Thunderjet on a ship ca.1960 -65

An interesting picture, given the time frame is correct. Or, may I presume, it is ‘estimated 1955-160’? Might it be one of the Danish Commercial Ships, which were used to tranfer aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean? If so (and I think so) it must be a circa 1952-1953 photo.

Besides, aircraft were also flown acress the AO
An extract from my manuscript, general text:
“A project named “Dropkick” was established for the purpose of flight delivery of the Republic F-84G Thunderjet across the North Atlantic to various Mutual Defence Assistance Program (MDAP) countries in Europe. This “Project Dropkick” was to have been completed by December 15, 1953. However, problems with bad weather and absence of pre-planning and coordination between various commands slowed down the pace of delivery of aircraft. “

Many Republic F-84G Thunderjets were transferred by sea to European Air Forces via Copenhagen/Kastrup. At least the aircraft initially intended for Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands and Belgium were (in the beginning) transferred via Copenhagen.

An extract from my manuscript, Chapter Belgium:
“140 Republic F-84G Thunderjets for the Belgium Air Force were delivered via Kastrup Air Base, Denmark. All of these deliveries had to be coordinated by the Scandinavian Airline Systems Deprocessing Center (SAS/DC). After being transported across the Atlantic Ocean by either Danish commercial ships, or United States Navy (USN) Carriers, the brand new Republic F-84G Thunderjets were unloaded from these ships in the harbor of Copenhagen. Subsequently, they were transported, by road, towed by tractors, to Kastrup Air Base, and readied for flight at the SAS/DC F-84 deprocessing line. After this work had been done, a test flight was flown, for acceptance of that particular aircraft. Usually, these flights were flown by Captain Bouzin, Belgium Air Force, who was stationed at Karup Air Base for this purpose. After completing this acceptance process, aircraft were ready to be flown to Belgium.”

Besides this, the (later well known) USAF Captain Joe Kittinger was also stationed at Kastrup Air Base, and also involved in the early training program of the Danish Air Force for the F-84G. Besides this, he (also) flew many testflights, among others, on the Dutch F-84G’s – have copies of forms he signed.

Regarding the link between Portugal and Norway, yes, several Norwegian F-84G’s were delivered to the Portugese Air Force.
There is also a link between Copenhagen/SAS and Portugal:
An extract from my manuscript, chapter Portugal:
“Further deliveries of the Republic F-84G Thunderjet to the Portugese Air Force were staged via Scandinavian Aircraft Services (SAS) at Kastrup Air Base, Copenhagen, Denmark. After the ‘Inspect and Repair, if Necessary’ (IRAN) program, 5 Republic F-84G Thunderjets were delivered on May 21, 1954. These aircraft were to be operated by the second Portugese Air Force Republic F-84G Thunderjet squadron, being Esquadra 21.”

Thanks for posting those, I did mean to ask first about your blog, but I was in a hurry to go out.

Hi Pagen,

I was quite happy to find it linked here 😀

Its a public blog and people can do whatever they feel like regarding the images, content and links – thats how the internet works 😎

Thanks for posting those, I did mean to ask first about your blog, but I was in a hurry to go out.

Here is another taken just down the street from me – the barbershop seen in the lower righthand corner (a hanging drip tray) is still there:

Hi,

I just wanted to upload the picture, but realised Pagen already had linked to it. Anyway here it is:

Thunderjets on the way from the habour to Kastrup airport for pre-flight work i 1952.

Look what I’ve just found, this is a blog by our own Mondariz, http://www.steampunk.dk/?p=13702
Scroll down and there is a picture of Danish F-84s being delivered through the streets from the docks.

I think this is probably the nearest we are going to get to answering the OPs question.

As an aside I wonder if the F-84 series was the mostly widely exported Jet fighter, maybe even any combat type out of wartime?

Would be close as there were a total of 7889 straight and swept wing F84 aircraft produced compared to 8673 Sabres (NA &Foreign built)

According to http://www.uswarplanes.net/f84.html & http://www.uswarplanes.net/f86f100.html

Hi Dave, maybe Dutch ones to, but I have definitely seen pics of plank-wing Thunderjets of I’m sure the Norwegian airforce being towed through streets with a description of being towed from docks to prep base.
I’m not saying that this is what the posted picture shows for sure, but it seems a good option.
I might have been partially swayed by what I thought was Nowegian language aswel! Would the central European deliveries have gone via Iceland?
I wish I could find the info again, but maybe this delivery applied to the other European nations aswel, there were plenty of them for sure.

As an aside I wonder if the F-84 series was the mostly widely exported Jet fighter, maybe even any combat type out of wartime?

Again I can’t find the info, but I seem to remember (happy to be corrected)that they were all shiped over and towed overland, there is a picture of this somewhere.

Maybe you are thinking of the F-84 Thunderstreak deliveries to the Netherlands

see below

http://www.milaviation.com/artikelload.php?ID=50

It is also possible that the Thunderjets for some of the European countries also were previously delivered by the same route. I have seen some references to the ones for Denmark arriving by sea in crates.

Again I can’t find the info, but I seem to remember (happy to be corrected)that they were all shiped over and towed overland, there is a picture of this somewhere.

{edit… never mind… the OP mislead us (unintentionally, I’m sure).

Quite unintentionally 😮 My brain seems not to have been engaged when I wrote last night! And neither did I notice this morning! Sorry for the mix up!

But then it begs the question, were all of these aircraft shipped over as deck cargo on merchant ships or were some of them flown over?

I have a possible suggestion… perhaps someone with research resources in Norway can find what was done with the 200+ F-84Gs Norway had when they were removed from service.

Portugal, a fellow NATO member and F-84G operator, used the F-84G in combat in its campaign to hold onto its African colonies starting in 1961, and continuing until 1973.

Is it possible Portugal bought surplus Norwegian aircraft, and that this is one being shipped south?

{edit… never mind… the OP mislead us (unintentionally, I’m sure).

Here is the actual photo caption (page 25 of the photo site):

Númer myndar: GRÓ 005 051 2-1.jpg
Ljósmyndari: Gunnar Rúnar Ólafsson
Myndatexti
1955-1960 Reykjavíkurhöfn, flugvél á flutningaskipi. Hafnarverkamenn.

This is the correct time period for shipments of F-84s TO Norway!

http://ljosmyndasafn.reykjavik.is/fotoweb/Preview.fwx?&position=199&archiveType=ImageFolder&archiveId=5001&albumId=5001&sorting=ModifiedTimeAsc&search=flugv%C3%A9l&fileId=C5B1ED221A65161B4FEA6A99A653F0D4492A3DF0B2924D3B050A7A43AAD377C992719139B95B96BA446FACFFF9960F515C18A8C412417563C8DD1E5716D68D4E1611B849F3127581D8A844299846A11DAC1F140D49EC8AF9A8D357168D93F5C2D86EB092F3317E9DEB702AE41080C074C46C428921318F88EA4D0997E678F217CDA385D231D4DE52FC61478F18B38E5CD90421D8960D166D6A7844234BB64776D029E73FFBA9D8660951C1A183A42CD8E685327FDA3D06139CB09753C35943B1EADE183820BFE0697F4FDB04EFEC169C}