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mark occomore
Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 9955
Location: UK
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 Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 7:09 am Post subject: World War II Debt Paid |
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Britain will settle its World War II debts to the US and Canada when it pays two final instalments before the close of 2006, the Treasury has said.
The payments of $83.25m (£42.5m) to the US and US$22.7m (£11.6m) to Canada are the last of 50 instalments since 1950.
The amount paid back is nearly double that loaned in 1945 and 1946.
"This week we finally honour in full our commitments to the US and Canada for the support they gave us 60 years ago," said Treasury Minister Ed Balls.
"It was vital support which helped Britain defeat Nazi Germany and secure peace and prosperity in the post-war period. We honour our commitments to them now as they honoured their commitments to us all those years ago," he added.
The last payments will be made on Friday, the final working day of the year.
Deferred
Under the lend-lease programme, which began in March 1941, the then neutral US could provide countries fighting Adolf Hitler with war material.
The US joined the war soon after - in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbour - and the programme ended in 1945.
Equipment left over in Britain at the end of hostilities and still needed had to be paid for.
The US loaned $4.33bn (£2.2bn) to Britain in 1945, while Canada loaned US$1.19 bn (£607m) in 1946, at a rate of 2% annual interest.
Upon the final payments, the UK will have paid back a total of $7.5bn (£3.8bn) to the US and US$2 bn (£1bn) to Canada.
Despite the favourable rates there were six years in which Britain deferred payment because of economic or political crises.
There are still World War I debts owed to and by Britain. Since a moratorium on all debts from that conflict was agreed at the height of the Great Depression, no repayments have been made to or received from other nations since 1934. |
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SantaFefan
Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 11258
Location: top of the cliffs in Norfolk
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Whopee doo, that'll mean the government can throw more money at the NHS... gold plated car park bays for the Doctors maybe? |
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gfloyd
Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 4861
Location: Here, There, Everywhere.
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:26 pm Post subject: Re: World War II Debt Paid |
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| mark occomore wrote: |
"It was vital support which helped Britain defeat Nazi Germany and secure peace and prosperity in the post-war period. |
So Britain won WW2 single handedly according to this?
What about the Russian & US, not to mention Commonwealth troops that fought in it?
The cash loans by themselves had very little impact & would have delayed Britain's defeat by maybe a few months. It was the opening up of the Eastern front and the lending of equipment by the US that had a far more decisive effect on the wars' outcome.
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His name was ernie ........ and he drove the fastest milk cart in the west..... |
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Cherskiy
Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 3701
Location: near Amble, Northumberland
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 1:53 pm Post subject: Re: World War II Debt Paid |
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| gfloyd wrote: |
What about the Russian & US, not to mention Commonwealth troops that fought in it?
The cash loans by themselves had very little impact & would have delayed Britain's defeat by maybe a few months. It was the opening up of the Eastern front and the lending of equipment by the US that had a far more decisive effect on the wars' outcome. |
Germany lost WW2 on 22nd June 1941 when they invaded Russia. They just didn't know it at that time. You could argue that they lost it in April 1941 when they invaded Yugoslavia and Greece: although both were captured within a month, the delay to get troops and material re-assigned for Barbarossa meant that they were never going to reach Moscow by the start of the winter (the decision to stop and mop up various shattered Russian divisions around Kiev didn't help either).
The Wehrmacht was never the same again after the winter of '41/42, even during the push towards the Baku oil fields in 1942. Their supply lines were overextended and their flanks fragile. Some kind of stalemate could possibly have been achieved on the Ostfront but Hitler effectively threw that chance away by committing most of his 6th Army into the Stalingrad cauldron.
Although Russia couldn't have beaten the Nazis alone, the western Allies only tied down a small fraction of the German armed forces and still found it hard going - you only have to look at an order of battle for 1943, 1944 or 1945 to see how much was engaged against the Russians.
Lend lease to the Russians helped at a time when their own production was recovering from the losses of plant in the pre-war industrial heartlands (factories were re-located wholesale to locations between Moscow and the Urals), and their motorised divisions benefitted from the influx of modern trucks. Lend lease to the UK helped us enormously as what was supplied initially was far superior to what we had at that time (Lockheed Hudson medium-range maritime patrol aircraft, Grumman Wildcat naval fighter aircraft) but some was useless and actually cost us time and lives in the process (Bell Airacobras - the ones that we didn't crash were passed onto the Russians who loved them!).
Cherskiy
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Author: “To the Ends of the Earth: A Snapshot of Aviation in North-Eastern Siberia, Summer 1992”
(Free to read via Kindle Unlimited) |
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