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By Pierre Kosmidis
Photos: As credited
A young Japanese hired by the US Army cleans and stacks M30-32 Tetsu-bo helmets.
An axe symbolically swings in a blurred arc past the swastika on the tail of this Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber during scrapping in Germany in July 1945.
An overturned Messerschmfitt Bf 109 fuselage and wing awaited smelting at Holzkirchen, Germany, on June 17, 1948 in this photo from an Army Air Forces historical document. (AAF)
Antwerp in late 1945 early 1946, an embankment pier for general war scrap, in this case vehicle parts and metal ammunition boxes.
FW190s await destruction near the German city of Flensburg
German prisoners of war, wearing German uniform caps, dismantled a Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter for scrap in a small town southeast of Wurzburg, Germany, in the summer of 1945. (AAF)
GI hooks a tow rope to a Type 97 Te-Ke tank during cleanup of the Okinawa battlefields at the end of WWII in 1945.
It wasn’t only the Luftwaffe that was scrapped in Germany after the war; a jumble of P-47 Thunderbolt fighters awaits the smelter. (AAF)
GERMANY UNDER ALLIED OCCUPATION (BU 11681) A huge salvage dump of wings from German aircraft at No.12 Field Salvage Unit Depot, Hanover. All useful materials, especially metals were removed and sorted ready for re-use. Much of the salvaged material was shipped to the United Kingdom. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205206216
BELGIUM. 1947. A destroyed German “Panther” tank.
Sheep graze under a wrecked Fw-190 near Nuremberg during the summer of 1946
This pile of vehicle carcasses at Vilvorde, Belgium was a common sight in the Low Countries and occupied Germany after WWII.