D Day clean up after the invasion

[pinjarra]

Who cleaned up all the mess, damaged and destroyed vehicles on both sides, and what about all the gliders, what happened to them. Then al the rest of the stuff that was discarded during the first few weeks, like fire arms, rations, tents, ammo boxes, and artillery.

Some one or special units must of been deployed for the task and how much was recovered or destroyed by burning or being burried.

[LineDoggie]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oaSShk ... blicDomain

[Sheldrake]

German PW cleared the minefields

[Richard Sands]

I once worked with a Guy who served in the RAF as ground crew, He went over a couple of weeks after D-Day to reclaim Gliders, they were shipped back and they then made new gliders out of the reclaimed bits and pieces.

[Hans1906]

In Germany, the years after 1945 were a gold mine, at least three or four local scrap merchants made a fortune from it all.
It makes no sense to go into detail, but the stuff was still everywhere in the 1950s.

Tanks, tracked vehicles were everywhere, we children were warned to look in the woods, we were looking for German assault rifles, none of that was ever particularly funny.

The world war was not an issue, we played "war" with weapons, dug up ammunition, we were very lucky.

Our childhood friend Michael lost an eye from old ammo.
Young Michael was brave, we ran away, Michael handled all that crap, curiosity was formative, ignorant kids...

You can't keep kids away from something like this and that was exactly the theme, adventure, suspense, that's exactly how it was.


Hans

[Carl Schwamberger]

The French government administered the bulk of the clean up. They had plenty of people around who had been involved in the clean up after the Great War. Scrap merchants were contracted for much of it. Construction contractors of course for the buildings. The French Army had first dibs on the German equipment that was still useable. As late as 1948 the French were still maintaining a battalion of salvaged Panther tanks.

In Japan 1950-1954 US military demand for steel planks for temp pavement, girders for bridges, and frames for logistics shelters created a market for the wreckage of the former navy lying derelict in Japans ports and breaker yards.

[Michael Kenny]

When 59th Infantry Division was broken up in late August 1944 its 197th Infantry Brigade became a Battlefield Clearance Group.

[Delta Tank]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oaSShk ... blicDomain

That was a really good video!

Thanks!
Mike