Ever see "The Best Years of Our Lives"...one of the finest WW II movies ever made? In the beginning, there's this scene, right after the war's end.. where a bomber, returning to America..flies over thousands of USAAF planes just crammed into an airport..it's actual footage..from the bombadier's perspective...One of the crew looks down, whistles, and says "Man oh man..we sure could have used all those in 1943."
The cutbacks to the military worldwide right after the war were enormous..everyone wanted to get back to peacetime, their lives..there was nothing else to do with all that surplus armaments..except scrap them....and that's why the few that remain are so valuable now..