Aircraft Graveyards
World War II, if nothing else, was an incredible waste of resources in addition to that of human life.
Think of the amount of oil which was used to power the machines of war, then of the quantities which were burned in dumps, on the oceans and the oilfields themselves; even more went straight to the bottom of the oceans in tankers, ships holds, bunkers and submarines, and I'm not even mentioning the eco-damage!
So many metals which today we assiduously recycle were destroyed in manners which, while most will return to the earth, can never be extracted for further use.
Whilst it is true that many aircraft were utterly destroyed or went to the bottom of the ocean, the recycling of airframes was a singularly effective saving of resources. During the war the graveyards were more like a supermarket of parts to keep others airworthy, but post-war they were plundered for their metals - mainly aluminium (or aluminum as North Americans would say!) but also for other precious metals.
Much as I would like to display all those locations/airframes which I have images of, or wish I had saved images of, this is, after all, a B-24 website, so what you are going to see is images of bent, broken and dismembered B-24s. Granted, sometimes there will be other types mixed in with them, but the focus will be the B-24s.
I have two favourite stories regarding such locations, one which applies to WWII and another to the Vietnam war.
The first concerns Paul Mantz who, shortly after the end of the war, with an eye to the future of WWII movies, purchased a fleet of 475 wartime surplus bombers and fighters for $55,000 to use in film work. Mantz joked that he had the sixth-largest air force in the world, and sold the fleet's onboard fuel for a profit on his initial investment. Retaining only 12 aircraft, the remainder of his "air force" was sold off as "scrap" at a handsome profit.
The second concerns an un-named scrap merchant who mad a successful bid for a group of P2V-7s only to discover that amongst them was a small number of super-secret models which had been used during the Vietnam war and whose wiring was pure silver - silver being a far better conductor of electricity than copper. I imagine he also made a profit on the deal!
The best known of these graveyards are those in post-war USA, particularly Kingman, AZ, so I'll begin with Kingman. Those on this page were all taken in April 1947 by a LIFE photographer.
Think of the amount of oil which was used to power the machines of war, then of the quantities which were burned in dumps, on the oceans and the oilfields themselves; even more went straight to the bottom of the oceans in tankers, ships holds, bunkers and submarines, and I'm not even mentioning the eco-damage!
So many metals which today we assiduously recycle were destroyed in manners which, while most will return to the earth, can never be extracted for further use.
Whilst it is true that many aircraft were utterly destroyed or went to the bottom of the ocean, the recycling of airframes was a singularly effective saving of resources. During the war the graveyards were more like a supermarket of parts to keep others airworthy, but post-war they were plundered for their metals - mainly aluminium (or aluminum as North Americans would say!) but also for other precious metals.
Much as I would like to display all those locations/airframes which I have images of, or wish I had saved images of, this is, after all, a B-24 website, so what you are going to see is images of bent, broken and dismembered B-24s. Granted, sometimes there will be other types mixed in with them, but the focus will be the B-24s.
I have two favourite stories regarding such locations, one which applies to WWII and another to the Vietnam war.
The first concerns Paul Mantz who, shortly after the end of the war, with an eye to the future of WWII movies, purchased a fleet of 475 wartime surplus bombers and fighters for $55,000 to use in film work. Mantz joked that he had the sixth-largest air force in the world, and sold the fleet's onboard fuel for a profit on his initial investment. Retaining only 12 aircraft, the remainder of his "air force" was sold off as "scrap" at a handsome profit.
The second concerns an un-named scrap merchant who mad a successful bid for a group of P2V-7s only to discover that amongst them was a small number of super-secret models which had been used during the Vietnam war and whose wiring was pure silver - silver being a far better conductor of electricity than copper. I imagine he also made a profit on the deal!
The best known of these graveyards are those in post-war USA, particularly Kingman, AZ, so I'll begin with Kingman. Those on this page were all taken in April 1947 by a LIFE photographer.
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