Thank God!

[colin]

Forester - 2006-12-29 6:12 AM

 

If I had known that the subject would upset so many people I would not have posted it, I was ment as a bit of light banter. like at the top of the page it says GENERAL CHAT.RoyH As far as my signature goes "ITS MINE" I'll have it as I want it.  Howard thanks for your support.  I'll stick to questions about M Hs. I am sorry if i upset anyone .

 

Forester, I don't think I've ever replied to any of your postings, I will to this one.

As it says on front page 'CHAT ABOUT ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING', so take no notice of anyone telling you not to post, but be prepared to take some flak if you offend.

I had missed item about payments finishing so an imformative post for me, as to way it was 'worded', well I have said similair things to numerous american military friends during some friendly banter and I'm still friends with them, how do I know numerous americans? well I've lived most of my life near an american base, so I've been to school with, to colledge with, lived next door to and been to pub with many americans. The americans have left the base now so we don't have that piece of the 'outside world' on our doorstep, but we have a lot fewer head-on car crashes.

[Guest peter]

What next? Handbags at dawn?. :D I can't believe it got this far out of hand.

[colin]

peter - 2006-12-29 9:12 PM

 

What next? Handbags at dawn?. :D I can't believe it got this far out of hand.

 

I'll have one of those fancy Prada one's :D

[howie]

peter - 2006-12-29 9:12 PM

 

What next? Handbags at dawn?. :D I can't believe it got this far out of hand.

Nothing to lose any sleep over Peter, just a healthy and boisterous exchange of views and opinions. Look on the positive side of things, where we now have a better understanding of the ERP, and hopefully how we should conduct ourselves when talking to each other.

Its the sort of thing you come across in pubs and clubs every night of the week, and it would be a sad old world if all we ever done was to exchange insiped pleasantries and avoided anything that might educate or change our own often ingrained perceptions of the world and the people who live in it.

For myself, I would like to thank everybody for their comments on this thread, and i,ve no doubt we are all that little bit wiser for having read and been part of it. Howard.

[Forester]

For all that have shown a intrest in the loan.

Final payment of £42.5m to the USA, £11.6m to Canada.

Washington loaned the UK £2.2bn in 1945, Canada £607m the following year at just 2%. Dispite that favourable rate the amount now repaid is doubled that amount borrowed - £3.8bn to the USA & £1bn to Canada, and there was 6 years during that time in which Britain defered payments because of political &/or economic crises. Under the lend lease programme which began in 1941 the neutral US could provide countries fighing Hitler with war material.

 It was vital support which helped Britian defeat nazi germany and the like and secure peace & prsperity in the post war period.

There thats the end of the thread, thanks to all that replyed (mmmm wonder whats next?0

IMO I enjoyed the banter it makes a change to be a little ,shall i say off topic!

Wayne.8-)  

[Brian Kirby]

howardtcz - 2006-12-29 2:49 PM

Brian Kirby - 2006-12-28 7:36 PM

Well, for what it's worth, I agree wholeheartedly with Frank's analysis, though I do think he has gone a bit OTT on poor old Forester, who I think was only being a bit playfully provocative. 

The Americans paid dear, for the second time, in blood and treasure.  They were under no real obligation to do this, something many forget. 

As to who won, I think it fair to say we'd probably have lost had they not come to our aid.  That was surely what was in Churchill's mind when he so effectively addressed Congress.

As to the price and the hard bargain.  What should have happened?  How much is a American life worth: more, less, or the same, as a Brit's life?  Without that hard bargain there wouldn't have been any American aid, because the Americans themselves wouldn't have tolerated the cost. 

We may not like it, but it was the inevitable consequence of cocking up the peace after the First World War, for which, I am afraid, the French seem to have to bear most of the responsibility.

It can't be altered now by arguing over it, so let's not get heated about this one.  The lesson, surely is that as with one's parents, one should choose one's wars very carefully!

What will we spend the change on: why, Iraq of course!  What else worthwhile is there?  And that really is one that needs some explaining, from an American standpoint as well as from ours.

Hi Brian. I have neither the vocabulary or skill with typewritter to answer you or Frank in full on this matter, but if you get the time, there,s a article by Max Hastings in todays Daily Mail which might explain how myself and others feel about Americas attitude and involvement during this time. Howard.

Sorry Howard

Can't find the article, so don't know what Sir Max said, so can't comment.

[howie]

Page 17 of yesterdays Daily Mail Brian. I haven,t read todays papers, but I presume Max Hastings has been knighted then. Howard.

[Brian Kirby]

Sorry Howard

Haven't got, and don't read, the Mail.  Have tried the online version, but can't find the article, or any reference to it, on that.

According to the Mail he is Sir Max.  However, it may be  New Year's Honours, so using the title might have been premature!

[Philman]

Hi, Max Hastings was knighted in 2002.

Phil. :-D 8-)

[howie]

Nothing in the post this morning Phil, so it looks like another bitter disappointment for me again this year.

Here we go then Brian, and I hope you appreciate this was all typed out using just the one finger and I hope Sir Max doesn,t mind either.

 

Britain passed a historic landmark this week. We paid of the final £43 million instalment of the vast loan of almost £1 billion provided to this country by the U.S. in 1945 to stave off bankruptcy.

Hang on, some people will say, whats all this about debts? Weren,t we America,s allies in World War II ?

Didn,t they give us planes, tanks, food and cash to help fight the Germans and Japanese? Chuechill paid fulsome tributes to U.S. "generosity", so what are we doing, 61 years on, still paying them back?

Well its a long story that has a resonance today.

The wartime Anglo-American alliance was indeed, a remarkable partnership, which worked as well as anyone could have expected. But British prime ministers, including Tony Blair, who cherish our so-called "special relationship" have always been disappointed.

All our dealings with Washington have been dominated by British need and ruthless American calculations of self interest. This explains why we have only finished paying our American bills from 1945.

When Britain went to warin 1939, the country was still recovering from the Depression. This was not a rich nation. On paper, if we went all out to arm our forces to fight the Nazis, Britain would quickly be bankrupt. Churchill, however, decided to ignore bank statements.

He commited Britain to throw everything into creating the largest possible Army, Navy and Air Force, and worry later about how to pay.

Through the desperate days of 1940 and 1941, everything not that was not nailed down was sold, mostly to the neutral Americans.

At a time when £500 a year was o good salary and £1 million represented a huge fortune, hundreds of millions worth of reserves, shares and gold were disposed of to buy weapons.

The American Neutrality Act required that any belligerent who bought weapons must pay cash, and so we did.

By March 1941, though the war had hardly started, we had run out of assets to hock.

Never mind the threat of Greman invasion, this country could no longer buy guns, planes and bullets. In the U.S., where the economy was profiting from the expansion of its industries to supply British demand, President Roosevelt looked for ways to enable us to keep buying arms.

His answer was the so-called Lend-Lease Act. The U.S. "loaned" planes and tanks to the British, in return for the use of our bases overseas, such as Bermuda.

Churchill showered praise on the U.S. for its generosity, calling Lend-Lease "the most unsordid act in history".

In such circumstances, the Prime Minister had to saysuch things. Lend- Lease was indeed , critical, enabling the British - and soon the Russians- to stay in the war.

More than £10 billion worth of arms reached Britain under its terms by 1945. But underlying American policy was cold hearted calculation.

 

...........Right. While the plot thickens, i,m off down the pub, and i,ll have a bash at finishing it off later. Howard.

 

 

[howie]

Should have stayed in the pub, but here goes.

 

 

Roosevelt justified the Act to America,s isolationists by asserting that it was better to give the British guns to fight the Nazis, rather than have American boys risk their lives doing so.

In the acid phrase of two modern British historians, "Americans were careful to see that the British were as near as possible bankrupt before offering assistance".

Thereafter, the entire British economy shifted to war production. When America came into the war after being attacked at Pearl Habour in December 1941, the U.S. economy boomed.

So rich was the nation that even at war, American consumers were able to maintain much the same living standards in 1945 as in 1939. Meanwhile, bombed Britain grew greyer, wearier and hungrier.

By 1944, not only was the U.S. dominance of the alliance overwhelming, but Americans cracked the whip.

A senior British Officer in the Far East, lamenting our inability to act without U.S. consent, wrote: 'The hard fact is that the Americans have got us by the short hairs. If they don't approve they don't provide.'

The British were especially dismayed by the U.S. hostility to the Empire. Americans in Asia resented ,as they saw it, helping the British keep India or regain Burma and Malaya.

A Foreign Office official minuted angrily: 'The Americans are virtually conducting political warfare against us in the Far East and are seeking not only to belittle the efforts we have made, but also to keep us in a humiliating and subsidiary role in the future.'

Americans themselves acknowledged as much. Roosevelt's close friend Harry Hopkins said:'To hear some people talk, you would think the British are our potential enemies.'

In May 1945, while the Japanese war was still in progress, the senior American General in South East Asia asked Washington to stop Lend Lease supplies to British clandestine organisations, because he believed that they were working for the restoration of Empires.

The Americans shamelessly promoted the U.S. business in China, while pushing out British companies. Even while the fighting and dying continued, a struggle began for post war commercial mastery.

Britain, for instance, was building only bomber and fighter aircraft, while America built Transports, including the famous Constellation airliner. These enabled the U.S. to gain pole position in post war commercial air travel.

By 1945, acrimony between Britain and the U.S. had become acute. It is thought that Churchill's refusal to attend Roosevelt's funeral in April 1945 reflected the Prime Minister's disillusionment with the President.

Then is August, with the end of the Japanese war, a thunderbolt struck. Overnight, the U.S. terminated Lend Lease supplies to Britain , even turning back goods in transit.

The consequences were catastrophic. With the British ecomony committed to producing war materials which were now redundant , the country had no means of earning a living.

It would take months, even years, to retool for peace time industries. The Treasury declared that we faced 'a financial Dunkirk'. Britain's new labour premier Clement Attlee, was stunned as were the British people.

[howie]

Sorry for the interuption but we are having a thunderstorm at the moment and i,m afraid of losing whats just been typed. 8-)

[howie]

But the American's were impenitent. The British Embassy in Washington reported: 'The Truman administration did the popular thing in terminating Lend Lease. There has been widespread indignation about what is viewed as (British) ingratitude in criticising this move.

The idea that America is used as a Santa Claus by an ungrateful and undeserving world still flourishes luxuriantly here'.

There was only one thing for Britain to do: go cap in hand to Washington for a huge loan. John Manyard Keynes, the great economist was despatched.

The Americans provided the money, and we were obliged to look grateful. This was the loan whose repayment is only now complete.

The price of Britain's lone defiance of the Nazis, therefore was beggary.

The U.S. by contrast, emerged by far the richest nation in the world, having made a handsome cash profit from participation in World War Two. If that sounds sour, it is no less than the truth.

Britain's retreat from Empire was historically inevetable, but our American ally did its best to hasten the process.

The U.S. chiefs of staff noted complacently early in 1945 that once Japan was beaten, 'the U.S. and the Soviet Union will be the only military powers of the first magnitude ,' and of course so it proved.

Only America's reluctant participation in World War Two made it possible forBritain to end up on the winning side.

But , thanks partly to American ruthlessness, this country emerged from the conflict in almost as desperate straits as the losers.

While other American allies got away without paying their debts, we never have done. Maybe that is what is meant by a 'special relationship'.

 

 

Bit of a epic that one Brian, with thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure. I don,t know if its enough to sway your views of this subject, but I feel it gives a more balanced view with regard to my own and Waynes original opinions. Howard.

 

 

 

[MandyAndy]

Thank you Howard, fascinating for those of us not born before the war.

 

Excellent typing for one finger too.

[Forester]

Thank-you very much for that  Howard, Very interesting reading, excellently put together I have learned a lot more & I suspect so has a lot of MHs (who are interested ) Pray Howie whats wrong with your other 7 fingers 8-)

[howie]

Mandy&Andy - 2006-12-31 7:33 AM

 

fascinating for those of us not born before the war.

.

Thanks a bunch Mandy, you really know how to make a man feel special. As for my other fingers Wayne, i,m saving them as a knuckle sandwich so I can black both your eyes for always getting me into trouble.

I,m not saying who is right or who is wrong in this or any other debate, but truth should never be decided by someones ability to present a better argument than everyone else, and always keep a open mind before coming to your own conclusions. Amen. ;-)

[Forester]

Story of my life that, Howie always in trouble. Black eyes wish i had a penny for every one i had.8-) 

[Brian Kirby]

howardtcz - 2006-12-31 8:57 AM

Mandy&Andy - 2006-12-31 7:33 AM fascinating for those of us not born before the war. .

Thanks a bunch Mandy, you really know how to make a man feel special. As for my other fingers Wayne, i,m saving them as a knuckle sandwich so I can black both your eyes for always getting me into trouble. I,m not saying who is right or who is wrong in this or any other debate, but truth should never be decided by someones ability to present a better argument than everyone else, and always keep a open mind before coming to your own conclusions. Amen. ;-)

Howard, I'm humbled!  Since you addressed the thing to me in the first place, I feel a real debt to you for your time, perseverence and dedication in undertaking to re-type the whole lot!  I've now copied it into a Word document and will reply when I have read and inwardly digested.  Thanks again.

[howie]

Thank you Brian, and thats very much appreciated.

 

The words "and will reply when when I have read and inwardly digested" make me feel just a little apprehensive, and seeing as this is the second time you have done my head in, perhaps you could bear this in mind with any future replies.

 

I,m off babysitting soon, so let me take this opportunity to wish EVERYONE a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.

 

Howard.

[michele]

Oh Howard you are funny ............. ;-) ;-) ;-)

 

Happy Healthy new year all the best 2007 x

[Brian Kirby]

Howard.  One finger typed or not, that was a great piece of work.  As I said, I copied it into Word to read, which immediately ran its spell checker, and it hardly blinked!  I just wish I could type as accurately.  Since you have taken so much trouble to inform me, I have tried to respond to the article as fully as my knowledge allows.  This is me in my own write, then, and what I argue is what I have found out, reflecting my reactions to Sir Max’s various points.

I think what he has written is, in reality, a bit of a polemic, by which I mean it is a bit lopsided.  What he does is to present a rather blinkered British viewpoint of events, while railing against the Americans for consistently placing their own interests above ours.  However, as they say, you can’t have it both ways! 

So, where to start?

First some facts.  The actual loan that we have just repaid was for $4.34 billion in 1946, so just over £1billion at the then exchange rate of 4.03USD to 1GBP.  The sum was to be repaid over 50 equal annual instalments, with interest fixed at 2%.  The make up of the loan was $586 million to settle our lend-lease debts, and another $3.75billion for national reconstruction.  Those seem pretty good terms to me.  Due to economic and exchange rate difficulties, we defaulted in our payments six times, in 1956, 1957, 1964, 1965, 1968 and 1976.

In 1939, when Britain declared war on Germany, the US was fiercely neutral.  It had adopted this status in the wake of the First World War, which it had entered in 1917, because of public outcry at the outcome.  In essence, through the Neutrality Act, which forbade even the supply of weapons or armaments, the US public clipped its Presidents’ freedom to take the country to war.  However, the Act did not forbid the outright sale of armaments. 

Britain had been militarily unprepared for the war it had lurched into in 1939; it was also economically weak following the First World War and the Depression.  It urgently needed all forms of armaments; it could not manufacture them in time, but it was able to buy them from the USA.  Who else in the world could have supplied them, and why was it so wrong for the Americans to sell them?

We were near bust, and had to hock the family silver to buy what we needed.  Perhaps we should not have, but that is an empty argument.  We were where we were, and we believed we were next on Hitler’s shopping list.  Hastings seems to see some American plot to impoverish us in this, but it is asking a lot to believe the Americans could have foreseen the events of 1939 when passing their 1920 Neutrality Act.  However, this is not to say they would have acted otherwise if gifted with such foresight. 

American public opinion had been deeply shocked by World War One; it wanted no part of World War Two.  This seems reasonable and logical.  It was not their war: it was not even their continent.  US history has its part to play in this.  It had been a British colony; it had fought for its freedom and won.  By and large, the Americans were implacably opposed to empires and colonies.  They thought empires the spawn of the Devil: that no one should have one, and that all countries should be self-determining democracies.  Plus ça change ! 

This was a time when atlases coloured the British Empire red: when truly half the world was red.  Britain, with its Empire, was the dominant world power, and American public opinion thought it wealthy beyond their dreams.  If we had a little local problem, we should sort it out.  Ill-informed America maybe.  Plus ça change !

Lend-lease was an ingenious fix by Roosevelt to get around the Neutrality Act.  It was bitterly opposed by many in the US partly because, as I understand the terms, they were so generous to us.  We paid only 10% of the value of what was supplied, but at the end of the war, we should have to pay full value for what was left intact or unused.  That seems to leave the US paying 90% of the value of what was trashed during the fighting, and us paying for only what was useful to us afterwards.  Unfair?  How?  The final bill to us was the above $586 million.  How much would all those guns, shells, bombs, rockets, tanks, ships, and aircraft really have cost?  Well, that is Hastings’ “more than £10billion”, indeed probably £15 billion, if $586 million was just our 10%.  That is the materiel, however, not the lives: who paid for them?

He complains that America did well financially as a result of its sales of armaments, and the subsequent mobilisation of its industry to supply them.  Suddenly, this is sin?  Had the American public not prospered, had its industries not flourished, there would have been no support.  They had to have some sop to keep them acquiescent with what, at heart, they rejected.  What is so wrong with a better standard of living?  What is Hastings really saying?  That we were suffering, so they should have suffered too.  Not much lofty idealism in that, is there?  Not much incentive to carry on with the support.

Then, he takes America to task for seeking commercial advantage.  What does he want them to do?  They engaged in a war that was not theirs, lost lives in a cause that was not theirs, and cost themselves several tens of billions of dollars into the bargain.  Wouldn’t we have expected some advantage from that?  Don’t many of us now (including me) ask what will be our payback for supporting America in Iraq?  Were they the hypocrites, or are we?

At the end of it all, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lend-lease was abruptly terminated.  What is not argued is why it should have continued.  Why did it matter that those goods were called back?

As Hastings says, our industry was by then geared to wartime production and we had nothing useful to sell.  Under the circumstances, America delivering several boatloads of wartime goods we no longer needed, but should have been obliged to pay full price for, would hardly have helped.  Where’s the logic?  What is the man saying; that we needed yet greater debts?

What America very quickly did, in order to help us re-tool for peacetime, is lend us a great deal of money, over a very long time, at a very favourable, fixed, rate of interest.  Ultimately, we have paid off that debt, and have worked ourselves out of our post war penury, of which we should be quietly proud.  It is very difficult to see how we could have done that without the loan.  It is even more difficult to see how we could have retained our pride if the loan had been converted to a hand out, as Hastings appears to suggest.  Yes, I do think that marks a special relationship, being the one country to have cleared its debts.  Even if it was a subsidized war, with a subsidized loan to help pay for it.

By the end of the article, it is difficult not to believe he actually thinks America owed us for saving their necks, rather than us owing them for saving ours!  I’m afraid, for me, the article is rather jingoistic rubbish dressed in a sober suit.  No wonder the Australians call us whingeing Poms!

I don’t much like or admire what I see of America, I deeply distrust what they are up to in Iraq, I abhor their dual standard foreign policy, I have experienced their one sided open market philosophy, I distrust their espousal of “world trade”, and I certainly don’t want America choosing who should run which countries around the world.  On the other hand, most of the Americans I have met have been very likeable people, so I don’t think I am anti- American, just very sceptical about their current bunch of politicians. 

However, having said all of that, had they not done what they did during, and after, the Second World War, I think British history would have turned out very differently.  What that outcome would have been, who knows?  However, I do think we should thank the Americans for the way it is, and just be content, and proud, to do so.

[Mel B]

Just got back from a few days away and see you lot have been throwing your teddies at each other again! (lol) Now do I have to give you all a good cyber smacking again or are you all behaving yourselves now? *-)

 

Howard and Forester ... do not that this as an invitation to misbehave ... I know you both like to be abused. (lol) (lol)

 

Mel

 

Happy New Year to ya!

[howie]

Hi Brian. I must admit that after reading your latest posting i,m almost tempted to alter my own views and perceptions with regards to this subject. Quite possibly, after all these years of listening and reading about these events, my opinions are too ingrained to change, so even though your argument has made me look at it in a completley different light, i,m afraid my view that even though America made huge sacrifices on our behalf, I still believe that they took full advantage of our situation with re. to self interest, both politically and financially.

 

You say that Hastings presents a blinkered and lopsided viewpoint of these events, but even though his views may be politically slanted in line with the paper he represents, over all they match my own, and just like everyone else, I can only form my own opinions by listening to what people such as yourself and Hastings have to offer.

 

I will not comment on the facts and figures you have presented, only to say that after following your postings for quite a while now I have absolutely no doubt they are correct , and as always, your views are given as you see them, and without bias.

 

So where does this leave us. Simply with a difference of opinion on events that happened over half a century ago, and as i,ve stated previously, we can only take on board what is put before us, and after carefull consideration, arrive at our own conclusions, and if nothing else, this has greatly added to my own sorely needed education.

Howard.

 

 

[howie]

Mel B - 2006-12-31 10:07 PM

 

Just got back from a few days away and see you lot have been throwing your teddies at each other again! (lol) Now do I have to give you all a good cyber smacking again or are you all behaving yourselves now? *-)

 

Howard and Forester ... do not that this as an invitation to misbehave ... I know you both like to be abused. (lol) (lol)

 

Mel

 

Happy New Year to ya!

And a Happy New year to you as well Melanie.

Now i,m sure you know me to well to think i,m the type to carry tales, but I feel it my duty to inform you that without the calm and guiding hands of both yourself and Michele, a certain individual, who shall remain unnamed, has taken full advantage of your absence to maliciously, wilfully and without any consideration to my own, or anyone else,s sensitivities, taken full advantage by posting material intended to wreak havoc, mayhem and upset to everyone using this forum.

Its not for me to tell you how to deal with this malcontented troublemaker, but I do expect you deal with him in the strongest manner possible, although I would advise against physical abuse as i,ve been told this in modern parlance, "presses all the right buttons"

Yours in great expectation. Howard.

[Brian Kirby]

howardtcz - 2007-01-02 1:46 AM Hi Brian. I must admit that after reading your latest posting i,m almost tempted to alter my own views and perceptions with regards to this subject. Quite possibly, after all these years of listening and reading about these events, my opinions are too ingrained to change, so even though your argument has made me look at it in a completley different light, i,m afraid my view that even though America made huge sacrifices on our behalf, I still believe that they took full advantage of our situation with re. to self interest, both politically and financially. You say that Hastings presents a blinkered and lopsided viewpoint of these events, but even though his views may be politically slanted in line with the paper he represents, over all they match my own, and just like everyone else, I can only form my own opinions by listening to what people such as yourself and Hastings have to offer. I will not comment on the facts and figures you have presented, only to say that after following your postings for quite a while now I have absolutely no doubt they are correct , and as always, your views are given as you see them, and without bias. So where does this leave us. Simply with a difference of opinion on events that happened over half a century ago, and as i,ve stated previously, we can only take on board what is put before us, and after carefull consideration, arrive at our own conclusions, and if nothing else, this has greatly added to my own sorely needed education. Howard.

Howard

You are too kind.  I'm grateful for the quote, and for your time typing it out.  I'm glad this gave me the incentive to delve a bit, because I'd always wondered what the truth had been.  Not at all sure I've got anywhere near the bottom of that, though.  It does seem to have been glossed over somewhat on both sides of the Atlantic.  I think both UK and US governments are just a bit shamefaced about what went on, so you do have to dig!  However, if you think some of the views expressed here a bit caustic, you should read some of the American chat room rantings about us!  Allies?  That same anti Brit resentment is still as palpable now as it seems it was when Roosavelt coined lease-lend.  I think he was a bit of a crafty old s*d, and got us a rather better deal than most other Americans would have wished.  I'm pretty sure that feeling was what lay behind it being so quickly withdrawn after Hiroshima.

However, as you say, it was all a long time ago now, and you can't manage history.  (Though some do try to stage manage it!)

Happy New Year.