Hello, I thought you guys would be interested in an original Christmas card from Republic. My Father and Grandfather both worked at Republic in Evansville Indiana. They made the P-47 Thunderbolt there. I found this card in my fathers papers. My father was only 17 and had the job of cleaning out the cockpit and polishing the canopy when the planes came off the assembly line. He said he used to sit in the cockpits and eat his lunch. He got to know the test pilots and told a story of one flight. There used to be a house on a hill toward one end of the airport and on one test flight the engine quit. The pilot had to set it down. He managed to miss the house, but went between 2 trees on one side. It tore off the wings, but bellied in coming to a rest upright. As the pilot climbed out, this old lady came running out of the house in a fit, yelling and screaming at him waving a broom, wanting to know what the heck he thought he was doing! I heard this from the mouth of the test pilot himself when I was about 14. He happened to be a neighbor in later years. When my Dad turned 18 he joined the navy and was in Pensacola Fla. where they trained the navy pilots to fly the PBYs and Kingfishers.
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