astixjr wrote:
It's interesting to note that Kingman was not the largest post WWII a/c salvage yard but it seems to have been the one that was photographed the most. One of the things about the post WWII a/c scrapping drive that has always puzzled me is the speed with which it took place. I've also found it a bit strange that many of the larger salvage locations were given to single companies and the awarding of the contracts had more to do with "how fast can you melt these a/c" than "who can give the government the most money in return for the scrap". The government was in a hurry to get rid of this stuff and they were ready with a plan that they had started working on well before the war ended. I've recently become very interested in the details of that plan and its principle architect. More on that subject in the future, I'm still doing research on it and I'm not quite ready to stick my neck out yet.
Here's one for you B-24 vs B-17 freaks: Why did more B-17s make it from the salvage yards to private owners? Was it because the B-17 was a better plane than the B-24? Seriously, I'm looking for some independent verification of something that turned up in my research.
Albert,
If you don't already have a copy, find
MILITARY AIRCRAFT BONEYARDS BY Nicholas A. Veronico, A. Kevin Grantham, and Scott Thompson. They have a good synopsis of how the surplus hardware planning was undertaken. The planners started to study how to deal with war surplus materiel in 1943 and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation eventually implemented the storage/surplus plan.
Scott
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