Starting in March of 1941 (However proposed in 1940) with the lend lease act, Before the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, the USA started pumping Iron, Steel, Guns, Boots, Food, Fuel, Tanks, Planes, Aircraft into the United Kingdom and other nations that requested foreign aid through military equipment. With the stranglehold that Nazi Germany’s U-boats had on Britain’s Waters We became the life line of the UK, every person on that little stretch of island was on their knees thanking god for the United States of America.
1940 America is much different than our beloved America today, we were isolationist, we did not want to meddle with European affairs, especially after getting out of one of the biggest economical depressions in history. It wasn’t called the Great Depression without reason. After embargoing Japan in July of 1941 for the Occupation of French Indochina (Modern Day Vietnam), Japan was essentially out of luck and unable to continue to feed it’s War Machine.
Japan’s response was to attempt to deliver a knockout blow to the US Navy’s Pacific fleet which at the time was rather small and very differently composed compared to the US Navy in 1946. The Pacific Fleet was formally recreated on 1 February 1941. On that day General Order 143 split the United States Fleet into separate Atlantic, Pacific, and Asiatic Fleets. In December 1941, the fleet consisted of nine battleships, three aircraft carriers, 12 heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, 50 destroyers, and 33 submarines.
So after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the declaration of war by Germany only mere days after, the US had to start from scratch and prepare for War. While the US licked it’s wound, it planned and began production of what would be come the world’s greatest land, sea, and air armies. Old equipment had to be either upgraded or thrown out, while new equipment had to be developed, tested, produced and send to the front.
The first offensive strike the US made of the war was the next month, January 1942 when the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise attacked Japanese bases in the Marshall Islands. However US Sailors were already in the war months earlier in September of 1941 during the battle of the Atlantic as American Merchant ships were slaughtered by the German underwater menace known as the U-Boat.
Eventually lend least was sent to more and more nations, including the Soviet Union in October of 1941. This is why you see large quantities of M4A2 Shermans in Soviet Service.
Due to the lack of Modern Tanks in early 1941, we gave the soviets the best we had at the time, it might not have been much, but it was better than nothing.
Not only did the US help Russia, but the UK actually send plenty of it’s own Arms and Equipment as well, including Valentine and Matilda Infantry support tanks and aircraft. Below is a Hurricane Fighter/Bomber supplied by the United Kingdom.
From P-39 Airacobras, to M4 Shermans, to M1 Thompsons, to US supplied food, trucks, guns, boots, clothes, by 1943 the majority of the USSR’s logistics had US flags on it.
In a confidential interview with the wartime correspondent Konstantin Simonov, the famous Soviet Marshal G.K. Zhukov is quoted as saying: “Today [1963] some say the Allies didn’t really help us… But listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us material without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war. “
US lend lease amounted to 48,395,000,000~ dollars in sales to other nations. Keep in mind that the number back then, is much bigger today due to inflation.
Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. It has been estimated that American deliveries to the USSR through the Persian Corridor alone were sufficient, by US Army standards, to maintain sixty combat divisions in the line.
The United States sold to the Soviet Union from October 1, 1941 to May 31, 1945 the following: 427,284 trucks, 13,303 combat vehicles, 35,170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 2,670,371 tons of petroleum products (gasoline and oil) or 57.8 percent of the High-octane aviation fuel, 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc.), 1,911 steam locomotives, 66 Diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. Provided ordnance goods (ammunition, artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives) amounted to 53 percent of total domestic production. One item typical of many was a tire plant that was lifted bodily from the Ford Company’s River Rouge Plant and transferred to the USSR. The 1947 money value of the supplies and services amounted to about eleven billion dollars. Certainly a bit more than Issuing loans, don’t you think?
Even some of the famous Katyusha rocket trucks were based on US models. The one below is based on the Studebaker US6.
The United Kingdom received the majority of the US lend lease, at about ¾ths, however the USSR got most of the rest.
During 1942 alone, the USA was able to shift the tide in the Pacific nearly single handedly and began it’s long bloody battle against the Germans and Italians in Africa, Italy, and Europe.
With the defensive battles at Wake Island, Bataan, and Port Moresby, the US had little to no time to reinforce the fighting positions and bases they had set up in the Pacific which led to most of them being overrun and captured by the Japanese.
The battle of Midway rested upon early warning and code breaking. The U.S. had an excellent track record against Japanese codes and ciphers before World War II, and this experience, combined with a variety of other sources of intelligence, helped the U.S. uncover the upcoming attack on Midway Island.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Navy cryptographers, with assistance from both British cryptographers at the Far East Combined Bureau (in Hong Kong, later Singapore, later Ceylon), and Dutch cryptographers (in the Dutch East Indies), combined to break enough JN-25 traffic to provide useful intelligence reports and assessments regarding Japanese force disposition and intentions in early 1942. Naval Officer Joesph Rochefort would often go for days without emerging from his bunker, where he and his staff spent 12 hours a day, or even longer, working to decode Japanese radio traffic. He often wore slippers and a bathrobe with his khaki uniform and sometimes went days without bathing.
Luckily his stubborness paid off. While the majority of the US Command believed the Japanese wanted to attack the Aleutian Islands near Alaska, Rochefort believed an unknown codegroup, AF, referred to Midway. One of the Station HYPO staff, Jasper Holmes, had the idea of faking a water supply failure on Midway Island. He suggested using an unencrypted emergency warning, in the hope of provoking a Japanese response, thus establishing whether Midway was a target. Rochefort took the idea to Layton, who put it to Nimitz. Nimitz approved. The Japanese took the bait and the learned not only of the attack, but what day it was planned to happen.
June 4th, 1942. The battle where the Japanese lost the initiative in the Pacific. Losing four fleet carriers against US carrier based and land based aircraft. While the US only lost one carrier and a destroyer. This shocked the world. Not only did the US win against a superior fleet, but it decimated the Japanese Navy’s ability to strike offensively. It became a huge moral booster for the Americans and a stunning blow to the Japanese. Midway Island remained in US hands while the Japanese retreated to their islands to set up defensively.
On the other side of the world however, The US was making plans to make it’s first strikes at Germany and Italy, producing the equipment, then moving the equipment across the Atlantic Ocean is no easy task, but nobody could have done it like the USA did.
The next major military operation was Operation Torch on November 8, 1942, it was the final nail that sealed the coffin of Rommel’s famed Afrika Korps.
The first Major Defeat of US Forces was at Kasserine Pass in 1943 when 6,500+ US soldiers fell victim to superior tactics and superior enemy firepower.
The battle was the first major engagement between American and Axis forces in World War II in Africa. Inexperienced and poorly led American troops suffered many casualties and were quickly pushed back over 50 miles from their positions west of Faïd Pass. After the early defeat, elements of the U.S. II Corps, with British reinforcements, rallied and held the exits through mountain passes in western Tunisia, defeating the Axis offensive. As a result of the battle, the U.S. Army instituted sweeping changes of unit organization and replaced commanders and some types of equipment. After learning from their mistakes they were ready to continue with the war in Africa.
With the start of the US Island Hopping Campaign and the closing of the Africa Campaign, the War was starting to look a little bit better, however the battles to come would tell that the price for victory, is blood.
While I am leaving out key events such as the doolittle raid and war crimes committed against US soldiers during the Bataan death march, I believe you might be able to understand a bit better that the US did not play around when it came to the early portion of the Second World War.
If you need more information, don’t be afraid to ask.
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