Acrers and acrers of surplus(does it exist?)

[Peter Laidler]

Several years ago there was a querie about old wartime buried stockpiles. There were those that answered that the US Army and Air Force left crated planes and all sorts, buried everywhere across the Country. Alas, when investigated, they were all false.

The only thing that I have ever found is an old rusty Ithica M1911 in the crashed remains of an old glider and a hulk of a .303"Browning. But a still new in wrap crated Jeep of Boston would be nice..................

[John R.]

During the early stages of the"Cold War" the CIA(aka "Christians in Action" in some places) buried caches of WWII small arms,ammunition ,explosives and even rations, boots and clothing in various places in locales close to Eastern and Russian Occupied Europe.

AUSTRIA being a prime example.Every so often someone would stumble over/into one and find all kinds of neat stuff a lot of which had been poorly packed and as a result rusted/corroded to perdition.The idea HAD been to leave these caches so that IF it became necessary pro Western(read PRO US) partizans would at least have something to start resisting with until more advanced weaponry etc could be supplied along with cadres to train in the use of the materiel.Last one I heard about was probably 8 to 9 years ago.

The Belgians,having twice been occupied by the Germans(whom they detest) ALSO maintain caches of small arms and explosives in rural areas and only a select few are told of the locations.The village school in the little village where I owned a house in Belgium had an attic FULL of carefully cosmolined MkII Stens and MP40's as well as an even TEN nice MG 42's and a dozen cases of WWII British No36 Grenades and a plentiful stock of 9mm and 7.92mm BALL ammo.2 cases of TNT blocks were also included as were things like tape fuse,caps and time pencils etc.All good kit to have IF you are setting out to make life mizherable for unwanted 'visitors'.

I was very much accepted by my neighbours(I speak French and was ALWAYS careful to do my numbers in WALLOON (as opposed to Parisian French) which they liked.I have never been shy of hard work and would pitch in to help with haying and pulling root crops(and drinking a little of the homemade fruit liqueurs etc) so I was put in the know re the weapons stash.
I know that LIEBERAL,granola munching,cappuccino swilling,tree hugging green wienies(at least the part of said 'wienie' that isn't "FUDGE" coated that is) will FREAK out just thinking about guns and exposives in a school attic but then they would be the very first to surrender too;wouldn't they?My neighbours were a little more realistic.

Here in BC we get stories about WWII aircraft having been left IN CRATES on some of the WWII emergency airstrips that were built to ferry aircraft and equipment to Alaska and Ferry others on to Siberia.One in particular on the Liard Plateau that nobody seems to be able to locate is a good case in point.One military vehicle collector BSed a magazine columnist that HE had a Jeep rescued from one of these fanciful airstrips.Only problem was that the WINTER roof and gas heater were ALL Korean war vintage as was the FORD built M38 Jeep itself.

One MUST be able to sort the "wheat from the chaff" when reading about such tales.JR

[gunner]

John R.;

that is right . The CIA had a nice programm with building up a "Second Front of Partisans"" against the Neighbours from the eastern sector( i mean the folks with the tools in the flag). They even had their Caches here too. The " Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann" was such an group of " Partisan". Interesting part of history.

Regards

Gunner

[SSgt's Son]

Then, I guess that all those stories about the Russians having tons of K-98s, cleaned, re-blued, and cosmolined, as well as Thompson .45 full autos, in caves, must be urban myth also...

Or maybe this is where some of those urban myths started...

[Patrick Chadwick]

Well I have driven a steam locomótive (only 5"), but a UP 4-8-8-4 Big Boy is somewhat above my power class! Still, íf your back yard is big enough, and you have a private coal mine...I can only afford HO.

Patrick

[bearhunter]

So PC, maybe you would have some information on the arms that were stashed in England during the war for partisans to use in case of invasion? The UK government proudly admits to this case scenario. Were the weapons left in place or were they all rounded up by the wienies?
Seemed like a pretty good idea to me.

There is still a cold war era bunker, just out of Calgary, I believe that was surplussed to private individuals about 15 years ago. It was built to ensure survival of select government officials in case of nuclear confrontations. The government is now trying to force the sale of said accomodations back to the government.

There was a documentary about the place on CBC one evening. They removed several of the chrome vanadium doors to pay off the loan. They also showed pics of out dated food caches and a few vehicles that were up on blocks in long term storage mode. There were also generators, water treatment and storage facilities. The sleeping quarters were quite utilitarion but there were theatres, offices, gyms and most of the paraphenalia needed to operate a government. No mention was made of weapons.

There was a similar redoubt redoubt built in the US that was disguised as a resort. It was televised and shown to be redundant, but still fully stocked, again, no weapons were shown.

[browningautorifle]

Those bunkers were located all over Canada. I stayed in the one in Shilo Man in the 70s and I don't believe for a minute weapons were on site. It was for total lockdown not fighting from. Just a giant multi level bank vault. The one in Nanaimo BC was bulldozed over with dirt and can be viewed from the bi pass highway by all who know it's whereabouts. There was also one in Rockcliff off old NDHQ in Ottawa. I have no idea what happened to it. All they had in them was business equipment so to speak.

[jon_norstog]

I **did** see acres and acres of milsurp when I was in the service - rotting away on Kiska Island in the aleutians. I was on the CGC Dexter, fisheries patrol. We stopped at Kiska for a 4th of July holiday on the beach. One of the Enginemen picked up a rusted-up 50 cal. MG. I found a cyclinder head from a radial aircraft engine that looked like a giant Harley or Vincent head.

There was a huge amount of material stockpiled in the Aleutians in preparation for the invasion of Japan. After the war, it wasn't worth the Army's while to take the stuff off the island. Unless the stuff has been cleaned up since then, it's still there, rusting into oblivion.

jn

[robertb6112]

I think its a good chance its true. My friend is in army and got a captured k-98 at a military auction. He paid like 50 bucks for it i think. It was in decent condition.

[Harlan (Deceased)]

Thats an huge monster! The one I´ve seen are some numbers smaller than this. Over here you can take a ride on such an Steam Locomotive from Munich to the Lake Constance and back. One of the nicest way to waste time.

Regards

Gunner

Gunner, they called them the 'Big Boy' -
You can find quite a bit about them by searching the internet.
Here's a link with some info.
4-8-8-4 "Big Boy" Locomotives

Patrick,
I never got to operate a steam locomotive, but I got to ride in the cab a couple of times when I was young. My grandfather was a big member in a steam club back then. (They had three working steam engines and several Pullman cars)
I'm sure glad he took me on those trips.