These are very sad images of, now priceless, warbirds that were left to rot outside to be recycled later.
During and after WWII crash landed and unrecoverable airplanes were cast aside on massive airplane piles and left for another day when there would be time to recycle them. As the war progressed wrecked enemy airfields also fell into Allied hands, with destroyed airplanes of course.
BA2 #2c What a waste! HANGOVER HAVEN II in the Biak dump after just 12 operational missions. [Via]
BA2 #8a 44-51612 in a graveyard of B-25s and C-47s, probably Clark AB in the Philippines. [Via]
Japanese Aircraft Boneyard [Via]
German Airplane Graveyard [Via]
British Aircraft Graveyard [Via]
Rukuhia, New Zealand [Via]
Rukuhia, New Zealand [Via]
ME 262 Schwalbe [Via]
Hundreds of surplus World War II airplanes sit in rows at an airplane cemetery in Walnut Ridge, AR on December 5, 1948. Some of the planes were flown in straight from the factory, cut into pieces and melted down. The planes were mostly B25’s and B26’s [Via]
Boneyard in the South Pacific, 1946 [Via]
The abandoned aircraft of the Imperial Japanese air force, (among them e.g. machines Mitsubishi A6M5 Model 52) at the end of the war at the base in Atsugi [Via]
Graveyard of broken and dismantled German planes. In the frame of fighter Focke-Wulf and Messerschmitt Fw.190 Bf.110, night fighters Junkers Ju.88G and other aviation. [Via]
Broken German aircraft in the hangar, allies captured the airfield Shmarbek (Schmarbeck). In the frame visible Heinkel bombers and Heinkel He.111 He.117 ‘Greif’, as well as fighter Focke-Wulf Fw.190. [Via]
B-24 graveyard in Moratai, pacific [Via]
Wrecked B-24s cast aside [Via]
Aircraft dump on Guam [Via]
P38 Lightnings scrapped in the Philippines after the end of the war.[Via]
Scrapped B-29s on Tinian [Via]
Junked B-24’s & B-29’s on Guam [Via]
Storage
Aircraft stored for later use, most of the time they would end up the same way as the ones on our previous pictures, into the smelting oven…
Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighters stacked vertically at Walnut Ridge, Arkansas after World War II [Via]
Surplus fighter aircraft awaiting the smelter at Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, after World War II [Via]
B-29 Superfortress bombers in storage at Pyote Air Force Base, Texas, circa 1946 [Via]
Boeing B-29 Superfortress .. in storage at Pyote AFB after World War II [Via]
Boeing B-29, storage yard, El Paso TX, 20May49 [Via]