Within a year of the signing of peace treaties, about 34,000 airplanes had been moved to 30 locations within the U.S. What to Do with Tens of Thousands of Surplus Aircraft: Salvage or Long-Term Storage Most, however, were returned home for storage, sale or scrapping. military aircraft overseas were not worth the time or money to bring back to the States, and were consequently buried, bulldozed or sunk at sea. Consideration was given to storing a substantial number of airplanes, but the realization that the expense to store them was too great. Following the war, estimates of the number of excess surplus airplanes ran as high as 150,000. Foreign Economic Administration began a program to scrap certain obsolete, damaged and surplus military aircraft overseas.
Of that number, 21,583 (7.34%) were lost in the United States in test flights, ferrying, training accidents, etc., and 43,581 were lost en route to the war and in overseas operations.īy 1944 the U.S. The United States had manufactured about 294,000 aircraft for the war effort.
However, once peace was assured, the military found itself with a huge surplus of aircraft. Walnut Ridge, Arkansas after World War II Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighters stacked vertically at
