[MRCA] Don't cry! (Military Waste)

[D. Platt]

Well, gentlemen, as long as were on the subject let me add my historical 
note(s).  My father was a civil engineer with the SeaBees and ended up 
on Guam by the end of hostilities (sic).  The giant allied supply depot 
for the invasion of Japan was located outside Agana.  One can only 
imagine the amount of materiel that was stored there in the summer of 
1945.  If one looks closely at one program in Victory at Sea series, 
this depot area is fully described.  My Dad's battalion (301st NCB) was 
located such that there was a close proximity to all the action that 
ensued in late 1945 near Agana.  We have photos of the harbor the 
SeaBees built up (Apra) with all the LSTs and such.  What happened was 
that the US Government decided that an infusion of thousands of tons of 
surplus on the US economy would cause difficulty as industry tried to 
re-adjust to civilian production and products.  That was the 
thinking.....  Anyway, what was seen was hundreds of deuce-and-a-half 
truck loaded with typically 4 jeeps or weapons carriers (sans tires) in 
the beds of the trucks, loaded at sort of at a 45 degree angle.  The 
trucks were then backed into the LSTs as they normally would be.  The 
ships then departed for deep water where the loads were slow driven off 
the bow ramps and into the sea.  This went on for week and weeks, I'm 
told.  What he also saw, and this is anecdotal as my Dad was not 
particularly knowledgeable about radio equipment, were apparently 
SCR-399s also being loaded and dumped.  He also related that there were 
days when assorted trucks and sledges of materiel loaded and dumped from 
the depot.  What was scrounged by the various Navy units on Guam were 
the PE-95 generators normally towed behind the SCR-399s.  We have a 
picture or two showing two or three of these generators lined up in 
various SeaBee areas.  Again, the Victory at Sea portion about Guam 
shows a lot of this.

Concurrently with the above, one of my co-workers years ago was, at the 
time, a very young Signal Corps technician in the Pacific area.  His job 
was to come along behind the action and sort out what could be repaired 
and what could not.  At the end of the war, these guys sorted what would 
be brought back, organic to the various Army units, and what would be 
simply abandoned.  Apparently he brought back a BC-342 and some 
headphones from Kwajelein upon his return to CONUS in 1946.  I wonder 
how much stored-up signal gear actually made it back?

I did read in a Signal Corps historical document that the tons of 
dry-cell batteries that had been stored for the invasion were of 
concern.  There was consternation as to what to do with them as they 
were mostly expired by early 1946.  Even in those days, pollution must 
have been on someone's mind.

Jeep K3HVG