Figure 1.--

A retired Red Army officer has provided us a view of Lend Lease from a Russian perspective. He provides some very useful statistics. We are very interested in his comments, in part because the war in the East is often not sufficently covered in World War II histories. Thus his comments provide a very useful addtion to our coverage of World War II which relies almost completely on Western sources.Here is the Russian text of our reader's comments on Lend Lease. We have done a basic internet translstion, but we stress that it does not do justice to our reader's comments. We hope to eventually improve on the translation. Our Russian reader writes, "Let us talk about the Second World War. I want to begin not with the start of the war, but about the deliveries into the Soviet Union of equipment and armament through Lend Lease. I think you know that this plan was begun in the USA as early as spring 1941 primarily to aid Great Britain.

Stopping the NAZIs

In recent years in the media, including in the Internet, it is possible to find many opinions that the USSR in 1941 endured the pressure of German forces only because of deliveries by the USA and England to the USSR of large quantities of equipment and armaments. However, in the autumn of 1941, Lend Lease deliveries were only beginning and were not significant. Lend Lease could not play a significant role in the autumn and winter of 1941 in our defence and in the battle for Moscow. To be more precise, even the equipment received simply did not have time to reach the front and to participate in these battles.

Actual Deliveries

As you probably know, the agreement between the USSR and the USA for the first 6 months of the war (1941), in equipment the United States agreed to supply 600 tanks and 750 aircraft; however, they did not meet their obligation, delivering only 182 tanks and 204 aircraft and only 82 guns. We will not touch on other armaments and equipment. At the same time, Great Britain delivered to the USSR 466 light tanks and 711 aircraft.

Aircraft

Let us discuss aircraft in somewhat more detail. The aircraft delivered from Great Britain were becoming obsolete. They were inferior to German aircraft in armament and speed. The aeroplanes "Kittyhawk", "Tomahawk" and "Hurricane" sent earlier by the USA for the needs of Great Britain were already becoming obsolete. Prime Minister Churchill simply got rid of them by shipping them to the USSR. In speed these aircraft was inferior to German aircraft since they attained only 520 km an hour, against the 570-590 km an hour capability of German aircraft. Weak armament made them still weaker in combat. Nevertheless, they certainly played a role, not a great one, but a role nonetheless. Only a few new modern aircraft of the type "Air Cobra", were shipped by the United States to the USSR and they did not have time to reach the front.

1942 Shipments

In 1942, although deliveries were considerably greater, in comparison with the equipment, which Soviet industry produced it could not play a significant role in combat, though it proved itself effective. Here are several figures for comparison: Category Soviet industry Lend Lease small arms 5,091,000 pcs. 61,000 pcs. weapons and mortars 287,000 pcs. 532 pcs. tanks 24,500 2,703 aircraft 21,700 1,695 Later I will give figures for other deliveries, but these weapons are fundamental for conducting military action and give a general impression about the fact that the war was won not as a result of these deliveries. I am not suggesting that you claim otherwise, I simply want to show those people, who say that the delivery of armament from the USA and Great Britain played a decisive role in preventing the conquest of the USSR.

Arctic Convoys

Major deliveries continued up to the summer of 1942, until through the cowardice of the admiralty of Great Britain the accompanying ships, fearing the German battleship "Tirpitz" abandoned convoy PQ-17 to be torn apart by German submarines and aviation. The convoy was almost completely destroyed; only a few ships and their cargoes reached Soviet ports. Hundred and thousands of American, English, Russian and other seamen of the ships of this convoy, perished because of the cowardice of the British Admiralty. Hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo went to the bottom after being deprived of the protection of English ships. After the crushing defeat of PQ-17, northern convoys became rarer, eventually ceasing entirely. This took place during the most critical year of the war - 1942. When there was a special need for the armaments, when the battle for Stalingrad was being fought, only 5 ships with their cargoes arrived in Soviet ports. If we examine the deliveries of armaments in these critical moments of the war, the doubt even brgins to form – why, precisely during the Stalingrad battle, did the trickle of deliveries by the allies dry up almost completely?

Allied Strategy

We will not learn the truth, but possibly Churchill and Roosevelt at this moment were simply biding their time – to find out how things would go in the USSR. If Stalingrad falls, is it worth giving further help to Stalin? But this is only my subjective opinion.

Overall Lend Lease Deliveries

I may be wrong, but this impression is bourn out if we attentively look at the events. As far as I know, the entire volume of deliveries into all countries under the Lend Lease program consisted of armaments, equipment, vehicles, foodstuffs and the rest amounted to $42,951 million. The lion’s share of this aid arrived in Great Britain - $30,269 million; the USSR received aid in the sum of $9,119 million, and even the countries of South America managed to obtain this aid amounting to $421 million. It is interesting; on what front did the South American countries fight? And, nevertheless, it was required to repay the American people, for a large quantity of essential armament and equipment delivered to the Soviet Union during the course of the entire war. Within the scale of the entire war, this aid does not appear very large, but at certain stages it played its positive role.

Deliveries to the Soviet Union

Especially significant in scale were the deliveries of vehicular equipment, which allowed the USSR not to divert its resources to the production of automobiles, concentrating them on production more necessary for the front - tanks, self-propelled artillery and another armament. Maybe you know, but nevertheless I will give some figures for deliveries under Lend Lease, which the USSR during the period from 1941 through 1945: Fighters: P-40 – 2,048 + 349 (Great Britain); P-39 – 3,069 + 2,583 (Great Britain) + 55 (other countries - Canada?); P-47 - 195; P-63 – 2,312 + 85(?Great Britain). Bombers: A-20 – 2,908; B-25 - 862; B-24 - 1. Transport aircraft: C-46 - 1; C -47 - 707. Reconnaissance O -52 – 19. Trainer aircraft AT6-c - 28; AT6-.f - 54. Seaplanes PBN and PBY - 185. Automobiles: jeeps – 43,728, amphibious jeeps – 3,510, trucks 3/4 tons – 24,564, trucks 1/2 tons – 148,664 + 182,938; Amphibious trucks - 586; 5 ton trucks - 814; Special automobiles – 2,784; Tractors without trailers – 1,938; trailers - 105; Field workshops – 1,534; tank tractors - 130, tank transporters - 629; Tanks: light – 1,239; medium – 4,957; SAU PTO 75MM - 5; SAU PTO 57MM - 650; SAU PTO 3' - 52; SAU PTO 37 mm - 100. Zenith SU 0,5' – 1,000. Light armoured cars – 3,054 halftrack armoured cars – 1,104 motorcycles – 32,200 tracked tractors – 7,570 steam locomotives – 1,900 diesel locomotives - 66 railway platforms – 9,920 railway cisterns - 120 railway cars – 1,000. And, of course, a large quantity of foodstuffs and other materials, including explosive and powder, the aviation fluid and other essentials. If you are interested, I can refine these data, I simply haven’t included the entire list because of its length.

Payments

Here is something elses: the history of Lend Lease is still not finished. At the present time, this page of history is not closed, since a part of the deliveries, which could be used for the needs, was subject to payment by the Soviet Union. After the war, the governments of the USSR and USA could not come to agreement about the total debts of the USSR for these deliveries and this has been dragged out to the present day. In 1999, agreement was reached that Russia will pay the USA $674 million by 2030 for the Lend Lease deliveries. I here again pose a question - why only Russia has to pay out these debts? Why don’t Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldova and other sovereign states take on a part of the debt? Again Russia must pay for all, without distinction and so, of course, it cannot direct these resources toward its development. The Soviet Union utilised, and Russia alone pays. This is unjust in my view.

Sources

Bogdanov, Victor. E-mail message, October 6, 2005.

Created: 6:20 PM 10/6/2005
Last updated: 6:17 AM 11/14/2005