Republic P-47D Thunderbolt Nellie G-THUN was built in 1945 at Republic’s Evansville factory in Indiana and served with the Air Training Command during the last few months of the war before eventual storage at Tinker AFB in Oklahoma with the Air Material Command.
In 1953 she formed part of a group of P47’s that were sold to the Peruvian Air Force, for the nominal sum of one dollar for each of the 25 aircraft it took from the USA. In the hands of the Peruvians, it gave good service until 1967, initially as a front-line fighter and then as a fighter trainer. Six Thunderbolts, number 119 among them, were stored in the open at the Piura Air Base until 1969 when, after long and difficult negotiations, aviation historian and enthusiast Ed Jurist was able to recover them, with over 45 tons of spares to the USA.
Nellie G-THUN came to the UK in 2018 and is operated by Fighter Aviation Engineering LTD in a 492nd Fighter Squadron scheme.