Rick K. Remembers: Military Surplus

Back on April 3, I did a post about the Ohio National Guard Armory on Grove Avenue that included a photo of the old personnel carrier tank parked out in front. Its fighting days over, and no longer needed by the army, the tank has enjoyed a peaceful retirement for decades.

But what about normal-sized military surplus? How and why did all that stuff end up in stores like Cane’s Surplus on Broadway?

Regular blog contributor Rick Kurish has the answer.

In a recent email, Rick wrote, "Have you ever considered a blog series on the military surplus bonanza which existed at the end of World War II?

"As the war was coming to an end, the federal government realized that they would have to deal with a huge surplus of military material. To deal with this, the government created the War Assets Administration, and charged it with liquidating the surplus.

"In its approximately five year lifetime, from about 1946 to about 1950, the War Assets Administration managed to auction off 32 billion dollars of surplus military material, which would be over 300 billion in todays dollars! The result was that military surplus stores, which had first appeared after the first World War, sprung up in cities all over the country.

"Virtually every city of a certain size had at least one store. Many of your blog readers are probably familiar with Cane’s in Lorain, Dave’s in Oberlin, and also Federal and Elyria Surplus Center, both in Elyria.

"The range of military equipment that these stores sold was amazing — especially to a young boy. Probably every family in the 1946 – 1960 time frame had some items that had at one time been military surplus.

"As a young kid in the 1950s, I camped out in the backyard sleeping on my army surplus folding cot, while being kept warm by my army surplus blankets.

"I have attached a few sample ads from the 1946 to 1950 time frame to give an idea of what was available.”

Here are Rick’s ads from the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram. The first three are for the Federal Store at 307 Broad Street.

Here a couple more, for Elyria Surplus Center.

Rick noted, "The surplus was so large that the surplus spilled over to regular retail establishments. I have ads of surplus army air force watches sold in jewelry stores, army surplus bunk beds sold in furniture stores, surplus radios sold in electronics stores, surplus rubber boats sold in sporting goods stores, and even army ammunition boxes and army air force goggles sold in five & dime stores.”

Here are some of the ads that Rick is referring to.

"The stuff was everywhere,” observed Rick. "I’ll bet many of your readers have fond memories of this “Golden Age” of military surplus.”

Rick shared a few of his own personal memories.

"My dad was an electrician and often worked outdoors in cold weather,” he noted. "He purchased some of his cold weather work clothes at Cane’s in Lorain. He spent a portion of his World War II service in the Aleutian Islands in Alaska so he knew what cold weather was, and he purchased a lot of army surplus gloves, socks, long underwear, etc. at Cane’s over the years.

"I remember going with him at times when I was about 8 years old and bugging him to buy me things. I remember one time trying to get him to buy me a gas mask, and finally settled for a compass. The compass had more features than an eight year kid knew what to do with — but at least I always knew which way was north.

"I remember at about the same time, a friend of mine who lived down the street became the envy of the kids in the neighborhood when he acquired a surplus hand held periscope. It was supposedly used by tank crews to enable them to observe the area without exposing themselves to enemy fire by climbing out of the hatch on the tank. We had great fun for a while using the periscope to peek over and around things without being observed.

"Ahh, it was great to be a kid in the 1950s, even though we didn’t have the internet and video games!”

Special thanks as usual to Rick for sharing his research and well-written memories.

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Like Rick, I enjoyed poking around in Cane’s during and after my high school days; I was sorry when the business finally closed and Downtown Lorain lost yet another mainstay. Later, Dave’s Army Navy store was the only reason I ever drove to Oberlin; unfortunately, Dave’s closed in 2010.