Come as You Are

The Korean War caught the American military off-guard in many ways.  What the U.S. did not lack in 1950 was plenty of surplus equipment. One of the duties assigned to troops occupying Japan during the late 1940s was the collection of materiel accumulated for the invasion of Japan - an event that was planned but never happened.  The image above shows an aircraft runway populated with jeeps used on Okinawa and other Pacific battles preceding the conclusion of World War II.  Teams of military and Japanese civilian contractors overhauled these and other vehicles before and during the Korean War. When that war broke out, the American military relied on surplus assets for at least a year.  Loss of life was sometimes caused - or hastened - by the poor mechanical integrity of these vehicles.