The Republic F-105 Thunderchief is a fighter-bomber designed in the early days of the Cold War to perform supersonic, low-altitude delivery of nuclear bombs. After the Vietnam War began, the single-seater F-105D became the primary aircraft used for delivering heavy non-nuclear bomb loads, with over 20,000 sorties flown by F-105D pilots. The Thunderchief could break the speed of sound at sea level and could reach Mach 2 at higher altitudes. The F-105D variant entered service in 1960, and other variants remained in service until 1984.
Our Thunderchief and its crew fought in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970, flown out of Takhli Airforce Base in Thailand with the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing with over 6,000 hours of flight time. The Veterans Memorial Park acquired this plane on loan from the United States Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio, in 2010, after being on display in Jackson, Mississippi for several decades.