Figure 1.-- |
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Lead Lease was primarily designed to assist Britain in its fight with NAZI Germany, but Nationalist China also received shipments to assist with its defense against Japan. Eventually 38 different countries (accounts diffe slightly on this number) received Lend Lease assistance. While Lend Lease aid went to a large number of countries, the two critical countries were Britain and Russia. Without these two countries, the United States would have been unable to have effectively engaged the Germans in Europe. Lend Lease was critical to the war-effort of both coubtries. The Soviet Union had been essentially a parter with the NAZIs until Hitler ordered an invasion (June 1941). The Soviet Union was subsequently added to the list of Lend Lease recipients (November 1941). Aid to the Soviets was more contencious than to other countries, but had a stron advocate in Hopkins. [McJimsey, pp. 293-294] Eventually almost all the allied nations were declared eligible for lend-lease aid. A series of Lend Lease agreements were signed with the participating countries. Reciprocal aid agreements with Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the Free French were negotiated (1942). These agreements provided for "reverse Lend Lease" involving goods, services, shipping, and military installations provided American forces stationed overseas. Other Allied nations in which U.S. forces were stationed adhered to the same provisions. Lend Lease assistance totaled about $49 billion (1941-45 collars) by the time the program was ended (August 1945).
Lead Lease was primarily designed to assist Britain in its fight with NAZI Germany. Lend Lease was created in 1941 because Britain had essentially gone bankrupt (Devember 1940). Germany was conducting the War by appropriating war materials from occupied countries and the use of slave labor. Britain without Lend Lease could not have continued the War. The decisive victory at El Alemain could not have been achieved without Lend Lease. America eventually provided Britain over $31 billion in Lend Lease assistance (in 1941-45 dollars). Britain eventually paid back about $0.7 billion. Britain also surrender rights and royalties to many important British technological achievements.
Nationalist China also received shipments to assist with its defense against Japan. Lend Lease was entended to China in April 1941,
The Free French were dependendant on Lend Lease. With France occupied or under Vichy control, the Free French had no armaments industry to supply them. Britain could not fully upply its own forces. Thus Lend Lease material equipped the Free French.
Soviet participation in the land campaign against Germany was critical. Without the Red Army engaging the Wehrmacht in the East, an Allied invasion of France would have never been possible. America extended Lend Lease to the Soviet Union (September 1941). Lend Lease proved critical to the Soviet war effort. This should not be over emphasized. The Red Army stopped the Wehrmacht at Lenningrad and Moscow (December 1941) before Lend Lease aid had begun to arrive in any quantity. The Soviets had a massive arms industry that out produced the Germans in many areas. [Dunn] Many of their weapons were of a high quality--especially the T-34 tank which was superior to the American Sherman tank. The Soviets had moved their armaments plants back to and beyond the Urals after the NAZI invasion. By 1942 those plants were back in opperation. Still wars are won by marshalling superior resources. After the War, Stalin down-played the importance of Lend Lease. Most historians, however, report that Lend Lease played a critical role in the Soviet war effort. The Red Air Force had been largely destroyed in the first weeks of the German invasion. The United States commitment to supply 400 planes a month to the Soviets was a critical factor in the rebuilding of the Red Air Force. Lend Lease not only provided weapons including high performance aircraft, but many oyher key materials. American trucks and locomotives played a key role in the logistics neeed to support Red Army offenses. Other materials such as blankets and canned meat were very imporyant tothe Red Ary. The Soviet Union had been essentially a parter with the NAZIs until Hitler ordered an invasion (June 1941). Aid to the Soviets was more contencious than to other countries, but had a stron advocate in Hopkins. [McJimsey, pp. 293-294] Some Americans wanted to restrict aid to the Soviets on ideological grounds. Some like Ambassador Standley also understood the evil nature of the Soviet regime. Here a case can be made that Ameruca erred in so copiously supplying the Soviets. Certainly the trucks which America supplied the Soviets to fight the Wehrmacht were later used to cart unknown numbers of people off to the Gulag. These arguments can safely made today after the NAZIs were defeated. That defeat was, however, much less certain in 1941-43. One of the considerations to bear in mind was that Stalin and joined Hitler once, in part because he thought the Allies were intent on weakening the Soviet Union by sitting out the war and having the Soviets and NAZIs destroy each other. After the cross-Channel invasion was postponed in 1942 (Sledgehammer) and especially in 1943 (Roundup). Stalin was enraged. There were Soviet and NAZI peace feelers. [Mastny, p. 1378. and Karpov] Historians debate as to how serious these feelers were, in part becuse Stalin to suppress all evidence after the War. Hopkins argued with considerable force that after the postponment of the cross-Channel invasion in 1943 that full scale Lead Lease aid was necessary to convince Stalin of the Westen Allies sincerity and commitment. [McJimsey, pp. 292-294.]
There was also so-called "reverse lend-lease." This was primarily msaterial assisance to U.S. troops stationed abroad. It was primarily British support and amounted to about $8 billion.
Alberti, Fedor (Deputy Head of Moscow State Civil Aviation Engineering University). "Lend-Lese Air Ferries", AeroSpace Journal (1997).
Dunn Jr., Walter S. The Soviet Economy and the Red Army, 1930-1945 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995).
Karpov, Vladimir. Generalissimo.
Kimball, W.F. The Most Unsordid Act (1969).
McJimsey, George. Harry Hopkins: Ally of the Poor and Defender of Liberty (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1987), 474p.
Mastny, V. "Soviet war aims at the Moscow and Teheran conferences," Journal of Modern History (1975).
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