Germany recognised the value of aircraft scrap as a potential source of secondary aluminium quite early in the war but ap¬parently did not organise for maximum recovery until much later, when selected smelters, including some fabricators, were appointed to deal with the arisings. As long as adequate supplies of other forms of scrap were available, forums were not too keen to deal with aircraft scrap.nFifteen Luftwaffe break-up depots were set up to deal with crashed aircraft. The later ones were sited adjacent to smelters works. Useful components were recovered and the remaining scrap broken down into grades and sizes suitable for handling by the smelting firms.nThe available evidence indicates that, although the amount of cleaning and segregation planned to be carried out at the break-up depots was intended to render the scrap suitable for melting with¬out further treatment, in practice this was not attained. The result was that the smelters had either to carry out some additional cleaning or to accept the impurities in the ingot they otherwise produced.nIt was stated that, until the introduction of the inclined hearth furnace, the recovery of aluminium from aircraft scrap was not an economic proposition.
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