world war 2 junk

[claymore]

at the end of ww2 nearly all of Europe must have looked like a giant scrapyard, was anyone responsible for cleaning the mess up or was it just left to individual countries? I reckon some people would have made a fortune trading in scrap metal.

[VHG]

>I reckon some people would have made a fortune
>trading in scrap metal.

But you would have only made a fortune if you could find someone to buy it off you.

If there was so much rubbish lying around why would anyone need to pay a lot of money to buy it.

Also, most people and most countries were broke by the end of the war, so not much money around anyway.

[VHG]

I understand there are still some tanks at the bottom of the sea left there from the D Day landings.

Devices were made to help the tanks float to shore after they were taken off the landing craft, but the landing craft could not get near the shore (mines etc), and the sea was rough, so many tanks just dropped straight to the bottom.

I read somewhere they are till owned by the various armies so you cant just go and retrieve them and do with them what you want.

See "Surviving Tanks" at the bottom of this article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DD_tank

[heathfield]

There was a time after WWII when Libya's major export was scrap metal from the Allies desert war. Egyptian scap dealers also made fortunes from recovering destroyed tanks and vehicles. Live landmines, shells, and bombs could make gathering the scrap dangerous work. Even today, Egytian oil and gas exploration is hampered by the still-live remains from 22million landmines deployed by the Allies in North Africa.

[Soulcharger]

Individual countries started to clean up the mess caused by bombing, ground fighting and what was left of the German war machine. The allies handed over their lend-lease equipment (except the Soviet Union) nearly all of it was scrapped. For example the Royal Navy just tipped their Corsair fighters over the side of their aircraft carriers as the US didn't want all the aggro of trying to ship them back to the USA and scrap them.