Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (Pub. A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to $719billion in 2021) worth of supplies was shipped, or 17% of the total war expenditures of the U.S.[2] 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 other Allies. US Government Printing Office. Yes, in 1942 Lend-Lease was of course important for Soviet Russia. American shipments of telephone cable, aluminum, canned rations and clothing were also critical. Lend Lease | Encyclopedia.com [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. How much Soviet equipment was Lend-Lease? Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 2023 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The United States, the Soviet Union, and the End of World War II 151 Wing of the RAF, which operated briefly from Soviet airfields near Murmansk. Ladd Field and the Lend-Lease Mission: Defending Alaska in WWII 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. When the war ended, almost 33 percent of all the Red Army's vehicles had been provided through Lend-Lease. 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 nationsneither to aggressors, nor to defenders. https://www.historynet.com/did-russia-really-go-it-alone-how-lend-lease-helped-the-soviets-defeat-the-germans/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. Mongolian lamb and meat donations to the front lines outperformed those sent by the Lend-Lease Act. Given the disruption to Soviet production and Red Army losses, the Soviet Union was understandably eager to put British armor into action as soon as possible. Photo: Museum of the U.S. Air Force (Courtesy Photo). Lend-lease was a system of U.S. assistance to the Allies in World War II.It was based on a bill of March, 11, 1941, that gave the president of the United States the right to sell, transfer into property, lease, and rent various kinds of weapons or materials to those countries whose defense the president deemed vital to the defense of the United States itself. L. 77-11, H.R. The British shared technology included the cavity magnetron (key technology at the time for highly effective radar; the American historian James Phinney Baxter III later called "the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores"),[13][14] the design for the VT fuze, details of Frank Whittle's jet engine and the FrischPeierls memorandum describing the feasibility of an atomic bomb. [36] Most belligerent powers severely decreased production of non-essentials, concentrating on producing weapons. The Allies and the Role of Lend-Lease in WWII: The Russian View In the case of the Soviet Union, this residual civilian-type lend-lease was valued by the United States at $2.6 billion (out of total lend-lease to the Soviet Union of $10.8 billion). Lend Lease For Ukraine: It was not a Good Deal for US - SOFREP . At a time when Soviet industry was in disarraymany of their industrial plants were destroyed or captured by the advancing Nazi troops or in the process of evacuation eastbattlefield losses of specific equipment approached or even exceeded the rate at which Soviet domestic production could replace them during this crucial period. From: 30 Military Mission. 2009. . An estimated 25 million Soviet citizens perished in the titanic conflict with Nazi Germany between June 1941 and May 1945. [nb 2][9] 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 "lendlease". Most visibly, the United States provided the Soviet Union with more than 400,000 jeeps and trucks, 14,000 aircraft, 8,000 tractors and construction vehicles, and 13,000 battle tanks. Regardless of Soviet cold-war attempts to forget (or at least diminish) the importance of Lend-lease, the total impact of the Lend-Lease shipment for the Soviet war effort and entire national economy can only be characterized as both dramatic and of decisive importance. 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. On February 24, 1943, a Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft with serial number 42-32892 rolled out of a factory in Long Beach, California, and was handed over to the U.S. Air Force. "If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," he wrote in his memoirs. This is the official website of the U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Russia. First protocol period from October 1, 1941, to June 30, 1942 (signed October 7, 1941), 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). Ukraine is in the process of joining the European Union and has submitted an application for NATO membership. Yauza. Some 3,964,000 tons of goods were shipped by the Arctic route; 7% was lost, while 93% arrived safely. Deane, John R. 1947. 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. [76] Australia and New Zealand supplied the bulk of foodstuffs to United States forces in the South Pacific. U.S. Citizens with emergencies, please call +(7) (495) 728-5577, Outside of Office Hours, contact: +7 (495) 728-5000. Other largely British-equipped tank units in action with the Western Front from early December were the 131st Independent Tank Brigade, which fought to the east of Tula, south of Moscow, and 146th Tank Brigade, in the region of Kriukovo to the immediate west of the Soviet capital. In spring 1944, the House passed a bill to renew the Lend-Lease program by a vote of 334 to 21. The United States and Soviet Union secretly ferried thousands of warplanes from Great . History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. [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. What percent of Soviet equipment was Lend-Lease? Red Army Lend/Lease Vehicles - Axis History After this final payment, Britain's Economic Secretary to the Treasury formally issued thanks to the U.S. for its wartime support. Churchill also granted the US base rights in Bermuda and Newfoundland for free; this act allowed their British garrison to be redeployed to more crucial theatres. [citation needed] The USSR had only a very small number of heavy bombers in comparison. 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. The body of the captain, Maksim Tyurikov, was found by local hunters about 120 kilometers from the wreck in 1953. Much of the American fuel was added to lower-grade Soviet fuel to produce the high-octane fuel needed by modern military aircraft. The railroads would have periodically come to a halt. [79], 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. 4, 48. Thereafter it saw the passage of 4,160,000 tons of goods, 27% of the total. ), 1,911 steam locomotives, 66 diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. But the Germans were doggedly held off in front of Moscow in late November and early December, and then rolled back by a reinvigorated Red Army in a staggeringly brutal winter counteroffensive. In addition, almost half of all the rails used by the Soviet Union during the war came through Lend-Lease. 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. 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. 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. On September 20, 1945, all Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union was terminated. "The Museum of the Allies and Lend-Lease is a unique, one-of-a-kind museum," said Borodin. Newly discovered files tell another story. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. north, and in particular for the Northern Fleet.102Much of the material. Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in sufficient quantities to make the difference between defeat and victory in 19411942; that achievement must be attributed solely to the Soviet people and to the iron nerve of Stalin, Zhukov, Shaposhnikov, Vasilevsky, and their subordinates. Dec 7, 1941 . Lend-Lease Act (1941) | National Archives 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. [16] Propaganda showing the devastation of British cities during The Blitz, as well as popular depictions of Germans as savage also rallied public opinion to the Allies, especially after Germany conquered France. "[10] As the President himself put it, "There can be no reasoning with incendiary bombs."[11]. The Soviet Union and the United States - Library of Congress Championed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Lend-Lease Act authorized the transfer . About 15 percent of the aircraft of the 6th Fighter Air Corps defending Moscow were Tomahawks or Hurricanes. Moscow. However, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov both stated that Lend-Lease enabled the Soviet Union to defeat Germany on the Eastern Front. [80], The final payment of $83.3million (42.5million), 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). During Nikita Khrushchevs rule in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a window of greater frankness and openness about the extent of aid supplied from the West under the Lend-Lease Actbut it was still clearly forbidden for Soviet authors to suggest that such aid ever made any real difference on the battlefield. By July 1942 the Red Army had 13,500 tanks in service, with more than 16 percent of those imported, and more than half of those British. First, I would like to tell about some remarks Stalin made and repeated several times when we were "discussing freely" among ourselves. On March 12, 1943, the plane was given to the Soviet Air Force in Fairbanks, Alaska, and given the registration USSR-N238. Without the machines we received through Lend-Lease, we would have lost the war.". While the Matilda Mk II and Valentine tanks supplied by the British were certainly inferior to the Soviets homegrown T-34 and KV-1, it is important to note that Soviet production of the T-34 (and to a lesser extent the KV series), was only just getting seriously underway in 1942, and Soviet production was well below plan targets. The supplies dispersed under the Lend-Lease Act ranged from tanks, aircraft, ships, weapons and road building supplies to clothing, chemicals and food. [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. At a time when the majority of Americans opposed direct participation in the war, Lend-Lease represented a vital U.S. contribution to the fight against Nazi Germany. Such machines were of higher quality than analogues produced in the Soviet Union, which made a significant contribution to boosting Soviet industrial production. Lend-Lease Act of 1941: Facts, Summary, and Significance Just 446 locomotives were produced during the war,[39] with only 92 of those being built between 1942 and 1945. In 1944, Britain transferred several of the US-made destroyers to the USSR. Although most of the actual construction of joint defense facilities, except the Alaska Highway and the Canol project, had been carried out by Canada, most of the original cost was borne by the United States. billion (about $ billion in prices ) were sent to several dozen recipient countries, including the main ones: 31, enacted March 11, 1941),[1] 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. In April, this policy was extended to China,[20] and in October to the Soviet Union. Lend-Lease aircraft deliveries were also of significance during the Battle of Moscow. The terms of the agreement provided that the materiel was to be used until returned or destroyed. In December 1940, President Roosevelt proclaimed the United States would be the "Arsenal of Democracy" and proposed selling munitions to Britain and Canada. In fact the British intercepted German communications indicating that German forces had first come in contact with British tanks on the Eastern front on November 26, 1941. American and Soviet pilots pose in front of a Bell P-39 Airacobra, supplied to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program. (1942). It carried 40 Hawker Hurricanes along with 550 mechanics and pilots of No. WWII lend-lease: was the US aid that helpful? (I) In Walter Yust, ed., "17 Billion Budget Drafted; Defense Takes 10 Billions. As one Roosevelt biographer has characterized it: "If there was no practical alternative, there was certainly no moral one either. newsletter for the best of the past, delivered every Monday and Thursday. Britain wished to retain some of this equipment in the immediate post-war period. 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. Mystery surrounds the infamous burning of the Reichstag in 1933.

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