[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. Pro lend-lease ! # On September 2, 1945, with the signing of billion (about $ billion in prices ) were sent to several dozen recipient countries, including the main ones: Lend Lease was pretty much strategic charity. United States and Britain, not the Soviet Union, China, or other United Nations . No one talks about this officially, and Stalin never, I think, left any written traces of his opinion, but I can say that he expressed this view several times in conversations with me.". Mongolian lamb and meat donations to the front lines outperformed those sent by the Lend-Lease Act. 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. On April 23, 1947, this C-37 was forced to make an emergency landing with 36 people on board near the village of Volochanka on the Taimyr Peninsula. [29] "In a hypothetical battle one-on-one between the U.S.S.R and Germany, without the help of Lend-Lease and without the diversion of significant forces of the Luftwaffe and the German Navy and the diversion of more than one-quarter of its land forces in the fight against Britain and the United States, Stalin could hardly have beaten Hitler," Sokolov wrote in an essay for RFE/RL's Russian Service. 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. 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. Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (Pub. According to research by a team of Soviet historians, the Soviet Union lost a staggering 20,500 tanks from June 22 to December 31, 1941. External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views or privacy policies contained therein. 19329 posts. Bill Introduced in the House Would Allow US to Lend Weapons to Taiwan 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. In 1944, Britain transferred several of the US-made destroyers to the USSR. 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. 1920's, Great Depression & WWII timeline | Timetoast timelines New Ukraine Military Aid Bill Isn't Your Grandfather's Lend-Lease Act [82] In June 1942, SSPort Nicholson was sunk en route from Halifax to New York, allegedly with Soviet platinum, gold, and diamonds aboard; the wreck was discovered in 2008. 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". Campbell, Thomas M. and George C. Herring, eds. British Matilda tanks are loaded onto a ship for transportation to the U.S.S.R. as part of the Lend-Lease program. For foreign citizens who want to live permanently in the United States. Some 3,964,000 tons of goods were shipped by the Arctic route; 7% was lost, while 93% arrived safely. Any mention of the role that Western assistance played in the Soviet war effort was strictly off-limits. In all, the United States shipped $50 billion ($608 billion in 2020 money) worth of materiel under the program, including $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union. Lend-Lease's precise significance to Allied victory in WW2 is debated. Red Army Lend/Lease Vehicles - Axis History How important was the Lend Lease Act for the Soviet Union - Quora Mystery surrounds the infamous burning of the Reichstag in 1933. Subscribe to our HistoryNet Now! Canada operated a program similar to Lend-Lease called Mutual Aid that sent a loan of Can$1billion (equivalent to Can$15.4billion in 2021)[30] and Can$3.4billion (Can$52.3billion) in supplies and services to Britain and other Allies.[31][5]. Only 22% were unequivocally against the President's proposal. Painting of Lend-Lease tanks and equipment - Axis History Forum How obvious was lend-lease equipment to the average Soviet soldier aid from Britain can be argued to have had the most significant impact. 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.. (1942). 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. 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". In addition, there would have been constant shortages of transportation and fuel. But it cannot be denied that the Americans sent us materiel without which we could not have formed our reserves or continued the war. On September 20, 1945, all Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union was terminated. [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. Materiel delivered under the act was supplied at no cost, to be used until returned or destroyed. If Germany defeated the Soviet Union, the most significant front in Europe would be closed. 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. Romanus, Charles F. and Riley Sunderland. 2009. . The British Military Mission to Moscow noted that by December 9, about ninety British tanks had already been in action with Soviet forces. Franklin D. Roosevelt had committed the United States in June 1940 to materially aiding the opponents of fascism, but, under existing U.S. law, the United Kingdom had to pay for its growing arms purchases from the United States with cash, popularly known as cash-and-carry. Heavy bombers had not been mentioned in previous protocols. Payment was to be stretched out over 50 annual payments, starting in 1951 and with five years of deferred payments, at 2% interest. The Government of Mongolia donated its gold and hard currency reserves to the Soviet Union for four years in a row. Newly discovered files tell another story. [40] In total, 92.7% of the wartime production of railroad equipment by the USSR was supplied by Lend-Lease,[35] including 1,911 locomotives and 11,225 railcars[41] which augmented the existing stocks of at least 20,000 locomotives and half a million railcars.[42]. 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. However, the real significance of Lend-Lease for the Soviet war effort was that it covered the "sensitive points" of Soviet production -- gasoline, explosives, aluminum, nonferrous metals, radio communications, and so on, says historian Boris Sokolov. This was the first big war in which whole formations were routinely motorized; soldiers were supported with large numbers of all kinds of vehicles. In contrast, 17 Republicans (63 percent) voted "nay" while 10 Senate Republicans (37 percent) sided with the Democrats to pass the bill.[19]. The Warplanes to Siberia Project | Historical Spotlight | News | Wargaming Lend Lease For Ukraine: It was not a Good Deal for US - SOFREP "Transatlantic Generosity: Canada's 'Billion Dollar Gift' to the United Kingdom in the Second World War.". Tomahawks also served in defense of the Doroga Zhizni or Road of Life across the ice of Lake Ladoga, which provided the only supply line to the besieged city of Leningrad during the winter of 194142. 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. This was agreed upon before the signing of the first protocol on October 1, 1941, and extension of credit. 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. 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 Resurrection of World War II Lend-Lease Records on the USSR: A The Strange Alliance, The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia. 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." The convoy was the first of many convoys to Murmansk and Archangelsk in what became known as the Arctic convoys, the returning ships carried the gold that the USSR was using to pay the US. Lend-Lease Act - Conservapedia 151 Wing of the RAF, which operated briefly from Soviet airfields near Murmansk. 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. This page was last edited on 23 February 2023, at 02:14. L.7711, H.R. The story of how that microfilm came to be in the National Archives is a convoluted tale worthy of telling. 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. Crowley, Leo T. "Lend-Lease". How important was the Lend Lease Act to the Soviet Union? American contributions of the time were far fewer. [38] With the outbreak of war these plants switched from civilian to military production and locomotive production ended virtually overnight. on the Soviet war effort during the first year of the war was in the far. [55], In total, the U.S. deliveries to the USSR through Lend-Lease amounted to $11 billion in materials: over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386[57] of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans);[58] 11,400 aircraft (of which 4,719 were Bell P-39 Airacobras, 3,414 were Douglas A-20 Havocs and 2,397 were Bell P-63 Kingcobras)[59] and 1.75million tons of food. [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). Supplies that arrived after the termination date were sold to Britain at a large discount for 1.075billion, using long-term loans from the United States. 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. 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. 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. The country's agriculture was in a difficult situation. Few Americans objected to Soviet aid until 1943. Without Lend-Lease food, clothing, and raw materials (especially metals), the Soviet economy would have been even more heavily burdened by the war effort. 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. Much of the American fuel was added to lower-grade Soviet fuel to produce the high-octane fuel needed by modern military aircraft. Could the soviets have won without lend lease? Yauza. 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 railroads would have periodically come to a halt. During the war, Soviet factories produced more than 29.1 million small arms of all major types, while only 152,000 small arms ( 0.5% of the total) were manufactured by American, British, and Canadian plants. 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. [27] Other recipients were led by $11.3billion ($137billion) to the Soviet Union, $3.2billion ($38.7billion) to France, $1.6billion ($19.3billion) to China, and the remaining $2.6billion to the other Allies. For travel to the United States on a temporary basis, including tourism, temporary employment, study and exchange. After the war, it was transferred to civilian aviation, carrying passengers over the frozen tundra above the Arctic Circle. Collection. How important was the Lend-Lease to the Soviet war effort? How important was the Lend-Lease to the Soviet war effort? re: In hindsight was it a mistake for the US to ally with the Soviet Union during WW2. Large quantities of undelivered goods were in Britain or in transit when Lend-Lease terminated on September 2, 1945. How Much Did Lend Lease Help Russia? - Czech Heritage In 1946, the post-war Anglo-American loan 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 1.075billion for the Lend-Lease portion of the post-war loans. 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. David Glantz, 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. They Say He Burned Down the Reichstag. The terms of the agreement provided that the materiel was to be used until returned or destroyed. [22], In February 1942, the U.S. and Britain signed the Anglo-American Mutual Aid Agreement[23] 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. (German Language). The Soviet authorities were well aware of this dependency on Lend-Lease. The body of the captain, Maksim Tyurikov, was found by local hunters about 120 kilometers from the wreck in 1953. Lend-Lease WW2 - American Supply to the Allies - Real History Online 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. Yes, in 1942 Lend-Lease was of course important for Soviet Russia. 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." 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. In the meantime, Great Britain was running out of liquid currency and asked not to be forced to sell off British assets. 151 Wing in Operation Benedict, to provide air defence of the port and to train Soviet pilots. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a trickle of information has emerged from archives in Moscow, shedding new light on the subject. [69] Lend-Lease tanks constituted 30 to 40 percent of heavy and medium tank strength before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941. 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?