Lend-Lease and Soviet Aviation 1941–1945 Volume 1

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Britain and the United States rapidly became indispensable sources of aircraft, equipment, raw materials and technical expertise for Soviet aviation. For decades before the Second World War, however, Russian and Soviet pilots, engineers and manufacturers had already been studying, purchasing, operating and, in some cases, reproducing British and American aircraft and technology.

Beginning with the earliest British and American aircraft in Imperial Russia, the story opens by tracing this long and complex history. It follows the First World War, Civil War and inter-war years, when foreign machines, engines and manufacturing methods helped shape the development of Soviet aviation. British types such as the Sopwith 1½ Strutter and Avro 504 played important roles, while the 1930s saw Soviet interest increasingly shift towards American aircraft, industrial processes and technical innovation. Licensed production of designs such as the Douglas DC-3, together with the acquisition of equipment, engines and manufacturing technology, provided a foundation upon which wartime cooperation would later be built.

The narrative then turns to the creation of the wartime assistance programme – Lend-Lease – itself: the political negotiations, purchasing mechanisms, protocols and administrative arrangements through which Allied aircraft began to flow to the Soviet Union. It explains what ‘Lend-Lease’ actually meant, how British and American assistance differed, and how the immense machinery of procurement and acceptance was established.

Alongside this wider story are detailed histories of the aircraft types examined in the series, starting with the Hawker Hurricane, Supermarine Spitfire, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, North American Mustang, De Havilland Mosquito and Curtiss O-52 Owl. Their technical characteristics, Soviet testing, operational employment and contemporary assessments reveal how differently Western aircraft could be judged once exposed to the particular demands of Soviet service.

Illustrated throughout with a wealth of period photographs and specially prepared colour aircraft profiles, this first volume lays the essential foundation for understanding one of the most important – and most frequently misunderstood – forms of Allied cooperation with the Soviet Union during the Second World War.