See Page 20. I always thought that GB had to repay the Lend-Lease but from this article it appears the Lend-Lease of $25,000,000,000 was written off. Even so I think GB did not pay off the top up until last year. LIFE - Google Books
found this re the last payment of the loan BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | What's a little debt between friends?
The loan was paid off on New Year's Eve, 2006. There was a very interesting documentary called "Mortgaged to the Yanks" shown in 2007 on the BBC which was presented by Sir Christopher Meyer, former US Ambassador to Washington.
That old magazine article is interesting, but it should be remembered that although the UK received about $31 billion in total Lend-Lease aid (not counting its commonwealth partners), it appears that there was a quiet postwar settlement agreement which reduced the British debt, that reduction in total debt "might" be seen as a charitable act, but I doubt it. In reality the reduction was most likely in acknowledgment of royalties on British copyrights and patents (radar, jet engines, penicillin, etc.), and reverse Lend/Lease (flurospar [sp?] ores from New Foundland for example). After that agreement was reached, Britain proper would only owe around $5.2 billion plus 2% interest. A New York Times article from 1955 details how the British had made a $155 million in payments, but still owed $4.58 billion on a debt that, at its height, was the aforementioned $5.2 billion. (source: New York Times: Jan 1, 1955. p. 3 "BRITAIN REDUCES DEBTS $137,845,431; Payment to U. S. Is Made on Post-World War II Account -- Billions Still Owed.") Here is an interesting article on the USDA’s "deep vat production" process which was converted in the US to produce penicillin at extraordinary quantities at highly reduced cost, this changed penicillin from too expensive to use for any but the wealthy to so cheap it was shipped all over the world for the servicemen of the allies at pennies per dose costs: ARS : Technologies in the Marketplace So while the brown powder of Flemming’s penicillin starter was sent from the UK, and put the American project on the right track, it was the deep vat production method of the USDA which made it a feasible antibiotic. All the Lend-Lease payments from the UK had been rescheduled in 1946; and in the April 2003 UK budget; a line item mentions that $160 million remains outstanding and will be repaid in full with interest by June 30, 2005. A New York Times article from 1970 mentions that the British had made a $188.4 million payment that year. The article also says that the original loan was at 2 percent interest and was due to be repaid in 2005. (source: Britain Makes Payment To U.S. on Postwar Loan. New York Times: Jan 1, 1970. p. 35) By August 1945, when the war finally ended and all "Lend/Lease" was suspended, nearly forty nations and governments had been the recipients of American "Lend/Lease" aid. The total lend-lease appropriations funded by the American taxpayer were somewhere between $48 and $51 billion. But let us not forget that the U.S. had received more than $6 billion in reverse lend-lease material, not just intellectual rights and patents, this was in the form of rare minerals, dairy products and other raw material (which is why the full "total" is not easily defined). The French, Belgians, Norwegians, Yugoslavs, Greeks, and Nederlanders supplied intangible items which were included in the end "repayment" terms, hiding allied airmen, donating their homes/rationed food at the risk of their lives and such to the allied liberating forces, sans payment at the time. All kinds of arrangements for the repayments by the recipient nations were instigated shortly after the war ended. It is my understanding that the UK made its final payment on the Lend-Lease debt in January of 2007, but I wonder if that was all on that L-L balance, or if it included the last of the "Marshall Plan" loans as well. While the Lend-Lease loans were made at 2%, the "Marshall Plan" loans were at a slightly higher rate (I think). Now, for some fun remember that those are the original numbers, using 1940’s USD which were gold backed (and never adjusted for inflation). The gold standard wasn’t dropped by the US until the Nixon administration in 1972, and compared to today’s buck those in the forties were awesome in buying power. This is an approximation of course, because the "exchange" varies almost by the moment anymore; $10 of the 1940’s dollars would be worth about $120 dollars today.
They are still getting it wrong. Sir Howard (Baron) Florey who led the Oxford University team who discovered how to grow Penicillin was an Australian. Norman Heatley was British and Ernst Chain was British/German. Moyer, the American Scientist they took the penicillin to, patented it and never disclosed Heatleys assistance so Heatley was left out in the cold so to speak. Sir Howard Florey was a scientist and always said that he was not interested in the patent. (It was thought of as unethical in Britain in those days) Heatley was recognised 50 years later. All Penicillin supplied to Allied troops (US, Australian, NZ) etc in the South West Pacific area was produced in Australia at the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories by another Australian, Percival Landon Bazeley. Penicillin was in New Guinea etc from December 1943. Australia was also the first country to supply penicillin to all of its citizen population. I sent a biography of Bazeley to this site and he put it on his website. Percival Landon Bazeley; Australia's WW2 Penicillin hero Cheers Geoff
Believe it or not - we ALSO owed "reparations" to the French! There was a repayment scheme agreed after the war for rebuilding French ports the RAF had bombed, and this was still being paid in the mid-1990s at least IIRC.... Yup....technically speaking WE were responsible for those PIG-ugly concrete monstrosities in Le Havre etc.!!!
Well who will get this little lot then? Anyone fancy going fishing at the weekend? British shipwreck holds £2.6 billion treasure, explorers claim - Telegraph
Believe it or not - we ALSO owed "reparations" to the French! There was a repayment scheme agreed after the war for rebuilding French ports the RAF had bombed, and this was still being paid in the mid-1990s at least IIRC.... Yup....technically speaking WE were responsible for those PIG-ugly concrete monstrosities in Le Havre etc.!!! No amount of bombing was going to shift those pens Phylo!
The ways things are going, we may need a bit more soon ! From us? We'd have to borrow it from the Chinese to loan it to you!
No amount of bombing was going to shift those pens Phylo! I wasn't talking about the PENS! I was talking about what they DID wtih our money....built those gadawful Post-Modernist concrete eyesores that pass for "town centres" in so many french coastal towns! :mellow:
I seem to recollect that the Americans negotiated leases on Military bases from the British giving the American Forces some strategic bases around the globe. Regards Tom
Smudger, one of the bases the Americans 'leased' was a naval station in Bermuda. As a result of the American expanxion of the base Bermuda now has an international airport (was shared with the US military). The Americans left some years ago when the lease expired and the airport is now totally civilian. The former US base area, including all buildings were being redeveloped when I was last there several years ago. Mike
There was a very interesting documentary called "Mortgaged to the Yanks" shown in 2007 on the BBC which was presented by Sir Christopher Meyer, former US Ambassador to Washington. Who was the British ambassador to the Court of Saint James in that period?
