During the Second World War, Canadian factories produced mountains of munitions and supplies, including some 800 ships, 16,000 aircraft, 800,000 vehicles, and over 4.6 billion rounds of ammunition and artillery shells. Although they were crucial to winning the war, these assets turned into peacetime liabilities when hostilities ended in 1945.
Drawing on comprehensive archival research, Alex Souchen provides a definitive account of the disposal crisis triggered by Allied victory and shows how policymakers implemented a disposal strategy that facilitated postwar reconstruction. Canadians responded to the unprecedented divestment of public property by reusing and recycling military surpluses to improve their postwar lives.
War Junk recounts the complex political, economic, social, and environmental legacies of munitions disposal in Canada by revealing how the tools of war became integral to the making of postwar Canada.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Death and Life of War Machines
1 Preparing for Peace: Creating the Disposal Administration
2 Forms and Floods: Controlling Disposal Operations
3 Cleanup Crew: Disposal Logistics and Postwar Requirements
4 Assets to Ashes? Recouping Value from Depreciating Things
5 Resold and Reused: Surplus Assets and the Postwar Transition
6 Recycling and Reconstruction: Thrift, Hybridity, and Economic Recovery
Conclusion: The Legacies of Disposal
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Alex Souchen is a historian specializing in warfare, society, and the environment in Canada, based in Kingston. He received his PhD from the University of Western Ontario and held a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies. He currently holds an Associated Medical Services Postdoctoral Fellowship at Trent University's Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies.
Review :
War Junk makes an entirely fresh contribution to a growing body of scholarship on Canada and war in the twentieth century.
- Andrew Iarocci, Canadian Military History Alex Souchen's fine work speaks to the enormous economic, political, as well as environmental consequences of wartime disposal. The breadth of this work is truly impressive. - Geoffrey Hayes, Department of History, University of Waterloo (University of Toronto Quarterly)
