View Full Version : Did USSR receive Allied supply via Pacific?


10Seven
Dec 02, 2005, 04:14 PM
Wondering if the Soviets received such as lend-lease and other supplies from the Allies during WW2 via the Pacific?

I understand they received considerable via the Baltic - but have never heard any references to the Pacific.

Did Japan interdict supply?

Were Soviet ports insufficient?

Was the West to East supply line to the front considered too long?

Any references would be greatly appreciated :)

ComradeDavo
Dec 02, 2005, 04:15 PM
History Forum!;)

Christmann
Dec 02, 2005, 04:21 PM
I understand they received considerable via the Baltic

I highly doubt that. A lot came through Murmansk though.

As to your original question, I don't know.

Speedo
Dec 02, 2005, 07:43 PM
Was the West to East supply line to the front considered too long?

That would be my guess. I would suspect that the Sov's preferred having the material dumped relatively close to its destination, rather than having to transport it thousands of miles through there own infrastructure. They didn't really have need of the stuff on their pacific coast since they didn't declare war on Japan until July-Aug '45 (can't remember the exact date).

Reno
Dec 03, 2005, 01:14 AM
I understand they received considerable via the Baltic

Nope, no supply help came to the CCCP from the Baltic Sea, the Barents Sea is a totally different matter though.

Pasi Nurminen
Dec 03, 2005, 01:25 AM
Vladivostok was too close to Japanese waters to effectively receive supplies. Besides, tensions between the two because of huge border clashes in the 30s were high, and the Soviet Union, with the horrible situation in Europe, did not want to risk a war on two fronts.

Quasar1011
Dec 03, 2005, 09:51 AM
The Soviet Union also received some supplies from the south, via Persia.

Adler17
Dec 03, 2005, 12:02 PM
There came supply also via Vladivostok, but only under ships flying the Soviet ensign for obvious reasons. However in no way the ammount via Murmansk.

Adler

NKVD
Dec 12, 2005, 10:40 PM
you guys just totally say anything without consulting any books or facts...that's why I rarely came here because I get angry each and every time at people who say the greatest military of all time was the USA...funny..and now they say that in no way shipping through the pacific was higher than Murmansk or persian gulf...

in 1941, 193,299 tons were dispatched to USSR from the Pacific aka Vladivostok with US boats flying the soviet flag of a total of 360,778 tons..representing 53%

only in 1942 that north atlantic received 949,000 tons while the pacific ''only'' 734,000 tons. it is the only year the shipments didnt come in majority from the pacific...of a total of 2,453,000 tons

in 1943 the Pacific received 2,388,000 tons , the atlantic only 681,000 tons and persian gulf 1,606,000 tons , artic 117,000 and none from Black sea of a total of 4,479,000 which is 53 % again from pacific...

even higher in 1944 with 2,848,000 tons of a total of 6,217,000 (47%)

and 56% in 1945...

so each year except 1942 have seen the most of the shipment through the pacific except for 1942 in total in the war 47.1% of the shipment went through the pacific, 23.8% through the Persian gulf, 22,7% in the north Atlantic (way to go guys!) , 6,4 % through Artic and black sea...

Serutan
Dec 13, 2005, 07:05 PM
Vladivostok handled the most Lend-Lease cargo of any Soviet port. Also,
American Lend-Lease aircraft were flown to the SU via Fairbanks, Alaska
(where Soviet crews took posession of the planes) and Vladivostok.

privatehudson
Dec 13, 2005, 07:54 PM
so each year except 1942 have seen the most of the shipment through the pacific except for 1942 in total in the war 47.1% of the shipment went through the pacific, 23.8% through the Persian gulf, 22,7% in the north Atlantic (way to go guys!) , 6,4 % through Artic and black sea...

I like the remark about "way to go guys". I guess all those allied sailors who served in the Artic convoys must be estatic to know they're so well thought of by the modern generation of Russians*. :rolleyes:

Oh yes, and though I don't doubt the figures you stated it's common sense to quote a source (preferably an online one you can link to) if you really wish people to sit up and take notice.

*I presume you're Russian from your location, feel free to correct me if necessary.

joycem10
Dec 14, 2005, 10:48 AM
The History Channel had a good show on the "air bridge" between Alaska and the Soviet Union focusing on the use of female pilots by both countries to ferry aircraft.

NKVD
Dec 14, 2005, 11:01 AM
I like the remark about "way to go guys". I guess all those allied sailors who served in the Artic convoys must be estatic to know they're so well thought of by the modern generation of Russians*. :rolleyes:

Oh yes, and though I don't doubt the figures you stated it's common sense to quote a source (preferably an online one you can link to) if you really wish people to sit up and take notice.

*I presume you're Russian from your location, feel free to correct me if necessary.

no i'm french canadian, both my parents are french I know no russian but currently learning russian and preparing a trip to St-petersburg to go see the graves and say thanks to the russians who save my liberty in WW2. I just cant stand people who say things without even consulting any data...sorry for the source it went out of my head but its from are a combination of 7 books collected by Albert Seaton which are :

Istoriya, Vol.6 p.48,62,72
Der Zweite Weltkrieg , Jacobsen, p.568
The strange alliance, Deane, p 86-103
Russia at war , Werth, p.624-628
Command Decisions, Werth, p.154-181
Lend-Lease, Stettinius (no page given)
Rustungshilfe der USA an die Verbundeten im Zweiten Weltkrieg , Schlauch

privatehudson
Dec 14, 2005, 11:39 AM
no i'm french canadian, both my parents are french I know no russian but currently learning russian and preparing a trip to St-petersburg to go see the graves and say thanks to the russians who save my liberty in WW2.

Well in that case please read my comment as:


I like the remark about "way to go guys". I guess all those allied sailors who served in the Artic convoys must be estatic to know they're so well thought of by the modern generation :rolleyes:

Reno
Dec 14, 2005, 11:48 AM
I like the remark about "way to go guys". I guess all those allied sailors who served in the Artic convoys must be estatic to know they're so well thought of by the modern generation

There are two popular (IMO illiterate) views on ww2 amongst youngsters today. Either it was the Western Allies entirely that liberated the whole of europe from the Axis. (Hollywood) Or the USSR image where Mother Russia saved europe from the Germans and their Axis allies. :rolleyes:

privatehudson
Dec 14, 2005, 02:29 PM
Indeed, and that remark strikes me as an example of the latter.

NKVD
Dec 14, 2005, 06:03 PM
we can think what we feel its a free country. Facts are facts but who do you think provided the victory to the Allies is an opinion...I also thought it was the USA with Canada and Australia who won WW2...then I began to read books...after reading ''a ****load'' (like americans says) of books I made my opinion that the great russian people made us won the war. USA only helped to shorten it. Even if Moscow would have fall and/or Stalingrad and/or Leningrad, USSR would have strike back. I can't say by looking at the number of deaths for each nations and the number of german divisions concentration in Europe that the US helped much...as much as WWI anyway but thats only an opinion

privatehudson
Dec 14, 2005, 06:47 PM
we can think what we feel its a free country

Certainly, however when you make comments like "gee thanks guys" it rather implies to me that you're belittling the Atlantic route and those involved in keeping it open. Stating that the Atlantic route wasn't statistically the main one throughout the war is fine in my book, crossing the line to belittling it is insulting.

But yes, you can have that opinion if you wish regardless of how offensive it might be to some.

I can't say by looking at the number of deaths for each nations and the number of german divisions concentration in Europe that the US helped much

Looking at part of the whole picture doesn't make for a good conclusion.

~Corsair#01~
Dec 15, 2005, 04:05 AM
The US' great achievement in the war was not taking Europe from Hitler, but keeping Stalin out.

Cullyn
Dec 15, 2005, 05:11 AM
we can think what we feel its a free country. Facts are facts but who do you think provided the victory to the Allies is an opinion...I also thought it was the USA with Canada and Australia who won WW2...then I began to read books...after reading ''a ****load'' (like americans says) of books I made my opinion that the great russian people made us won the war. USA only helped to shorten it. Even if Moscow would have fall and/or Stalingrad and/or Leningrad, USSR would have strike back. I can't say by looking at the number of deaths for each nations and the number of german divisions concentration in Europe that the US helped much...as much as WWI anyway but thats only an opinion

That the USSR did have a huge influence in the ultimate allied victory over Germany, of that there is no doubt. But do not discount the western allies contribution. It was Britain who stood alone after the fall of France. It was the USSR who in alliance with the Reich invaded Poland and to all Russians WW2 began in 1941, not 1939.

It was the Western Allies who destroyed Germany’s capacity to conduct a war. And it was the USA who were the industrial powerhouse of the war, and while fighting the Western Axis powers were also fighting the Japanese (with the UK and Commonwealth forces). The USSR never truly fought a two front war. The Manchuria Campaign at the end was pure opportunism, and while it help lead to the ultimate Japanese surrender, it did not help all that much.

Numbers of deaths and the military deployment are only a small part of the story. You cannot talk of Stalingrad without talking about El Alemein. You cannot talk about Leningrad without touching on the Battle of Britain and of the Battle for the North Atlantic. You cannot talk about the T34 or the size of the Red Army without talking about RAF & US Air Corp bombing campaigns. Kursk was indeed a huge battle that broke the back of the Reich in the East, but Normandy signalled the start of a 3 front war for the Reich and was the real beginning of the end.

WW2 was in all senses a World war, it touched everywhere and everyone. Indeed the USSR was a major player in Europe, but so were the USA, UK and the Commonwealth forces. As for the Asia campaign the USSR was pretty irrelevant until the very end.

As an aside, it would be a mistake to discount the blow the USSR would have suffered it Moscow had fallen. It was the world centre of Communism; it contained the centres of Soviet power and prestige. Imagine how it would have played with wavering nations within the Axis to see Fascists parading down Red Square. Imagine how it would have looked to the Soviet people.


And on a last note, in relation to your handle mate, I realise that it is your free choice to have it, and I am sure that there is loads of peeps that use it or the KGB or whatever, but please remember, this was not a nice organisation.

kittenOFchaos
Dec 15, 2005, 10:22 AM
The US' great achievement in the war was not taking Europe from Hitler, but keeping Stalin out.

Didn't keep Stalin out of nearly enough as the Americans were far too concerned about damaging the British Empire and not antagonising Russia. Roosevelt really needed to stand shoulder to shoulder with Churchill and at the very least demand Polish independence of Moscow, instead they won the War at the least possible cost.

NKVD
Dec 15, 2005, 11:37 AM
Certainly, however when you make comments like "gee thanks guys" it rather implies to me that you're belittling the Atlantic route and those involved in keeping it open. Stating that the Atlantic route wasn't statistically the main one throughout the war is fine in my book, crossing the line to belittling it is insulting.


no it were the guys that said Atlantic received more...they tell things in every thread without knowing anything in some...I was not talking about the ones in the artic... They did a great job.

It was the USSR who in alliance with the Reich invaded Poland and to all Russians WW2 began in 1941, not 1939.

It was the Western Allies who destroyed Germany’s capacity to conduct a war. And it was the USA who were the industrial powerhouse of the war, and while fighting the Western Axis powers were also fighting the Japanese (with the UK and Commonwealth forces).

Numbers of deaths and the military deployment are only a small part of the story. You cannot talk of Stalingrad without talking about El Alemein. Kursk was indeed a huge battle that broke the back of the Reich in the East, but Normandy signalled the start of a 3 front war for the Reich and was the real beginning of the end.

As an aside, it would be a mistake to discount the blow the USSR would have suffered it Moscow had fallen. It was the world centre of Communism; it contained the centres of Soviet power and prestige. Imagine how it would have played with wavering nations within the Axis to see Fascists parading down Red Square. Imagine how it would have looked to the Soviet people.



USSR invaded Poland because Poland fighted a war prior to WW2 and cpatured some soviet cities...they wanted them back.

Allies desotrying productioncapacity of germany ? by 1941 even before the germans were near Moscow the Soviet were producing way more planes and tanks than Germans. There were little industries in Moscow or in Leningrad left...it was cities from Nizhny Novgorod to Cheyabinsk who were producing. Sure the Allies helped but did not delivered Europe...as late as Russian entered the war against Japan. Hilter never talked about 3 fronts...Africa was not important.
El Alamein ? Hitler had only 100 000 men there with 500 tanks...
Hitler sent 3,350 tanks and 3.2 millions men for the 3 groups(excluding Romanian italians hungary forces) ...c'mon it makes me laugh

If you think the End for hitler was when Allies beach-headed in Normandy. Gemans Generals would have thought you are as optimistic as Hitler. if you exclude Group South both North and moscow Group have been stopped as soon as december 1941. I believe Army General Dušan Simović did more for Russia by delaying Hilter by 4 weeks.

Soviet were already on the borders of Germany when Normandy happened...In our canadian schools they teach us about how we, the Allies liberated France and beat Hitler. you never hear of the russian accomplishment, sure it was the US who provided all their tanks and rifles! When you actually read books from around the world (meaning non american authors) you really understand who beat Hitler...

joycem10
Dec 15, 2005, 11:45 AM
USSR invaded Poland because Poland fighted a war prior to WW2 and cpatured some soviet cities...they wanted them back.

Id be interested to hear your justification for the annexation of the Baltic states and the Winter War with Finland.

Reno
Dec 15, 2005, 02:20 PM
USSR invaded Poland because Poland fighted a war prior to WW2 and cpatured some soviet cities...they wanted them back.

Ugh, the war in 1924...? (or some other year, but the 1920's none the less...) Those areas that they took belong to Poland-Lithuania (if you go back hundreds of years) and it was Russia that took them from Poland. Those areas were populated by Ukrainians and Belo-Russians. The area belong to Tsarist Russia, yes. How could it possibly belong to the Soviet Union? And no, if anyone deserved to have that land, it was either the Byelo-Russians, Ukraininas, Lithuanians, Poles and finally the last Russian power to hold that land, Tsarist Russia. Soviet-Russia did not have any justification for the land there, as it gave up those lands in the treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

NKVD
Dec 15, 2005, 02:50 PM
I never said it was justified...or good.
I'm not russian so WW2 began in 1939 in my head.

Joycem because Baltic and Finland had WMD...it was a preventive strike...lol
I have as much proof as you country had about Iraq.

MattII
Dec 15, 2005, 04:50 PM
Makes me wonder how any sea trade could get through the Korean Straits (if that's the way it came through. Most intelligent way it seems to me would be through the northern part of the Kuril Island chain/Kurilskiye Ostrova (ps. using an atlas printed back in '81) and down through the Sakhalin-Mainland gap (what ever you call it).

Any other ways look like bringing it in Spitfire range of the Japanese mainland.

privatehudson
Dec 15, 2005, 05:40 PM
no it were the guys that said Atlantic received more...they tell things in every thread without knowing anything in some...I was not talking about the ones in the artic... They did a great job.

There's no justification in replying to some people's lack of knowledge by belittling vetrans efforts. I can't see any other way to take the comment you made frankly. Whichever route it's directed at the comment is still insulting to my mind.

Allies desotrying productioncapacity of germany ? by 1941 even before the germans were near Moscow the Soviet were producing way more planes and tanks than Germans.

It's quite clear that the Russians weren't providing enough to combat the Germans and more importantly couldn't provide enough because throughout the war they still had to rely on vast amounts of western equipment. Outproducing you enemy is fine... as long as that advantage is enough, which it clearly wasn't.

Point
Dec 15, 2005, 07:34 PM
Does anyone notice the irony in the fact that the whole thing started over poland being invaded, after it had all finished, poland was still occupied

Cullyn
Dec 16, 2005, 05:35 AM
no it were the guys that said Atlantic received more...they tell things in every thread without knowing anything in some...I was not talking about the ones in the artic... They did a great job.

USSR invaded Poland because Poland fighted a war prior to WW2 and cpatured some soviet cities...they wanted them back.

Allies desotrying productioncapacity of germany ? by 1941 even before the germans were near Moscow the Soviet were producing way more planes and tanks than Germans. There were little industries in Moscow or in Leningrad left...it was cities from Nizhny Novgorod to Cheyabinsk who were producing. Sure the Allies helped but did not delivered Europe...as late as Russian entered the war against Japan. Hilter never talked about 3 fronts...Africa was not important.
El Alamein ? Hitler had only 100 000 men there with 500 tanks...
Hitler sent 3,350 tanks and 3.2 millions men for the 3 groups(excluding Romanian italians hungary forces) ...c'mon it makes me laugh

If you think the End for hitler was when Allies beach-headed in Normandy. Gemans Generals would have thought you are as optimistic as Hitler. if you exclude Group South both North and moscow Group have been stopped as soon as december 1941. I believe Army General Dušan Simović did more for Russia by delaying Hilter by 4 weeks.

Soviet were already on the borders of Germany when Normandy happened...In our canadian schools they teach us about how we, the Allies liberated France and beat Hitler. you never hear of the russian accomplishment, sure it was the US who provided all their tanks and rifles! When you actually read books from around the world (meaning non american authors) you really understand who beat Hitler...

Well first off I’m not in North America, I’m in Ireland. My reading material would include a hell of a lot of authors from around the world, including a lot of stuff actually published during the war (they are fascinating reads, the propaganda books published by the UK). My history education was also very broad and the accomplishments of all the allied nations were examined in detail. I think also if you read a lot of Russian authors you will find that they also exaggerate the prowess and accomplishments of the Red Army. Lets be honest here, the Red Army had numbers and material, but in every other way the Wehrmacht were a supieror army, they simply did not have the logistical support needed to fight in the the vast USSR. Look at the opening months of the Russian campaingn, the Red Army was decimanted the Nazi’s. In the beginning the Wehrmacht had the number to detroy the Red Army. But the contiued destruction of the industrial centres of the Reich, the shoratge of essential suplies like fuel and steel and the onset of a brutal winter on an unprepared army and the continued poor logistical support requierd for such a large operation which allowed the Red Army to fight back. Indeed there is some
truth in the saying that the 2 Greatest Generals of WW2 for Russia were General January and February, as they had been in the time of the Grand Campaign

That aside I think I see where you are coming from, you have made one assumption about what defined the most important nations in the war, which is war material. Ok, so I understand you premise BUT it is fundamentally flawed. Numbers of planes and tanks are useless unless they have the support behind them; you know small unimportant things such as logistics, trained crews, fuel, ammunition, and clear chains of command.

The Battle of El Alamein ([URL=" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_El_Alamein )preserved the Middle East as a source of oil for the UK, and equally denied it from the Axis. The North African Campaign soaked up material and men, some of Germany’s finest from operations in Russia. It also gave the UK a victory, and important moral boosting victory.

It also ended Italy as any sort of a useful ally for the Reich (not that the Italian Army were of any use to anyone that war) and kept the Suez Canal open.

As for Normandy, as I said it created a 3rd front. It eased the pressure on the Red army, it denied the Wehrmacht and sort of breathing space and it soaked up huge amounts of the Wehrmacht material. As for ….Soviet were already on the borders of Germany when Normandy happened..., are you serious? The Red Army only entered Poland in mid July (D-Day, 6th June) with the Warsaw Rising starting on August 1st until October 2nd (ish).

Anyway, I am not in anyway discounting the USSR’s achievements in European Theatre of WW2, but the other main allies did a hell of a lot there as well. The USA & UK provided the material, the designs and the intelligence ([URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULTRA ) to seriously aid the USSR in the war.

And the USSR invaded Poland because Stalin was a megalomaniac totalitarian dictator ([URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin#Death_toll) who wanted to destroy Poland as a nation and subsume it into the USSR, I mean if he invaded Poland to “recover” lost territory, explain the Winter War with Finland. Poland was a means to an end. Stalin and Hitler were 2 sides of the same coin. (please nobody start the “Stalin was a great man” crap, he wasn’t, he was a thug who terrorised his country)



(I used wiki for reference out of ease and laziness, many of my own history books are alas out of print and difficult of find online..)

Does anyone notice the irony in the fact that the whole thing started over poland being invaded, after it had all finished, poland was still occupied

I think the term here should be Tragic

Reno
Dec 16, 2005, 06:59 AM
….Soviet were already on the borders of Germany when Normandy happened...

The first soviet troops to enter the 1939 border (before Polish invasion) of Germany were made in November and early december 1944. While the Soviet army attacked 'en masse into East Prussia and Germany proper as late as mid January 1945. ;)