Operation Lusty - Disposition of Foreign Equipment

Disposition of Foreign Equipment

In 1945 the enemy aircraft shipped to the United States were divided between the navy and the Army Air Forces. General Hap Arnold ordered the preservation of one of every type of aircraft used by the enemy forces. The air force brought their aircraft to Wright Field, and when the field could not handle additional aircraft, many were sent to Freeman Field, Seymour, Indiana. In the end, Operation Lusty collectors had acquired 16,280 items (6,200 tons) to be examined by intelligence personnel who selected 2,398 separate items for technical analysis. Forty-seven personnel were engaged in the identification, inspection and warehousing of captured foreign equipment.

In 1946, when Freeman Field was scheduled to close, Air Technical Service Command had to move the aircraft. The larger aircraft were sent to Davis-Monthan Field, Arizona, and the fighter aircraft sent to the Special Depot, Park Ridge, Ill. (now O'Hare Airport), which was under the control of ATSC's Office of Intelligence. The Special Depot occupied buildings that Douglas Airplane Co. had used to build C-54 aircraft. The aircraft were stored in these two locations until they could be disposed of in accordance with General Arnold's order.

With the start of the Korean War in 1950, the air force needed the storage buildings, so the aircraft were moved outside. In 1953 some of the aircraft were moved to what would later become known as the National Air and Space Museum's Garber Restoration Facility in Suitland, Md., and the remaining aircraft were scrapped. It is possible that, as part of Lusty, an American-captured example of the Heinkel He 177A-7, a late war development of the Luftwaffe's only operational heavy bomber, had been ferried from Europe to the Park Ridge Depot, only to be similarly crushed flat and buried under the modern O'Hare airport runways.

Operation Lusty was responsible, for the sole surviving examples of the Arado Ar 234 jet reconnaissance/bomber, the Dornier Do 335 twin-engined heavy fighter, and the German Heinkel He 219 night fighter that are in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.