In September 1944, a Republic P-47D Razorback Thunderbolt was abandoned at Dobodura airstrip in Papua New Guinea. It had served with the 460th Fighter Squadron under Major William 'Bill' Dunham — the 348th Fighter Group's second-highest scoring ace in the Pacific with sixteen aerial victories — and it had been named for the woman he loved back home. Bonnie Harris. She had become a nurse in Spokane while he flew combat in the South Pacific, and they were married in January 1945 before the war ended.
The Thunderbolt sat in the New Guinea jungle for decades. The wreck was documented by Charles Darby, a noted Southwest Pacific WWII wreck expert, in 1972. It was eventually recovered and delivered to AirCorps Aviation in Bemidji, Minnesota for a full restoration. The paperwork alone took the FAA so long to process that the aircraft sat mechanically ready while waiting for approval. On May 15, 2023 — nearly 79 years after she was abandoned at Dobodura — Bonnie flew again. Pilot Bernie Vasquez reported it flew squawk-free on the first flight, describing it as flawless.
She is now the only Republic-built Razorback P-47 flying anywhere in the world. That distinction matters: the two other flying Razorbacks are both Curtiss-built P-47Gs — similar, but not the same. The Republic-built Razorback is what the squadrons in England and the Pacific actually flew in numbers, and until 2023 none of them were airworthy.
Weighing over 19,000 pounds fully loaded, the P-47 was the largest single-engine fighter ever built by any country during World War II. Four hundred gallons of fuel, eight .50 caliber machine guns, and a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp producing 2,300 horsepower. The 'Jug' nickname came from the silhouette — round, deep, unmistakable. It sounds the way it looks.