[HBR] Loctals & Octals

[Martin Marris]

Off-topic, but I've often wondered: Why is it that WWII, in particular,
ended with such a huge surplus of war matériel?

I know that by mid-1945 the U.S. economy was really roaring with production
of war goods, but still, why such an extraordinary surplus?

Did policy-makers think the war was going to last a lot longer than it did?
Perhaps the very few people who knew about the atom bomb didn't want to give
any indication that they had anything "special" available that could shorten
the war?

(We don't hear much about a huge "World War One" war-surplus bulge, for
instance. Maybe there was one....)

Maybe my query is a dumb question....

Martin, KB1WSY