Trashing of Lend Lease equipment
Hello Bill,
You are correct about the post war agreements between US manufacturers, about not repatriating ex military trucks. It went much further than that however, and extended to things like beds, type writers and furnture.
I think there may have been arrangements in place to stop this equipment flooding onto the UK market.
After the war ended a great deal of ex American airforce equipment ended up on Harringworth airfield in Northamptonshire.
Farmers I knew who had owned the land before it became an airfield rented it after the war was over. They told stories of huge piles of beds, type writers, engines and trucks on the base. They could not get tractors or cars after the war, but these things were rusting away.
Eventually after some years, bulldozers were brought in and huge trenches were dug out, and the lot pushed in a buried.
These stories were current in the 1970's, when we used to learn to drive on the abandoned airfield perimeter tracks.
During the early 1980's the area was excavated to remove limestone and iron ore for the nearby steel works, and up came much of this old scrap.
The British had huge stocks of vehicles in the Suez Canal Zone, which were kept as a strategic reserve, to be used in the event of a Russian invasion of Europe. In the 1950's it was widely presumed that the Russians would reach the Channel in weeks, and any recovery of Europe would best be done by an allied landing in Turkey or Iran.
By 1955, it was clear we would have to leave Egypt, and most of these vehilces were disposed of.
A friend of mine who did his national service in the RE's spent many weeks loading trucks onto LCT's. The first thing to go on, was a Scammell Pioneer, with a big wooden baulk across its front bumper.
It would be reversed onto the LCT. All the other vehicles would then be dragged on, or driven on, if they would start.
They then sailed out a few miles into the Mediterrean, opened the ramp. The Scammell would be started up in a very low gear, and after a couple of minutes of spinning wheels and groaning and crunching, slowly but surely, the trucks would all be pushed off the front into the sea.
Regards
Nick Balmer
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