An Army depot in Utah recently shared photos of World War II-era munitions being demilled, and it looks like the stuff held up pretty good over the years. 

Tooele Army Depot, or TEAD, a sprawling 23,000-acre facility located on the southern edge of Utah's Skull Valley, was first established in 1942, just months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The depot has long been a storage site for military materiel of all sorts, specializing in ammunition. Speaking of which, they scrap over a million rounds a year of old .50 cal ammunition. 
 

This stuff. Still in spam cans in the original wooden crates and complete with Army Ordnance marks. (Photo: Tooele Army Depot)

"The ammo was manufactured in 1944, originally stored at the Ogden Arsenal, and then moved to TEAD decades ago," said the base on social media. "This ammo was originally produced for our troops fighting in Europe and the Pacific."
 

Their current lot traces back to WWII and the Ogden Arsenal. This card is for  M8 Armor-Piercing Incendiary .50 cal ammo. Notably, Lake City still makes M8 today. If it ain't broke... (Photo: Tooele Army Depot)
Kinda rough spam can on the outside – It's 77 years old, just a year younger than Joe Biden! But the cardboard boxes inside still look nice. (Photo: Tooele Army Depot)
A journey over. (Photo: Tooele Army Depot)

 

What was Ogden Arsenal? 


Ogden Arsenal, as detailed in a 1965 article in Utah Historical Quarterly, originally started in 1920 as a storage site for ammo left over from World War I. In 1936, it expanded with a new ammunition loading plant. This further swelled during WWII when the arsenal employed 6,000 people, more than half of whom were women. 
 

A woman at Ogden Arsenal works on a 37mm shell (left). The munitions not immediately shipped were stored long term in rows of reinforced "igloo" type magazines (right). Tooele today has over 900 similar igloos. (Photos: Library of Congress) 


Among the items produced there were hand grenades, 60mm and 81mm mortar shells, 37mm cannon shells, and both .30- and .50-caliber ammo. However, as part of the drawdown following the Korean War, the production facility closed in 1955, transferring its operation to Tooele. 

Looking for your own artifacts? Be sure to check out our carefully curated Military Classics and Collector's Corner sections where history is just a click away.

revolver barrel loading graphic

Loading