Between 1941 and 1945 the United States shipped the Soviet Union goods worth about $11.3 billion: more than 400,000 trucks and jeeps, over 11,000 aircraft, nearly 2,000 locomotives and some 15 million pairs of boots. Stalin himself raised a glass to American production at Tehran. Then the war ended, the Cold War began, and the bill was argued over for almost half a century.

This documentary follows the cargo along the Arctic convoys, the Persian Corridor, the Pacific route past neutral Japan and the air road from Montana to Siberia. It looks at convoy PQ 17, the uranium licenses of March 1943, Truman's order of May 1945, and the settlements of 1948, 1951, 1972 and 1990. At the end we write out THE BILL.

Would you have settled for so little? Tell me in the comments.

Watch next: Japan Bought Its Oil From America — Then Bombed Pearl Harbor
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CHAPTERS
0:00 Stalin's Toast
2:32 The Bill Numbered 1776
5:00 The Man Who Flew to Stalin
7:25 Three Roads to Russia
9:42 The Order to Scatter
12:07 The Desert Road
14:19 What Really Arrived
17:15 The Suitcases of Great Falls
19:45 The Order of the Twelfth of May
21:59 The Argument Over What Was Left
24:17 The Price of Trade
26:23 The Last Schedule
28:10 The Bill

SOURCES & FURTHER READING
- Albert L. Weeks, "Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II" (2004)
- George C. Herring Jr., "Aid to Russia, 1941–1946" (1973)
- Hubert P. van Tuyll, "Feeding the Bear: American Aid to the Soviet Union, 1941–1945" (1989)
- T. H. Vail Motter, "The Persian Corridor and Aid to Russia" (U.S. Army in WWII, 1952)
- Hearings Regarding Shipment of Atomic Material to the Soviet Union, HUAC (1949–50)
- U.S.–U.S.S.R. Lend-Lease Settlement, 18 October 1972; Foreign Relations of the United States

ARCHIVAL FILM (public domain, U.S. Government / Internet Archive)
[2] SOVIET ARMY ON THE OFFENSIVE · UNITED NEWS, 1943 — archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.38964
[3] TRUCK ASSEMBLY PLANT, ANDIMESHK, IRAN · U.S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS, 1944 — archive.org/details/111-adc-1581
[5] AMERICA REPORTS ON AID TO ALLIES · UNITED NEWS, 1942 — archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.38937
[6] NORTH ATLANTIC CONVOY · U.S. NAVY FILM, 1942 — archive.org/details/428-npc-16081
[7] WAR COMES TO AMERICA · U.S. ARMY, 1945 — archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.36073
[9] THE BATTLE OF RUSSIA · U.S. ARMY, 1943 — archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.36071
[15] UNITED NEWS · JUNE 1942 — archive.org/details/ARC-38908
[16] CONVOY IN NORTH ATLANTIC · U.S. NAVY FILM — archive.org/details/428-npc-16459
[17] UNITED NEWS · 1944 — archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.39018
[18] UNITED NEWS · JUNE 1943 — archive.org/details/ARC-38962
[19] ALASKA–RUSSIA SKY ROUTE · UNITED NEWS, 1945 — archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.39043
[25] SCENES IN TEHRAN · U.S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS, 1944 — archive.org/details/111-adc-2624
[28] MILITARY RAILWAY SERVICE, IRAN · U.S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS, 1944 — archive.org/details/111-adc-2628
[30] LEND-LEASE RAIL ROUTE TO RUSSIA, IRAN · U.S. ARMY, 1944 — archive.org/details/111-adc-2368
[32] UNITED NEWS · SEPTEMBER 1942 — archive.org/details/ARC-38922
[33] LEND-LEASE TO RUSSIA, IRAN · U.S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS, 1944 — archive.org/details/111-adc-2079
[35] AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A JEEP · U.S. OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION, 1943 — archive.org/details/autobiography_of_a_jeep
[36] PROJECT 6100, ANDIMESHK, IRAN · U.S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS, 1944 — archive.org/details/111-adc-2622
[37] U.S. AIR BASES IN RUSSIA · UNITED NEWS, 1944 — archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.39125
[40] MAY DAY IN MOSCOW · UNITED NEWS, 1945 — archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.39066
[45] FUNERAL OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT · UNITED NEWS, 1945 — archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.39058
[51] UNITED NEWS · 1943 — archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.38988

???? ARCHIVAL PHOTOS & DOCUMENTS: public-domain photographs and documents via Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress, the FDR Library and the U.S. Congress. Full list with links in the comments. Map base: NASA Earth Observatory (public domain).
Other scenes are artistic illustrations.

#History #WW2 #LendLease #Stalin #ColdWar #EconomicHistory #PaidInSecret #WorldWarII #SovietUnion #ArcticConvoys #PersianCorridor #Roosevelt #Truman #MilitaryHistory #hiddenhistory