[Milsurplus] Re: surplus ships fleet

[Don Davis]

Good discussion.  Misses a big factor in the Pacific, however.  When we won 
the war, none of the folks in the theater were necessarily our friends.  The 
commies were coming to the fore, and the empires were crumbling.  Each and 
every piece of war materiel on site was a potential weapon to be used 
against us or our allies later.  Remember this stuff was state of the art 
weaponry at the time.  Also, pirates, mercenaries and freebooters were 
forming up, so fast boats, planes, tanks, radios all would pose a risk. 
Most island chains were "owned" by some foreign colonial power, and the last 
thing they wanted was an army of natives rampaging with M1s and Jeeps.... 
And, as someone said, each square foot of space meant one GI could return - 
BIG political pressure to bring the boys home NOW.  And the military was 
down-sizing big time, so any fuel spent bringing crap back was fuel wasted. 
In he business I'm in now (dealing with govt agencies for aerospace 
hardware) it costs a lot more to formally "surplus" an item than to just 
toss it out, unless the value is extraordinary.

73  de Don  AD6PB

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Hue Miller" Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] Re: surplus ships fleet


 plus a need for ship space to return troops to the States.  Altho
> it still
> seems difficult to me to understand the burning of surplus PT boats in the
> Phiippines. Seems like someone could have put them to some kind of 
> gtainful
> employment. -Hue Miller