Stalin's War by Sean McMeekin

Author:Sean McMeekin [McMeekin, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2021-04-20T00:00:00+00:00

“I have to inform you,” the Vozhd wrote Churchill on October 3, “that the situation in the Stalingrad area has deteriorated since the beginning of September. The Germans [have] managed to secure superiority in the air of ratio 2:1.” The VVS did not have “enough fighters for the protection of our forces,” Stalin continued, alluding to Churchill’s diversion of 154 Kobrushkas, and, Stalin conceded, “even the bravest troops are helpless if they lack air preparation.” If Airacobras were not available, he requested that Churchill ship him British Spitfires as soon as possible. In a sign of how critical a priority US and British pursuit planes now were at Stalingrad, Stalin requested that the Allies reduce the quantity of “tanks and artillery equipment” on lend-lease ships to make room for fighters. To beat off the German offensives at Stalingrad and in the North Caucasus, the Vozhd demanded eight hundred pursuit planes per month—five hundred American and three hundred British.33

Stalin was no less demanding with Roosevelt, although he was more polite than with Churchill. “We are willing to discard for the time being,” Stalin wired the president on October 7, 1942, “all of the deliveries of tanks, artillery, munitions, pistols, etc.… But at the same time we are extremely in need of an increase in the delivery of pursuit planes of modern type (such as the ‘Airacobra’).… It should be born in mind that the ‘Kittyhawk’ planes do not stand the fight against present German pursuits.” “The experience of the war,” the Vozhd concluded his plea, “has shown that the bravest armies become helpless if they are not protected from the blows from the air.”34

Stalin was no less forthright about Soviet desperation for American foodstuffs. In order to make up for lost agricultural production owing to the German occupation of the Ukraine and southern Russia’s black earth region, Stalin informed Roosevelt on October 7 that “it is essential to secure the delivery within 12 months of 2 million tons of grain (wheat) as well as such quantity as possible of fats, concentrated food and canned meat.” Roosevelt complied with alacrity, having Hopkins and the Lend-Lease Administration commandeer almost the entire rolling stock of the western United States for Stalin, shipping an astonishing 112,000 tons of foodstuffs from Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco to Soviet Far Eastern ports in November 1942 alone. During the second protocol, in force through June 30, 1943, the United States delivered to Stalin’s armies 997,783 tons of foodstuffs, including grains, canned and smoked meats, sausages, fats, vegetable oil and shortening, canned and dried milk, dehydrated cheese, eggs, vegetables, fruits, salt, sugar, coffee, tea, and vitamins.35

Stalin did not conceal his desperate need for trucks either, informing Roosevelt in his October 7 plea that the Red Army needed monthly supplies of “8,000 to 10,000.” The soon-famous Willys MB and Ford GPW all-wheel-drive off-road jeeps and Studebaker trucks, which had begun arriving in Russia in 1942, were outfitted with 76 mm Red Army guns and placed into immediate use, playing a critical role supplying mobile forces deployed beyond railheads.

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