WW2 surplus aircraft sale, storage, disposal sites in the U.S.

[72modeler]

An interesting but very sad website. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of aircraft sold and scrapped here in the U.S. there were numerous sites around the world where aircraft were not flown back to America, but were scrapped in place; in the PTO aircraft were either dumped offshore or were parked in long trenches and covered by bulldozers. I can remember seeing C-82's, BT-13's, and T-6's parked in the grass behind the aprons at the San Antonio Municipal Airport awaiting sale and/or disposal in the 50's. Amazing that Paul Mantz bought almost 500 aircraft in one purchase; he kept eleven, drained the others of their avgas, which he sold, and then sold the remaining aircraft for scrap. If only Paul Allen had been alive with his fortune back then, or if Hap Arnold's wishes for a postwar military aviation museum had been followed...

Mike

 

https://www.airplaneboneyards.com/post-wwii-military-airplane-boneyards.htm

 

[112 Squadron]

Thanks for posting. This is a very interesting summary of a part of military aviation history that is often overlooked. Of course, demobilisation was a requirement, not every aircraft could be preserved and some types were already obsolete due to the dawn of the jet age. Nevertheless, in some instances those who were responsible for the peace time downsizing were a bit too overzealous when they considered certain aircraft types for disposal. The P-47s would have quite useful for the ground attack role in later conflicts but nobody took this fact into account. When the Korean War broke out most of the Thunderbolts were already gone and the USAF had to use Mustangs for that role which were less suited for that kind of mission. It is also an irony that not only war weary machines but also a considerable number of virtually new aircraft were disposed that had little airframe hours. The very same happened in the UK as well where the lend lease aircraft were quickly disposed for financial reasons even though a number of these planes were never used for operations. From the perspective of the UK government this was somehow understandable since they were obliged to pay for the spare parts after the war ended. 

 

However, British aircraft suffered a similar fate and ended on the boneyard after little use since they were just considered as scrap back then and apart form a view notable exceptions no one saw any value in preserving more of them. Just imagine if only a mere 1 or 2  percent of these planes would have been saved. 

[alt-92]

Swords & shields into plows, and all that. 
Don't forget that in the UK, rationing continued to 1954. 

 

Re: keeping P-47s around: those were way more expensive. Wartime procurement data showed you could buy three Mustangs for the cost of two P-47s

Some WWII price tags to compare... seeing this, you can understand why directly post-war, the more expensive a/c were rapidly withdrawn from service.

P-47        $85,578.    <>  P-51   $51,572.

P-40        $44,892.

P-38        $97,147.     

B-24        $215,516  <>   B-17  $204,370
B-25        $142,194.  >    B-26   $192,426.   

C-47        $88,574.
 

As for PTO: transporting those aircraft back post-war was too expensive, so they were scrapped/abandoned in place. 
The returning Dutch used to scrounge RAAF dumps for spare parts in Indonesia.

[Giorgio N]

10 hours ago, 112 Squadron said:

Thanks for posting. This is a very interesting summary of a part of military aviation history that is often overlooked. Of course, demobilisation was a requirement, not every aircraft could be preserved and some types were already obsolete due to the dawn of the jet age. Nevertheless, in some instances those who were responsible for the peace time downsizing were a bit too overzealous when they considered certain aircraft types for disposal. The P-47s would have quite useful for the ground attack role in later conflicts but nobody took this fact into account. When the Korean War broke out most of the Thunderbolts were already gone and the USAF had to use Mustangs for that role which were less suited for that kind of mission. It is also an irony that not only war weary machines but also a considerable number of virtually new aircraft were disposed that had little airframe hours. The very same happened in the UK as well where the lend lease aircraft were quickly disposed for financial reasons even though a number of these planes were never used for operations. From the perspective of the UK government this was somehow understandable since they were obliged to pay for the spare parts after the war ended. 

 

However, British aircraft suffered a similar fate and ended on the boneyard after little use since they were just considered as scrap back then and apart form a view notable exceptions no one saw any value in preserving more of them. Just imagine if only a mere 1 or 2  percent of these planes would have been saved. 

 

The P-47 could have been useful in Korea but put yourself in the shoes of who had to take a decision in 1945: you have brand new fighters of two types and you can only keep that many aircraft in service because of the new economic situation. One of these types has better performance, is safer to fly and requires less maintenance. The other features lower performance, is more maintenance intensive and is more accident prone. Which one would you keep in service in larger numbers ? The answer is pretty easy...

It's easy to say today that it would have been better to keep the P-47 because of Korea but nobody knew in 1945 that there would have been a war in that Country 5 years later. In 1945 they had to decide based on what was available and on the threat that they could have expected. Had the war in Korea started in 1947 whatever propeller fighter available would have been one of the main combat aircraft of the war and would have had to fight against the then most advanced Soviet prop fighters. Would you have preferred a Mustang or a Jug for that kind of combat ?

Had the war started in 1953 on the other hand it is likely that very few wartime fighters would have been around anyway, so it would have not mattered which one would have been used in larger numbers after 1945.

Besides, had the P-47 been available in larger numbers in Korea maybe the loss ratio in ground attack missions would have been lower... maybe, we'll never know for sure. At the same time, would this have made any real impact on the conduct of the war ? Not a chance ! The outcome of the war would have been the same.. and the P-47 would have been replaced by jets during the same war in the same way that the Mustang was

[Duncan B]

Somewhere on the bottom of the Pacific are crates and crates of brand new (at the time) aircraft parts, engines and complete aircraft dumped overboard from RN Carriers immediately after the war. The terms of lend/lease meant that either the items had to be returned, paid for or destroyed. The US didn't want the stuff back, the UK was bankrupt (and had no need for them anyway) so overboard they went, splash!

It must have taken a while to clear away all the debris of war from central Europe and it must have made some individuals very rich buying up the scrap and unwanted surplus equipment.

 

Duncan B

[Giorgio N]

8 hours ago, alt-92 said:

Swords & shields into plows, and all that. 
Don't forget that in the UK, rationing continued to 1954. 

 

Re: keeping P-47s around: those were way more expensive. Wartime procurement data showed you could buy three Mustangs for the cost of two P-47s

Some WWII price tags to compare... seeing this, you can understand why directly post-war, the more expensive a/c were rapidly withdrawn from service.

P-47        $85,578.    <>  P-51   $51,572.

P-40        $44,892.

P-38        $97,147.     

B-24        $215,516  <>   B-17  $204,370
B-25        $142,194.  >    B-26   $192,426.   

C-47        $88,574.
 

As for PTO: transporting those aircraft back post-war was too expensive, so they were scrapped/abandoned in place. 
The returning Dutch used to scrounge RAAF dumps for spare parts in Indonesia.

 

It mattered little if an aircraft was more expensive to buy than the other: they had already been paid for anyway so this made no impact on the economics of the USAAF in 1945.

What mattered however was how expensive the aircraft were to keep in service and this led to the more reliable and easier to maintain types to stay and to the maintenance bitches to go. This was particularly true for types that were retained for second line duties, like the B-17 and the B-25, afterall if absolute performance is less important why bother with a more difficult aircraft to maintain ? A tough reliable type like a B-17 was perfectly adequate for the kind of missions assigned in the immediate postwar years even if in terms of performance the B-24 may have been better. Proper bombing missions would have been performed by the B-29 anyway. Same for the B-25, that was used mainly for second line duties while the medium bomber role was covered by the newer A-26.

P-38s, P-39s and P-40s were obsolete anyway in 1945 so why bother. Of the other two fighters, the Mustang was the more modern, better performer and cheaper to maintain, although both this and the P-47 were retained. Really the USAAF in 1945 had the P-51, A-26 and B-29 as main types, with a view on getting more and more P-80s. Not too bad a lineup I'd say

[Tim R-T-C]

2 minutes ago, Duncan B said:

It must have taken a while to clear away all the debris of war from central Europe and it must have made some individuals very rich buying up the scrap and unwanted surplus equipment.

 

I believe that the scrap value of most AFVs is less than the cost of actually moving and scrapping them - some countries must have borne great cost to clear all the destroyed tanks and other vehicles from where they fell.

 

There are plenty of places where abandoned AFV shells just lie unwanted - in northern Afghanistan there are literally piles of BMP and similar chassis left over from the Soviet period, many just sitting outside towns and perfectly accessible if anyone could make any value from them. My shot from Balkh province in 2019.

 

 

[Giorgio N]

9 minutes ago, Duncan B said:

 

It must have taken a while to clear away all the debris of war from central Europe and it must have made some individuals very rich buying up the scrap and unwanted surplus equipment.

 

 

Many names today famous indeed started by converting wartime material for use in the new peacetime economies. A well known one was Lamborghini, whose main business was building tractors and moved his first steps by building them using surplus military vehicle parts

[Duncan B]

3 minutes ago, Tim R-T-C said:

 

I believe that the scrap value of most AFVs is less than the cost of actually moving and scrapping them - some countries must have borne great cost to clear all the destroyed tanks and other vehicles from where they fell.

 

There are plenty of places where abandoned AFV shells just lie unwanted - in northern Afghanistan there are literally piles of BMP and similar chassis left over from the Soviet period, many just sitting outside towns and perfectly accessible if anyone could make any value from them. My shot from Balkh province in 2019.

 

 

 

Yes, I understand that in the less industrial parts of the world the scrap probably had no value at all so probably lay unmolested for many years however in central Europe (as stated in my original post) that wasn't the case. In France for example the Government of the day issued large contracts for clearing the scrap from the countryside and from the D Day beaches including out to sea. These contracts ran for many years and made quite a few Companies lots of money not just from the Government but also from the onward sale of the scrap metal. The Governments might well have borne the costs but that doesn't stop individuals making money from them (take a look at the PPE fiasco in the UK for evidence of that  ).

 

2 minutes ago, Giorgio N said:

 

Many names today famous indeed started by converting wartime material for use in the new peacetime economies. A well known one was Lamborghini, whose main business was building tractors and moved his first steps by building them using surplus military vehicle parts

 

I think Dan Air (now defunct) started off with surplus transport aircraft.

 

Duncan B

[EwenS]

Surplus US aircraft had been building up in various storage sites long before the war ended. B-24s come to mind where production outstripped demand courtesy of Ford’s Willow Run Plant efficiency. A large part of the B-24J-NT from the North American production line ended up in storage straight from the production line when it closed around Nov 1944. From Spring 1945 they took them from storage and began to supply them to the RAAF starting with later J-5 models before planning to go back to J-1 models as the war was ending.

[EwenS]

At least 5 B-24s in museums today come from 30+ that the Indian Air Force salvaged from the old RAF MU disposal site at Chaklala in India post independence.

[Werdna]

1 hour ago, Tim R-T-C said:

 

I believe that the scrap value of most AFVs is less than the cost of actually moving and scrapping them - some countries must have borne great cost to clear all the destroyed tanks and other vehicles from where they fell.

 

There are plenty of places where abandoned AFV shells just lie unwanted - in northern Afghanistan there are literally piles of BMP and similar chassis left over from the Soviet period, many just sitting outside towns and perfectly accessible if anyone could make any value from them. My shot from Balkh province in 2019.

 

 

 

Someone's done a great job with the hairspray weathering on that..  

[Tim R-T-C]

1 hour ago, Duncan B said:

 

Yes, I understand that in the less industrial parts of the world the scrap probably had no value at all so probably lay unmolested for many years however in central Europe (as stated in my original post) that wasn't the case. In France for example the Government of the day issued large contracts for clearing the scrap from the countryside and from the D Day beaches including out to sea. These contracts ran for many years and made quite a few Companies lots of money not just from the Government but also from the onward sale of the scrap metal. The Governments might well have borne the costs but that doesn't stop individuals making money from them (take a look at the PPE fiasco in the UK for evidence of that  ).

 

Yes the contracts must have been very profitable for some, even if the scrappage itself wasn't.

 

I wonder how many of those receiving the contracts had ties to those issuing them.... Things never change 😏

[Beard]

https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/ iss a website about the decommissioning, scrapping, and post-war use of WW2 equipment. It's worth a read.

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

The following is put together from a discussion on the F-47 status during the Korean War.

 

The phase out of the P-38 started as soon as the war was over and it was almost gone from Air Force inventory by mid 1946.  The P-47 and P-51 started gentle declines, with about 3 P-47 to 4 P-51, by the end of 1947 the ratio had actually narrowed to 6 to 7.  Interestingly when it came to overseas holdings there were 834 P-47 to 680 P-51 at the end of 1947.

 

Unfortunately the USAF Statistical Digest reclassifies all the piston engined fighters as second line and miscellaneous at the end of June 1948, at which point there were 1,500
P-47 (606 overseas) to 1,953 P-51 (622 overseas).  As of end March 1949 the inventory notes the second line status with 1,167 P-47 with 265 active and 1,602 P-51 with 590 active.  By the end of the year the totals had declined to 839/80 P-47 and 1,108/271 P-51.  As of 30 June 1950, so under a week from the start of the Korean War the "On Hand" totals, not inventory, were P-47 850 with 79 active, the P-51 899 with 99 active.

 

The 1950/51 Statistical Digest states 1,349 P-47 and 1,804 P-51 in inventory on 1 July 1951, with the 30 September 1950 On Hand figures of 838 P-47 with 80 active and 1,026 P-51 with 655 active.

So in summary the USAF, by the time of the Korean War had about 3 P-47 to 4 P-51 and chose to reactivate its P-51 inventory for the war.

 

Postwar Regular USAF F-47 units.
14th Fighter Group, Dow AFB, ME, through 1948.
23rd Fighter Group, Guam, until April 1949.
332nd Fighter Group, Lockbourne AFB, OH until July 1949
81st Fighter Group, Wheeler AFB, HI until May 1949
86th Fighter Group, Neubiberg AB, FRG  until Jan 1950
405th Fighter Bomber Group, Godman AFB, Dec. 1952 through April 1953

 

Also by early 1950, none of the Active USAF units had F-51s as their primary equipment.  FEAF had standardized on the F-51, then the F-80.  All the stuff most recently stocked and stored was for the F-51.  So the thinking in the Far East seems to be do not complicate the logistics and medium/long term move the fighter bomber units to jets, rather than add another piston engined type, the P-51 was still present in theatre and used, the P-47 was not.

 

According to the 1950/51 USAF Statistical Digest while all 5 Far East Air Forces fighter groups had F-80, 2 still had some F-51 on strength at the start of the war, and though the 51st Fighter Group was pure jet a month later, the 8th (August-December 1950),18th (to beyond June 1952) and 35th (to April 1951, then from July 1951 to beyond June 1952) operated F-51.

 

At the start of the Korean War, all of FEAF's day fighter groups had converted to F-80Cs, but some of those conversions finished just before the War.  The F-51s were in storage in Japan and Okinawa, the maintenance infrastructure was still in place, and most pilots were still current in the F-51. During the initial retreat down the peninsula, it was realised that F-80s operating from Japan didn't have the reach to provide good ground support, so most of the FEAF fighter groups partially re-equipped with the F-51s in Flyable Storage.
35th Fighter Interceptor Wing converted its 39th and 40th FIS,
8th Fighter Bomber Group converted the 35th and 36th FBS
18th Fighter Bomber Group converted all 3 Squadrons.

 

Many of the Air Guard units were used to stiffen up the Air Defense Command, and most ended up converting to jets.  (Guard units, can be identified because their Squadron, Group, and Wing identifiers all are in the range of 100-200.)  Some converted back to F-51s and -47s when their active stint was up.  At the same time, there was an incredible expansion of the Active USAF.  The Air Guard units could be held as active for a limited time, by the terms of their callup.  So - a number of newly activated Fighter Interceptor and Fighter Bomber Wings flew F-51s and F-47s until their F-84s and F-86s were ready. Most were for only a few months in the 1952 - 1954 timeframe, but some flew them for nearly a year.

 

So essentially the reports of F-47 units being available in the US but not sent to Korea are correct.

[Graham Boak]

The P-51 units were to the west of the USA and the P-47 units were in the East.  When the Korean War started aircraft were gathered from the western units to get them onto carrier decks and out to the war, and these would inevitably be P-51s, and the availability of pilots for them already in theatre would also have been a consideration.  At a later stage Stratemeyer was offered the P-47 but said that he had quite enough obsolete aircraft in his command and what he needed was more jets.

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

It is one of those well believed facts that air cooled piston engines gave better damage protection than liquid cooled engines for the ground attack mission at least.  Trouble is no one seems to have run a mixed air and liquid cooled fighter bomber force doing on average the same missions against the same opposition.  The closest is the USAAF 9th Air Force but the figures show different usages.

 

The P-38 averaged 17.3 credit sorties per aircraft per month in sorties lasting an average of 2.51 hours (about 2 hours 30 minutes).  A total of 82,581 hours of operational flying, 18,905 hours of non operational flying.  So on average of 43.4 hours of operational flying per month.  All up 34,038 sorties, 32,928 credit and 31,868 effective sorties. 317 P-38 MIA, 77 write offs, 1.2% losses per credit sortie. P-38 claimed a kill every 124 credit sorties and dropped an average of 690.5 pounds of bombs per effective sortie.

 

The P-47 averaged 18.9 credit sorties per aircraft per month in sorties lasting an average of 2.41 hours (about 2 hours 25 minutes).  A total of 475,052 hours of operational flying, 134,029 hours of non operational flying.  So on average of 47.4 hours of operational flying per month.  All up 201,546 sorties, 197,191 credit and 190,450 effective sorties. 1,208 P-47 MIA, 249 write offs, 0.74% losses per credit sortie. P-47 claimed a kill every 174 credit sorties and dropped an average of 591.5 pounds of bombs per effective sortie.

 

On 10 September 1944 the 363rd Fighter Group with P-51 officially became the 363rd Tactical Reconnaissance Group, after which its activities were recorded under reconnaissance. On 22 November 1944 the other 9th AF P-51 unit, the 354th Fighter Group officially converted to P-47, it officially converted back to P-51 on 15 February 1945.

 

The P-51 averaged 16.8 credit sorties per aircraft per month in sorties lasting an average of 2.96 hours (about 2 hours 58 minutes).  A total of 72,609 hours of operational flying, 21,933 hours of non operational flying.  So on average of 49.7 hours of operational flying per month.  All up 25,546 sorties, 24,505 credit and 23,932 effective sorties. 253 P-51 MIA, 19 write offs, 1.1% losses per credit sortie. The P-51 claimed a kill every 33 credit sorties and dropped an average of 130.8 pounds of bombs per effective sortie.

 

On the costs of long range operations. Using the well known 8th Air Force B-17 losses.  Taking 1 September 1944 as the date when the continental airfields were open. In the period to 31 August 1944 some 2.7% of B-17s listed as lost to fighters made it back to allied territory, versus 6.4% of those listed as lost to flak.  For the period 1 September 1944 to the end of the war the figures become 5.8% and 16.6%.  Clearly then there would also be B-17s that would have been lost without friendly continental airfields, but landed and were ultimately repaired.

[Gomtuu]

I found a video on YouTube a while back discussing the attempts to update the P47 and P51 to a 'super prop' to compete/compliment jet development.

 

https://youtu.be/fgIz5N11TZ

 

The guy that produces these video goes into quite some depth. In addition to this one there are 6 separate videos just on the performance of the P47 and comparison with its WW2 contemporaries. 

[John B (Sc)]

On 3/9/2021 at 8:41 AM, Duncan B said:

Somewhere on the bottom of the Pacific are crates and crates of brand new (at the time) aircraft parts, engines and complete aircraft dumped overboard from RN Carriers immediately after the war. The terms of lend/lease meant that either the items had to be returned, paid for or destroyed. The US didn't want the stuff back, the UK was bankrupt (and had no need for them anyway) so overboard they went, splash!

It must have taken a while to clear away all the debris of war from central Europe and it must have made some individuals very rich buying up the scrap and unwanted surplus equipment.

 

Duncan B

One of my uncles was an engineering officer in the RNVR. He spent almost a year based in SW India supervising the dumping of brand new aircraft and spares, engines etc. He said it was quiet heartbreaking at first- stuff still in the preservation standards, never even run in.

 

Meantime my father, in the REME, spent several months just clearing down and dumping repair equipment of all sorts from a REME main base repair depot, which had 'gained' ,over the operational period rather a lot of equipment in excess of establishment !  

[72modeler]

56 minutes ago, John B (Sc) said:

It must have taken a while to clear away all the debris of war from central Europe

Can you imagine the millions of shell casings and links that fell from Allied and Axis aircraft all over Europe from  air combat? That doesn't even take into account all of the expended brass from small arms, machine guns, tanks, and artillery!

Mike

[John B (Sc)]

As Giorgio N said, amongst others Lamborghini did well out of war surplus army equipment.  A lot of steel post war was made from recycled armour, especially from the Eastern Front, supposedly, and largely in the Soviet Union and associated countries. 

 

 A metallurgist friend of mine said the variable quality and composition, plus some poor re-melting, made for variable quality steels for quite  a while.  In the late Fifties and Sixties quite a lot of that steel was supplied to Italy, which had better links with the Eastern bloc than some Western countries.  Apparently it was apt to rust quickly and erratically, unpredictably, which gave some Italian motor cars a bad reputation for longevity at that time.,

[tempestfan]

The USSR paid Fiat partly in kind with recycled steel for the 124 licence and erecting of the Awtowas plant, according to Wiki. Just as they paid Novo/DCM with mouldings for the Frog tools.

[Jackson Duvalier]

I've seen pictures of an aluminium reclamation operation at an American Naval Air Station where, post-war, a smelter was built on-site to turn the numerous planes on hand back into ingots-- stripped, wingless, tailless Wildcat fuselages of many colours all stood up on their noses next to the open-air furnace, waiting to be melted down.  Very modelgenic, in a sombre sort of way, lots of texture to the various exposed primers and innards and different layers of markings, it'd make a unique diorama.  Somehow reminded me of finless, deep-frozen tuna carcasses as seen all piled up at a Japanese fish market.