Did the Lend-Lease program save the Soviet Union? For the Season 3 finale, Angus Wallace of the World War 2 podcast joins to offer a nuanced interpretation. 

Angus Wallace, host and producer of The World War 2 podcast

The Lend-Lease Act 

British Valentine tanks to be sent to USSR under Lend-Lease, 1942.

The Bell P-39 Aircobra, one of the fighters the U.S. sent to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. 

A Hawker Hurricane fighter sent for the Red Air Force.

Fleets of Studebaker, Ford and Chevrolet trucks sent to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. 

U.S. jeeps sent to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease made Life magazine.  

The Western Allies sent millions of tons of food aid to the Soviet Union during World War 2. 

The Red Army moved tanks to the front by rail, on flatcars, with locomotives often supplied by the U.S. Much of the rail was also supplied by the U.S.

The “Big Three,” Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, at the Yalta Conference in 1945. Roosevelt was clearly unwell by this point. This conference decided the post-war division of Europe between West and East, meaning USSR.

Map 1: Lend-Lease shipping routes

Lend-Lease shipping literally spanned the globe.

Map 2: The Arctic route (polar projection) 

Map 3: The Persian Corridor.

Ships arrived in Persian Gulf ports, then goods were transshipped by train through Iran to be loaded onto ships again at the Caspian Sea. 

Map 4: The Pacific route.

Note the proximity to Japan as ships approach Vladivostok in the Russian Far East.