What Happened to the Surplus Planes After the War-- Part 3: Why the Drive to Get Rid of Them

Both the American aviation industry and the  postwar Air Force had an interest in seeing  the planes scrapped as soon as possible.

The Air Force especially had an interest as they had seen  the hobbling effect of  WW I surplus planes had on the growth of the Army Air Service.  The next war would not be fought with B-17s or even B-24s.  New airplanes were on the horizon and existing planes would be a roadblock to their acquisition.

Plus, aluminum ingots recovered from scrapped aircraft constituted an alloy not necessarily appropriate to returning to aviation construction.  For example, a B-24 Liberator contained 13,000 pounds of aluminum.  Scrapping and melting was  estimated to recover 65% to 70% of the tonnage.

Navy aircraft scrapping in the fall of 1945 involved the manual separation of differing metals.  At Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Florida, about five warplanes were salvaged daily.  The costly metal separation task was done largely by prisoners of war in 1945.  With their expected return to their countries expected to happen in 1946,  the profitability of  of te Jacksonville salvage operation  was in question.

--GreGen