DANGER OF COPS PLAYING COMMANDO

BETWEEN 1944 and 1970, the US routinely discarded thousands of tonnes of functioning arms and munitions into the sea.

- KAJAL BASU

Aside from those considered ‘surplus’—a weasel word meaning excess, obsolete or unprofitable—the dumping was undertaken to clear the stockpiles for newer weaponry, and to circumvent strict decommissioning protocols.

During Operation CHASE—acronym for cut holes and sink ’em—in 1964-70, the US scuttled entire decommissioned ships loaded with chemical and newly ‘obsolete’ weapons in the deep ocean. The ironically named Operation Davy Jones’ Locker in 1946-48 sank ships loaded with munitions in the North Sea. During the Million-Dollar Point operation in 1945 in the South Pacific, the US Army bulldozed vast amounts of wartime equipment—tanks, jeeps, rifles—into the sea off Espiritu Santo (now in Vanuatu).

Way had to be made for flashy new weaponry from the arms factories that continued to boom, war or no war. The public saw through this uncommon profligacy and forced the US Congress to prohibit weapons jettisoning through the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act—also known as the Ocean Dumping Act—of 1972.