Brazilian P-47 Thunderbolt post tree.

Despite being complex and expensive to operate, the P-47 was rugged, potent and reliable. After 1945 the Thunderbolt was eagerly snapped up by a swathe of nations, particularly in Central and South America. Nicaragua was a major user of the type and loaned a handful to the CIA-backed Guatemalan insurgent Air Force in 1954 who used the Thunderbolts in the early stages of a successful coup to oust the democratically elected government and install the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas. The final aerial combat for the mighty ‘Jug’ came in January 1955: during a border dispute, Gerald Delarm Amador (who has earlier flown in the same aircraft in the Guatemalan coup) shot down a Costa Rican Mustang in a Nicaraguan F-47N. This aircraft survives in the collection of the Commemorative Air Force in the US. Last user of the Thunderbolt though was Peru, the last operational Peruvian Thunderbolts were withdrawn in 1966.