Sea Control - Sea Control 572: Arms for Russia with Andrew Boyd

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Links1. Arms for Russia and the Naval War in the Arctic, 1941-1945, by Andrew Boyd, U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2024.2. Andrew Boyd Twitter.

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. I'm your host, Jonathan Selling, and my guest today is Andy Boyd, and he is here to discuss his new book, On for Russia and the Naval War in the Arctic, 1941-1945, which covers the Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union during the Second World War. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Welcome, Andy, and could you first tell the listeners a little bit about yourself? I started life joining the Royal Navy and became a submariner.

The Navy was also good enough to send me to Oxford University, where I studied politics, philosophy, and economics, and that helped to instill an interest in 20th century history and not least naval history. I left the Navy quite early and then spent most of my career in the British Diplomatic Service. After that, I did an MA in Naval History, and that led to a doctorate. That subsequently led me to publish a number of books, of which we are discussing the third one just out a month ago. As a reminder, all views expressed here are our own and not affiliated with any organizations that we may be affiliated with. To start off, could you explain to listeners what the Arctic Convoys were and why they were important? Sure. The Arctic Convoys conveyed Western supplies to the Soviet Union during its war with Germany from 1941 to 1945. Their purpose, I would sum up as initially to help ensure Soviet survival in the face of the German onslaught. And then later in the war, when it was clear they were certainly going to survive and to an extent prosper, to fight more effectively.

The supplies comprised weapons, raw materials, capacity building items, industrial equipment, etc., and not least, food. The supplies, I think it's useful to say, also helped to compensate for a dramatic fall in Soviet GDP, gross domestic product. That fell by the end of 1941 by close to 30%. That obviously reflected the territory captured by the Germans and the loss of a great deal of important industrial capacity. There were 40 convoys in total, that's outgoing convoys to the Soviet northern ports. They started at the end of August 1941, and the last one left the UK at the beginning of May 1945. Between them, they contained 811 ships, of which 720 arrived with 58 sunk. The balance is obviously early returns due to machinery failure or weather. There were 35 return convoys, sort of slightly less in number, with 715 ships, of which 680 arrived. And if one looks at the mathematics of the outgoing convoys, the sinkings amounted to just over 7%, which is well above North Atlantic rates, but substantially below those in Mediterranean convoys. In all, the Arctic conveyed 4.5 million tonnes. A further 4.5 million tonnes went via the Gulf and Iran, and about twice that quantity across the Pacific. So that means of a total of 19.5 million tonnes of Western aid to the Soviet Union, the Arctic conveyed about 25%.

It's worth making a few points about the other routes. In 1941, and indeed right through to the end of 1942, the capacity of the route via the Gulf and north through Iran is quite limited. Infrastructure at the ports and even more the rail line through Iran is pretty primitive. So it's not able to take significant supplies really until the end of 1942. Thereafter, as will be clear from the proportion, it grows very rapidly. The Trans-Pacific across to Vladivostok is less limited in capacity terms, and as I say, it takes about 50% of the overall load, but it is clearly very dependent on the acquiescence of Japan. And the way that problem is dealt with is by moving the supplies primarily in Soviet flag ships. And the Soviet Union is, of course, not at war with Japan until the end of July 1945. So Japan is prepared to acquiesce in Soviet flag ships, but on the understanding they don't carry weaponry. I mean, that understanding is gradually broken as time goes on, and there's always the possibility that the Japanese will decide to be difficult, but in the event, they never are. What's the advantage of the Arctic route? Well, in the beginning, it's clearly the primary route because it's the only route that can take weapons because the route through Iran lacks the capacity.

Equally important, it's the shortest route by sea from the UK going via Iceland. It takes about two weeks for ships that have collected in Iceland, about 10 days. And rail communications from the northern ports, Murmansk and Archangel, are pretty good. That's communications both to the front line and to Soviet industrial centres. So much better than the long and difficult journey from the extreme Far East or up through Iran. Later in the war, there's another factor. The Arctic is much more convenient for carrying very heavy items, for example, railway locomotives or heavy industrial equipment to fit factories.

Final point I'd make, the Arctic contribution is most crucial in the 18 months from August 1941 to the end of February 1943. So really up to the end of the Stalingrad battle. How did focusing on the Soviet and German perspectives offer new insights into the convoys? Clicking Germany first. I don't speak German, so that has been a constraint. It's worth saying I found two items, and I think this may be useful to people, particularly valuable. The first is the multi-volume history, Germany and the Second World War. I think there are about a dozen volumes in total. It was published in Germany in the 1980s and then translated gradually into English from the late 90s and early noughties.

It's the closest thing to an official German history, drawing heavily on original German sources. And the second item is the official war diaries of the German Naval Staff Operational Division. There is a volume for each month of the war, and rather fortunately, about half those months have been translated into English under the auspices of the U.S. Naval War College. They're in digital form. They're long. Each month has about 600 pages, but there is an absolute wealth of material in there. I feel it's a remarkably untapped source. From my point of view, it was a great advantage that the months that have been translated cover most of the important months of the Arctic theatre. I think with Germany and German sources, I'd underline four points that come from the German perspective. The first is the importance of Norway and its defence to Germany. So when we think about the Arctic theatre, the Germans are never just thinking about the convoys. They're always worried about the vulnerability of Norway and the threat from the UK and later on, to some extent, the Americans too. And of course, the prospect of a British-Russian join up in the north. Why do they worry so much about Norway? Well, it has vital war materials of which two significant ones are iron ore and also nickel. Strictly speaking, the nickel is not in Norway. It's in Petsamo, which is part of Finland on Norway's northeast border. Hitler and indeed the German leadership worry about those nickel supplies hugely throughout

the war. It's interesting, it becomes perhaps the best defended site against air attack of any in occupied Europe by 1944. In Hitler's mind, access to nickel is almost as important as access to Romanian oil and the Ploesti refineries. Norway extends Germany's access to the Atlantic, both the U-boats and potentially surface warships. There's also an ideological component. Norwegians are seen as part of the Aryan race. Hitler has a fixation on Trondheim and creating a grand new German city there and add a huge naval base, a sort of Singapore of Northwest Europe. So this defense of Norway brings me to a second point, and that is that clearly German intent and effort to disrupt the convoys is constantly hampered by that need to think about

potential attack on Norway. And whenever they see a convoy, there's always the thought, is this definitely a convoy destined for the Soviet northern ports, or could it be the makings of a British landing or raid? Next point, German resources. It's very clear when you look at the German perspective that they never have enough resources. I mean, that's soon true of all theatres of their war, but it's abundantly clear in the north. And the last point is their risk appetite. Not only Hitler, but the naval leadership in general are very protective of their heavy warships, and their willingness to take any risk with them is, as we'll see, extremely limited. And that heavily conditions what happens in many of the engagements in

the Northern Theater. So moving now to the Soviet Union, why are Soviet sources important? And again, I have to confess, I don't read Russian. So I've been heavily reliant on Russian-speaking historians who were able to mine Soviet records when they were most open during the 1990s, and Soviet, I should say, Russian historians whose work has been translated into English. And actually, I have found a great deal under both those categories. I mean, it's long been known and available to specialist historians, but surprisingly little of it has entered into the wider historical fraternity. Those Russian sources are particularly important to understand the reality of the Soviet wartime economy, its war potential, in other words, its capacity to draw on

the Soviet economy to produce the necessary war materials during the conflict, and thus the impact of Western aid on that war potential. Unless you have a good understanding of the economy, its strengths and weaknesses, what they were able to produce across the board, where its limitations were, it's very difficult to make a judgment as to how Western aid made a contribution and indeed a difference. And I think historians struggled significantly with that through most of the Cold War, and it's only in the 1990s and beyond that we get a much better picture. Soviet sources are also very important, of course, for the political perspective. And what they very clearly convey is just why the Soviet leadership had constant suspicion bordering on

paranoia regarding Western intentions and motives. So were Western leaders just looking to let the Soviet Union carry the whole burden of the war and leave them to bleed? Were they looking for a separate peace with Germany? Were they hoping that Germany and the Soviet Union would fight each other to the death, leaving them to comfortably inherit a post-war world, etc., etc. So understanding what drove that suspicion and paranoia, and sometimes there were good reasons for it, and it's easy to see how it was justified. And again, we can come on to that at times. So I think that's what I got out of those two areas.

You say in your book that Allied aid to the Soviet Union is, quote, best understood as a means of weaving Russia into the Anglo-American grand strategy for defeating Germany, end quote. Could you explain what you mean by this? I would think of British American grand strategy as the journey. And I would put the start point in the late summer of 1940, where the British are having to think, how can we, first of all, ensure our survival? But if we're going to survive, and we'd like to think we are, how are we going to win this war? And you see late August, early September, the first real attempt to address that formally and suddenly to look ahead at ways of ultimately defeating Germany. I think the first task is the containment of Germany. How the British see that is denying Germany the Atlantic, so securing the Atlantic lifeline to the US and ensuring that Germany is not able to interrupt that lifeline, denying Germany, so far as possible, access and certainly any control over the Mediterranean and the Middle East. And of course, the next two and a half years, we'll see that as a major area of conflict. Why is that area seen as important? Well, it, I think, brings a fairly fundamental point for the British and I would say later for the Americans as well. Those theatres are seen as very much interrelated. Securing the Middle East denies Germany access to oil, and shortage of oil is a fundamental problem for Germany. Denying Germany access and control over North Africa and above all Northwest Africa ensures that its scope for improving its capacity to attack the Atlantic trade routes is limited as well. If it was to gain control of the northwest African coast on established bases there, it would vastly extend the scope for conducting ocean U-boat warfare.

So I think it's important in understanding this strategic journey that one doesn't think of what happened in North Africa as just a minor sideshow of no lasting impact. it is very much woven into a much more central concept of containing Germany to the south as well as to the west. Looking forward, how does Britain see levers for achieving the defeat of Germany? Well, there are initially a famous three, bombing, blockade, and subversion. Britain will build up a strategic bombing force to destroy Germany's industry. It will use blockade, which it judges was a very effective weapon in the First World War, to further damage the German economy. And it will set Europe ablaze through subversion, in other words, feeding and supporting the resistance groups in occupied territories. Now, of course, there is a problem with that

three-pronged strategy in that it's at this stage, 1940, and indeed through the first half of 1941, it's much more hope rather than convincing reality. And certainly as the Americans are brought into that aspirational strategy, they're not convinced that this is going to work. And everybody is conscious that blockade is limited because Germany controls all of Europe. And even before it attacks Russia, it's getting considerable benefit from Russian supplies. And subversion as an option is always going to be extremely limited. Bombing offers more potential, but it's going to take a very long time to build up the necessary force. So as we get to the latter half of 1941, And we have the first major Anglo-American summit at Placentia Bay. And then after America enters the war, the first summit in Washington. These ideas are explored further. But, of course, there is a vital new element, and that is the German attack on the Soviet Union.

And what we see happening across the second half of 1941 is Soviet potential being woven into that strategy. So in addition to bombing, blockade and subversion, we now have giving the Soviet Union every possible help to create a land front against Germany that will, over time, considerably wear Germany down. So we have this concept of containment and then wearing Germany down. For the Western powers, wearing Germany down is essential before they can contemplate a landing in Western Europe, and supporting the Soviet Union is now a fundamental element in pursuing that wear-down strategy. From the point of view of relations with the Soviet Union, of course, over the next two years, this becomes a constant source of tension and neuralgia because the Soviet Union is desperate for more help and welcomer supplies. are, that means, a separate land offensive in the West. And Stalin and other leaders grossly underestimate the problems in making a landing across the Channel. For the Western powers, capacity is a constant problem. It takes a great deal of time for the American economy to generate the forces and logistic capacity to make such an operation feasible. The reason for the tension in the neuralgia is there's a constant temptation, particularly on Roosevelt's part,

to make promises about such a Western attack that are just not realistic. And Stalin sometimes takes those promises at face value and is then inevitably disappointed. You mentioned that 7% of the ships on the convoys were sunk. So my question is, how did the Germans react to the convoys and how effective were their efforts? Well, for the first six months of the first convoy sales at the end of August, so two months after the start of the Eastern War, and I would say through to the end of February, German action against the convoys is minimal. And indeed, for the first 13 convoys, the losses are confined to one merchant ship and one destroyer. Why such little effort? Well, the Germans have very limited air and naval resources. Until February, medium-range strike aircraft are little more than 12 Junkers 88s. They not only have to cope with the potential attacks on convoys, but also support the army in northern land operations. Naval forces are limited to just five destroyers and four U-boats. There just isn't much capacity there, and it not only has to think about the convoys, it has to think about protecting German coastal traffic from British attack. Although the British don't devote significant resources to that, they do base two British submarines in Murmansk that winter, and they certainly do enough to quite significantly disturb German coastal traffic and force the Germans to devote a significant proportion of their limited naval capacity to protecting that traffic. Now, I should say during this period, that first late summer, autumn into the winter, the Germans do conduct a significant land offensive against Russia in the north. It's an operation with the codename Silver Fox. And that operation goes pretty badly. It's very quickly bogged down.

And essentially, the reason for that is the Germans underestimate the effectiveness of Soviet defenses. They underestimate the difficulty of the terrain, and they spread their quite limited forces across three quite distinct areas. So they really not only don't have enough overall, but they certainly don't have enough to conduct either of those separate attacks. And basically, all of them fall far short of their objectives. So the ambition to take Murmansk and certainly to cut the railway line south from Murmansk, ultimately to Moscow and other centres, is not only not realised in that first winter of the war, but it is never realised at all. The Germans never get close to cutting that line. Having failed with land attack, as their air forces increase, try to cut the line with air power and parachute special force attacks, but none of those ever have much impact. So we get to January, February, and we get a change. Very significant reinforcement of German forces in Norway, and more specifically in the Arctic, is not the desire to attack the convoys, although the Germans are well aware that the convoys are running. It's back to the earlier point, the defense of Norway. Hitler has become ever more concerned about the vulnerability of Norway. His concern is exacerbated by two major British commando raids at the end of December 1941. His commanders in Norway at the same time, partly as they explain their failure to deal comfortably with those

attacks underline the weakness of forces in Norway, and Hitler is determined to change that. And against the naval leadership, he insists that all Germany's heavy ships should be moved to Norway. That includes the three heavy units based in Brest, which, at Hitler's suggestion and against A strong reluctance from the naval leadership eventually escaped through the channel back to Germany in the middle of February. Now, the buildup through February-March is still hampered by a number of factors. On the naval side, although the three heavy ships moved from Brest back to Germany, two of them are significantly damaged in the process. One battlecruiser, Gneisenar, although comparatively lightly damaged during the final stages of the transit, is bombed while she's under repair in dock a couple of weeks later, and her whole front end is hit and burnt out, and as a fighting unit, she is never rebuilt. Her sister ship, Scharnhorst, also destined to move north to Norway, is more badly damaged during the transit and is effectively out of action for a year. The third ship, the heavy cruiser, Prinz Eugen, does move to Norway, but her route is identified by British intelligence coverage through their breaking of the German naval enigma code, and they're able to position a submarine to attack her, which torpedoes her successfully and blows off her stern.

So having arrived in Trondheim, Prince Eugen fairly quickly has to return to Germany for repairs, and in fact never returns. The naval buildup in Norway is much more limited than Hitler had hoped and anticipated, as involves the German battleship Tirpitz, the largest battleship in European waters. She reaches Trondheim in January and is later joined by Prince Eugen's sister, the heavy cruiser Hipper, during those first six months of the year by the two pocket battleships, Admiral Scheer and Lützeg. So by June, the Germans will have a force of four ships. The build-up is still, however, constrained because of shortage of oil. Really, until the middle of May, with one rare exception, there is insufficient oil to contemplate any significance sorted by heavy ships. And it's also constrained by shortage of destroyers. There just aren't sufficient in Norway until towards the middle of the year to allow sufficient ocean-going escort of the heavy ships.

Now, on the air side, things move perhaps a bit more easily. By the beginning of May, German air power in northern Norway is transformed. I mean, they established a strike force of about 150 Junkers 88s, Ankel 111s, including a significant torpedo strike force, which is a first for the Germans of about 40 aircraft. By April, having had a fairly easy time with the convoys, the British are realising that they're now facing a new problem. They can see an increase in German naval capability, but much more seriously in air capability. And that poses difficulty for protection of the convoys. Until now, they have been able to rely on a comparatively light close escort of four or five destroyers and corvettes and a couple of cruisers to provide heavier firepower and support. And that's easily manageable by the home fleet. But now they face the prospect of a 1,000-mile transit over the eastern half of the Arctic convoy route, much of which is within 200 to 300 miles of German air bases. From March onwards is enormous constant daylight. The opportunities for air attack from this greatly enhanced German force are very significant. And in terms of coping with the potential surface threat, the difficulty the British face is they're very reluctant, indeed fundamentally opposed to moving heavy ships, that's battleships or carriers, within range of that German air strike force. The prospect of having a capital ship severely damaged in waters at least 1,000 miles from any friendly anchorage are not appealing. So it's a cardinal principle of British conduct of the Arctic War that heavy forces do not move closer than 100 miles of a direct line north of North Cape. So what we find as we go through March and April is the British are beginning to take losses not only to the convoys, but also to their escorts. And indeed, during April and May, they lose two modern cruisers and losses of merchant ships are beginning to mount to the point where when the British look ahead, they wonder if this route is going to be sustainable through the summer months. The political answer from Roosevelt and Churchill is, you have to carry on. We will only contemplate a change if losses become unsustainable.

From mid-May through to mid-September, we have a period of peak German ascendancy. And over three convoys, that's numbers PQ-16 to PQ-18, the British take very heavy losses primarily to merchant ships, but also to some extent to escorts as well from a combined German threat. so surface, air, and U-boat, of which air is by far the most important. The first of those convoys loses 20% of its merchant ships, the second the notorious PQ-17 two-thirds, and PQ-18 in September about 30%. Many historians have looked at this period and suggested it almost represents a fundamental breaking of the convoy route a major German success in disrupting supplies. I would look at it rather differently and say that each of these three convoys is rather different. The first one takes significant losses, but significantly less than comparable Mediterranean convoys, and it's a rate of loss that is manageable. Convoy PQ-17, which we probably

don't have time to address in detail involves losses following the decision to scatter the convoy, and that scattering comes about through a combination of rather unique circumstances that are unlikely to recur again. For the final convoy, PQ18, in September, the British do in fact come up with a concept for defense that is viable, but it is extremely resource-intensive. Some historians regard it as something at best a Pyrrhic victory. I would say that it not only demonstrates an effective defensive concept, but it inflicts such heavy losses on the Germans, which, given the resource limitations they're facing by the end of the latter part of 1942, pose questions for them as to whether their level of attack against the Arctic convoys is actually

sustainable. So in the autumn of 1941, we're in a position where both sides are suffering. The British have a potential solution, but it's very resource intensive. And what they can't do is continue to run convoys in the Arctic through the autumn with the resources for defense that will be necessary and conduct parallel operations in the Mediterranean. And that autumn, the big operation there is the torch landings in Northwest Africa. So they have no option but to halt the convoys for a period in order to release those resources. For the Germans, they face a rather similar problem. They've lost a lot of aircraft and they have to respond to the torch landings And the only easy area of redeployment is that precious Arctic medium strike force.

So following the torch landings, almost all their Arctic strike force is moved south to respond to their new Mediterranean problem. So when we go into the winter and winter darkness, circumstances have changed. Not only has the air threat largely evaporated, what's left finds it much more difficult to operate in winter darkness. The surface forces are still there, although Tirpitz has engine problems and has gone into refence, so that surface force is somewhat reduced. The U-boats are certainly still there, but finding and striking convoys in winter darkness for U-boats is demanding and difficult. Nevertheless, I would say the Germans have perhaps their greatest opportunity to hit and destroy a convoy at the very end of December when they mount a quite ingenious attack against convoy NJW 7171B with the pocket battleship Luzzo and heavy cruiser Hipper, along with a heavy escort of five destroyers. Not only are the two

heavy ships far stronger than anything the British have escorting the convoy, each of the destroyers is significantly more powerful than its British counterpart. And had the Germans destroyed the convoy, which in my view, they certainly should have done, and they certainly had the potential to do so, they would have achieved a victory comfortably equivalent to that over PQ-17 back in July. But they fundamentally failed, essentially through a lack of risk appetite, unwillingness to press home their attack with the necessary resolve. The British fight a very fine defensive action, but they should have been overcome. And it is, by any standards, a colossal German failure, which Hitler certainly recognizes. And his reaction is to decide that German heavy

ships are useless and the whole force should be disbanded and dismantled. It leads to the downfall of the chief of the German naval staff, Admiral Raeder, and his replacement by the commanding Admiral U-Boats, Admiral Dönitz. And Dönitz hawks him round into keeping some of the heavy surface force, but a significant part of it is indeed dismantled and never goes into action again. the German threat is effective really a comparatively brief period. Now, the final point I ought to deal with is, and it's a valid point made by some historians, in looking at German effectiveness in dealing with the convoys, one shouldn't look at cargo ships sunk, one should also look at cargo denied. In other words, one can argue that over 25 months from July 1942,

Two convoys only ran in eight of those 25 months. Therefore, some 15 months had no convoys, and you sum all that up and say the Soviet Union lost millions of tons of potential cargo. My answer to that is that the reason for the lack of convoys is much more complicated. In only a few of those months was it due to the German threat. most of the time it was due to the need to shift resources elsewhere, and we've already talked about Torch. The same is true of Husky, the invasion of Sicily in mid-1943, and then for D-Day in 1944. So one has to count the validity of those operations against the loss of cargo delivered in

the north, and some of the cargo that would have been delivered in the north is diverted to the other routes across the Pacific and through the Persian Gulf. So when you sum it all up, the figure for cargo denied probably comes down to about 750,000 tons across those 25 months. And one has to balance that across the benefits from Torch and Husky, which for the Soviet Union, I would argue, were actually quite considerable. Lent least has a complicated reputation in the historiography of the Second World War. Could you explain this controversy and what you found when researching your book? Through the war itself, and then particularly the Cold War that follows, there's a concerted Soviet effort to downplay the significance of Western aid and

to marginalize its value and impact. There's a consistent suggestion that it only ever amounted to 4% of Soviet war production, that most aid came after Stalingrad when it was no longer needed, and during the first six months of the war, when it was most required, it was derisory, hardly making any contribution at all. And this whole theme, only slightly modified, persists almost to this day through many mainstream histories, and that is as much in the West as in the East. So the contribution of weaponry is downplayed, and most Western histories tend to focus on the contribution of transport and communication and food supplies between 1943 and 1945.

So in other words, after the Stalingrad period. Now, it's true that only 13% of Western aid arrived by the end of the Stalingrad campaign. And it's true also that subsequent aid for the last two years of the war was not decisive to its outcome. It added value. It made the Soviet war effort certainly more efficient. It saved time and it saved casualties. This whole view of the contribution of Lend-Lease can easily feed an idea that ultimately the effort was discretionary. It was useful rather than essential. If there had been no aid, the Soviets would like to suggest they would have survived somehow and they would have found other ways of applying their war resources to ensure they got there in the end, even if it took more time. Now, even within the Soviet Union, privately, there were significant voices that questioned that whole view. Khrushchev and, to a lesser extent, Zhukov, both central figures in the war, said that Western aid was absolutely essential and quoted Stalin as saying on several occasions that without Western aid, the Soviet Union would not have survived. Now, the view that aid was useful rather than essential, I would say, misses four points. I think it, first of all, downplays the impact of aid in that first winter of the war, so the end of that six-month period, where actually weapons were, although low in numbers, were still useful. They gave the Soviet Union a valuable addition in tanks. I wouldn't argue that it enabled them to save Moscow, but it did perhaps help them to push the Germans back and keep them further back than in that counteroffensive than would have been possible otherwise.

The same is true with the support of Western fighters, both in the Moscow and Leningrad arenas, but also, importantly, in the North, in the defense of Murmansk. So I think you can downplay Western impact in that winter, and I would say it was more useful than often suggested. Even in that winter, you get the beginning of important raw material supplies, notably aluminium, which helps the Soviet Union to restore productive capacity as they're obliged to move that out to the east beyond German reach. The second point, I would say 1942 is perhaps the critical year when Soviet survival is most finely balanced, and this view that in the first six months it was derisory and after Stalingrad it doesn't matter rather leaves out that crucial year of 1942. Soviet GDP declined by 30% across that year, and Western aid contributed about 5% of GDP. If there was a potential tipping point in terms of survival, 5% looks a quite small contribution. But if that tipping point was

finely balanced, perhaps it was that that ensured survival rather than pushing the Soviet Union to a point where they felt they had no option but to accept a Brest-Litovsk peace in 1343. When we move beyond Stalingrad, time and casualties over the next two years still matter. You can say the Eastern Wall would have taken a year longer. Well, that's at very considerable cost. And other things are going to have been happening in the West at the same time. So we're into hypotheticals about where all that would have led. So it's not a simple case of saying we would have won anyway, it would just have taken a bit longer. I mean, it might have taken a lot longer, and the additional casualties would certainly have been horrendous. And we also have

to finally remember aid is only one element of the Western effort against Germany. The other elements of the Western effort, the combined bombing offensive, the effort in the Mediterranean, even before you get to Overlord, do matter and do make a very significant difference to the resources that Germany is able to devote to dealing with the Soviet Union. And I guess We also have to remember, if you look at the primary Western records, the contemporary records as we go through the war, it's quite clear that Western leaders never see aid to the Soviet Union as discretionary. At every point in the war, they see this aid as vital to maximizing Soviet potential and ensuring that the Western effort is successful. And there they're particularly thinking about the D-Day landings, which Western leaders see as finally balanced right up to the last moment and indeed beyond. So I think that's how I would describe and balance the historiography of Lend-Lease. So ultimately, how important were these supplies to the Soviet Union and to the war more broadly? If we think of 1942 as the most critical year, and remember my book focuses on the Arctic

contribution and the Arctic War, there's no doubt that the Arctic contribution is most important in the first 18 months. So that's from August 1941 to the end of February 1943, when there's a lull in convoys through the summer of 1943. And over that 18-month period, 85% of the weapons delivered in those 18 months go via the Arctic. The small balance goes through the Persian Gulf with a very small quantity of aircraft via Alaska. That 85% of weaponry includes 10% of Red Army tank receipts, of which 20% are of medium tank receipts and 19% are fighter receipts through that year 1942. So in other words, the Western contribution adds 10% for tanks, 20% if you think purely of medium tanks, and 19% for fighters. That's not an inconsiderable quantity. It's often suggested that

transport and communications supplies really only come after 1943. That's not true. There were significant supplies in both those areas in the first 18 months of the war, with a good element of those, proportion of those, going by the Arctic. 50,000 trucks are delivered by the Arctic in this period, broadly equate to the whole of domestic production. So that's certainly important. Half of 90,000 field telephones and 450,000 miles of telephone wire also go the Arctic, again, a significant addition. Very importantly, two-thirds of 70,000 tons of aluminium and 32,000 tons of hot-rolled aircraft steel go via the Arctic, and that underpins about 25 to 30 percent of Soviet combat aircraft output over the 12 months from 1st of July 1942.

So when one hears stories of the fantastic levels of aircraft and tank output achieved by the the Soviets throughout the war, but even in 1942, it's important to add that qualification that for both categories, but particularly aircraft, a very significant proportion rested on Western material supplies. Now, could the Soviets have rejuggled resources elsewhere if they'd had to make up for a lack of Western supplies? Well, up to a point, but it would have been very difficult. The same argument applies to the supplies of toluene, which is a critical component of TNT. Two-thirds of 20,000 tons of toluene and about the same quantity of TNT were delivered via the Arctic in this period. Those supplies underpinned about a third of Red Army firepower. In other words, those supplies go into the manufacture of Red Army munitions. I mean, again, could the Soviet Union have rebalanced production to make up for a lack of Western supplies? To an extent, yes, but it would have been difficult. And I think that contribution, therefore, speaks for itself. In a way, we also, as we discuss this, we come back to wear down that vital component of Anglo-American strategy. These supplies are a vital contribution of that wear down strategy.

So it's not only bombing blockade, it's also enabling the Soviet Union to fight and fight more effectively, to produce more tanks, produce more aircraft, to have the communications to conduct more sophisticated combined operations, etc., etc., and to help make D-Day viable and the success it ultimately became. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. Andy, where can our listeners find you, and what are you working on now? My immediate concern is the paperback version of my second book, British Naval Intelligence Through the 20th Century, is coming out in the spring of next year, and I have some small additions and corrections to make to that. That exercise has caused me to feel there's more research and more work I want to do in the naval intelligence area. I'm also currently reading Nicholas Rogers' long-awaited third volume of The Naval History of Britain, and that's raising all sorts of issues and questions that are causing me to consider areas that I might like to follow up. So I don't yet have a new book idea settled, but we'll be on 20th century naval history. There may be an intelligence dimension to it, something in that area. And always scope for shorter pieces as well.

We'll keep an eye out for the paperback and see you again soon. I'd like to thank my guest, Andy Boyd, to listeners. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time. I walked up to the barroom counter. Way, hey, pull in the alley. There I met with greasy Annie. Pull it out the shimbo now. So help me, Bob, I'm pulling in the alley.

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