PICS: P-51 Mustangs scrapped!

While doing a little internet research on the once huge USAAF airbase at Burtonwood (BAD1), Warrington, England, and which is close to where I live, I came across this set of photographs.

They show P-51 Mustangs on their final flight at the end of WW2 arriving at the base prior to them being dismantled and broken up.

It brings tears to my eyes looking at the photos - such a sad end to the once mighty warriors of the sky.

Caption reads: B7-L 361st FG 374th FS


Caption reads: LH-O 353rd FG 350th FS WW




Are you ready for this!....

Caption reads: mainly 353rd FG, but also 4th FG, 78th FG and 359th FG









More info on the airbase here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Burtonwood

 

Yes - I know all about can't-keep-everything-swords-into-ploughshares and all that but it's still heartbreaking to see pics like these. That 'razorback' checkernose P-51 in the second pic would be worth millions today.

 

Martin, am I correct in assuming that the 'razorback' is the early version of the P-51?

 

Being a ship buff, I can relate to being sad to see things in the scrapyard. But they won't be forgotten here at least. Great but sad photos.

 

Correct.

 

Yes it is sad to see the old warbirds being salvaged out, there was a photo in an old Time magazine that showed the hundreds of fighters, sitting on their noses here in America with the engines removed awaiting the "chopper" that would cut them into managable sections.

Just like the paper drives of WW2 made the comic books of the kids one of the first items "donated" by Mom & Dad to the scrap heap, make them so "collectible" today. Fewer of them around make them more valuable, same for the old fighters/bombers of that time.

 

Here are some more...

These look like P-38 Lightnings.








I was at the Burtonwood Associations museum last weekend and listened to a recording by a base employee who said he was part of a work gang that was charged with destroying brand new aircraft, including lightnings, that were en route to the UK when the war ended, thus making them surplus to requirement.

Various aircraft parts were laid out in a hanger and unceremoniously flattened with a steam roller !

 

I saw a show about PT boats and at War's end, the boats were burned after all the essential materials and parts were removed. They weren't needed anymore and it was the most cost affective way of getting rid of them. I'm sure that was the case with many of the aircraft in the pictures above. Sad to see but that's part of war. At least the dismantling was by choice, not by being dictated to.

 

Did you note the serial on the P-51 in the first picture? I can't make all the numbers out but it is followed by "WW" meaning "War Weary." That means the airframe has sufficent operational hours on it to be considered unsuitable for combat use. With WW 2 aircraft this is just a few hundred hours flying time. Scrapping worn out aircraft would have been considered normal and smart at the time just as it is today with modern planes.

 

P-51 plane, the best plane in the world world 2.