When forced to crash-land in enemy territory in 1944 (while flying a Mustang), he spend six months evading the Germans and fighting with the French Resistance and American Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
In the following interview with Cory Graff, author of P-47 Thunderbolt at War, Pisanos discussed the Thunderbolt.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
GRAFF: I understand the 4th Fighter Group was a bit reluctant to transfer over to the P-47 Thunderbolt after flying the Spitfire in combat. What would you say was the general consensus and mood of your comrades about the switch?
PISANOS: When it was announced that the 4th Fighter Group was going to be re-equipped with the P-47 Thunderbolt, some pilots at Debden Aerodrome felt that maybe we made a mistake leaving the Royal Air Force. But as the days went by, we began to think about the pay in Uncle Sam’s air force, which was mighty good.
And when the P-47s began to arrive and we started to fly the clumsy seven-ton monster, the negative attitude many of us had formed about the Jug began to disappear. Even though the P-47 was twice as heavy as the Spit, and it couldn’t turn or climb as well as the Spit, it could out dive any German or British fighter. It could also fly farther than the Spit.
After we had completed our training (twenty-five to thirty flying hours per pilot to become operational), we had surprisingly discovered that the seven-ton battlewagon of war could fight well against Germany’s fighters at high altitudes, because of the highly effective turbo supercharger. We also learned that we could bounce anything below from our high altitude and get away by zooming up to infinity. We learned to avoid getting mixed up with the German fighters below eighteen thousand feet.
On April 15, 1943, Major Don Blakeslee of the 4th Fighter Group shot down a Fw-190 during a fighter sweep across the Channel, the first enemy aircraft to be shot down by a P-47 Thunderbolt. We hated to see our beloved Spitfires go, but we had now fallen in love with another fighter aircraft, the P-47, which could take us deeper into enemy territory.
