Lend-Lease Act

The act authorized transfers of weapons, vehicles, food, fuel and equipment, with repayment terms set by the President. About $50 billion of aid was shipped by 1945, requiring large-scale procurement, warehousing and convoy logistics through Atlantic and Arctic ports and the Persian Gulf route. The program ended in 1945 and imposes no current obligations.

Lend-Lease drove one of the largest supply chain buildups in history and spread practices such as palletized handling, forklift use and large-scale inventory control that later passed into commercial warehousing. Shipping aid to the Soviet Union through Iran and Murmansk forced planners to manage multimodal routes, long lead times and high loss rates. For modern operators it is an early example of how surge demand and route disruption require buffer stock and alternate routings.

• Brehon B. Somervell1892–1955 · Commander of Army Service Forces

• Pallet and Forklift Adoption in World War II1939–1945 · War supply makes pallets and forklifts standard
• Liberty Ships1941–1945 · US yards build 2,710 cargo ships to one design
• Red Ball Express1944 · Army truck convoys supply the advance across France

1. Office of the Historian: Lend-Lease and Military Aid to the Allies history.state.gov
2. National Archives: Lend-Lease Act (1941) archives.gov