Mustang vs. Thunderbolt

A 78th Fighter Group combat pilot’s inside analysis

A 78th Fighter Group combat pilot’s inside analysis

Of all the questions I have been asked about the P-47 Thunderbolt and the P-51 Mustang, this has been the dominant one: “Which one was the best: the ‘Jug’ or the Mustang?” Even though I devoted a couple of paragraphs in my book, Target of Opportunity, to this popular subject, there were still many details about each, especially relating to combat, that I didn’t cover completely. And had I known of its keen popularity on the minds of buffs of every age, I would have made it into a whole chapter. I knew the controversy existed—and was often discussed quite heatedly— but it was friendly between pilots who had flown only one of the two in combat. The terms “Spam can” and “bucket of bolts” were often digs used by opponents to characterize the two. My descriptive terms were never these. Had I tagged them, mine would have been “Beauty and the Beast”: the P-51 and the P-47, in that order.