10.
MACHINE GRAVEYARDS
Decommissioned war machines have ended up in vehicle graveyards in practically every
corner of the globe, including even the most remote of places.
When a war ends, a lot of the equipment is no longer needed, so it’s often taken out
of service, parked in a lot or a field somewhere, and simply left to rot.
Photographer and history enthusiast Dmitry Osadchy spent five amazing years traveling
to these sites in more than 50 countries as part of his quest to capture images of the
historic military vehicles before they rust away and disappear or are finally cleaned
up.
He’s photographed old machines in nearly every imaginable type of environment, including
the desert in the United Arab Emirates, where he took snapshots of decaying planes, as well
as the Russian Arctic, where he snapped pictures of old ships that remain trapped in ice.
Osadchy has captured photos of the 301-foot-long (92 meters) Lun-class ekranoplan.
Nicknamed the “Caspian Sea Monster,” the Soviet aircraft was built in 1975.
Unlike conventional planes, it was designed to fly just over the water at extremely low
altitudes.
The ekranoplan has been sitting on the beach in Derbent, Russia since 2020.
The 38-year-old photographer also snapped haunting images of an entire tank graveyard
that’s being reclaimed by nature, as well as some old Soviet locomotives in Leningrad
oblast and an abandoned torpedo launcher in Kronstadt.
Osadchy’s photos feature machines that look like they’re ready and waiting to go into
battle on a moment’s notice despite obvious signs of wear and tear from decades of neglect.
Even though they’ll probably never be used again, many of the boats, planes, tanks, and
other vehicles are kept in closely guarded places that are closed to the public.
9.
IT GETS DESTROYED
The controversial decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan last year left the
military with the question of what to do with all the equipment it would no longer need.
It was speculated that tens of millions of dollars’ worth of vehicles were left behind.
Initially, some claimed that the equipment would be of no use to the Taliban due to a
lack of experienced operators.
But this belief was quickly proven wrong as the Taliban seized as many as 2,000 armored
vehicles and 100 aircraft, including U.S.-made UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and Russian Mi-17s.
News headlines reported that the militant group had taken control of an estimated $21
billion worth of abandoned machines.
In a press briefing, General Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie of the U.S. Central Command reported
that nearly 170 pieces of equipment left in Kabul had been “demilitarized,” or rendered
useless.
He explained that as American forces were on their way out of the country, they destroyed
up to 70 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected, or MRAP vehicles, 23 Humvees, and 73 aircraft.
Months earlier, after getting word of the impending withdrawal from Afghanistan, at
least 1,300 pieces of equipment had been destroyed.
But it’s clear, based on the Taliban’s ability to commandeer some vehicles, that
not everything the Americans left behind was inoperable.
It also implied that the Taliban had absorbed some former members of the Afghan Army who
had been formally taught how to operate the machines.
Writing for Forbes, defense expert Vikram Mittal explained that the U.S. did not gift
Afghanistan with top-of-the-line equipment, and that the Taliban probably lacks the resources
to maintain anything it’s made use of so far.
In other words, it’s likely only a matter of time before the vehicles are once again
left to decay.
8.
IT GETS SCRAPPED
If things had gone according to plan, the U.S. would have completely withdrawn from
Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
As you probably know, this didn’t happen.
But the military prepared for it throughout 2013 by scrapping more than 170 million pounds
of equipment as part of a bigger plan to get rid of $7 billion worth of equipment.
The decision to destroy the vehicles came after it was decided that the military had
no practical use for them and it would be unjustifiably expensive to ship them back
to the U.S. Instead, it was to be shredded, crushed, and sold as scrap.
The equipment that was slated for destruction accounted for roughly 20 percent of what the
Army brought into Afghanistan.
Many of the items that got scrapped were mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPs.
Out of the 11,000 that were in Afghanistan at the time, around 2,000 were classified
as “excess.”
And at a price tag of around $1 million each, that adds up to a pretty penny in losses.
And, like previous instances of military surplus being discarded, some people wondered if the
materials could have been put to better use or perhaps even donated to the Afghan military.
U.S. officials claimed that the rules surrounding giving equipment away are complicated, and
that Afghanistan’s landlocked geography made it difficult to remove MRAPs from the
country.
Some vehicles were given away to other countries, including around 9,000 MRAPs.
But a troubling number of them still got thrown away.
7.
MILLION DOLLAR POINT
During World War II, the U.S. military launched attacks against the Japanese from the island
of Espiritu Santo, which belongs to the Republic of Vanuatu.
American forces dumped dozens of vehicles, including bulldozers, tractors, forklifts,
jeeps, and trucks into the waters off the island, along with a sizable amount of trash.
After a failed attempt to negotiate a deal with locals to buy the equipment, it was deemed
cheaper to throw it away than to transport it back to the U.S.
The underwater mess has become a popular dive site, but some people have misgivings about
the decision to toss perfectly good vehicles into the ocean when they could have been donated
to the local people and put to good civilian use.
There could be more to the story.
The U.S. may have dumped the equipment because the huge influx of lower-cost vehicles into
the market would have adversely affected the American economy, according to Cabinet magazine
writer Thurston Clarke.
He described how locals watched as Navy Seabees drove the vehicles off the end of a purpose-built
ramp.
Military records from the time fail to convey the magnitude of the dumping, claiming that
the site consists of a modest amount of ammunition and nothing else.
This implies that the Americans perhaps knew that their decision to ditch the equipment
was controversial.
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6.
COLD WAR SUBMARINE GRAVEYARD
Russia’s Kola Peninsula is home to a Soviet era submarine graveyard that was largely forgotten
about until recent years.
The vehicles sit in a restricted zone near the Finnish border at a site that’s connected
to an active naval base.
They were dumped and forgotten about during the 1970s, when Soviet shipyards were struggling
to keep up with orders for new warships.
Simply put, disposing of the submarines properly wasn’t a priority.
Rumor has it that some of the decommissioned subs were used for target practice and sunk,
while others were simply left to decay.
But there’s a reason why it’s a bad idea to dump a submarine or boat into the water
and leave its fate to nature.
Over the years, oil and rust polluted the water, and the authorities finally realized
that they needed to clean it up before it got even worse.
At least one submarine was burned.
Others were dismantled, removed from the water, and recycled.
Some were in good enough shape to be used as training vessels, and one ended up on display
at a museum.
Based on satellite images captured in 2007, it looked as though there were still seven
subs sitting in the water, and were visibly beyond salvaging.
5.
ABANDONED EQUIPMENT IN VIETNAM
In 1975, the last remaining U.S. forces in Vietnam hastily left the country, leaving
behind an estimated $1 billion dollars’ worth of weapons and other equipment amid
the chaos.
Adjusted for inflation, that’s more than $5.2 billion today.
Hundreds of trucks, planes, tanks, armored personnel carriers, and artillery pieces were
left behind, along with large amounts of guns and ammunition.
Inside sources told the New York Times that no efforts were made to save any of the equipment.
By the time word of the abandonment reached news headlines, it was too late to accurately
calculate the true extent of the losses.
One local described seeing troops basically dropping their weapons and fleeing the city
of Pleiku, leaving behind dozens of planes and helicopters, several artillery pieces,
signal equipment, and thousands of tons of bombs and ammunition.
All this equipment reportedly fell into the hands of the North Vietnamese, along with
several dozen tanks that were abandoned in the Phu Bon Province capital of Hau Bon.
The government’s decision to abruptly retreat as the North Vietnamese advanced left a panicked
mess throughout the southern part of the country.
Within weeks, Saigon fell to the encroaching communist forces.
4.
REPURPOSED SURPLUS
As you’ll learn throughout today’s video, lots of perfectly good military equipment
was abandoned or tossed into the ocean when it was no longer needed.
But it hasn’t all gone to waste.
Some of it gets repurposed through the Defense Logistics Agency’s Disposition Services,
which finds new life for billions of dollars’ worth of outdated but functional equipment
every year.
In 2011, journalist Michelle Kennedy spoke with Rob Delong, a disposal service representative
who was working at one of the agency’s offices near Fort Drum in upstate New York.
His office only takes “big-ticket” items – mostly vehicles.
But the DLA Disposition Services takes all kinds of government surplus at its various
locations, including clothing, air conditioners, computers, and more.
The items are cataloged into the agency’s inventory, which gives federal agencies first
dibs when it comes to submitting requests.
Equipment is also sometimes donated to state and local governments and other qualified
organizations, including law enforcement and fire departments.
The receiving agency must agree to keep the piece of equipment for at least 18 months
before reselling it.
Items that are not reutilized within the government are sometimes sold to the public after being
deemed safe and appropriate for civilian use.
Disposition Services also facilitates the proper disposal of hazardous materials and
has a recycling program, reducing the environmental risks and costs that the obsolete property
comes with.
3.
SEIZED CIVIL WAR WEAPONS
In early 1865, 60,000 Union soldiers sacked the city of Columbia, South Carolina under
the leadership of General William Tecumsah Sherman.
The attack was meant to punish the Confederate Army for seceding from the Union.
Sherman’s forces torched the city and dumped all the weapons they had seized into the Congaree
River.
Over the years, the munitions became covered in a two-foot-thick (0.6 meters) layer of
tar that ran into the river as a byproduct from a nearby plant that closed in 1954.
Sonar scans revealed that there could be as many as 1.2 million cannonballs and 4,000
bayonet scabbards buried on the river bed.
Accessing the weapons was improbable until 2015, when the energy company SCANA Corp.
announced plans to lead an $18.5 million project to remove the tar.
It has taken several years to negotiate the details, but it looks as though the project
may finally start soon.
A safety plan is still being worked out, and the removal will take at least three years
to complete.
Archaeologists will sort through the tar in search of any historically valuable artifacts
that can teach them more about the Civil War and what went on during the sacking of Columbia.
2.
SAIPAN
Located in the western Pacific roughly 5,900 miles (9,495 km) from the American mainland,
Saipan is a commonwealth of the United States and the largest of the Mariana Islands.
It’s also the site of a brutal, weeks-long battle between U.S. and Japanese forces that
lasted from June 15 to July 9, 1944.
Known as the Battle of Saipan, the skirmish ended with an American victory and the island’s
capture from the Japanese.
There are numerous American and Japanese historical sites on Saipan.
Several Sherman M4 tanks can be found off the shore of Chalan Kanoa Beach, sitting in
about 10 feet (3 meters) of water.
They’re remarkably intact for their age and are a popular diving attraction among
tourists.
The island and its surrounding waters are also home to two sunken Japanese planes, two
American planes, a handful of merchant ships, some landing vehicles, and other machinery.
Divers can explore the submerged vehicles, including the Japanese naval ship Shoan Maru,
which sits roughly 30 feet (9 meters) beneath the waves.
Most of these attractions are available to entry-level divers.
For more experienced visitors, there’s an underwater pile of World War II era “junk”
filled with Jeeps, airplane parts, and other items that the U.S. Navy discarded during
its time in Saipan.
1.
RAF FOLKINGHAM
The British Royal Air Force Folkingham base was opened in Lincolnshire, England in 1940.
It served primarily as a troop carrier airfield and was used by both British and American
forces.
During the Cold War, the property functioned as a missile base.
When RAF Folkingham closed down in 1963, hundreds of vehicles that had seen use during wartime
were simply left at the site including trucks, boats, amphibious vehicles, and construction
and farming machines.
Over time, the rotting equipment became overgrown and covered in rust and peeling paint.
Shortly after the base shut down, the land was sold to a private buyer for agricultural
use.
But the vehicles were left untouched as they fell further into disrepair.
In 2013, MailOnline reported that the current owners stored the machines for the sale of
scrap parts.
Today, the field remains littered with the decaying equipment.
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