After winning the war, came scrapping excess aircraft

(B-24 Liberator "Missouri Miss" meets

the guillotine at Kingman Army Air Field)

America made tens-of-thousands of military aircraft during World War II.

After the war, many of those aircraft were obsolete and would be scrapped. Here is that story.

Within a year of the signing of peace treaties, about 34,000 airplanes had been moved to 30 locations within the U.S. The War Assets Administration (WAA) and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) handled the disposal of these aircraft.

Active duty military personnel typically flew the aircraft into Kingman, and civilian employees would handle parking and classification. To accommodate the large numbers of employees, tent cities were erected on site. In subsequent months, brand new aircraft directly from assembly lines were disposed of at Kingman.

Three furnaces were operated at Kingman for melting the airplane components.

(Stacks of aluminum ingots ...

the remains of the great American World War II bomber fleet.)