Milsurp After Hours

The Arlington memorial to the unknown soldier was approved one hundred years ago today. The actual interment ceremony took place on November 11, 1921.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... d-1/seq-1/

WWI has been over for a while now. However in February of 1921 there was still a problem with what to do with a surplus of 4 billion in leftover war supplies of the general stores sort.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... d-1/seq-2/

I wonder what they did with all that stuff, they didn't dare just give it all away to the public
or it would bankrupt companies that made those items. Even selling it cheaply as surplus would put
a big dent in the sales of those companies.

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At the end of WWI the winning side started dividing up things. One area of the pie was the Pacific ocean. Seems a hundred years ago one newspaper was lamenting the possible territory the US would get out of it omitting Yap Island which had some cable use for the US.

It was subsequently decided to give Yap to the the Japs. And the Japanese worked out a deal with the US a year or so later for the US to have access to the Island for whatever it's purposes were of the commerce sort. Of course that came to an end as WWII came along after another couple of decades. Now Yap is apparently part of Micronesia as a free and independent establishment.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... d-1/seq-9/

The war is long over. The Germans have been fully defeated and the reparations have been inflicted. Now the allies have decided how to prevent the next war. They decided on ship numbers ....submarines being the main interest.Then there was this other thing. Could subs sink merchant ships?


https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... d-1/seq-1/

The last shipment of bodies home to the US from WWI? A hundred years ago today. Little did they know then that a couple of decades later they would be shipping bodies home again from another world war.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... d-1/seq-1/

The fighting 69th veterans in New York had a banquet in April of 1922. Note that they had buried a few of the former casualties who's bodies had been brought back in the previous year.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... -1/seq-11/

Here is an interesting note. The war has been over since the end of 1918. Now there is the cost of the thing still being worked over in 1922. The winners have some debt to shuffle around and maybe pay. Of course losers are expected to kick in for as much blood as can be squeezed from a turnip. And this is just the debt owed the US by Britain without all the gigantic debt at home in Europe to contend with among all the war participants.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn ... d-1/seq-1/

So France thought all the war debts should just be cancelled. Does that include the debt that
the Allies were squeezing out of what's left of Germany? Somehow I doubt it.
But why did France think the debts should just be cancelled is the real question.
$3 billion is a lot now, but back then it was REALLY a lot.

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https://ehsthelongrun.net/2018/08/21/th ... -1980/amp/

The UK paid the last of it's WWII debt to the US in 2006.