The Americans keep saying that they gave us supplies in world war two but did'nt we have to buy them?

Question

My dad was in ww2 and he says that the Americans did'nt give us anything and that we had to pay, Is this correct?

Answer 1

The Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe and prevented most of Europe from starving.

Regardless, seeing that you're currently not speaking German is proof enough...

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/marshallplan/

Answer 2

Your dad is correct in one sense but not entirely correct.

What happed was that a method of supplying goods, weapons etc., was developed before the Americans came into the war, so that from c1940 on we had something called Lend Lease.

What this meant in effect was that we [in theory] leased equipment, arms etc., from the USA.

It's all a bit complicated really, but in simple terms it was a method by which the USA could legally supply stuff without breaking their own strict rules on not supplying war materials, blah etc.

UK paid of the final installment [if that's the correct word] in c2000 and something. So the outstanding debt has been paid.

Your dad is quite right. WW2 cost our nation dear and as for the creation of the NHS this nearly bust the bank entirely. I sometimes wonder just how we managed to pull through. A lot of bluff I think.

Which reminds me just how clever the British were, because in the 1950s we told the Yanks that we had built our own H-Bomb, having already demonstrated our A-Bomb.

Fact is we did not have an H-Bomb. What we did have was an A-Bomb and a massive pile of TNT. We blew this up and the Yanks were convinced we'd done it. We then got all the info on how an H-Bomb was made and worked from them.

Yah-boo etc.

Answer 3

Most Americans feel we gave you the lives and limbs of our people. So maybe we can be excused if we don't feel real bad about the lend/lease program.

You know, I realize its in vogue to hate America these days across the Atlantic and just about everywhere else. Yes, we have an idiot for a leader and yes we are involved in a war that should never have happened. But lets keep it current. World War II was a horrible thing as was WW I and the fact of the matter is that a whole lot of Americans sacrificed their lives, their limbs and at home, we rationed just about everything to support the Allied effort. Is it now your purpose to try and say that American has never been anything but an opportunistic slug feeding on other's misfortune? It's not true any more than the idea that the British Empire was a travesty of colonialism that nearly ruined every society it invaded and left poverty and civil war behind it.

Quit generalizing here on this casual forum and if you're interested in history, read a history book or better yet, go talk to some senior citizens in your own country and ask them how grateful they were for the American flyers that showed up in Britain long before America was officially at war.

My grandfather's left eye was gone when he came home on the Queen Mary and so was some of his spirit. He left most of his buddies dead in Belgium. My parents ate meagerly and my mom did without her dad for 3 years. Did your country every send us a dime to pay for that?

But then, its always easier to kick a giant when they're down, isn't it........ so go ahead and bash America. We can take it. But remember, it was your leader who caved and went with us down to Iraq. So put the blame where it belongs.

Answer 4

Te name of the program was Lend-Lease; some of the equioment was sold to the British and other equipment was given to them. Reason for this was very simple-the U.S. was coming out of a depression and was not very rich and the American people would not have been happy paying taxes for the government to buy things to turn around and give away for nothing-the government had to recoup costs. As a neutral country it would have difficult to justify giving weapons to England and Russia and not giving them to the Germans. The Germans actually tried to force the U.S. to sell them goods and under the laws that govern such things the U.S. had to comply but the sticker was the U.S. did not have to transport and the Germans had no merchant fleet. The U.S. did provide both transport and escort warships to the British to about Iceland during this time of being neutral-legally this was a little shakey since we did attack and sink German U-Boats threatening not just U.S. ships but also british, Dutch, and the other allied countries. So yes the Americans did sell a lot ofthe material to the British but there was no other way to provide it-the dollar value of the goods was huge and would have bankrupt the U.S. and the trnasportation and support provided was done free as scheduled exercises. The U.S. governemnt at the time did what it could but did have to be careful politically because of the isolationalist in this country who were even against those actions. It appears to be popular right now to bash America for everything it has ever done-World War Two should have never happend and if the British had stood up to the french during the Versailles Treaty negotiatons it might not have and if they and the French had stood up to Hitler pror to the invasion of Poland it would have never happend. In many ways the other European countries (primarily France through wanting to punish and Britian taking a let the French do what they want to do attitude) brought Hitler to power and caused the war so why would the Americans half a world away been expected to help? That was the thinking of the majority of Americans up until the bombing of Pearl Harbor and it was not that different in England or France until the invasion of Poland-Let Hitler have the Ruhr back, Sudentland, Austria and so on it isn't worth fighting over. To answer your question some were sold and some were given.

Answer 5

Well, kinda. You did have to pay, but it was hardly at full price. In fact it was really, really cheap. The U.S. never really ended up making any money from the deal, and the U.K. hardly went into any sort of debt because of it. Also, if we had just given you the stuff for free, we would have been officially declared as entering the war, which we were not ready to do at that time.

Also, there were other "things" that we gave you. British ships took rest in many American ports in 1940 and 1941 for repairs and whatnot. Many RAF pilots trained in Florida. Our Navy gave many of your passenger ships safe passage from Britain to elsewhere. American pilots flew with the RAF before we were officially in the war.

Although, if you have a problem with any of this, speak up and say the word, and we won't ever again bother you with trivial things like supplies and whatnot.

Answer 6

Lend-Lease was the name of the program under which the United States of America supplied Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war materiel between 1941 and 1945 in return for, in the case of Britain, military bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda and the British West Indies. It began in March 1941, nine months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It was abruptly stopped by the Americans immediately after V-J day.

Answer 7

That's right, the Brits did have to pay for a lot of supplies. If I remember correctly, there was a news story a few years ago talking about the British debt (to the U.S.) being finally paid off.

Answer 8

Yeah we (Britain) did have to pay them. A MASSIVE amount. In fact it cost so much that the British government only finished paying back the loan last year.
Some Americans have a skewed view of WWII (I'm not at all anti-American, by the way, I think its a great country). They forget the role of Britain (and the Soviet Union), and that Britain was getting hammered from 1939 whereas the Americans only got involved half-way through.

Answer 9

your father is correct, the americans did led the Allies weapons money etc, however when the war came to an end the Americans wanted it back. Which meant that the Allies had to pay back their millions of $ debts. So indirectly we did have to pay at the end.

Answer 10

There isnt nothing in the world that is free. They put it on an installment plan. It was a way of the US backing allied countries without entering the war, that was until 1941.

Answer 11

It was a scheme called Lend Lease and basically it meant that the US gave us equipment and we paid them either over time or in kind.

One of the first examples was fleet of 50 out of date old destroyers half of which either broke down or sank in transit across the ocean. The rest were next to useless except one which we re-named the Campbeltown, which we used to ram a dockyard in France and blow up in order to stop the Germans using it.

in exchange for those ships we gave the U.S our naval bases in the west indies.

The rest of what they sent us amounted to a huge debt which we finally finished paying off in 2006.

Nothing comes for free, particulalry when you are desperate!

Heavy M ( and the rest of America) - why dont you take a history lesson and learn that on D-day in Normandy there were TWO American Invasion beaches, AND TWO British invasion beaches AND a Canadian Invasion beach....

The first allied boots on the ground that day were BRITISH paratroopers who took Pegasus Bridge (even your anti British historian Steven Ambrose admits that).

Half of the American landing craft were manned by Royal Navy crewmen.

Why on earth do you think that it was only Americans who stormed the beaches that day?

Could it be that you learn your history from Hollywood who have carefully airbrushed everyone else out of the picture?