John
With reference to Defence hoarding their old abandoned and unused things reminds me of a story told to me by an old retired WW2 pilot at a dinner.
In 1946 some keen young fellows decided they would hold a car race event on the old abandoned Strathpine Airstrip north of Brisbane (now a suburban street called Spitfire Avenue). It was such a success that they decided on monthly meetings, all reported in the Monday newspaper.
Our hero who was a junior officer was summoned into the Group Captains office and listened to a tirade about people trespassing on (abandoned) RAAF property. He said he tried to put up an argument that they were not doing any harm, the RAAF were never going to use the strip again etc but was leaped upon from a great height and ordered to go to the forthcoming meeting and remove the trespassers from the property.
The meeting weekend came and went and the Group Captain called our bloke in to the office.
"Well, Smithers, did you get out to Strathpine and remove those people from our property?"
"Yes and no ,Sir. I went out there but the race meeting continued"
"What do you mean! I specifically ordered you to remove any trespassers"
"Well Sir, there was only one of me and three thousand of them."
Although I am sure he had told that story many times he started laughing and before long the whole table, all ex-service blokes, was roaring with laughter as other people threw in hilarious (XXXX or VB?) comments.
Nice history of Strathpine which eventually came back to the thread topic of WW2 disposal.
forums.autosport.com/topic/212310-strath...acing-circuit-1950s/ 
