Australia USA Lend Lease

[Matthew P]

One of the most interesting objects in my collection is a US made tent with a US quartermaster Depot tag on it... that the tag clearly states is "Australian Pattern". It was lend Lease that either never made it or, as you just mentioned was returned? Either way it is rare and makes for quite the conversation when I use it at reenactments.

Matt

[Lang]

One of the things not quite clear in the USA/Australia relationship is the fact Australia actually paid cash for a huge amount of equipment in normal commercial sales outside Lend Lease.

A very large amount of stuff coming in to Australia was actually paid for unlike the British after the first 18 months. That is one of the reasons the deal could be finalised so quickly as the ledger balance was close to even.

Churchill's greatest feat of the war was to convince the unwilling Americans to give them stuff on time payment (Lend Lease). Britain was absolutely broke, they had turned all their gold reserves over to the Americans who demanded COD. They even tried to run roughshod over the Australians and Canadians to use their gold reserves on American shopping sprees for Britain but common sense prevailed.

Lang

[Mike Cecil]

Lang,

For the period Sept to Nov 1939, there was no purchases whatsoever of warlike stores from the USA. From Nov 1939 to March 1941, it was the 'Cash and Carry' period where a country had to pay for all purchases in cash, and from March 1941 it was mostly Lend Lease, with the Australian policy being to obtain as much as possible under Lend Lease and only small cash purchases were allowed.

According to the Ministry of Munitions, the balance of LL to RLL at war's end was that the RLL side of the ledger was about 75% of the LL side.

Mike

[Lang]

Mike

That was my point.

There was LL and Reverse LL. If as you say the balance was 75/25 how did Australia finish up so close the square? Certainly more at play with this treaty then raw LL/RLL figures.

Lang

[Mike Cecil]

$27M difference in 1946 $ hardly seems like 'close to square' to me, Lang. The only cash purchases I have found record of after March 1941 were small amounts in the hundreds of $$ per transaction, which fits with the government policy ceiling of $1,000 USD. Even then, the purchase had to be approved by the US LL authorities as being in the mutual interest and best use of the resource.

Given the wide variety of items and quantities supplied to US Forces under RLL, it seems quite reasonable to me that Australia reached around 75% of the LL total supplied to Australia by war's end.

Mike

[Lang]

Mike

All converted to dollars. Reserve Bank of Australia historic charts.

In government terms at the end of a 6 year war $US27m or 9m Australian pounds is pretty much SFA. This was around 3 weeks pay bill for the Australian Army at average numbers during the war. This equates in buying power today to $683,361,000 Australian Dollars.

At that time it took 3 US dollars to buy an Australian Pound.

They announce that much every election on single squeaky wheel vote buying projects. The proposed Virginia Class submarines for the RAN will cost $171,000,000,000 at the end - without the doubling in price as the project turns into the usual shambles. That is about $22,000,000,000 per boat each which is 32 times the value of Australia's WW2 LL debt - both in today's buying terms.

It certainly was not in the ball-park of the billions equivalent British debt.

Regardless of the amount, how many years, or decades, would it take the bureaucracies of both countries to create a similar result 3,000 page treaty today?

Lang

[Mike Cecil]

Lang,

Nice figures.

However, your initial statement was " One of the things not quite clear in the USA/Australia relationship is the fact Australia actually paid cash for a huge amount of equipment in normal commercial sales outside Lend Lease." (my underline)

I've not seen any evidence of large cash purchases by Australia after March 1941. Perhaps you could direct me to your source for the evidence of this, as it would certainly mean a re-think for me about the LL -RLL relationship and process.

Mike

[michaelkoudstaal]

Originally Posted by Lang

... Australia was $20 million behind but laid off debts by giving USA title to land ie the American Embassy in Canberra and promising to run education programs - I don't know if they ever did such a thing.

Originally Posted by Lang

At that time it took 3 US dollars to buy an Australian Pound.

I think the premise of that line of thinking might be wrong. If it is not a strictly financial arrangement, then that shifts it over to something like a value exchange and that's going to get very subjective as to what is fair or balanced or equal.