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Really? There were joint operations, they received US lend-lease like Britain, there were regular Arctic convoys to Murmansk and Archangel. Not just food and su

Really? There were joint operations, they received US lend-lease like Britain, there were regular Arctic convoys to Murmansk and Archangel. Not just food and supply aid, Britain sent well over 1,000 Spitfires and 3,000 Hurricanes, the US over 6,000 P39s and P40s. No end of tanks and other vehicles too, including over 75,000 jeeps. An alliance in every sense - it just wasn't a permanent alliance. Allied even though few liked Stalin's regime. Yalta conference - to plan the peace - was the point of change that slid toward cold war. Edit: accurate numbers. :)

chupasaurus 7y ago
> Not just food and supply aid... The whole army and the workers of the most crucial factories had ate almost exclusively a lend-lease food from USA, also after food stock depletion in 1943 Soviet Union increased the demand of food over weaponry to ¼ of supplies' tonnage (that's how my grandmother had a first taste of chocolate at the age of 9). So don't talk like it was "just food", some (due to widely censored documents and history classes) of us still know how crucial this support was, along with trucks, air fuel and others.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  You misunderstand. 'not just food' to say it's not solely food and nothing else, that there were many other things beside the more well known food aid. Not that it was insignificant. It wasn't. Without it USSR would have probably lost - probably the whole war, certainly Moscow and St Petersburg. Maybe there could have been withdrawal to the Steppes - though the fightback always struck me as unlikely after such a retreat. The food aid, and the hundreds of thousands of trucks, entire divisions using GB, Canadian and US tanks, or squadrons of aircraft. First convoy only weeks after German invasion. Enough that Britain delayed some operations due to lower availability at home. Important enough to both sides, to keep Germany split on two fronts. Without it all it could have taken far longer, or been lost on the Western front too. Liberating Europe would have been that much harder, perhaps impossible. Then it all went to crap at Yalta, though signs were there from the Anglo-Soviet treaty in 41 with Stalin's wish to stick to the Nazi Molotov-Ribbetropp pact's view of Europe, and its spheres of influence. Which is pretty much exactly what post-war Europe got.

chupasaurus 7y ago

> Not just food and supply aid... The whole army and the workers of the most crucial factories had ate almost exclusively a lend-lease food from USA, also after food stock depletion in 1943 Soviet Union increased the demand of food over weaponry to ¼ of supplies' tonnage (that's how my grandmother had a first taste of chocolate at the age of 9). So don't talk like it was "just food", some (due to widely censored documents and history classes) of us still know how crucial this support was, along with trucks, air fuel and others.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
You misunderstand. 'not just food' to say it's not solely food and nothing else, that there were many other things beside the more well known food aid. Not that it was insignificant. It wasn't. Without it USSR would have probably lost - probably the whole war, certainly Moscow and St Petersburg. Maybe there could have been withdrawal to the Steppes - though the fightback always struck me as unlikely after such a retreat. The food aid, and the hundreds of thousands of trucks, entire divisions using GB, Canadian and US tanks, or squadrons of aircraft. First convoy only weeks after German invasion. Enough that Britain delayed some operations due to lower availability at home. Important enough to both sides, to keep Germany split on two fronts. Without it all it could have taken far longer, or been lost on the Western front too. Liberating Europe would have been that much harder, perhaps impossible. Then it all went to crap at Yalta, though signs were there from the Anglo-Soviet treaty in 41 with Stalin's wish to stick to the Nazi Molotov-Ribbetropp pact's view of Europe, and its spheres of influence. Which is pretty much exactly what post-war Europe got.