. 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. 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]. Lend Lease A transformative example that demonstrated America's willingness and ability to help its allies in times of war was the aid provision America provided to Britain and the Soviet Union during World War II. How much Soviet equipment was Lend-Lease? Stettinius. 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. By the end of the war, the United States had extended over $49 billion in Lend-Lease aid to nearly forty nations. In th. While Soviet pilots praised the maneuverability of the homegrown I-153 Chaika and I-16 Ishak fightersstill in use in significant numbers in late 1941both types were certainly obsolete and inferior in almost all regards to the British-supplied Hurricane. In practice, most equipment was destroyed, although some hardware (such as ships) was returned after the war. In turn, this would have allowed the German commanders to escape at least some encirclements, while forcing the Red Army to prepare and conduct many more deliberate penetration attacks in order to advance the same distance. American aid also provided 4.5 million tons of food, 1.5 million blankets, and 15 million pairs of boots. [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. Most famously, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin raised a toast to the Lend-Lease program at the November 1943 Tehran conference with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. [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. The total amount that Canada agreed to pay under the new arrangement came to about $76,800,000, which was some $13,870,000 less than the United States had spent on the facilities. Matilda II in Soviet Service - Tank Encyclopedia 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. So the Soviets were charged 10 cents on the dollar of actual cost. 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. On March 11, 1941, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act. Lend-Lease Act of 1941: Facts, Summary, and Significance In 1941, the threat of World War II drove passage of the Lend-Lease Act repealing key provisions of the Neutrality Acts. Britain had been paying for its materiel with gold as part of the "cash and carry" program, as required by the U.S. Neutrality Acts of the 1930s, but by 1941 it had liquidated a large part of its overseas holdings and its gold reserves were becoming depleted in paying for materiel from the United States. The total of defense materials and services that Canada received through lend-lease channels amounted in value to approximately $419,500,000. Lend-Lease: How American supplies aided the USSR in its darkest hour 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. Ladd Field and the Lend-Lease Mission: Defending Alaska in WWII [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. Check out A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn on Amazon https://amzn.to/3lS8oVMLike & Subscribe for Daily US H. In spring 1944, the House passed a bill to renew the Lend-Lease program by a vote of 334 to 21. 'We would have lost': Did U.S. lend-lease aid tip the balance in Soviet Thus, Stalin told Harry Hopkins [FDR's emissary to Moscow in July 1941] that the U.S.S.R. could not match Germany's might as an occupier of Europe and its resources.[35]. Evolucin de los . Without Lend-Lease, Russia would not have been able to carry out the Stalingrad counteroffensive and Operation Bagration. New Orleans. 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. A total of 22,800 armored vehicles were delivered to the Red Army during World War II, of which 1,981 were lost in dangerous Arctic convoys. The Warplanes to Siberia Project | Historical Spotlight | News | Wargaming 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. [34], Lend-Lease contributed to the Allied victory. [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. A map of lend-lease shipments from the United States to the U.S.S.R. from 1941-45. 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. The Lend-Lease Memorial in Fairbanks, Alaska, commemorates the shipment of U.S. aircraft to the Soviet Union along the Northwest Staging Route. Lend-Lease Act: Definition, Ukraine & World War II - HISTORY During the bitter fighting of the winter of 19411942, British aid made a crucial difference. [1] There was no repayment required. The United States and the British Commonwealth provided 55. A particular critical aspect of Lend-Lease was the supply of food. ", "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? Ordnance goods (ammunition, artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives) provided amounted to 53 percent of total domestic consumption. How Much Did Lend Lease Help Russia? - Czech Heritage 151 Wing of the RAF, which operated briefly from Soviet airfields near Murmansk. Lend-Lease - Wikipedia 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. 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. Yes, in 1942 Lend-Lease was of course important for Soviet Russia. United States and Britain, not the Soviet Union, China, or other United Nations . Under the Lend-Lease Act, the United States sent enormous quantities of war materiel to the Soviet Union, which was critical in helping the Soviets withstand the Nazi onslaught. D.C. 4 Ottawa Protocol (July 1, 194430 June 1945). The program started 3 months after the German invasion of USSR in June, 1941. By October, German troops were poised outside both Leningrad and Moscow. [61][62], Restrictions in the supply of weapons from the United States were mainly limited to heavy bombers. 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. BM-13N Katyusha on a Lend-Lease Studebaker US6 truck, at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Moscow, In June 1941, within weeks of the German invasion of the USSR, the Anglo-Soviet Agreement was made and the first British aid convoy set off along the dangerous Arctic Sea route to Murmansk, arriving in September. The plane spent 69 years on the tundra before a Russian Geographical Society expedition rescued it in 2016 and returned the wreckage to Krasnoyarsk. How important was Lend-Lease for the Soviet war effort? 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. The Lend-Lease program also provided more than 35,000 radio sets and 32,000 motorcycles. $31 billion went to Britain, $11 billion to the Soviet Union, $3 billion to France, and $1.6 billion to China. Lend Lease For Ukraine: It was not a Good Deal for US - SOFREP The British Commonwealth and, to a lesser extent, the Soviet Union reciprocated with a smaller Reverse Lend-Lease program. In April, this policy was extended to China,[20] and in October to the Soviet Union. From 1941 to 1945, total lend-lease aid to the Soviet Union accounted for only 5% of the Soviet GDP in total. 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. 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. Roosevelt approved $1billion in Lend-Lease aid to Britain at the end of October 1941. 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." For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. When the House of Representatives finally took a roll call vote on February 9, 1941, the 260 to 165 vote was largely along party lines. This was mostly in the form of landing, servicing, and refueling of transport aircraft; some industrial machinery and rare minerals were sent to the U.S. Supplies that arrived after the termination date were sold to the United Kingdom at a large discount for 1.075 billion, using long-term loans from the United States, which were finally repaid in 2006. This followed the 1940 Destroyers for Bases Agreement, whereby 50 US Navy destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy in exchange for basing rights in the Caribbean. Underestimation of lend lease to the Soviet Union during WW2 And they would have been perpetually hungry without American canned meat and fats. Has Russia paid off the USSR's Lend-Lease debt? - Quora Particularly important for the Soviets in late 1941 were British-supplied tanks and aircraft. 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. Few Americans objected to Soviet aid until 1943. But Was He Drugged Into Confessing. But in order to sustain the war effort all the way back to Germany, Lend-Lease was decisive. ): Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg. 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 . Canada was not a direct recipient of Lend-Lease aid. Report from Mikoyan to Stalin and Molotov regarding Lend-Lease