![Ww2-lend-lease-bill-hr-1776-l](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Ww2-lend-lease-bill-hr-1776-l.jpg)
Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other
Allied nations
The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy ...
with food, oil, and
materiel
Materiel (; ) refers to supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commercial supply chain context.
In a military context, the term ''materiel'' refers either to the specif ...
between 1941 and 1945. It was given on the basis that such help was essential for the defense of the United States; this aid included warships and warplanes, along with other weaponry. It was signed into law on March 11, 1941, and ended on September 20, 1945. In general, the aid was free, although some hardware (such as ships) were returned after the war. Canada, already a belligerent, supplemented its aid to Great Britain with a similar, smaller program called
Mutual Aid.
A total of
$50.1 billion (equivalent to $ in ) worth of supplies was shipped, or 17% of the total war expenditures of the U.S.
In all, $31.4 billion went to the United Kingdom, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France, $1.6 billion to China, and the remaining $2.6 billion to the other Allies. Reverse Lend-Lease policies comprised services such as rent on air bases that went to the U.S., and totaled $7.8 billion; of this, $6.8 billion came from the British and the
Commonwealth. The terms of the agreement provided that the materiel was to be used until returned or destroyed. In practice, very little equipment was returned and most was destroyed during the war. Supplies that arrived after the termination date were sold to the United Kingdom at a large discount for £1.075 billion, using long-term loans from the United States. Canada's Mutual Aid program sent a loan of $1 billion and $3.4 billion in supplies and services (equivalent to $61 billion in 2020) to the United Kingdom and other Allies.
[Crowley, Leo T. "Lend-Lease". In Walter Yust, ed., ''10 Eventful Years'' (Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 1947), 1:520, 2:858–860.]
Lend-Lease effectively ended the United States' pretense of
neutrality which had been enshrined in the
Neutrality Acts of the 1930s
The Neutrality Acts were a series of acts passed by the US Congress in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939 in response to the growing threats and wars that led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in ...
. It was a decisive step away from
non-interventionist
Non-interventionism or non-intervention is a political philosophy or national foreign policy doctrine that opposes interference in the domestic politics and affairs of other countries but, in contrast to isolationism, is not necessarily opposed t ...
policy and toward open support for the Allies. Roosevelt's top foreign policy advisor
Harry Hopkins had effective control over Lend-Lease, making sure it was in alignment with Roosevelt's foreign policy goals.
History
Non-interventionism and neutrality
![Aid From America- Lend-lease Food, London, England, 1941 D4324](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Aid_From_America-_Lend-lease_Food%2C_London%2C_England%2C_1941_D4324.jpg)
The 1930s began with one of the world's
greatest economic depressions—which had started in the United States—and the later
recession of 1937–38
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various ...
(although minor relative to the Great Depression) was otherwise also one of the worst of the 20th century. Following the
Nye Committee
The Nye Committee, officially known as the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, was a United States Senate committee (April 12, 1934 – February 24, 1936), chaired by U.S. Senator Gerald Nye (R-ND). The committee investig ...
[Officially the "Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry".] hearings, as well as influential books of the time, such as ''
Merchants of Death
Merchants of death was an epithet used in the U.S. in the 1930s to attack industries and banks that had supplied and funded World War I (then called the Great War).
Origin
The term originated in 1932 as the title of an article about an arms d ...
'', both 1934, the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
adopted several
Neutrality Acts in the 1930s, motivated by
non-interventionism
Non-interventionism or non-intervention is a political philosophy or national foreign policy doctrine that opposes interference in the domestic politics and affairs of other countries but, in contrast to isolationism, is not necessarily opposed t ...
—following the aftermath of its costly involvement in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
(the war debts were still not paid off), and seeking to ensure that the country would not become entangled in foreign conflicts again. The Neutrality Acts of
1935,
1936, and
1937 intended to keep the United States out of war, by making it illegal for Americans to sell or transport arms, or other war materials to warring nations—neither to aggressors, nor to defenders.
Cash and carry
In 1939 however—as Germany, Japan, and Italy pursued aggressive, militaristic policies—
President Roosevelt wanted more flexibility to help contain Axis aggression. He suggested amending the act to allow warring nations to purchase military goods, arms and munitions if they paid cash and bore the risks of transporting the goods on non-American ships, a policy that would favor Britain and France. Initially, this proposal failed, but after
Germany invaded Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week afte ...
in September, Congress passed the
Neutrality Act of 1939 ending the munitions embargo on a "cash and carry" basis. The passage of the 1939 amendment to the previous Neutrality Acts marked the beginning of a congressional shift away from isolationism, making a first step toward interventionism.
After the
Fall of France during June 1940, the British Commonwealth and Empire were the only forces engaged in war against
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, until the
Italian invasion of Greece
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
. Britain had been paying for its materiel with gold as part of the "
cash and carry" program, as required by the U.S.
Neutrality Acts of the 1930s
The Neutrality Acts were a series of acts passed by the US Congress in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939 in response to the growing threats and wars that led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in ...
, but by 1941 it had liquidated a large part of its overseas holdings and its
gold reserves
A gold reserve is the gold held by a national central bank, intended mainly as a guarantee to redeem promises to pay depositors, note holders (e.g. paper money), or trading peers, during the eras of the gold standard, and also as a store of ...
were becoming depleted in paying for materiel from the United States.
During this same period, the U.S. government began to mobilize for total war, instituting the first-ever peacetime
draft
Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to:
Watercraft dimensions
* Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel
* Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail
* Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...
and a fivefold increase in the defense budget (from $2 billion to $10 billion). The
Two-Ocean Navy Act
The Two-Ocean Navy Act, also known as the Vinson-Walsh Act, was a United States law enacted on July 19, 1940, and named for Carl Vinson and David I. Walsh, who chaired the Naval Affairs Committee in the House and Senate respectively. The largest ...
of July 1940 set in motion a rapid expansion of the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
. In the meantime, Great Britain was running out of liquid currency and asked not to be forced to sell off British assets. On December 7, 1940, its Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
pressed President
Roosevelt
Roosevelt may refer to:
*Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), 26th U.S. president
* Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), 32nd U.S. president
Businesses and organisations
* Roosevelt Hotel (disambiguation)
* Roosevelt & Son, a merchant bank
* Rooseve ...
in a letter for American help.
[Churchill called the letter "one of the most important I ever wrote."] Sympathetic to the British plight, but hampered by public opinion and the Neutrality Acts, which forbade arms sales on credit or the lending of money to belligerent nations, Roosevelt eventually came up with the idea of "lend–lease". As one Roosevelt biographer has characterized it: "If there was no practical alternative, there was certainly no moral one either. Britain and the Commonwealth were carrying the battle for all civilization, and the overwhelming majority of Americans, led in the late election by their president, wished to help them." As the President himself put it, "There can be no reasoning with incendiary bombs."
["Address Is Spur To British Hopes; Confirmation of American Aid in Conflict is Viewed as Heartening, A joining of interests, Discarding of Peace Talks is Regarded as a Major Point in the Speech." ''The New York Times,'' December 30, 1940.]
In September 1940, during the
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
the British government sent the
Tizard Mission
The Tizard Mission, officially the British Technical and Scientific Mission, was a British delegation that visited the United States during WWII to obtain the industrial resources to exploit the military potential of the research and development ( ...
to the United States. The aim of the British Technical and Scientific Mission was to obtain the industrial resources to exploit the military potential of the
research and development work completed by the UK up to the beginning of World , but that Britain itself could not exploit due to the immediate requirements of war-related production. The British shared technology included the
cavity magnetron
The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and currently in microwave ovens and linear particle accelerators. It generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of electrons with a magnetic field whi ...
(key technology at the time for highly effective
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
; the American historian James Phinney Baxter III later called "the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores"), the design for the
VT fuze
A proximity fuze (or fuse) is a fuze that detonates an explosive device automatically when the distance to the target becomes smaller than a predetermined value. Proximity fuzes are designed for targets such as planes, missiles, ships at sea, ...
, details of
Frank Whittle
Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, (1 June 1907 – 8 August 1996) was an English engineer, inventor and Royal Air Force (RAF) air officer. He is credited with inventing the turbojet engine. A patent was submitted by Maxime Guillaume in 1921 fo ...
's
jet engine and the
Frisch–Peierls memorandum describing the feasibility of an atomic bomb. Though these may be considered the most significant, many other items were also transported, including designs for
rocket
A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...
s,
superchargers,
gyroscopic gunsights, submarine detection devices, self-sealing fuel tanks and
plastic explosive
Plastic explosive is a soft and hand-moldable solid form of explosive material. Within the field of explosives engineering, plastic explosives are also known as putty explosives
or blastics.
Plastic explosives are especially suited for explo ...
s.
In December 1940, President Roosevelt proclaimed the United States would be the "
Arsenal of Democracy
"Arsenal of Democracy" was the central phrase used by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a radio broadcast on the threat to national security, delivered on December 29, 1940—nearly a year before the United States entered the Second Worl ...
" and proposed selling munitions to Britain and Canada.
Isolationists were strongly opposed, warning it would result in American involvement with what was considered by most Americans as an essentially European conflict. In time, opinion shifted as increasing numbers of Americans began to consider the advantage of funding the British war against Germany, while staying free of the hostilities themselves. Propaganda showing the devastation of British cities during
The Blitz
The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'.
The Germa ...
, as well as popular depictions of Germans as savage also rallied public opinion to the Allies, especially after
Germany conquered France.
Lend-Lease proposal
After a decade of neutrality, Roosevelt knew that the change to Allied support must be gradual, given the support for isolationism in the country. Originally, the American policy was to help the British but not join the war. During early February 1941, a
Gallup poll revealed that 54% of Americans were in favor of giving aid to the British without qualifications of Lend-Lease. A further 15% were in favor of qualifications such as: "If it doesn't get us into war," or "If the British can give us some security for what we give them." Only 22% were unequivocally against the President's proposal. When poll participants were asked their party affiliation, the poll revealed a political divide: 69% of Democrats were unequivocally in favor of Lend-Lease, whereas only 38% of Republicans favored the bill without qualification. At least one poll spokesperson also noted that "approximately twice as many Republicans" gave "qualified answers as ... Democrats."
Opposition to the Lend-Lease bill was strongest among isolationist Republicans in Congress, who feared the measure would be "the longest single step this nation has yet taken toward direct involvement in the war abroad". When the
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
finally took a roll call vote on February 9, 1941, the 260 to 165 vote was largely along party lines. Democrats voted 238 to 25 in favor and Republicans 24 in favor and 135 against.
The vote in the Senate, which occurred on 9 March, revealed a similar partisan difference: 49 Democrats (79 percent) voted "aye" with only 13 Democrats (21 percent) voting "nay". In contrast, 17 Republicans (63 percent) voted "nay" while 10 Senate Republicans (37 percent) sided with the Democrats to pass the bill.
President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease bill into law on March 11, 1941. It permitted him to "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of, to any such government
any defense article." In April, this policy was extended to China, and in October to the Soviet Union. Roosevelt approved $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to Britain at the end of October 1941.
This followed the 1940
Destroyers for Bases Agreement
The destroyers-for-bases deal was an agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom on September 2, 1940, according to which 50 , , and US Navy destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy from the US Navy in exchange for land rights ...
, whereby 50 US Navy
destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy and the
Royal Canadian Navy
The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN; french: Marine royale canadienne, ''MRC'') is the naval force of Canada. The RCN is one of three environmental commands within the Canadian Armed Forces. As of 2021, the RCN operates 12 frigates, four attack submar ...
in exchange for basing rights in the Caribbean. Churchill also granted the US base rights in
Bermuda
)
, anthem = "God Save the King"
, song_type = National song
, song = "Hail to Bermuda"
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, mapsize2 =
, map_caption2 =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name =
, es ...
and
Newfoundland for free; this act allowed their British garrison to be redeployed to more crucial theatres. In 1944, Britain transferred several of the US-made destroyers to the USSR.
After the
attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii ...
and the United States entering the war in December 1941, foreign policy was rarely discussed by Congress, and there was very little demand to cut Lend-Lease spending. In spring 1944, the House passed a bill to renew the Lend-Lease program by a vote of 334 to 21. The Senate passed it by a vote of 63 to 1.
Multilateral Allied support
In February 1942, the U.S. and Britain signed the Anglo-American Mutual Aid Agreement as part of a greater multilateral system, developed by the Allies during the war, to provide each other with goods, services, and mutual aid in the widest sense, without charging commercial payments.
Scale, value and economics
![WorldWarII-GDP-Relations-Allies-Axis-simple](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/WorldWarII-GDP-Relations-Allies-Axis-simple.svg)
A total of
$50.1 billion (equivalent to $ in ) was involved, or 17% of the total war expenditures of the U.S.
Most, $31.4 billion ($) went to Britain and its empire. Other recipients were led by $11.3 billion ($) to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion ($) to France, $1.6 billion ($) to China, and the remaining $2.6 billion to the other Allies. Reverse lend-lease policies comprised services such as rent on bases used by the U.S., and totaled $7.8 billion; of this, $6.8 billion came from the British and the
Commonwealth, mostly Australia and India. The terms of the agreement provided that the materiel was to be used until returned or destroyed. In practice, very little equipment was in usable shape for peacetime uses. Supplies that arrived after the termination date were sold to Britain at a large discount for £1.075 billion, using long-term loans from the United States. Canada was not a direct recipient of Lend-Lease aid. To address balance of payment issues between the US and Canada, and to prevent the US monopolizing British orders, the Hyde Park Declaration of 20 April 1941 made weapons and components manufactured in Canada for Britain eligible for Lend-Lease financing as if they had been manufactured in the US.
Canada operated a program similar to Lend-Lease called
Mutual Aid that sent a loan of
Can$
The Canadian dollar (symbol: $; code: CAD; french: dollar canadien) is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, there is no standard disambiguating form, but the abbreviation Can$ is often suggested by notable style ...
1 billion (equivalent to Can$ billion in ) and Can$3.4 billion (Can$ billion) in supplies and services to Britain and other Allies.
Administration
Roosevelt made sure that Lend-Lease policies were supportive of his foreign policy goals by putting his top aide
Harry Hopkins in effective control of the program.
In terms of administration, the president established the Office of Lend-Lease Administration during 1941, headed by steel executive
Edward R. Stettinius. In September 1943, he was promoted to Undersecretary of State, and
Leo Crowley
Leo Thomas Crowley (August 15, 1889 – April 15, 1972) was a senior administrator for President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the head of the Foreign Economic Administration. Previously he had served as Alien Property Custodian and as chief o ...
became director of the
Foreign Economic Administration In the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Foreign Economic Administration (FEA) was formed to relieve friction between US agencies operating abroad on September 25, 1943.
As described by the biographer of the FEA's chief, Leo Crowley ...
, which was given responsibility for Lend-Lease.
Lend-Lease aid to the USSR was nominally managed by Stettinius. Roosevelt's Soviet Protocol Committee was dominated by Harry Hopkins and General John York, who were totally sympathetic to the provision of "unconditional aid". Few Americans objected to Soviet aid until 1943.
The program was gradually terminated after
V-E Day
Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the official end of World War II in Europe in the Easte ...
. In April 1945, Congress voted that it should not be used for post-conflict purposes, and in August 1945, after Japan surrendered, the program was ended.
Significance of Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease contributed to the Allied victory. Even after the United States forces in Europe and the Pacific began to attain full strength during 1943–1944, Lend-Lease continued. Most remaining Allies were largely self-sufficient in frontline equipment (such as tanks and fighter aircraft) by this time but Lend-Lease provided a useful supplement in this category and Lend-Lease logistical supplies (including motor vehicles and railroad equipment) were of enormous assistance.
Much of the meaning of Lend-Lease aid can be better understood when considering the innovative nature of World , as well as the economic distortions caused by the war. One of the greatest differences with prior wars was the enormous increase in the mobility of armies. This was the first big war in which whole formations were routinely motorized; soldiers were supported with large numbers of all kinds of vehicles.
Most belligerent powers severely decreased production of non-essentials, concentrating on producing weapons. This inevitably produced shortages of related products that are required for industrial or logistical uses, particularly unarmored vehicles. On the Allied side, there was almost total reliance upon American industrial production, weaponry and especially unarmored vehicles purpose-built for military use, vital for the modern army's logistics and support.
[ The USSR was very dependent on rail transport and starting during the latter half of the 1920s but accelerating during the 1930s (The ]Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
), hundreds of foreign industrial giants such as Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
were commissioned to construct modern dual-purpose factories in the USSR, 16 alone within a week of May 31, 1929. With the outbreak of war these plants switched from civilian to military production and locomotive production ended virtually overnight. Just 446 locomotives were produced during the war, with only 92 of those being built between 1942 and 1945. In total, 92.7% of the wartime production of railroad equipment by the USSR was supplied by Lend-Lease, including 1,911 locomotives and 11,225 railcars which augmented the existing stocks of at least 20,000 locomotives and half a million railcars.
Much of the logistical assistance of the Soviet military was provided by hundreds of thousands of U.S.-made trucks and by 1945, nearly a third of the truck strength of the Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
was U.S.-built. Trucks such as the Dodge -ton and Studebaker -ton were easily the best trucks available in their class on either side on the Eastern Front. American shipments of telephone cable, aluminum, canned rations and clothing were also critical. Lend-Lease also supplied significant amounts of weapons and ammunition. The Soviet air force received 18,200 aircraft, which amounted to about 30 percent of Soviet wartime fighter and bomber production (mid 1941–45). Most tank units were Soviet-built models but about 7,000 Lend-Lease tanks (plus more than 5,000 British tanks) were used by the Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
, eight percent of war-time production.
A particular critical aspect of Lend-Lease was the supply of food. The invasion had cost the USSR a huge amount of its agricultural base; during the initial Axis offensive of 1941–42, the total sown area of the USSR fell by 41.9% and the number of collective and state farms by 40%. The Soviets lost a substantial number of draft and farm animals as they were not able to relocate all the animals in an area before it was captured and of those areas in which the Axis forces would occupy, the Soviets had lost 7 million of out of 11.6 million horses, 17 million out of 31 million cows, 20 million of 23.6 million pigs and 27 million out of 43 million sheep and goats. Tens of thousands of agricultural machines, such as tractors and threshers, were destroyed or captured. Agriculture also suffered a loss of labour; between 1941 and 1945, 19.5 million working-age men had to leave their farms to work in the military and industry. Agricultural issues were also compounded when the Soviets were on the offensive, as areas liberated from the Axis had been devastated and contained millions of people who needed to be fed. Lend-Lease thus provided a massive number of foodstuffs and agricultural products.
According to the Russian historian Boris Vadimovich Sokolov Boris Sokolov (russian: Бори́с Вади́мович Соколо́в; born January 2, 1957, in Moscow), is a historian and a Russian literature researcher (he a has Candidate of Science degree in History and Habilitat Doctor of Science in Phi ...
, Lend-Lease had a crucial role in winning the war:
On the whole the following conclusion can be drawn: that without these Western shipments under Lend-Lease the Soviet Union not only would not have been able to win the Great Patriotic War, it would not have been able even to oppose the German invaders, since it could not itself produce sufficient quantities of arms and military equipment or adequate supplies of fuel and ammunition. The Soviet authorities were well aware of this dependency on Lend-Lease. Thus, Stalin told Harry Hopkins DR's emissary to Moscow in July 1941that the U.S.S.R. could not match Germany's might as an occupier of Europe and its resources.
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
, having served as a military commissar
Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Eas ...
and intermediary between Stalin and his generals during the war, addressed directly the significance of Lend-lease aid in his memoirs:
I would like to express my candid opinion about Stalin's views on whether the Red Army and the Soviet Union could have coped with Nazi Germany and survived the war without aid from the United States and Britain. First, I would like to tell about some remarks Stalin made and repeated several times when we were "discussing freely" among ourselves. He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. If we had had to fight Nazi Germany one on one, we could not have stood up against Germany's pressure, and we would have lost the war. No one ever discussed this subject officially, and I don't think Stalin left any written evidence of his opinion, but I will state here that several times in conversations with me he noted that these were the actual circumstances. He never made a special point of holding a conversation on the subject, but when we were engaged in some kind of relaxed conversation, going over international questions of the past and present, and when we would return to the subject of the path we had traveled during the war, that is what he said. When I listened to his remarks, I was fully in agreement with him, and today I am even more so.
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
, during the Tehran Conference
The Tehran Conference ( codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embass ...
during 1943, acknowledged publicly the importance of American efforts during a dinner at the conference: "Without American machines the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
could never have won the war."
In a confidential interview with the wartime correspondent Konstantin Simonov
Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov, born Kirill Mikhailovich Simonov (russian: link= no, Константин Михайлович Симонов, – 28 August 1979), was a Soviet author, war poet, playwright and wartime correspondent, arguabl ...
, the Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov ( rus, Георгий Константинович Жуков, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj kənstɐnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ ˈʐukəf, a=Ru-Георгий_Константинович_Жуков.ogg; 1 December 1896 – ...
is quoted as saying:
Today 963
Year 963 ( CMLXIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* March 15 – Emperor Romanos II dies at age 25, probably of poison admini ...
some say the Allies didn't really help us ... But listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us material without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war.
David Glantz
David M. Glantz (born January 11, 1942) is an American military historian known for his books on the Red Army during World War II and as the chief editor of ''The Journal of Slavic Military Studies''.
Born in Port Chester, New York, Glantz r ...
, the American military historian known for his books on the Eastern front, concludes:
Although Soviet accounts have routinely belittled the significance of Lend-Lease in the sustainment of the Soviet war effort, the overall importance of the assistance cannot be understated. Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in sufficient quantities to make the difference between defeat and victory in 1941–1942; that achievement must be attributed solely to the Soviet people and to the iron nerve of Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
, Zhukov
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov ( rus, Георгий Константинович Жуков, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj kənstɐnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ ˈʐukəf, a=Ru-Георгий_Константинович_Жуков.ogg; 1 December 1896 – ...
, Shaposhnikov, Vasilevsky, and their subordinates. As the war continued, however, the United States and Great Britain provided many of the implements of war and strategic raw materials necessary for Soviet victory. Without Lend-Lease food, clothing, and raw materials (especially metals), the Soviet economy would have been even more heavily burdened by the war effort. Perhaps most directly, without Lend-Lease trucks, rail engines, and railroad cars, every Soviet offensive would have stalled at an earlier stage, outrunning its logistical tail in a matter of days. In turn, this would have allowed the German commanders to escape at least some encirclements, while forcing the Red Army to prepare and conduct many more deliberate penetration attacks in order to advance the same distance. Left to their own devices, Stalin and his commanders might have taken twelve to eighteen months longer to finish off the Wehrmacht; the ultimate result would probably have been the same, except that Soviet soldiers could have waded at France's Atlantic beaches.
Returning goods after the war
Roosevelt, eager to ensure public consent for this controversial plan, explained to the public and the press that his plan was comparable to one neighbor's lending another a garden hose to put out a fire in his home. "What do I do in such a crisis?" the president asked at a press conference. "I don't say ... 'Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for it' ... I don't want $15—I want my garden hose back after the fire is over." To which Senator Robert Taft (R-Ohio), responded: "Lending war equipment is a good deal like lending chewing gum—you certainly don't want the same gum back."
In practice, very little was returned except for a few unarmed transport ships. Surplus military equipment was of no value in peacetime. The Lend-Lease agreements with 30 countries provided for repayment not in terms of money or returned goods, but in "joint action directed towards the creation of a liberalized international economic order in the postwar world." That is the U.S. would be "repaid" when the recipient fought the common enemy and joined the world trade and diplomatic agencies, such as the United Nations.
U.S. deliveries to the Soviet Union
If Germany defeated the Soviet Union, the most significant front in Europe would be closed. Roosevelt believed that if the Soviets were defeated the Allies would be far more likely to lose. Roosevelt concluded that the United States needed to help the Soviets fight against the Germans. Soviet Ambassador Maxim Litvinov
Maxim Maximovich Litvinov (; born Meir Henoch Wallach; 17 July 1876 – 31 December 1951) was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet statesman and diplomat.
A strong advocate of diplomatic agreements leading towards disarmament, Litvinov wa ...
significantly contributed to the Lend-Lease agreement of 1941. American deliveries to the Soviet Union can be divided into the following phases:
* "Pre Lend-lease" June 22, 1941, to September 30, 1941 (paid for in gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
and other minerals)
* First protocol period from October 1, 1941, to June 30, 1942 (signed October 7, 1941), these supplies were to be manufactured and delivered by the UK with US credit financing.
* Second protocol period from July 1, 1942, to June 30, 1943 (signed October 6, 1942)
* Third protocol period from July 1, 1943, to June 30, 1944 (signed October 19, 1943)
* Fourth protocol period from July 1, 1944 (signed April 17, 1945), formally ended May 12, 1945, but deliveries continued for the duration of the war with Japan (which the Soviet Union entered on August 8, 1945) under the "Milepost" agreement until September 2, 1945, when Japan capitulated. On September 20, 1945, all Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union was terminated.
Delivery was via the Arctic Convoys
The Arctic convoys of World War II were oceangoing convoys which sailed from the United Kingdom, Iceland, and North America to northern ports in the Soviet Union – primarily Arkhangelsk (Archangel) and Murmansk in Russia. There were 78 convoys ...
, the Persian Corridor
The Persian Corridor was a supply route through Iran into Soviet Azerbaijan by which British aid and American Lend-Lease supplies were transferred to the Soviet Union during World War II. Of the 17.5 million long tons of U.S. Lend-Lease aid pro ...
, and the Pacific Route.
The Arctic route was the shortest and most direct route for lend-lease aid to the USSR, though it was also the most dangerous as it involved sailing past German-occupied Norway. Some 3,964,000 tons of goods were shipped by the Arctic route; 7% was lost, while 93% arrived safely.[Kemp p235] This constituted some 23% of the total aid to the USSR during the war.
The Persian Corridor was the longest route, and was not fully operational until mid-1942. Thereafter it saw the passage of 4,160,000 tons of goods, 27% of the total.
The Pacific Route opened in August 1941, but was affected by the start of hostilities between Japan and the U.S.; after December 1941, only Soviet ships could be used, and, as Japan and the USSR observed a strict neutrality towards each other, only non-military goods could be transported. Nevertheless, some 8,244,000 tons of goods went by this route, 50% of the total.
In total, the U.S. deliveries to the USSR through Lend-Lease amounted to $11 billion
Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions:
*1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is its only current meaning in English.
* 1,000,000,000,000, i. ...
in materials: over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicle
Military vehicles are commonly armoured (or armored; see spelling differences) to withstand the impact of shrapnel, bullets, shells, rockets, and missiles, protecting the personnel inside from enemy fire. Such vehicles include armoured ...
s (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386 of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans
}
The M4 Sherman, officially Medium Tank, M4, was the most widely used medium tank by the United States and Western Allies in World War II. The M4 Sherman proved to be reliable, relatively cheap to produce, and available in great numbers. It w ...
); 11,400 aircraft (of which 4,719 were Bell P-39 Airacobra
The Bell P-39 Airacobra is a fighter produced by Bell Aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It was one of the principal American fighters in service when the United States entered combat. The P-39 was used by t ...
s, 3,414 were Douglas A-20 Havoc
The Douglas A-20 Havoc (company designation DB-7) is an American medium bomber, attack aircraft, night intruder, night fighter, and reconnaissance aircraft of World War II.
Designed to meet an Army Air Corps requirement for a bomber, it was o ...
s and 2,397 were Bell P-63 Kingcobras) and 1.75 million tons of food.
Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. It has been estimated that American deliveries to the USSR through the Persian Corridor alone were sufficient, by US Army standards, to maintain sixty combat divisions in the line.
Restrictions in the supply of weapons from the United States were mainly limited to heavy bombers. The United States did not provide them to the USSR when requested. For example, in the 4 Ottawa Protocol (July 1, 1944, to June 30, 1945) the USSR requested 240 B-17 bombers and 300 B-24 bombers, none of which were supplied. Heavy bombers had not been mentioned in previous protocols. The production of heavy bombers in the United States until 1945 amounted to more than 30,000. The USSR had only a very small number of heavy bombers in comparison. The sole modern heavy bomber the USSR had was the Petlyakov Pe-8
The Petlyakov Pe-8 (russian: Петляков Пе-8) was a Soviet heavy bomber designed before World War II, and the only four-engine bomber the USSR built during the war. Produced in limited numbers, it was used to bomb Berlin in August 1941. ...
, and it only had 27 of them at the start of the war, with fewer than 100 produced until 1945.
The United States delivered to the Soviet Union from October 1, 1941, to May 31, 1945, the following: 427,284 trucks, 13,303 combat vehicles, 35,170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 2,670,371 tons of petroleum products (gasoline and oil) or 57.8 percent of the aviation fuel including nearly 90 percent of high-octane fuel used, 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc.), 1,911 steam locomotives, 66 diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. Provided ordnance goods (ammunition, artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives) amounted to 53 percent of total domestic consumption. One item typical of many was a tire plant that was lifted bodily from the Ford Company's River Rouge Plant and transferred to the USSR. The 1947 money value of the supplies and services amounted to about $11 billion.
File:Aleje Jerozolimskie waf-2072-1002-40 (1945).jpg, Warsaw 1945: Willys jeep
The Willys MB and the Ford GPW, both formally called the U.S. Army Truck, -ton, 4×4, Command Reconnaissance, commonly known as the Willys Jeep, Jeep, or jeep, and sometimes referred to by its supply catalogue designation G503,According to i ...
used by the Polish First Army
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
as part of U.S. Lend-Lease program
File:Defense.gov photo essay 060827-F-0193C-028.jpg, The Lend-Lease Memorial in Fairbanks, Alaska
Fairbanks is a home rule city and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska and the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the p ...
, commemorates the shipment of U.S. aircraft to the Soviet Union along the Northwest Staging Route
The Northwest Staging Route was a series of airstrips, airport and radio ranging stations built in Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon and Alaska during World War II. It extended into the Soviet Union as the ALSIB (ALaska-SIBerian air road).
Or ...
.
File:Katjuscha 1938 Moscow.jpg, BM-13N Katyusha on a Lend-Lease Studebaker US6 truck, at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Moscow
British deliveries to the Soviet Union
In June 1941, within weeks of the German invasion of the USSR, the Anglo-Soviet Agreement
The Anglo-Soviet Agreement was a formal military alliance that was signed by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany on July 12, 1941, shortly after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Unio ...
was made and the first British aid convoy set off along the dangerous Arctic Sea route to Murmansk
Murmansk (Russian: ''Мурманск'' lit. "Norwegian coast"; Finnish: ''Murmansk'', sometimes ''Muurmanski'', previously ''Muurmanni''; Norwegian: ''Norskekysten;'' Northern Sámi: ''Murmánska;'' Kildin Sámi: ''Мурман ланнҍ'') ...
, arriving in September. It carried 40 Hawker Hurricanes
The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by ...
along with 550 mechanics and pilots of No. 151 Wing in Operation Benedict
Operation Benedict (29 July – 6 December 1941) was the establishment of Force Benedict with units of the Soviet Air Forces (VVS, ) in north Russia, during the Second World War. The force comprised 151 Wing Royal Air Force (RAF), with two squadr ...
, to provide air defence of the port and to train Soviet pilots. The convoy was the first of many convoys to Murmansk and Archangelsk in what became known as the Arctic convoys
The Arctic convoys of World War II were oceangoing convoys which sailed from the United Kingdom, Iceland, and North America to northern ports in the Soviet Union – primarily Arkhangelsk (Archangel) and Murmansk in Russia. There were 78 convoys ...
, the returning ships carried the gold that the USSR was using to pay the US.
By the end of 1941, early shipments of Matilda
Matilda or Mathilda may refer to:
Animals
* Matilda (chicken) (1990–2006), World's Oldest Living Chicken record holder
* Matilda (horse) (1824–1846), British Thoroughbred racehorse
* Matilda, a dog of the professional wrestling tag-team The ...
, Valentine and Tetrarch
Tetrarch, Tetrarchs, or Tetrarchy may refer to:
* Tetrarchy, the four co-emperors of the Roman Empire instituted by the Emperor Diocletian
* Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs - a sculpture of the four co-emperors of the Roman Empire
* Herodian Tetrarc ...
tanks represented only 6.5% of total Soviet tank production but over 25% of medium and heavy tanks produced for the Red Army. The British tanks first saw action with the 138 Independent Tank Battalion in the Volga Reservoir
The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchmen ...
on November 20, 1941. Lend-Lease tanks constituted 30 to 40 percent of heavy and medium tank strength before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941.
Significant numbers of British Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...
, Matilda and Valentine tanks were shipped to the USSR.
Between June 1941 and May 1945, Britain delivered to the USSR:
* 3,000+ Hurricane aircraft
* 4,000+ other aircraft
* 27 naval vessels
* 5,218 tanks (including 1,380 Valentines from Canada)
* 5,000+ anti-tank guns
* 4,020 ambulances and trucks
* 323 machinery trucks (mobile vehicle workshops equipped with generators and all the welding and power tools required to perform heavy servicing)
* 1,212 Universal Carrier
The Universal Carrier, also known as the Bren Gun Carrier and sometimes simply the Bren Carrier from the light machine gun armament, is a common name describing a family of light armoured tracked vehicles built by Vickers-Armstrongs and othe ...
s and Loyd Carrier
The Loyd Carrier was one of a number of small tracked vehicles used by the British and Commonwealth forces in the Second World War to transport equipment and men about the battlefield. Alongside the Bren, Scout and Machine Gun Carriers, they ...
s (with another 1,348 from Canada)
* 1,721 motorcycles
* £1.15bn ($1.55bn) worth of aircraft engines
* 1,474 radar sets
* 4,338 radio sets
* 600 naval radar and sonar sets
* Hundreds of naval guns
* 15 million pairs of boots
In total 4 million tonnes of war material including food and medical supplies were delivered. The munitions totaled £308m (not including naval munitions supplied), the food and raw materials totaled £120m in 1946 index. In accordance with the Anglo-Soviet Military Supplies Agreement of June 27, 1942, military aid sent from Britain to the Soviet Union during the war was entirely free of charge.
Reverse Lend-Lease
''Reverse Lend-Lease'' was the supply of equipment and services to the United States. Nearly $8 billion (equivalent to $124 billion today) worth of war material was provided to U.S. forces by its allies, 90% of this sum coming from the British Empire. Reciprocal contributions included the Austin K2/Y military ambulance, British aviation spark plugs used in B-17 Flying Fortresses, Canadian-made Fairmile launches used in anti-submarine warfare, Mosquito
Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning " gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish for "li ...
photo-reconnaissance aircraft, and Indian petroleum products. Australia and New Zealand supplied the bulk of foodstuffs to United States forces in the South Pacific.
Though diminutive in comparison, Soviet Union supplied the United States with goods that the latter badly needed, including 300,000 tons of chrome ore, 32,000 tons of manganese
Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...
ore, and large supplies of platinum
Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver".
Pla ...
, gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
and wood.
In a November 1943 report to Congress, President Roosevelt said of Allied participation in reverse Lend-lease:
... the expenditures made by the British Commonwealth of Nations for reverse lend-lease aid furnished to the United States, and of the expansion of this program so as to include exports of materials and foodstuffs for the account of United States agencies from the United Kingdom and the British colonies, emphasizes the contribution which the British Commonwealth has made to the defense of the United States while taking its place on the battle fronts. It is an indication of the extent to which the British have been able to pool their resources with ours so that the needed weapon may be in the hands of that soldier—whatever may be his nationality—who can at the proper moment use it most effectively to defeat our common enemies.
While in April 1944 Congress were briefed by the Foreign Economic Administrator, Leo T Crowley;
Just as the RAF's operations against Germany and the invasion coasts would not have been possible on their present scale without lend-lease so the United States Eighth and Ninth air forces daylight missions from Britain would not have been possible without reverse lend-lease. Our Fortresses and Liberators take off from huge air bases built, equipped and serviced under reverse lend-lease at a cost to them of hundreds of millions of dollars. Many of our pilots fly Spitfires built in England, many more are flying American fighter planes powered by British Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, turned over to us by the British. And many of the supplies needed by our Air Force are procured for us without cost by reverse lend-lease. In fact our armed forces in Britain, ground as well as air, receive as reverse lend-lease, with no payment by us, one third of all the supplies and equipment they currently require, Britain furnishes 90% of their medical supplies and in spite of her food shortage, 20% of their food.
In 1945–46, the value of Reciprocal Aid from New Zealand exceeded that of Lend-Lease, though in 1942–43, the value of Lend-Lease to New Zealand was much more than that of Reciprocal Aid. Britain also supplied extensive material assistance to American forces stationed in Europe, for example the USAAF was supplied with hundreds of Spitfire Mk V and Mk VIII fighter aircraft.
Repayment
Congress had not authorized the gift of supplies delivered after the cutoff date, so the U.S. charged for them, usually at a 90% discount. Large quantities of undelivered goods were in Britain or in transit when Lend-Lease terminated on September 2, 1945. Britain wished to retain some of this equipment in the immediate post-war period. In 1946, the post-war Anglo-American loan
The Anglo-American Loan Agreement was a loan made to the United Kingdom by the United States on 15 July 1946, enabling its economy after the Second World War to keep afloat. The loan was negotiated by British economist John Maynard Keynes and Am ...
further indebted Britain to the U.S. Lend-Lease items retained were sold to Britain at 10% of nominal value, giving an initial loan value of £1.075 billion for the Lend-Lease portion of the post-war loans. Payment was to be stretched out over 50 annual payments, starting in 1951 and with five years of deferred payments, at 2% interest.
The final payment of $83.3 million (£42.5 million), due on December 31, 2006 (repayment having been deferred in the allowed five years and during a sixth year not allowed), was made by Britain on December 29, 2006 (the last working day of the year). After this final payment, Britain's Economic Secretary to the Treasury
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury is the sixth-most senior ministerial post in His Majesty's Treasury, after the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Paymaster-General and the ...
formally issued thanks to the U.S. for its wartime support.
While repayment of the interest-free loans was required after the end of the war under the act, in practice the U.S. did not expect to be repaid by the USSR after the war. The U.S. received $2 million in reverse Lend-Lease from the USSR. This was mostly in the form of landing, servicing, and refueling of transport aircraft; some industrial machinery and rare minerals were sent to the U.S. The U.S. asked for $1.3 billion at the cessation of hostilities to settle the debt, but was only offered $170 million by the USSR. The dispute remained unresolved until 1972, when the U.S. accepted an offer from the USSR to repay $722 million linked to grain shipments from the U.S., representing 25% of the initial debt with inflation
In economics, inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduct ...
taken into account, with the remainder being written off. During the war the USSR provided an unknown number of shipments of rare minerals to the US Treasury as a form of cashless repayment of Lend-Lease. This was agreed upon before the signing of the first protocol on October 1, 1941, and extension of credit. Some of these shipments were intercepted by the Germans. In May 1942, was sunk while carrying 4.5 tonnes of Soviet gold intended for the U.S. Treasury. This gold was salvaged in 1981 and 1986. In June 1942, was sunk en route from Halifax, Nova Scotia to New York, allegedly with Soviet platinum
Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver".
Pla ...
, gold, and diamonds aboard; the wreck was discovered in 2008. However, none of this cargo has been salvaged, and no documentation of its treasure has been produced.
See also
* Allied technological cooperation during World War II
* ALSIB ALSIB (or the Northern Trace) was the Soviet Union portion of the Alaska- Siberian air road receiving Lend-Lease aircraft from the Northwest Staging Route. Aircraft manufactured in the United States were flown over this route for World War II c ...
* Anglo-American loan
The Anglo-American Loan Agreement was a loan made to the United Kingdom by the United States on 15 July 1946, enabling its economy after the Second World War to keep afloat. The loan was negotiated by British economist John Maynard Keynes and Am ...
* Arctic convoys of World War II
* Arms Export Control Act
The Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (Title II of , codified at ) gives the President of the United States the authority to control the import and export of defense articles and defense services. The H.R. 13680 legislation was passed by the 94th ...
* Billion Dollar Gift and Mutual Aid, from Canada
* ''Banff''-class sloop
* Battle of the Atlantic
* Cash and carry (World War II)
Cash and Carry was a policy by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced at a joint session of the United States Congress on September 21, 1939, subsequent to the outbreak of war in Europe. It replaced the Neutrality Act of 1937, by whic ...
* Destroyers for Bases Agreement
The destroyers-for-bases deal was an agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom on September 2, 1940, according to which 50 , , and US Navy destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy from the US Navy in exchange for land rights ...
* Houses for Britain
* Lend-Lease Sherman tanks
The United States provided tens of thousands of its Medium Tank M4, also named the Sherman, to many of its Allies during the Second World War, under the terms of Lend-Lease.
International distribution
This chart shows Lend-Lease shipments t ...
* Military production during World War II
Military production during World War II was the arms, ammunition, personnel and financing which were produced or mobilized by the belligerents of the war from the occupation of Austria in early 1938 to the surrender and occupation of Japan in ...
* Northwest Staging Route
The Northwest Staging Route was a series of airstrips, airport and radio ranging stations built in Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon and Alaska during World War II. It extended into the Soviet Union as the ALSIB (ALaska-SIBerian air road).
Or ...
* Operation Cedar
* Persian Corridor
The Persian Corridor was a supply route through Iran into Soviet Azerbaijan by which British aid and American Lend-Lease supplies were transferred to the Soviet Union during World War II. Of the 17.5 million long tons of U.S. Lend-Lease aid pro ...
* Project Hula
Project Hula was a program during World War II in which the United States transferred naval vessels to the Soviet Union in anticipation of the Soviets eventually joining the war against Japan, specifically in preparation for planned Soviet inv ...
* Tizard Mission
The Tizard Mission, officially the British Technical and Scientific Mission, was a British delegation that visited the United States during WWII to obtain the industrial resources to exploit the military potential of the research and development ( ...
* Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
* Allen, R. G. D. "Mutual Aid Between the U.S. and The British Empire, 1941-45' ''Journal of the Royal Statistical Society'' (1946) 109#3 pp. 243–27
online
*
*
* Bryce, Robert B. ''Canada and the Cost of World War II: The International Operations of Canada's Department of Finance, 1939–1947'' (2005) ch 7 on Mutual Aid
* Buchanan, Patrick. ''Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War.'' New York: Crown, 2008. .
* Campbell, Thomas M. and George C. Herring, eds. ''The Diaries of Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., 1943–1946''. New York: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1975. .
* Clarke, Sir Richard. ''Anglo-American Economic Collaboration in War and Peace, 1942–1949''. Oxford University Press, 1982. .
* Crowley, Leo T. "Lend Lease" in Walter Yust, ed. ''10 Eventful Years, 1937–1946'' Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1947, pp. 858–860.
* Dawson, Raymond H. ''The Decision to Aid Russia, 1941: Foreign Policy and Domestic Politics.'' Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959.
* Dobson, Alan P. ''U.S. Wartime Aid to Britain, 1940–1946''. London: Croom Helm, 1986. .
* Gardner, Richard N. ''Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.
*
* Hancock, G.W. and M.M. Gowing. ''British War Economy'' (1949) pp 224–24
Official British history
* Havlat, Denis. "Western Aid for the Soviet Union During World : Part I." ''Journal of Slavic Military Studies'' 30.2 (2017): 290–320; . "Western Aid for the Soviet Union During World : Part II." ''Journal of Slavic Military Studies'' 30.4 (2017): 561–601. Argues the supplies made a decisive contribution to Soviet victory, despite denials by Stalinist historians.
* Herring Jr. George C. ''Aid to Russia, 1941–1946: Strategy, Diplomacy, the Origins of the Cold War.'' New York: Columbia University Press, 1973. .
* Kemp, P. ''Convoy: Drama in Arctic Waters.'' Minneapolis, Minnesota: Book Sales Inc., 2004, First edition 1993. .
* Kimball, Warren F.
Warren Forbes Kimball (born December 24, 1935) is a historian of the Second World War and American foreign policy. He was an academic adviser to the International Churchill Society, Churchill Centre in London.
He graduated from Georgetown Univers ...
''The Most Unsordid Act: Lend-Lease, 1939–1941''. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University, 1969. .
*
* Langer, William L. and S. Everett Gleason
"Chapters: 8–9."
''The Undeclared War, 1940–1941''. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953.
* Louis, William Roger. ''Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire, 1941–1945''. Oxford University Press, 1977. .
* Mackenzie, Hector. "Transatlantic Generosity: Canada's 'Billion Dollar Gift' to the United Kingdom in the Second World War." ''International History Review'', Volume 24, Issue 2, 2012, pp. 293–314.
* McNeill, William Hardy. ''America, Britain, and Russia: their co-operation and conflict, 1941–1946'' (1953), pp 772–90
* Milward, Alan S. ''War, Economy and Society''. Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1977. .
*
* Reynolds, David. ''The Creation of the Anglo-American Alliance 1937–1941: A Study on Competitive Cooperation''. London: Europa, 1981. .
* Romanus, Charles F. and Riley Sunderland
''Stilwell's Mission to China.''
Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept. of the Army, 1953.
* Sayers, R.S
''Financial Policy, 1939–45''.
London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1956.
* Schama, Simon. ''A History of Britain, Vol. III.'' New York: Hyperion, 2002. .
* Sherwood, Robert E
''Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History''.
New York: Enigma Books, 2008, First edition 1948 (1949 Pulitzer Prize winner). .
*
* Stettinius, Edward R. ''Lend-Lease, Weapon for Victory''. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1944.
* Taylor, A. J. P. ''Beaverbrook''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972. .
* Thorne, Christopher. ''Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War Against Japan, 1941–1945''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. .
* ''Twenty-first Report to Congress on Lend-Lease Operations,'' p. 25.
*
*
* Woods, Randall Bennett
''A Changing of the Guard: Anglo-American Relations, 1941–1946.''
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. .
External links
(Washington: War Department, 1946)
* ttp://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Econ-c19-25.html Official New Zealand war history; termination of Mutual Aid from 21 December 1945, from ''War Economy''
Allies and Lend-Lease Museum, Moscow
a 1944 ''Flight'' article reporting a speech by President Roosevelt
– map and summary of quantities of LL to USSR
How Much of What Goods Have We Sent to Which Allies ?
on the American Historical Association
The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...
United States Army in World War II, Statistics: Lend-Lease – World Operational Documents
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U.S. Army in WW II, Statistics: Lend-Lease – Chief of Military History, 15 Dec 1952
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