> It's not like before WWII when the Japanese bought one of the elevated subway lines in NYC and disassembled it for steel and shipped it back home to build battleships.
> I found a Wikipedia discussion, but it is by no means dispositive:
It seems fairly so on the claim that Japan bought the el, dismantled it, and shipped the steel home; it is less dispositive on the question of whether some of the steel either reached Japan or freed up other steel for shipment to Japan when it was dismantled by it's actual civic owners, who had no connection to Japan.
My 12th grade US history teacher. Circa 1973.
I found a Wikipedia discussion, but it is by no means dispositive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRT_Sixth_Avenue_Line#Allegati...
The NY Times also touched on it: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/11/nyregion/fyi-811695.html