NOW OBSOLETE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21923, 18 January 1946, Page 4

NOW OBSOLETE

300 CARRIER PLANES

DESTINED FOR DUMPING

FURTHER DISPOSALS LATER

SYDNEY, Jan. 17

Three hundred carrier planes of the Britisli Pacific Fleet will be dumped into the sea off Sydney Hfead s in the next 10 days from the escort-carrier Pioneer. Some of the planes are new but most have been flown. The nominal wartime value would be about £7,500,000, but they are described by the Royal Navy as being “surplus, obsolete and of no value to anybody.” “The end of a war is always a period of apparent waste,” said a Royal Navy spokesman. “There are bound to be surpluses of materials for which there is no use. American Avengers, Hellcats and Corsairs and British Barracudas are now obsolete and surplus and are the planes we will dump. They will be stripped of useful parts such as instruments, compasses and clocks.”

Later the Navy will dump a further 20 planes, including wrecks. There is apparently a glut of aluminium in Australia, as buyers for wrecks on aerodromes cannot be found. The Pioneer will commence loading aircraft to-day and will dump them in deep water 20 miles off the coast.