By spring and summer of 1942 the Hurricane had clearly become the principal fighter aircraft of the Northern Fleets air regiments; in all, 83 out of its 109 fighters were of foreign origin. Learn more about quality higher-education opportunities in the U.S. that you will not find anywhere else in the world. [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. "[50] To which Senator Robert Taft (R-Ohio), responded: "Lending war equipment is a good deal like lending chewing gumyou certainly don't want the same gum back. [3] In terms of administration, the president established the Office of Lend-Lease Administration during 1941, headed by steel executive Edward R. The programme began to increase in scale during 1943. Originally intended to lend arms and material to the. 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. In the meantime, Great Britain was running out of liquid currency and asked not to be forced to sell off British assets. To: The War Office. As one Roosevelt biographer has characterized it: "If there was no practical alternative, there was certainly no moral one either. [6], In 1939 howeveras Germany, Japan, and Italy pursued aggressive, militaristic policiesPresident Roosevelt wanted more flexibility to help contain Axis aggression. Dec 7, 1941 . Yes, in 1942 Lend-Lease was of course important for Soviet Russia. Stettinius. 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. 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. 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. [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. Negotiations dragged on intermittently for 25 years. 4, 48/Maslov MA Bomber PE-8. 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. "Without Lend-Lease, the Red Army would not have had about one-third of its ammunition, half of its aircraft, or half of its tanks. Ukraine is in the process of joining the European Union and has submitted an application for NATO membership. 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. Only 22% were unequivocally against the President's proposal. [32] In September 1943, he was promoted to Undersecretary of State, and Leo Crowley became director of the Foreign Economic Administration, which was given responsibility for Lend-Lease. "During World War II, only the supplies brought in by Lend-Lease prevented the paralysis of rail transport in the Soviet Union.". $31 billion went to Britain, $11 billion to the Soviet Union, $3 billion to France, and $1.6 billion to China. The Soviet government at first offered to pay $170 million. ", United States Army Center of Military History, "Britain pays off final instalment of US loan after 61 years", "Salvor's report citing recovery of further 29 bars", "Treasure hunters 'find $3billion in platinum on sunken WW2 British ship', Official New Zealand war history of Lend-lease, from, Official New Zealand war history; termination of Mutual Aid from 21 December 1945, from. After this final payment, Britain's Economic Secretary to the Treasury formally issued thanks to the U.S. for its wartime support. 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. 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. Russian historian: Importance of Lend-Lease cannot be overestimated The history of Lend-Lease began on May 15, 1940 when UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked Roosevelt to temporarily. Could we really have set up the production of our tanks without American steel? the president asked at a press conference. LEND LEASE. "I want to tell you what, from the Russian point of view, the president and the United States have done for victory in this war," Stalin said. In September 1940, during the Battle of Britain the British government sent the Tizard Mission to the United States. How important was Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union? In addition, there would have been constant shortages of transportation and fuel. In addition, the Lend-Lease program propped up the Soviet railway system, which played a fundamental role in moving and supplying troops. 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[28] made weapons and components manufactured in Canada for Britain eligible for Lend-Lease financing as if they had been manufactured in the US. Some idea of the scope of economic collaboration can be had from the fact that from the beginning of 1942 through 1945 Canada, on her part, furnished the United States with $1,000,000,000 to $1,250,000,000 in defense materials and services. -8. [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. Britain got of their arms and ammunition from this Act. The munitions totaled 308m (not including naval munitions supplied), the food and raw materials totaled 120m in 1946 index. The Hurricane was rugged and tried and tested, and as useful at that point as many potentially superior Soviet designs such as the LaGG-3 and MiG-3. 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. During the bitter fighting of the winter of 19411942, British aid made a crucial difference. Photo: Museum of the U.S. Air Force (Courtesy Photo). But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. 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. After the German assault on Russia in June 1941, the defenders got aid with this system through war material, food, fuel and other important raw materials. 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. The Viking Press. ): Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg. In 1941, the threat of World War II drove passage of the Lend-Lease Act repealing key provisions of the Neutrality Acts. 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. But according to . The first American tanks and planes reached Egypt in time to be used in the second British drive into Libya which started on November 2, 1941. 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. 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. External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views or privacy policies contained therein. 1. 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. (German Language). From 1941 and onwards, the RKKA used extensive numbers . In 1939, after Germany invaded Poland, Roosevelt bypassed these restrictions by persuading Congress to permit the government to sell military supplies to France and Britain on a cash-and-carry basisin other words, they could pay cash for American-made supplies and then transport them on their own ships. Roosevelt believed that if the Soviets were defeated the Allies would be far more likely to lose. On April 28th, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act ( S.3522 ), which has now gone to President Joe Biden's desk for signature.. [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. ", In practice, very little was returned except for a few unarmed transport ships. The Senate passed it by a vote of 63 to 1. The American Lend-Lease program was signed into law in March 1941. The Red Army was a force to be reckoned with and was willing to sustain unlimited casualties. Newly discovered files tell another story. How important was the Lend Lease Act to the Soviet Union? 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). During World War II, the Soviet Union received almost 15,000 U.S.-built aircraft under the lend-lease program. 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. Particularly important for the Soviets in late 1941 were British-supplied tanks and aircraft. 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]. How much Soviet equipment was Lend-Lease? The United States used lend-lease to induce recipients to the American way of thinking, especially regarding the economy and free-market trade. Payment was to be stretched out over 50 annual payments, starting in 1951 and with five years of deferred payments, at 2% interest. "If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," he wrote in his memoirs. Source: "The Soviet Union: The Defeated Victor" pp. But in order to sustain the war effort all the way back to Germany, Lend-Lease was decisive. The United States and the British Commonwealth provided 55. In spring 1944, the House passed a bill to renew the Lend-Lease program by a vote of 334 to 21. Mystery surrounds the infamous burning of the Reichstag in 1933. Supply volumes and the significance of lend-lease. United States and Britain, not the Soviet Union, China, or other United Nations . On December 7, 1940, its Prime Minister Winston Churchill pressed President Roosevelt in a 15-page letter for American help. Under Lend-Lease, the United States provided more than one-third of all the explosives used by the Soviet Union during the war. 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. Lend-Lease aid to the USSR was nominally managed by Stettinius. [81], 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. Materials totalling $. I was recently able to examine Russian-language materials of the State Defense Committeethe Soviet equivalent of the British War Cabinetheld in the former Central Party Archive. Thanks to Lend-Lease, during the war years, the Soviet Union received about 14.8 thousand aircraft, 7.1 thousand tanks, 8.2 thousand anti-aircraft guns, a large number of cars, tractors and other vital supplies. "One-on-one against Hitler's Germany, we would not have withstood its onslaught and would have lost the war. Almost all European nations outside the Soviet bloc were members of the plan from the beginning. The plan proposed by FDR was to "lend-lease or otherwise dispose of arms" and other supplies needed by any country whose security was vital to the defense of the United States. 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. "Transatlantic Generosity: Canada's 'Billion Dollar Gift' to the United Kingdom in the Second World War.". Britain wished to retain some of this equipment in the immediate post-war period. Some of these shipments were intercepted by the Germans. The plane spent 69 years on the tundra before a Russian Geographical Society expedition rescued it in 2016 and returned the wreckage to Krasnoyarsk. The captain, two crew members, and six passengers had left earlier in an ill-fated effort to get help. The sole modern heavy bomber the USSR had was the Petlyakov Pe-8, and it only had 27 of them at the start of the war, with fewer than 100 produced until 1945. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. But Was He Drugged Into Confessing. I don't want $15I want my garden hose back after the fire is over. And now they are saying that we had plenty of everything on our own.". Churchill called the letter "one of the most important I ever wrote.". Roosevelt concluded that the United States needed to help the Soviets fight against the Germans. [35] 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, eight percent of war-time production. The Persian Corridor was the longest route, and was not fully operational until mid-1942. [63] The production of heavy bombers in the United States until 1945 amounted to more than 30,000. American deliveries to the Soviet Union can be divided into the following phases: Delivery was via the Arctic Convoys, the Persian Corridor, and the Pacific Route. The lend/lease military aid program, and the Matilda's role in it, was hardly decisive to the Soviet Union's subsequent victories on the Eastern or Western front. It provided Britain and the Soviet Union with limited war materiel beginning in October that year. [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. The Government of Mongolia donated its gold and hard currency reserves to the Soviet Union for four years in a row. 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. Lend-Lease assistance to the USSR. It is our living history. "[17], 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". 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. 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). "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. [24], A total of $50.1billion (equivalent to $606billion in 2021)[26] was involved, or 17% of the total war expenditures of the U.S.[2] Most, $31.4billion ($380billion) went to Britain and its empire. 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. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union officially ended in September 1945. Lend-Lease's precise significance to Allied victory in WW2 is debated. The U.S. government never published detailed reports on what and how much was sent under the Lend-Lease program to the USSR. [75][77], 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 ore, and large supplies of platinum, gold and wood. 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]. This inevitably produced shortages of related products that are required for industrial or logistical uses, particularly unarmored vehicles. The Soviet debt for Lend-Lease supplies was finally paid and closed as part of the settlements with the Paris Club on August 21, 2006. [8] The Two-Ocean Navy Act of July 1940 set in motion a rapid expansion of the United States Navy. Lend-Lease - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org In a few paragraphs the Wiki page shows the importance of the deliveries. For foreign citizens who want to live permanently in the United States. 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. Lend-Lease kept the Soviet home front going through the winter of 1941 and throughout 1942. 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. Both were superior to all but the Soviet KV-1 and T-34 in armor, and indeed even their much maligned winter cross-country performance was comparable to most Soviet tanks excluding the KV-1 and T-34. [38] With the outbreak of war these plants switched from civilian to military production and locomotive production ended virtually overnight. 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. For travel to the United States on a temporary basis, including tourism, temporary employment, study and exchange. Tens of thousands of agricultural machines, such as tractors and threshers, were destroyed or captured. Even before the United States entered World War II in December 1941, America sent arms and equipment to the Soviet Union to help it defeat the Nazi invasion. Few Americans objected to Soviet aid until 1943. A Soviet report by Politburo member Nikolai Voznesensky in 1948 asserted that the United States, described as "the head of the antidemocratic camp and the warrior of imperialist expansion around the world," contributed materiel during the war that amounted to just 4.8 percent of the Soviet Union's own wartime production. 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." 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