The Twelve-Year Resurrection of Dottie Mae, the P-47 Thunderbolt That Ditched on VE Day

Dottie Mae is a Republic P-47D Thunderbolt that was ditched in Austria’s Lake Traunsee on May 8, 1945 — the final day of the war in Europe. After resting 150 feet underwater for 60 years, she was recovered in 2005 and rebuilt over 12 years by AirCorps Aviation in Bemidji, Minnesota. She returned to flight on August 5, 2017, becoming one of fewer than a dozen airworthy P-47s in the world.

The Last Mission: May 8, 1945

On the morning the war in Europe officially ended, a flight of P-47 Thunderbolts from the 511th Fighter Squadron, 405th Fighter Group — the famous Raiders — was pounding a rail yard near Ebensee, Austria, tucked against the Totes Gebirge mountains. Word of the armistice hadn’t reached every unit. These pilots were flying one of the final combat missions of the European theater.

The pilot of Dottie Mae that morning was First Lieutenant Larry Kuhl, a 22-year-old from Pennsylvania flying out of an advanced airfield in Kitzingen, Germany. Kuhl hadn’t named the aircraft — “Dottie Mae” was the sweetheart of squadron pilot Robert Keller — but squadron airplanes were shared, and Kuhl drew her from the ready line that day.

The Airplane: A Razorback Thunderbolt

Dottie Mae was a Republic P-47D, serial number 42-75971, built at the Republic plant on Long Island in the summer of 1943. She was a razorback variant — the older fuselage spine design that predates the more familiar bubble-canopy model.

Her specifications were formidable:

Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp twin-row radial, 18 cylinders
Belly-mounted turbosupercharger
Eight .50-caliber Browning machine guns in the wings
Seven tons empty, nearly nine tons loaded — the largest single-engine, single-seat fighter of the war

The Thunderbolt was famous for absorbing punishment that would have destroyed a lighter fighter.

How Dottie Mae Went Down

Kuhl rolled in low — standard Raiders tactic, staying in the weeds where flak gunners struggled to track. He strafed a string of German boxcars, saw them ignite, and pulled up over the burning yard.

One of those boxcars was loaded with ammunition. When Kuhl’s .50s set it off, debris and shrapnel the size of dinner plates were flung skyward. Dottie Mae flew through the cloud and took a hit through the oil cooler. Within seconds, oil was smeared across the windscreen and the engine was overheating.

The terrain below offered nothing — pine forest, Alpine rock, villages with narrow streets. But there was Lake Traunsee, a long, deep Alpine lake. Kuhl circled once, jettisoned the canopy, and put her down gear-up on the water. She skipped once, settled, and began to sink nose-first. Kuhl scrambled onto the wing, then the fuselage, and stepped off as she slid under.

He was picked up by an Austrian civilian in a rowboat — a man who, hours after the war’s end, chose to row out and rescue a stranger.

Why the Lake Preserved Her

Dottie Mae settled upright into the silt at 150 feet, where she rested for the next 60 years.

Cold, deep, fresh water is the single best preservation environment for an airframe:

No salt to corrode aluminum
No sunlight to degrade rubber and fabric
Very little dissolved oxygen at depth
Water temperature near 40°F year-round

When she was finally raised, there was still oil in the crankcase, still unfired .50-caliber rounds in the ammo trays, and still the faint outline of squadron markings on the fuselage. Kuhl’s parachute, pieces of his logbook, and the gun camera all came up with her.

The 2005 Recovery

An Austrian dive team located the wreck in 2003. In 2005, American Allan Tolley organized a recovery operation in cooperation with Austrian authorities and local divers. Raising an airplane from 150 feet is not a simple lift — divers spent weeks clearing silt from the cockpit, freeing control surfaces, and rigging the airframe for industrial lift bags of the type used on shipwrecks.

She was floated to the surface in stages to avoid further damage.

The 12-Year Restoration at AirCorps Aviation

After ownership changes and legal resolution, Dottie Mae arrived at AirCorps Aviation in Bemidji, Minnesota, led by Erik Hokuf. The restoration that followed became one of the most meticulous warbird projects on record.

The team didn’t just restore her — they built her the way Republic had built her originally:

Hand-formed skins using period techniques
Correct rivet patterns and period-correct fasteners
A correct data-plate Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine
A correct turbosupercharger unit
Restored original gun sight and Curtiss Electric propeller hub
Parts that couldn’t be sourced were fabricated from the original factory drawings preserved in U.S. Air Force archives

The work took 12 years of steady, patient craftsmanship.

First Flight and Reunion with Her Pilot

On August 5, 2017, test pilot Bernie Vasquez taxied Dottie Mae out of the AirCorps Aviation hangar, pushed the throttle forward, and lifted her off a Minnesota runway for the first time in 62 years.

Flown in from Pennsylvania for the occasion was Larry Kuhl, then 94 years old. After Vasquez’s flight, Kuhl climbed onto the wing of the airplane he had ditched on VE Day, sat in the cockpit, and put his hands on the controls. Larry Kuhl passed away in 2020, but he lived long enough to see Dottie Mae fly again.

Where She Flies Today

Dottie Mae is now based with the Lewis Air Legends collection in San Antonio, Texas. She appears regularly at major airshows, including EAA AirVenture Oshkosh and Sun ’n Fun in Lakeland, Florida.

Of the more than 15,600 P-47 Thunderbolts produced during the war, fewer than a dozen remain airworthy today.

Why This Restoration Matters

Restoration on this scale is not nostalgia. It is the deliberate decision to refuse letting something important disappear. Every flying warbird — every Mustang, Corsair, Mitchell, and Thunderbolt still in the air — exists because a team of people decided the hours, the money, and the work were worth it.

Dottie Mae’s return is a reminder that craftsmanship, patience, and commitment can reverse what seems irreversible. She spent six decades at the bottom of an Alpine lake. She is flying because people in northern Minnesota put her back together one rivet at a time.

Key Takeaways

Dottie Mae is a Republic P-47D Thunderbolt (s/n 42-75971) ditched in Lake Traunsee, Austria on May 8, 1945 — the day the war in Europe ended.
Pilot 1st Lt. Larry Kuhl survived the water landing and was rescued by an Austrian civilian in a rowboat.
The airframe sat 150 feet underwater for 60 years, preserved by cold, deep, low-oxygen freshwater conditions.
Recovery came in 2005; AirCorps Aviation in Bemidji, Minnesota completed a 12-year restoration culminating in first flight on August 5, 2017.
Kuhl, then 94, was reunited with the aircraft at its first flight; fewer than a dozen P-47s remain airworthy worldwide.