WAR MATERIAL FROM SCRAP

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 7, 10 April 1944, Page 23

WAR MATERIAL FROM SCRAP

The United States Navy’s programme for recovering and reconditioning material from war’s scrap-heap has resulted in 25,000 tons being converted to usable condition and another 25,000 tons being shipped back to the United States for reclamation from the South Pacific area. The value of the scrap retrieved from this one theatre is over $1,000,000, the Navy announces. Material Recovery Units, operating from fourteen overseas bases, move in as soon as a battle is over. Usable material is repaired and cleaned in the field ; the rest is returned to the United States for remelting or reclamation. Results obtained in the South Pacific are typical of the success with which the programme has operated on other fronts. At Oran the crews recovered $50,000 worth of Diesel-engine parts, and at Palermo 20,000 tons of steel plates for shipbuilding. At one African landing-point, fifteen damaged invasion craft, almost covered by sand, were spotted by a crew member. They were dug out and several tons of usable parts and equipment salvaged. Twenty heavy-duty trucks, in various stages of demolition, were recovered from one gravel-pit.