26 Sad Images of WWII Airplane Graveyards & Storage Sites

These are very sad images of now priceless, warbirds that were left to rot outside to be recycled later.

During and after WWII, crash landed and unrecoverable airplanes were cast aside in massive piles and left for another day when there would be time to recycle them. As the war progressed, wrecked enemy airfields also fell into Allied hands, with destroyed planes.

Over a period of six years of conflict, from 1939 to 1945, aircraft designs had progressed in leaps and bounds.

From the obsolete biplane to the world’s first fighter, from crude twin-engine bombers to radical designs of the B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers, World War Two had seen the most radical use of aircraft in the battlefield.

Eventually, the war ended and the armies were left with thousands of planes that were either obsolete, damaged, or more than they could keep serviceable. The aircraft graveyards became overwhelmed with these forgotten beasts of war. Mostly they were scrapped for materials for recycling and “parted” out for other projects.

As we will see below, no matter how good an aircraft it was – the time for many had come to an end.

Here is a collection of these machines that helped fight the war.

2768468 — BA2 #2c What a waste! HANGOVER HAVEN II in the Biak dump after just 12 operational missions.

8108341 — BA2 #8a 44-51612 in a graveyard of B-25s and C-47s, probably Clark AB in the Philippines

6978051_f1024 — Japanese Aircraft Boneyard

6978083_f520 — German Airplane Graveyard

6978105_f520 — British Aircraft Graveyard

Me-262A-Schwalbe-abandoned-on-a-German-airfield-graveyard-1945-01 — ME 262 Schwalbe

BYGONE — Hundreds of surplus World War II airplanes sit in rows at an airplane cemetery in Walnut Ridge, AR on December 5, 1948. Some of the planes were flown in straight from the factory, cut into pieces and melted down. The planes were mostly B25’s and B26’s

84b431a142f1b19c5e100172ce701878 — Boneyard in the South Pacific, 1946

5d354417625cf5cad8e8defb1d1bc7a1 — The abandoned aircraft of the Imperial Japanese air force, (among them e.g. machines Mitsubishi A6M5 Model 52) at the end of the war at the base in Atsugi

aircraft_cemetry_2.77m1b6kkxx4w48o8ks0cw8wow.ejcuplo1l0oo0sk8c40s8osc4.th — How much money is in this picture

aircraft_cemetry.52xauc5mxwg0skwo84o8ooko8.ejcuplo1l0oo0sk8c40s8osc4.th — Graveyard of broken and dismantled German planes. In the frame of fighter Focke-Wulf and Messerschmitt Fw.190 Bf.110, night fighters Junkers Ju.88G and other aviation

hangar_wrecked_aircraft.4vy1fagm1se8048wo8k400w8w.ejcuplo1l0oo0sk8c40s8osc4.th — German aircraft in the hangar, allies captured the airfield Shmarbek (Schmarbeck). In the frame visible Heinkel bombers and Heinkel He.111 He.117 ‘Greif’, as well as fighter Focke-Wulf Fw.190.

Biak_Graveyard — B-24 graveyard in Moratai, pacific

edb08e4e1c6a95cc824817472c72db34 — Wrecked B-24s cast aside

6712962965_8cccdd701a_b — Aircraft dump on Guam

353b903298f861ed157758c4a8ec8d38 — P38 Lightnings scrapped in the Philippines after the end of the war.

Tinian-scrapped_B-29s_-_1946 — Scrapped B-29s on Tinian

Storage

Aircraft stored for later use, most of the time they would end up the same way as the ones on our previous pictures, into the smelting oven…

fighters-walnut-ridge-arkansas-boneyard-after-wwii — Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighters stacked vertically at Walnut Ridge, Arkansas after World War II

e09a6a70b0f8a2a8cd0c0a5b9fc90bc3 — Surplus fighter aircraft awaiting the smelter at Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, after World War II

b32-dominator-bombers-walnut-ridge-arkansas — B-32 “Dominator” aircraft awaiting destruction at Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, 1946.

b29s-pyote-air-force-base-texas-post-wwii — Boeing B-29 Superfortress .. in storage at Pyote AFB after World War II

8595053333_f43068f7e5_b — Boeing B-29, storage yard, El Paso TX, 20 May49

All we need now is a time machine……….