Although British shipments amounted to only a few percent of Soviet domestic production of machine tools, the Soviet Union could request specific items which it may not have been able to produce for itself. And it is a salient point that over 80% of the aid was received after June 1942, when the tide of the war had already turned against the Germans on the Eastern Front. 5-6. 31, enacted March 11, 1941), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, China, and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and 1945. Mackenzie, Hector. "In order to really assess the significance of Lend-Lease for the Soviet victory, you only have to imagine how the Soviet Union would have had to fight if there had been no Lend-Lease aid," Sokolov wrote. British Lend Lease Aid and the Soviet War Effort, - Scribd Championed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Lend-Lease Act authorized the transfer . But the Soviet Union was never alone: Months before the United States formally entered the war, it had already begun providing massive military and economic assistance to its Soviet ally through the Lend-Lease program. So the Soviets were charged 10 cents on the dollar of actual cost. Allen (1946) p 252. use.' On the negative side, however, it must be recorded that actual Of this, $6.8 billion came from the British and the Commonwealth. Negotiations dragged on intermittently for 25 years. Lend-Lease Act: Definition, Ukraine & World War II - HISTORY In a secret protocol of this pact, the Germans and the Soviets agreed that Poland should be divided between them, with the western third of the country going to Germany and the eastern two-thirds being taken over by the U.S.S.R. Popular Questions What was the cause of World War II? It allowed the USSR to conquer and subjugate eastern Europe and Manchuria and allowed them to prop up communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe, China and North Korea. The legislation is modeled off the World War II-era Lend-Lease Act that allowed the US to arm the Soviet Union, Britain, and other allies prior to its entry into the war. Lend-Lease kept the Soviet home front going through the winter of 1941 and throughout 1942. American aid also provided 4.5 million tons of food, 1.5 million blankets, and 15 million pairs of boots. 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.[3]. Stalin needed trucks and was provided with Studebaker trucks on a massive scale. Alerts and Messages for U.S. visitors to Russia. [36] The USSR was very dependent on rail transport and starting during the latter half of the 1920s[37] but accelerating during the 1930s (The Great Depression), hundreds of foreign industrial giants such as Ford were commissioned to construct modern dual-purpose factories in the USSR, 16 alone within a week of May 31, 1929. American and Soviet pilots pose in front of a Bell P-39 Airacobra, supplied to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program. President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease bill into law on March 11, 1941. 106124, Albert L. Weeks The Other Side of Coexistence: An Analysis of Russian Foreign Policy, (New York, Pittman Publishing Corporation, 1974), p. 94, quoted in Albert L. Weeks, Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World, Zaloga (Armored Thunderbolt) pp. Lend-Lease: Western Aid for the Soviet UnionPart of Eastern Front Fortnight (4) on WW2TVWith Denis HavlatDuring WWII the Soviet Union received large amounts . 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.[78]. adopted, it is in some important respects anachronistic today. 5,218 tanks (including 1,380 Valentines from Canada), 323 machinery trucks (mobile vehicle workshops equipped with generators and all the welding and power tools required to perform heavy servicing), 1.15bn ($1.55bn) worth of aircraft engines, Allen, R. G. D. "Mutual Aid Between the U.S. and The British Empire, 1941-45". 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. . A particular critical aspect of Lend-Lease was the supply of food. On March 12, 1943, the plane was given to the Soviet Air Force in Fairbanks, Alaska, and given the registration USSR-N238. Lend-Lease - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org In a few paragraphs the Wiki page shows the importance of the deliveries. The Soviet authorities were well aware of this dependency on Lend-Lease. How important was the Lend Lease Act to the Soviet Union? TNA WO 193/580, Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022, Allied technological cooperation during World War II, "Letter, Winston Churchill to Franklin Roosevelt, December 7, 1940, pp. Lend-Lease aircraft supplied to the Red Air Force 1942-1944: References and literature American M3 tanks on the railway near Murmansk after arriving in Northern Russia. [64], From October 1, 1941, to May 31, 1945, the United States delivered to the Soviet Union 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,[35] 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc. By the end of the war, the United States had extended over $49 billion in Lend-Lease aid to nearly forty nations. It was part of a scratch operational group of the Western Front consisting of the 18th Rifle Brigade, two ski battalions, the 5th and 20th Tank Brigades, and the 140th Independent Tank Battalion. From there, it flew 5,650 kilometers to the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, one of some 14,000 aircraft sent by the United States to the Soviet Union during World War II under the massive Lend-Lease program. 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. Mentions of Lend-Lease in memoirs were always accompanied by disparagement of the quality of the weapons supplied, with American and British tanks and planes invariably portrayed as vastly inferior to comparable Soviet models. The Resurrection of World War II Lend-Lease Records on the USSR: A The American Lend-Lease program was signed into law in March 1941. Nikolay Ryzhkov & Georgy Kumanev Food and other strategic deliveries to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease Act, 19411945, pp. ", Nikolai Ryzhkov, the last head of the government of the Soviet Union, wrote in 2015 that "it can be confidently stated that [Lend-Lease assistance] did not play a decisive role in the Great Victory.". From: 30 Military Mission. Source: "The Soviet Union: The Defeated Victor" pp. Democrats. 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. Lend-Lease effectively ended the United States' pretense of neutrality which had been enshrined in the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s. WWII program to provide U.S. allies with free armaments, This article is about the World War II program. Nearly $8billion (equivalent to $124billion today) worth of war material was provided to U.S. forces by its allies, 90% of this sum coming from the British Empire. And they would have been perpetually hungry without American canned meat and fats. British and Commonwealth deliveries to the Soviet Union in late 1941 and early 1942 would not only assist in the Soviet defense of Moscow and subsequent counteroffensive, but also in increasing Soviet production for the next period of the war. 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. 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. In practice, very little equipment was in usable shape for peacetime uses. The United States used lend-lease to induce recipients to the American way of thinking, especially regarding the economy and free-market trade. They Say He Burned Down the Reichstag. How much Soviet equipment was Lend-Lease? US Government Printing Office. Photo: Museum of the U.S. Air Force (Courtesy Photo). Dalton Delan: It's not World War II, but we are dealing with a new Axis This is the official website of the U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Russia. The records constitute the primary policy and subject files on World War II Lend-Lease to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). A monument in Fairbanks, Alaska, to the American pilots who flew almost 8,000 U.S. planes to Alaska and to the Soviet pilots who flew them on to Siberia as part of Lend-Lease. Did Russia Really Go It Alone? How Lend-Lease Helped the - HistoryNet "It was not just some piece of scrap metal. It is our living history. ", "How America Helped Build the Soviet Machine | American Heritage", "Ford Motor Company signs agreement with Soviet Union", "Russian historian: Importance of Lend-Lease cannot be overestimated", "Russia and Serbia, A Century of Progress in Rail Transport", "How Much of What Goods Have We Sent to Which Allies? [6], In 1939 howeveras Germany, Japan, and Italy pursued aggressive, militaristic policiesPresident Roosevelt wanted more flexibility to help contain Axis aggression. [83] However, none of this cargo has been salvaged, and no documentation of its treasure has been produced.[84]. The Lend-Lease Act was initially created to help Great Britain as they struggled in World War II. How Much of What Goods Have We Sent to Which Allies? Much of the meaning of Lend-Lease aid can be better understood when considering the innovative nature of World War II, as well as the economic distortions caused by the war. The British Eighth Army under Gen. Bernard Law Montgomery employed U.S. planes, guns and tanks when they whipped Rommel's Afrika Korps at El Alamein. Check out A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn on Amazon https://amzn.to/3lS8oVMLike & Subscribe for Daily US H. "Western Aid for the Soviet Union During World. L. 77-11, H.R. Secret Cipher Telegram. LEND LEASE. This particular C-47 was sent to the Far North and spent the war conducting reconnaissance and weather-monitoring missions over the Kara Sea. And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own.". The Yak-1, arguably the best of the batch, and superior in most regards to the Hurricane, suffered from airframe and engine defects in early war production aircraft. Lend-Lease: Aircraft to the Soviet Union > National Museum of the Materiel delivered under the act was supplied at no cost, to be used until returned or destroyed. Learn more about quality higher-education opportunities in the U.S. that you will not find anywhere else in the world. initially requested by the Soviet Union from Britain was naval, in the. Substantial quantities of machine tools and raw materials, such as aluminum and rubber, were supplied to help Soviet industry back on its feet: 312 metal-cutting machine tools were delivered by convoy PQ-12 alone, arriving in March 1942, along with a range of other items for Soviet factories such as machine presses and compressors. For the Australian company, see. 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. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1982, Bd. By October, German troops were poised outside both Leningrad and Moscow. Roosevelt believed that if the Soviets were defeated the Allies would be far more likely to lose. Particularly important for the Soviets in late 1941 were British-supplied tanks and aircraft. [49], 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. re: In hindsight was it a mistake for the US to ally with the Soviet Union during WW2. Joseph Stalin never revealed to his own people the full contributions of Lend-Lease to their country's survival, but he referred to the program at the 1945 Yalta Conference saying, "Lend-Lease is one of Franklin Roosevelt's most remarkable and vital achievements in the . In May 1942, HMSEdinburgh was sunk while carrying 4.5 tonnes of Soviet gold intended for the U.S. Treasury. The Persian Corridor was the longest route, and was not fully operational until mid-1942. Heavy bombers had not been mentioned in previous protocols. Before becoming secretary of commerce in the Truman administration, he had served in two crucial posts during World War II, as Lend-Lease representative in Britain and then as U.S. ambassador to Moscow. 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. The United States and the British Commonwealth provided 55 percent of all the aluminum the Soviet Union used during the war and more than 80 percent of the copper. Most went to Britain, but the Soviet Union received more than $11 billion. For foreign citizens who want to live permanently in the United States. Officially the "Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry". [55], 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. You act like that would have been easy. In particular, it shows that British Lend-Lease assistance to the Soviet Union in late 1941 and early 1942 played a far more significant part in the defense of Moscow and the revival of Soviet fortunes in late 1941 than has been acknowledged. Under these circumstances even small quantities of aid took on far greater significance. The pact was terminated when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union. About half of these were delivered by sea via the North Atlantic or were flown across the South Atlantic Ocean to the USSR via North Africa. [75] Reciprocal contributions included the Austin K2/Y military ambulance, British aviation spark plugs used in B-17 Flying Fortresses,[75] Canadian-made Fairmile launches used in anti-submarine warfare, Mosquito photo-reconnaissance aircraft, and Indian petroleum products. D.C. 4 Ottawa Protocol (July 1, 194430 June 1945). 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. The program sent nearly 2,000 locomotives and innumerable boxcars to the Soviet Union. 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. In 1944, Britain transferred several of the US-made destroyers to the USSR. Ladd Field and the Lend-Lease Mission: Defending Alaska in WWII 1776, 55Stat. On May 11, 1947, 27 people were rescued, having spent nearly three weeks in the icebound wreck. Although it was not entirely reasonable that Canada should pay for any construction that the Canadian Government considered unnecessary or that did not conform to Canadian requirements, nevertheless considerations of self-respect and national sovereignty led the Canadian Government to suggest a new financial agreement. The United States and the British Commonwealth provided 55. During the bitter fighting of the winter of 19411942, British aid made a crucial difference. Pro lend-lease !<br><br>#<br><br>On September 2, 1945, with the signing of the act of surrender of militaristic Japan, the Second World War was completed, and on September 20, 1945, all Lend-Lease supplies to the USSR were stopped. In contrast, 17 Republicans (63 percent) voted "nay" while 10 Senate Republicans (37 percent) sided with the Democrats to pass the bill.[19]. [15] Though these may be considered the most significant, many other items were also transported, including designs for rockets, superchargers, gyroscopic gunsights, submarine detection devices, self-sealing fuel tanks and plastic explosives. Lend-Lease: How American supplies aided the USSR in its darkest hour Roosevelt's Soviet Protocol Committee was dominated by Harry Hopkins and General John York, who were totally sympathetic to the provision of "unconditional aid". Totaling $11.3 billion, or $180 billion in today's currency, the Lend-Lease Act of the United States supplied needed goods to the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945 in support of what Stalin described to Roosevelt as the "enormous and difficult fight against the common enemy bloodthirsty Hitlerism." [1] There was no repayment required. At the end of November 1941, only 670 Soviet tanks were available to defend Moscowthat is, in the recently formed Kalinin, Western, and Southwestern Fronts. U.S. Citizens with emergencies, please call +(7) (495) 728-5577, Outside of Office Hours, contact: +7 (495) 728-5000. 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. [35] 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 first of these units to have seen action seems to have been the 138th Independent Tank Battalion (with twenty-one British tanks), which was involved in stemming the advance of German units in the region of the Volga Reservoir to the north of Moscow in late November. Lend-Lease also sent aviation fuel equivalent to 57 percent of what the Soviet Union itself produced. Lend-Lease WW2 - American Supply to the Allies - Real History Online Between June 1941 and May 1945, Britain delivered to the USSR: In total 4million tonnes of war material including food and medical supplies were delivered. 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. 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. 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Member since Oct 2007. But in order to sustain the war effort all the way back to Germany, Lend-Lease was decisive. [73][74], Reverse Lend-Lease was the supply of equipment and services to the United States. 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. Some 3,964,000 tons of goods were shipped by the Arctic route; 7% was lost, while 93% arrived safely. British Matilda tanks are loaded onto a ship for transportation to the U.S.S.R. as part of the Lend-Lease program. It was quite important, and it became especially important during the second half of WWII when the Red Army went from defending to attacking. And many of the supplies needed by our Air Force are procured for us without cost by reverse lend-lease. New Ukraine Military Aid Bill Isn't Your Grandfather's Lend-Lease Act An oft-quoted statement by First Vice-Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars Nikolai Voznesensky summed up the standard line that Allied aid represented only 4 percent of Soviet production for the entire war. The others were never found. About $11 billion in war matriel was sent to the Soviet Union under that program. From 1941 to 1945, total lend-lease aid to the Soviet Union accounted for only 5% of the Soviet GDP in total. Thereafter it saw the passage of 4,160,000 tons of goods, 27% of the total. The Government of Mongolia donated its gold and hard currency reserves to the Soviet Union for four years in a row. [70][71], Significant numbers of British Churchill, Matilda and Valentine tanks were shipped to the USSR.[72]. How important was Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union? Britain wished to retain some of this equipment in the immediate post-war period. I recently heard someone claim that the Soviet Union would have been unable to survive Operation Barbarossa and subsequent German offensives without the vast amount of supplies they received from the Allies under the Lend-Lease program. This was the first big war in which whole formations were routinely motorized; soldiers were supported with large numbers of all kinds of vehicles. From the depths of the Cold War to the present day, many Soviet and Russian politicians have ignored or downplayed the impact of American assistance to the Soviets, as well as the impact of the entire U.S.-British war against the Nazis. 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.[48]. [12] 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 War II, but that Britain itself could not exploit due to the immediate requirements of war-related production. The Lend-Lease act was enacted in March 1941 and authorized the United States to provide weapons, provisions, and raw materials to strategically important countries fighting Germany and Japan primarily, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China. "During World War II, only the supplies brought in by Lend-Lease prevented the paralysis of rail transport in the Soviet Union.". "If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," he wrote in his memoirs. The railroads would have periodically come to a halt. by Robert Beckhusen Key point: If the West had not invaded Europe and provided equipment, it would have. The Lend-Lease Act was designed to provide allies with aircraft and supplies for the war in Europe. According to the Russian historian Boris Vadimovich Sokolov, 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. Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union officially ended in September 1945. Totaling $11.3 billion, or $180 billion in todays currency, the Lend-Lease Act of the United States supplied needed goods to the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945 in support of what Stalin described to Roosevelt as the enormous and difficult fight against the common enemy bloodthirsty Hitlerism., By U.S. Mission Russia | 10 May, 2020 | Topics: History, News, U.S. & Russia. In hindsight was it a mistake for the US to ally with the Soviet Union How Much of What Goods Have We Sent to Which Allies? | AHA - Historians How obvious was lend-lease equipment to the average Soviet soldier [66], By the end of 1941, early shipments of Matilda, Valentine and Tetrarch tanks represented only 6.5% of total Soviet tank production but over 25% of medium and heavy tanks produced for the Red Army.
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