THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Wednesday, June 14, 1944. SUPPLIES FOR RUSSIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25561, 14 June 1944, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Wednesday, June 14, 1944. SUPPLIES FOR RUSSIA

In his May Day review of the achievements of the Red Army, Marshal Stalin made particular reference to the contribution of the western Allies to the success of Russia’s fighting effort. “ They are holding the front in Italy against the Germans,” he said, “ thus diverting from us a considerable part of the German forces. They are also supplying us with very valuable strategical raw materials and armaments, and undermining Germany’s military might by subjecting military objectives in Germany to systematic bombing.” It is probable that the actual extent of the assistance given by Great Britain and the United States to the Soviet, war effort is only now coming to be appreciated by the Russian people. The comment by a correspondent in Moscow on the publication of the first lend-lease report by the Commissariat for Foreign Trade is that it “made an impression scarcely less than the news of the landings in France.” That is not surprising, in view of the enormous significance of the figures that have been published. In two and a-half years from October, 1941, the United States is credited with having sent 8,000,000 tons of war supplies, equipment and food into Russia, while Britain and Canada sent 1,500,000 additional tons. But those figures, large as they are, by no means tell the whole story of the British effort to keep the Eastern Front supplied while' concurrently maintaining her own war fronts, at sea and on land and in the air, and preparing for the tremendous undertaking of the invasion of Europe from the west. In the period covered by the Russian report the British contribution included 6778 aircraft, 5031 tanks, 2463 Bren carriers, 4020 vehicles, 3932 anti-tank guns and anti-tank rifles, 3774 machine guns of all types, 150,537,000 rounds of ammunition of all types, more than--300,000 tons of raw materials, and nearly £21,000,000 worth of machine tools, industrial plant and machinery. Mr Churchill has lately made mention of 3000 tons of medical supplies, including 1,500,000 surgical instruments, which were shipped up till the end of 1942. All of this, as is emphasised in official information that has just reached us from London, represented an enormous sacrifice by the British people during that stage of the war when the conservation of their resources was vital to offset losses at sea, to support the Mediterranean offensives and to make ready for the invasion of France. One estimate is that the tanks alone sent to Russia from Britain “would have kept 24,000 men and women working full-time for the past thirty months.” The United States, under lease-lend, provided a small proportion of the raw materials or components in some of the items listed, but the great bulk of the supplies were British in origin. Thus, the 81,423 tons of rubber transferred to the Soviet from what the British Minister for Production described, after the loss of Malaya, as Britain’s “ infinitely precious stocks,” would suffice, in Russian factories, for the manufacture of over 4,800,000 tyres. The £8,218,000 worth of machine tools shipped to the Russians were fashioned in factories which would otherwise have been concentrating on war production for Britain’s own urgent needs, and in fact amounted to almost twice .the total value of, her machine-tool exports in 1938. Prior to 1943, the British contribu-. tion to the comfort and clothing of the Soviet armies included, more than a million garments, 500,000 blankets, and no fewer than 2500 miles of great-coat cloth. There are other aspects of this astonishing British example of cooperation and assistance to a hardpressed Ally which are worth recording. Up to June 30, 1942, 90 per cent,, of all the vessels making the hazardous voyage in convoy to Murmartsk, the Russian Arctic port, were British. Over the whole period to date almost all the warship losses on this route have been British. On the other hand, the Allied nations, particularly theUnited States, have suffered the heaviest losses of merchant’ ‘ tonnage. In the past six months the Royal Navy, escorting convoys on the Arctic route, has delivered nearly 1,250,000 tons of war supplies at Murmansk with the loss of less than 2 per cent, of supply ships and approximately 1.6 per cent., by weight, of cargoes. The British tanks supplied have been sufficient to equip 25 Russian armoured divisions, on the basis of the Nazi establishment of 200 to a division. Similarly, British planes sent have enabled the equipment of 425 Soviet squadrons at the German strength of 15 planes in a squadron. In addition to this invaluable material equipment, Russia has had all the benefits of British technical leadership, many hundreds of jealously-guarded secret appliances | and large quantities of new drugs having been sent to her. In virtually all respects the British effort to aid Russia has been shared by the Empire countries. The impressive document from which we have been quoting concludes in these terms:

Russia has drawn deeply net only on British manufacturing experience, but equally upon the raw material power of the whole British Commonwealth,- whose united contribution is one of the most striking points of all. The Russians have had Canadian supplies of aluminium and copper, Australian and New Zealand wool, African industrial diamonds, Indian and Cingalese jute, graphite, tea, ground nuts and coconut oil, East African sisal'and West African cocoa beans, palm oil and palm' kernels. The spirit prompting the whole Commonwealth is typified by the free gift of £3,470,275 worth of medical and clothing supplies from the British public, while the British Government made an additional gift of £2,500;000 for clothing. These are the final items in Mr Churchill’s figures of the British people’s immense aid to Russia.