26th.
The flack was incredible, filling the sky from 15,000 to 30,000 ft.
The bombers flew through it like ships sailing through a storm, taking hits but pressing on.
The fighters stayed high above the worst of it, waiting for the German fighters to appear.
They came up in gaggles, 40 or 50 at a time.
The new German pilots were obvious.
They flew straight lines, made predictable moves.
The veterans were harder, using every trick to get at the bombers.
They’d modified some 109s with 30 mm cannons, massive weapons that could destroy a bomber with a single hit.
But the big guns made the fighters sluggish.
Easy meat for the Thunderbolts.
McKenna caught one of these cannon armed 109s climbing toward a straggling B7.
The German pilot was so focused on his target, he never saw the Thunderbolt diving on him.
McKenna fired a 1 second burst at 300 yd.
The concentrated fire of 850s turned the 109 into confetti.
The pilot never knew what hit him.
As winter approached, the air war intensified.
The Americans were building towards something big, though the fighter pilots didn’t know what.
More bombers arrived every week.
More fighters, too.
The new P-51 Mustang was starting to appear, sleek and fast, with even longer range than the Thunderbolt.
Some pilots switched over, drawn by the Mustang’s superior performance.
McKenna stayed with his Thunderbolt.
He knew every rivet, every quirk, every capability of the big fighter.
He knew exactly how much lead to give a 109 and a 60°ree deflection shot.
He knew how hard he could pull without stalling, how fast he could dive without losing control.
The Thunderbolt had saved his life a dozen times.
He wasn’t about to abandon it for a prettier airplane.
December 1943, McKenna’s victory count stood at 27.
He was the leading ace in the 56th fighter group, probably in the entire eighth air force.
But the numbers meant nothing to him anymore.
Each kill was just another young man who wouldn’t go home.
Another telegram to another mother.
The war had become industrial murder on a massive scale, and he was very good at his job.
The missions blurred together.
Brunswick, Magnabberg, Leipig.
The Germans were running out of experienced pilots, throwing anyone who could fly into combat.
McKenna shot down a German fighter that couldn’t have been flown by anyone over 18.
The kid bailed out successfully, and McKenna found himself hoping he’d be taken prisoner rather than returned to combat.
At 18, the boy had a chance at life after the war.
His own luck couldn’t last forever.
On January 11th, 1944, it ran out.
The mission was Osher Lebanon deep in Germany.
McKenna was leading the group now.
48 thunderbolts spread across 10 miles of sky.
They were jumped by an entire Yagushwwater, a German fighter wing.
Over a 100 enemy fighters coming from the sun.
The first indication was tracers passing his canopy.
Then his instrument panel exploded.
Then his right wing was on fire.
A 190 had dropped on him from directly above, putting a long burst into his thunderbolt before he even knew it was there.
The German pilot was good.
Very good.
A veteran who knew exactly where to aim.
The fire spread quickly, fed by hydraulic fluid and oil.
McKenna had maybe 30 seconds before the wing folded.
He jettisoned the canopy, the slipstream hitting him like a sledgehammer.
At 400 mph and 25,000 ft, the air was a solid wall of ice.
He released his harness and was sucked out of the cockpit immediately.
The tail of his thunderbolt missed him by inches, close enough that he felt the heat from the burning wing.
He tumbled through space, the world spinning around him.
Sky, ground, sky, ground.
He pulled the rip cord at what he hoped was 10,000 ft.
The parachute opened with a crack that felt like it broke his back.
He hung in the harness, watching the air battle continue around him.
His thunderbolt was still falling, trailing fire and smoke.
It had brought him home so many times.
Now it would die in a German field.
Below he could see vehicles already heading toward where he would land.
The German pilot who’ shot him down did a victory roll as he passed, waggling his wings in salute, professional courtesy among killers.
McKenna landed hard in a frozen turnup field, his ankle twisting as he hit.
German soldiers were on him immediately, weapons drawn.
A sergeant who spoke English searched him, took his pistol, his escape kit, his lucky silver dollar.
“You are the pilot of the Thunderbolt?” the sergeant asked.
Yeah, with the eight guns.
Yeah.
The sergeant shook his head.
We hate those guns.
My brother was killed by a thunderbolt.
Maybe by you.
McKenna didn’t know what to say.
Sorry seemed inappropriate.
The war wasn’t personal except when it was.
The sergeant’s brother had been trying to kill Americans.
McKenna had been trying to kill Germans.
Someone had to lose.
He spent five months as a prisoner of war.
First at Stalaglof III, then marching west as the Russians advanced.
He lost 40 lbs, contracted dysentery, nearly died from pneumonia, but he survived.
On May 2nd, 1945, British tanks liberated his column.
The war in Europe was over.
He returned to Ohio in June 1945, discharged with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, wearing the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, and the Distinguished Flying Cross with 12 Oakleaf clusters.
27 confirmed aerial victories, one of the top American aces of the European theater.
But the medals meant nothing compared to the memories.
The way those 850s spoke with one voice.
The feel of seven tons of fighter responding to his touch.
The terrible beauty of aerial combat at 25,000 ft.
The faces of the men he’d killed visible for an instant before their fighters came apart.
He tried to return to normal life, married his college sweetheart, took over his father’s hardware store, had three kids.
But part of him never left the cockpit of that Thunderbolt.
On quiet nights, he could still hear the engines, still feel the guns firing, still see German fighters dissolving in his gunsite.
In 1968, his son asked him about the war for a school project.
McKenna thought for a long time before answering.
“We had a job to do,” he finally said.
“The Thunderbolt was the tool.
Those eight guns were what made it possible.
The Germans laughed at our fighter at first, called it the jug, thought it was too heavy, too clumsy.
They stopped laughing when they figured out what 850s firing together could do.
3,400 rounds per minute, 57 lb of lead per second.
Nothing could survive that.
Nothing.
His son wrote it down dutifully, missing the weight behind the words.
How do you explain to someone who wasn’t there what it felt like to have that much power at your fingertips? to be 25 years old and able to destroy anything you could see.
To know that your survival depended on being better at killing than the man trying to kill you.
McKenna died in 1987, aged 65.
Heart failure, the doctor said.
But his wife knew better.
His heart had been failing since 1944.
Since the day he watched Tommy Harrison’s Thunderbolt explode over Stogart.
since the day he stopped counting kills and started counting friends lost.
At his funeral, an old German man approached his widow.
He introduced himself as Friedrich Mueller, the Luftwaffa pilot whose name McKenna had seen painted on a 109 over Germany.
The man whose life had been saved by McKenna’s jammed guns.
“Your husband could have killed me,” Miller said in accented English.
His guns failed or he chose not to fire.
I never knew which, but I lived because of it.
I wanted to thank him, but I never found the courage while he was alive.
McKenna’s widow thought about it, remembering her husband’s nightmares, his silence about the war, the way he’d sometimes stare at nothing for hours.
His guns jammed, she said finally.
He told me about it once.
Said it was the luckiest thing that ever happened to him.
Not because it saved his life, but because it saved him from having to live with one more ghost.
Miller nodded, understanding.
They’d all lived with ghosts.
The men who’d flown fighters in that war, American ghosts, German ghosts, British ghosts, young men who’ killed and died in the sky, fighting with machines that were marvels of engineering dedicated to destruction.
The P47 Thunderbolt was retired from US military service in 1955, replaced by jets that could fly twice as fast and three times as high.
But no fighter since has matched its combination of ruggedness and firepower.
Eight 50 caliber machine guns firing together, creating a cone of destruction nothing could survive.
The Germans had learned to respect it.
They’d learned that weight meant strength, that those eight guns meant death, that the ugly American fighter was actually a beautiful piece of military engineering.
They’d paid for that education in blood, losing thousands of aircraft and pilots to the Thunderbolts guns.
In the end, the numbers tell the story.
P47 Thunderbolts flew over 400,000 combat sorties in World War II.
They dropped over a 100,000 tons of bombs, fired hundreds of millions of rounds, destroyed over 11,000 enemy aircraft.
But behind each number was a man like James McKenna, sitting in a cockpit at 25,000 ft, finger on the trigger of eight guns doing a job that needed doing in the worst way possible.
The Thunderbolt gave them the tool.
Those 850s gave them the power.
What they did with that power changed the course of the war, saved countless Allied lives, and helped destroy the Third Reich.
The German pilots, who’d laughed at the fat American fighter, learned their lesson the hard way.
When 850 spoke in unison, delivering 3,400 rounds per minute, nothing else mattered.
Not grace, not agility, not speed.
Just pure overwhelming firepower delivered with American precision.
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