And though rapid increases in tank firepower would soon render the 40mm two-pounder main gun of the Matilda and Valentine suitable for use on light tanks only, the armor protection of these British models put them firmly in the heavy and medium categories, respectively. 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. Originally, the American policy was to help the British but not join the war. 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. 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). 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. Canada was not a direct recipient of Lend-Lease aid. 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. [18], 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". The Short History Of The Great Patriotic War, also from 1948, acknowledged the Lend-Lease shipments, but concluded: "Overall this assistance was not significant enough to in any way exert a decisive influence over the course of the Great Patriotic War. "If the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war," he wrote in his memoirs. 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. The program sent nearly 2,000 locomotives and innumerable boxcars to the Soviet Union. 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. Milestones: 1937-1945 - Office of the Historian Mystery surrounds the infamous burning of the Reichstag in 1933. There were apparently only 263 LaGG-3s in the Soviet inventory by the time of the Moscow counteroffensive, and it was an aircraft with numerous defects. Lend-Lease WW2 - American Supply to the Allies - Real History Online By the end of 1941, the lend-lease policy. 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.. Canada also aided the United Kingdom and other Allies with the Billion Dollar Gift and Mutual Aid totalling $3.4 billion in supplies and services (equivalent to $61 billion in 2020) .[4][5]. The most important aspect of Lend Lease was the first few months of the war when British Aircraft and Tanks represented such a huge influx of material while the Soviets had factories still in transit etc. How important was the Lend-Lease to the Soviet war effort? Of this, $6.8 billion came from the British and the Commonwealth. The program started 3 months after the German invasion of USSR in June, 1941. 19329 posts. When I listened to his remarks, I was fully in agreement with him, and today I am even more so. 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. 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. U.S. Citizens with emergencies, please call +(7) (495) 728-5577, Outside of Office Hours, contact: +7 (495) 728-5000. [35] An estimated 25 million Soviet citizens perished in the titanic conflict with Nazi Germany between June 1941 and May 1945. The US Supported Soviet Union with Lend-Lease Program - YouTube [6], After the Fall of France during June 1940, the British Commonwealth and Empire were the only forces engaged in war against Germany and Italy, until the Italian invasion of Greece. 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. On December 7, 1940, its Prime Minister Winston Churchill pressed President Roosevelt in a 15-page letter for American help. The captain, two crew members, and six passengers had left earlier in an ill-fated effort to get help. The tanks reached the front lines with extraordinary speed. The 19th and Early 20th Century History. Surplus military equipment was of no value in peacetime. -8. [83] However, none of this cargo has been salvaged, and no documentation of its treasure has been produced.[84]. [29] Check out A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn on Amazon https://amzn.to/3lS8oVMLike & Subscribe for Daily US H. Washington. 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." The United States used lend-lease to induce recipients to the American way of thinking, especially regarding the economy and free-market trade. British Matilda tanks are loaded onto a ship for transportation to the U.S.S.R. as part of the Lend-Lease program. [36] Most belligerent powers severely decreased production of non-essentials, concentrating on producing weapons. You act like that would have been easy. Actual military production was achieved by sacrificing the civilian economy for short-term gain (and likely by burning up pre-existing stockpiles of raw materials). ", "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.". Lend Lease For Ukraine: It was not a Good Deal for US - SOFREP 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. It is commonly agreed that the implementation of the Lend-Lease Act greatly increased the strength of the Soviet Union and Great Britain against Germany, the two biggest gainers in this Act. 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. New Ukraine Military Aid Bill Isn't Your Grandfather's Lend-Lease Act Most went to Britain, but the Soviet Union received more than $11 billion. Lend-Lease: How the US Kept the Soviets Afloat in World War II "It should be remembered that during World War I, the transportation crisis in Russia in 1916-17 that did a lot to facilitate the February Revolution [which lead to the abdication of the tsar] was caused by a shortage in the production of railway rails, engines, and freight cars because industrial production had been diverted to munitions," Sokolov wrote. [70][71], Significant numbers of British Churchill, Matilda and Valentine tanks were shipped to the USSR.[72]. In Walter Yust, ed., "17 Billion Budget Drafted; Defense Takes 10 Billions. 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. Thereafter it saw the passage of 4,160,000 tons of goods, 27% of the total. It is our living history. It was a decisive step away from non-interventionist policy and toward open support for the Allies. In 1944, Britain transferred several of the US-made destroyers to the USSR. [73][74], Reverse Lend-Lease was the supply of equipment and services to the United States. "The Museum of the Allies and Lend-Lease is a unique, one-of-a-kind museum," said Borodin. After the war, it was transferred to civilian aviation, carrying passengers over the frozen tundra above the Arctic Circle. Lend-Lease kept the Soviet home front going through the winter of 1941 and throughout 1942. A total of 699 Lend-Lease aircraft had been delivered to Archangel by the time the Arctic convoys switched to Murmansk in December 1941. New Orleans. 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. By the end of 1942, the Nazi advance into the Soviet Union had stalled; it was finally reversed at the epic battle of Stalingrad in 1943. 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. Underestimation of lend lease to the Soviet Union during WW2 The 1947 money value of the supplies and services amounted to about $11 billion. Evolucin de los . D.C. 4 Ottawa Protocol (July 1, 194430 June 1945). It seems to fly in the face of some stories I've heard about Stalin ordering the obliteration of all USA and British markings on Lend Lease Materiel so as to maintain the illusion of the USSR doing it all on its own and that the others fighting the common enemy were the "little allies". If Germany defeated the Soviet Union, the most significant front in Europe would be closed. 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. 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. 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. THE ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF LEND-LEASE By EUGENE STALEY . The Viking Press. 5-6. How Much of What Goods Have We Sent to Which Allies? 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