Called Million Dollar Point after the millions of dollars worth of material disposed there, the dump is a popular diving destination, and divers report an amazing quantity of wreckage: jeeps, six-wheel drive trucks, bulldozers, semi-trailers, fork lifts, tractors
The dumped goods were not abandoned by the Vanuatu (then known as the New Hebrides), but by personnel of a WWII American military base named Buttons. At the end of the war, sometime between August 1945 and December 1947, the US military interred supplies, equipment, and vehicles under water.
The Seabees built a ramp running into the sea and every day Americans drove trucks, jeeps, ambulances, bulldozers, and tractors into the channel, locking the wheels and jumping free at the last second. Engine blocks cracked and hissed.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/ready-to-cry-amazing-images-of-the-war-dump-million-dollar-point.html
Shameful, shameful, SHAMEFUL waste! I would love to know who's the f-in' genius that gave that order. And we wonder why Korea ended in a stalemate at the 38th parallel. Look at all that equipment our forces could have had to help push back, and maybe destroy, the advancing communist in the North. Some folks I know would disagree with my view, but I think we were very foolish to through it in the sea. Today North Korea is still a pain.
ReplyDeletein context, they had no clue we would get involved in another war, ever. They likely believed we had saved the damn planet, and the world would be at peace. Hell, we solved the Japanese and German empires all at the same time.... what would we need to save a couple hundred or thousand extra jeeps for? We left so much behind in Europe, that the French used all the latrine corrugated sheet metal to build Citroen 2CVs
DeleteAlso, I've no idea why we give a damn about north or south korea. Let them annihilate each other, what the hell difference would it make? You mean, American would have to operate the machines that build sneakers here instead of Koreans operating the machines? Big deal.
DeleteHyundai's wouldn't exist? I drive one, and wouldn't care if instead I were driving a Mazda. Korea doesn't matter. The fact that the USA is so completely screwed by the millionaires in congress is what gets me