The book puts the reader squarely in the cockpit of the Thunderbolt as Johnson describes his many missions, encounters with German pilots, and close-calls, and remains a classic account of wartime aviation.

THUNDERBOLT is the story of a man, a plane a fighter group in the deadly air war over Europe in World War II.
When Robert S. Johnson returned from the European Theatre in 1944 he was the highest coring American ace of the war, with 28 confirmed kills against the fighter pilots of the Luftwaffe.
The plane he flew was the Republic P-47C Thunderbolt, a rugged 2,000 horsepower fighter that weighed seven tons. British pilots told Johnson that the « Jug » would’nt stand a chance against the maneuverable German Me 109 and the Focke Wulf 190 !
But in the hands of aces like Johnson and Gabreski the Thunderbolt proved itself the most deadly fighter plane of the war. At the end of hostilities, Johnson and his camarades of the 56th Fighter Group had shot down more German planes than any fighter group in the E.T.O. During two years of fighthing they lost 128 Thunderbolts in combat, but they destroyed 1006 German aircraft a ratio of eight to one against the toughest opposition American pilots have ever met !