Davis was known to have had 2 girlfriends at the time. And rather than run the risk of naming his assigned aircraft 433240 after one or the other, he decided to name it after his younger brother Hal.
And being from North Carolina (The Tarheel State) he settled on
‘Tarheel Hal.’
The aircraft was severely damaged by ground fire during a strafing mission in mid 1944 and even though the pilot (Lt Davis was not flying it at the time) was able to bring Tarheel Hal home
it was damaged beyond repair and the aircraft was scrapped.
However before its demise, Ike’s mount was briefly immortalised in a movie made about the squadron (lots of destruction, 50 cal style).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shsxuauQA3w
And even though the real Tarheel Hal is long gone, its reincarnation lives on, in Galveston Texas, at the Lone Star Museum. By coincidence this P-47 was first painted to represent ‘Big Ass Bird II’ the subject of an earlier restoration.
6 colours; black, white, silver, yellow, orange and red. Most of the fuselage decals had to be made from scratch (couldn’t find any the right scale) and the restoration took about 40 hours to complete, including replacement of a gear leg.
Davis survived combat and returned home to Charlottesville North Carolina at the end of the war.
