Kingman scrapping myth, true or false?

[gregv]

hello all

A long time ago I became aware of a myth regarding the mass scrapping of aircraft at Kingman after the war. It was something along the lines of the company who won the contract to do the bulk of the scrapping (Wunderlich?) had put into the fine print that all or most of the aircraft had to have full or mostly full fuel tanks....

Any basis in fact for this story, or just another urban myth?

cheers

greg v.

[gregv]

I did find this:

from http://www.aviationexplorer.com/kingman ... eyard.html


" After World War II more than 7000 retired Army bombers, fighters, and training planes were left standing row to row at the old Kingman Army Airfield 5 miles east of Kingman Arizona, now storage depot 41 of the war assets Corporation. It was the worlds greatest concentration of aircraft in one area at one time, covering five square miles. Kingman Army airfield was a gunnery base which once had an Army population of 17,000 officers and men.

5437 of the planes, offered for competitive bidding with the provisions that day would not be used for flight purposes since they were not adaptable for civilian use. They were purchased for $2,780,000 by Martin Wunderlich, of Jefferson City, Missouri, a contractor.

It is rumored that the fuel from these aircraft was sold for more than the purchase price of the planes.

At one time the Kingman storage records showed 2567 B-24 Liberators, 1832 B-17 Flying Fortresses, 478 of the P-38 Lightning, another 200 of the P-38 photo planes, 37 of the B-29 Super Fortress not to mention 141 B-25 Billy Mitchell medium bombers and hundreds of P-47 Thunderbolt's, P-40s of Flying Tiger fame then America's newest and fastest medium bombers were also at Kingman Army Airfield.

the depot sold be seven teens at $13,750 and the 25 does at $8,250. Prices asked on the other types of aircraft included the 826 at $2000 each, P60 wands at $6,000 each, P40 sevenths at $3500 each to you for days at $1250 each and a 24 is at $1650 each.

No one but American citizens could purchase the planes at Kingman, and before being offered for sale the airplanes were stripped of all confidential equipment such as Bomb Sites, Radar and some Radio installations."

[Second Air Force]

Greg,

That story is false, however, some congressman decided to make a spectacle later about how Wunderlich had defrauded the government etc, etc. I will dig up the particulars when I get home and post what happened.

Scott

[tom d. friedman]

probably true. paul mantz bought a slew of surplus birds with full tanks of av gas after the war. he then sold the fuel for a killing, & the birds are legends of course. the transaction with mantz was probably a bi-product of this.

[aerovin]

There was actually a disagreement between the War Assets Administration and Wunderlich about who owned the fuel. The government contended that the fuel was not part of the contract while Wunderlich said that the planes were bought as-is where is. The head of the WAA eventually conceded and the fuel sold with the planes. That there was fuel in tanks at all was the result of ferry pilots overfilling the airplanes for the airplane's last ferry flight, not some conspiratorial effort. As it happened, the aviation fuel, which had been sitting in the tanks for over a year, had to be re-refined before it could be made saleable.

It is clear to me that there was no such contractural stipulation. When the planes were moved to Kingman the plan was to scrap them, but there were no further specifics in the fall of 1945. The bid announcement for the mass sales were made in around May of 1946. There were certainly no fuel trucks going up and down the lines of airplanes filling them up before they were sold.

There was a lengthy Congressional hearing held around 1947 or 1948 that investigated the sale of the airplanes at Kingman and the other four large depots in June 1946: Walnut Ridge, Albuquerque, Ontario (Chino) and Clinton (OK). The accusations flying around were of the WAA and the contractors in bed with each other, and the contractors doing some inside trading as far as bid prices and post-purchase cooperation in the scrapping process. The accusations were mostly true, apparently, as there were other contractors out there who had complained about the process and raised questions about whether the fuel was supposed to be included or not. The record of the hearings provide specific details about how much fuel was recovered from the airplanes, how much it cost to make saleable, and what kind of profit was made on the fuel sale. If the numbers are to be believed, the fuel did not bring $2.7 million (the cost Wunderlich paid for the planes)...more like a five figure number if I recall correctly.

Interesting stuff...some of it is covered in detail in Military Aircraft Boneyards and the Congressional Record of the hearings is available (I happen to have a copy) to anyone willing to dig a bit in any of the dozens (hundreds?) of federal repository libraries around (mostly university libraries).

[Second Air Force]

Thanks, aerovin, that's the information I now don't have to look for! We met a gentleman at Walnut Ridge a few years ago who was a laborer there during the scrapping process, and he told us that the gas and oil was a pain to deal with. They were there primarily to smelt aluminum, and everything else was in the way of that process.

[gregv]

Great guys, thanks for all the info; it sure clears up some of the misconceptions and myths.

cheers

greg v.