1941 - The Lend-Lease Bill becomes law when signed by President Roosevelt.
Important amendments have been made by Congress. A time limit has been placed on the operation of the act -- until June 1943 -- but a motion originally passed in the House forbidding US warships to give convoy protection to foreign ships has been defeated. Also to be allowed are transfers of ships to other countries solely on the presidential authority without reference to Congress. Lend-Lease is not an entirely disinterested act. Britain is compelled to go on paying cash for as long as this is possible (meaning British assets in the US must be sold below their true value) and it is forbidden to export anything containing materials supplied under Lend-Lease, nor can items wholly produced in Britain be exported if equivalent items are being supplied under Lend-Lease.
By early 1941, the Germans had made significant inroads in their campaign to conquer Europe, which put U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt in something of a bind. Although he increasingly wanted to aid Great Britain in the war effort against what he perceived as the "unholy alliance" of the Axis powers, Rooseveltýs actions were constrained by public opinion. Sizable pockets of the country considered the nation's involvement in World War I to have been a mistake, and thus hewed to the belief that the U.S. should stay neutral in the face of the mounting crisis in Europe. Roosevelt devised a fiscal and barter-based solution to this problem, which he laid out in a fireside chat in 1940; the U.S. would serve as "the great arsenal of democracy" and thus provide Great Britain with the money and military machinery necessary to battle back the Axis. Roosevelt called on Congress to rapidly pass lend-lease legislation that would sanction this system. Legislators heeded the president's words and shot the bill through the Senate and House.
On March 11, Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act into law, paving the way for an initial aid package worth roughly $7 billion. Although the U.S. soon chucked its neutral stance and entered the war, the Lend-Lease program kept pumping until 1946. All told, the U.S. funneled $50.6 billion worth of Lend-Lease aid to the Allies during the war, the majority of which went to Britain and the U.S.S.R. After the war, the Lend-Lease program morphed into the Marshall Plan, which allocated funds for the revitalization of "friendly" democratic nations-even if they were former enemies.
Lend-Lease and the Coast Guard: All 10 Lake-class cutters were transferred to the Royal Navy under the program. Two were lost in action against German forces. These 250-foot cutters had been designed by the Coast Guard and featured a slightly raked stem and a cruiser stern. Their innovative turbine-electric drive power plant was developed by Coast Guard Captain Quincy B. Newman. These were the first ships to have alternating current, synchronous motor for propulsion--the whole ship ran off the main turbine. The auxiliary generators were tied into the main generator electrically, after sufficient speed was attained. At that point, no steam was required to drive the turbines on the auxiliary generators. The propulsion plant achieved remarkable efficiency.
USCGC Tahoe: HMS Fishguard
