The Oxford History of World War II by Richard Overy

Author:Richard Overy [Overy, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780192884107
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2023-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Economic Collaboration

The entry of the United States into the war in December 1941 also helped to improve the economic fortunes of the other Allied fighting powers, first because the American government made a commitment, already enshrined in the Lend Lease Bill passed by Congress in March 1941, to supply goods without payment to states engaged in the war against Germany and Italy, second because the American navy and air forces limited German and Japanese economic performance with bombing and blockade. Britain was the chief beneficiary of the generous supply programme, receiving $30 billion of aid, two-thirds in the form of military equipment and weapons, 15 per cent of it in food and agricultural supplies. The Soviet Union was also provisioned from summer 1941 onwards with a flow of food, vehicles, communications equipment, and raw materials, eventually reaching a total value of $10.6 billion. Generous though these supplies were, and vital for the continued belligerency of both states, Lend Lease only involved 4 per cent of the United States’ domestic output between 1941 and 1945. The flow of aid was also substantial from Canada, with loans of four billion Canadian dollars and a flow of aircraft and vehicles to Britain’s war effort that could be had on credit. In return Britain supplied the United States and Canada with facilities and equipment in Britain or with scarce regional resources (oil, for example, for United States forces in North Africa came from British supplies in the Middle East). Reciprocal aid resulted in a total transfer of $5.6 billion worth of services and material to the United States over the period 1941–5.

The willingness of the Western Allied states to share their resources was an important component in eventual Allied victory, though it was calculated that the Soviet Union gave its allies no more than $2 million worth of reciprocal aid. The Soviet war effort relied heavily on Lend Lease because the supply of food, materials, and equipment allowed Soviet industry to concentrate production on finished weapons. The 363,000 trucks supplied to the Soviet Union exceeded total German production throughout the war; Lend Lease supplied 58 per cent of Soviet aviation fuel and 53 per cent of explosives, and 1,900 rail locomotives against just ninety-two produced in the Soviet Union. The Soviet military communications system was transformed by the supply of telephones, telephone wire, and front-line radios. Though the Soviet position after the war was to play down aid from the imperialist West, Khrushchev recalled in the 1960s that Stalin had several times remarked that without the aid the Soviet Union ‘could not have continued the war’.

This collaboration was in evident contrast to the Axis states. Germany supplied goods to Italy only grudgingly and gave priority in the transfer of machinery and raw materials to firms in German-occupied Europe which were working for the German armed forces. When radar and anti-aircraft guns were sent to Italy in 1942 they were allocated to German units based in the peninsula—which on occasion fired at Italian aircraft if they strayed into the path of the guns.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.