The following set of photographs show the recovery of a 1945 Republic P-47D-30 Thunderbolt from the Gulf of Mexico approximately three years ago. It is mostly complete, except for tail and horizontal stabilizer. Currently available "For Sale By Owner." Contact Rick Lee, Owner/Retriever in Florida. Rick is an avid diver, both sky and skin. He and a couple of his friends invested the money to rent a large barge with a crane to pull the plane out of the Gulf of Mexico. Subsequent communications with the Air Force eventually led him to the time frame that the plane was sold to the Brazilian government. Based on that time frame, he reviewed old local newspapers and found an article on the crash. Via the Internet a Spanish-speaking friend of Rick's contacted a South American aviation magazine that eventually led to the identification and the location of the still surviving pilot of the craft when it went down.