Airports Ed, Though I wasn't one of the BOAC gang I believe spare parts lists were submitted to the Air Ministry and permission was given I believe to remove them from brand new Halifax's at I think ,White Waltham where they were being scrapped, all I remember was we had a lot of different spares going through the Electrical /Instrument at that time they must have had paper work to be transferred to civilian use and be recertified .
the talk at the time was the planes had to be built as per contract test flown and then sent for scrap why the didn't scrap all the old planes the RAF were flying and given the brand new ones words fail me I met up with the Halifax again with 224 Squadron at Gibraltar and the were a heap of rubbish thank goodness we got the Shackleton 8 months later