War salvage in Europe

[Bill Murray]

Switching now to the US and a photo of a breakers yard in Ohio.
This man finagled a way to import surplus vehicles from various SE Pacific countries primarily to break up for parts. The photo is modern unfortunately but in any case they are still in that business.

[Bill Murray]

Next, I am switching to aircraft which I hope is OK on this Forum.
They make for very impressive photos

[Bill Murray]

And, now, what happened to these aircraft.

[Bill Murray]

And lastly, a shot of B-32 bombers awaiting scrapping.

Interesting story here. The B-32 was a backup to the B-29 as a superbomber in case the B-29 didn't work out. It was in development from 1939 to late spring 1945 and only made a couple of photo recon sorties over Japan as the war was ending. It had tremendous teething problems such as a non functioning pressurization system, the tail assembly was changed several times, the remote weapons stations didn't work and several crashed.

In the end, out of about 1200 ordered only 118 ever entered service and every last one of them was scrapped by 1948. Even the one scheduled to be given to the Air Force Museum!!

Hope you enjoy the photos

Bill

[Bill Murray]

Sorry, here is a more dramatic photo of the B-32 graveyard.
Bill

[Michael R.]

December, 1943. North Africa awaiting breakers for scrap metal. Credit IWM E26958.

[David Dunlop]

I wonder how much of that equipment ended up bypassing the scrappies and being refurbished. Wasn't there a lot of ex-German equipment still in service in the Middle East into the 1960's, and possibly somewhere in Scandinavia? Probably a very good spare parts market running for that time as well.

David