American deliveries to the Soviet Union can be divided into the following phases:
"pre Lend-lease" 22 June 1941 to 30 September 1941 (paid for in gold and other minerals)
first protocol period from 1 October 1941 to 30 June 1942 (signed 1 October 1941), these supplies were to be manufactured and delivered by the UK with US credit financing.
second protocol period from 1 July 1942 to 30 June 1943 (signed 6 October 1942)
third protocol period from 1 July 1943 to 30 June 1944 (signed 19 October 1943)
fourth protocol period from 1 July 1944, (signed 17 April 1945), formally ended 12 May 1945 but deliveries continued for the duration of the war with Japan (which the Soviet Union entered on the 8 August 1945) under the "Milepost" agreement until 2 September 1945 when Japan capitulated. On 20 September 1945 all Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union was terminated.
Delivery was via the Arctic Convoys, the Persian Corridor, and the Pacific Route.
The Arctic route was the shortest and most direct route for lend-lease aid to the USSR, though it was also the most dangerous. Some 3,964,000 tons of goods were shipped by the Arctic route; 7% was lost, while 93% arrived safely.[23] This constituted some 23% of the total aid to the USSR during the war.
The Persian Corridor was the longest route, and was not fully operational until mid-1942. Thereafter it saw the passage of 4,160,000 tons of goods, 27% of the total.[23]
BM-13N Katyusha on a Lend-Lease Studebaker US6 truck, at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Moscow.
The Pacific Route opened in August 1941, but was affected by the start of hostilities between Japan and the US; after December 1941, only Soviet ships could be used, and, as Japan and the USSR observed a strict neutrality towards each other, only non-military goods could be transported.[24] Nevertheless, some 8,244,000 tons of goods went by this route, 50% of the total.[23]
In total, the US deliveries through Lend-Lease amounted to $11 billion in materials: over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386[25] of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans);[26] 11,400 aircraft (4,719 of which were Bell P-39 Airacobras)[27] and 1.75 million tons of food.[28]
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.[29][30]
The United States gave 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), 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc.), 1,900 steam locomotives, 66 Diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. 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.[31]
