[Milsurplus] Ocean dumping

[Hue Miller]

Ray, and All, my comments:

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ray Fantini" <RAFANTINI at salisbury.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 1:54 PM


> Not having been alive in the second world war or shortly their after I
> will have to say this is all my opinion, but its opinion biased on
> printed material including issues of QST from  1945 to 49, and numerous
> other Radio and Electronic magazines from that time. Let me propose the
> following statements:
> First: I do not believe in a mass organized effort to destroy by ocean
> dumping or burial of surpluses stock of radio equipment after the war. 
> There are at least one dozen advertisements in every issue of QST from
> 46 to 49 for war surplus radio equipment vendors. Both CQ and QST did
> many articles on the conversion of surplus radios, CQ use to publish a
> monthly column on surplus conversion along with two manuals exclusively
> on surplus conversion. I would propose that their was a sizeable
> percentage of users out their with a large stock of equipment to support
> this.
> Second: This is more antidotal then factual, but I recall the large
> quantity of surplus equipment at hamfest during the seventies and early
> eighties. This was after twenty years of Hams cannibalizing equipment in
> circulation so I would assume their was more during the fifties and
> sixties. 

The above is of couse anecdotal and in no way can really quantify 
what percentage of war materiel that survived military employment
or postwar dumping. If the total war production was large (and it 
was), even a large dumping of the supplies would leave a lot for
the war-surplus dealers.

> Third: Where their was a effort by the government to destroy equipment
> they did a good job. All Nazi radio equipment was ordered disassembled
> after the war and with the exception of war trophies you don't see a
> lot around, compare that with the ARC-5 series that are common today.

Now it's my turn to be a skeptic. I don't think there was any specific order
to destroy Axis radio equipment. Much of it was mounted in captured 
enemy vehicles or aircraft, and this junk went to metal scrapyards with the
rest of the vehicle. Much of it was simply too specialized to have a 
conspicuous commercial potential, and so just went into the metal 
cauldrons. Along the way, anyone who could get away with souvenirs,
did so.  Also remember that a great amount was captured by the USSR and
disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. What was not re-used by the Soviet
military seems to have been heavily hammified by East Bloc radio hams, but
there seems to be a few heavily used unhacked examples still surviving there.

( BTW, i saw a real interesting photo which came by way of a Polish antique
shop (if i recall) from WW2, from Russia, showing a scene of a long column
of 2 or 3 wide, German armored vehicles, and maybe a hundred or more long,
German vehicles awaiting dissambly for metal scrap. Many of the vehicles
had obvious damage. (Of course. ) When i saw the photo: 1. i wished i had
the original of the photo. 2. i thought of all the radio equipment surely still
in place. 3. and, what tales of tragedy and suffering so many of these 
vehicles could tell. )

My father was in North Africa thru Germany 1942 -1945 and then Germany
1947-1956 and sez there was no dumping (at least on a mass, obvious scale)
This belies the common belief that "them manufacturers had an agreement
with the government. "  I sincerely doubt that our European allies would
have stood by idly while the US, for example, dumped bargeloads of trucks
into the English Channel. That would never have been politically passable.

> Forth: General condition, much of the equipment that was common on the
> surplus market appeared to have never been placed in service. With much
> of the damage to equipment being from generations of Hams who have
> hacked the radios. This would lead me to believe that the majority of
> surplus sold after the war was NOS, from the last production runs. 
> I do not deny that their was mass dumping of equipment in theater,
> especially where it was not economically feasible to transport that
> equipment back to the states, and am also aware that for decades it was
> standard practice to dump excess or expired munitions in the ocean, but
> do not buy the statement that countless tons of brand new equipment was
> just dumped with no effort to surplus out.

I have to agree, if you're saying that remotely located supplies were dumped,
while supplies closer to population centers went through a more regular
surplus procedure. In fact, the dumping does not seem to irrational in that
light, altho preventing US GI's from taking what they wanted seems a little
picayune, altho maybe you wouldn't want a troop ship full of tons of 
souvenirs. 

> And finally understand that I do not intend to contradict the living
> testimony of those who were their, but how many times have we all been
> told the story of LO direction finding? I will accept that much radio
> equipment was scraped, and some may have been dumped or burned, but I do
> not feel that ocean dumping of new radios was a government policy.
> Ray Fantini KA3EKH

I actually have never heard specifically of radios being dumped, altho "electrical
equipment" yes. I dunno what that means, alto i think it includes electrical
generation and telephone equipment.
I thought i read somewhere that when airplanes were junked, the radios and
(some? ) instruments were removed first.
-Hue Miller