 Words at war, suppose that in the middle of the night while you were fast asleep you were awakened by a pounding on your door. What's that? What happened? Who is it? Mary, Mary! There's someone at the door, John. And you went downstairs hurriedly. You brat, that chair got no business of being here. And opened the door and found your neighbor there. John, my house is on fire. I can't get hold of the fire department. They're somewhere at the other end of town. Can I borrow your hose? It's spreading, getting closer to your house. Hurry, John! Would you tell him? Sorry, Bill. That garden hose cost me $15. You'll have to pay me $15 for it or you can't use it. And let his house burn down and maybe yours too? Or would you say... Sure thing, Bill. Let's go. I'll help you. Is there any doubt in your mind that you take the latter course? Cool your equipment and your strength because you knew that that was the only course of saving anything for both of you? Now multiply your neighbor by a hundred neighbors. And that fire by a thousand fires, a conflagration raging throughout the world. A conflagration that started with a small fire in 1931 that was far away and of no consequence to the rest of the world. Manchuria invaded. Roke out with new fury in 1937. Laird up in Europe with sudden bursts consuming one nation after another. Ethiopia. Spain. Czechoslovakia. And the blaze was raging unchecked, getting closer and closer. Would you then say... Sorry, neighbors, but your fire is none of my business. When it reaches my house, then it'll be time to fight it. Meanwhile, if you want my garden hose, you'll have to pay for it. After all, you didn't pay me for the garden hose. I gave you the last time you had a fire. Or would you say... Sure you can have my hose. Here. Put out your fires. The faster you put it out, the more chance I have of saving my house. The American people took the latter course. And they called it Lend Lease. Tonight, Words at War presents a thrilling and dramatic story, the story of Lend Lease. Yesterday, President Roosevelt sent a message to Congress telling what Lend Lease has accomplished to date. Explaining its cost and showing how it is helping us win the war. Tonight, the National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Council on Books and Wartime, brings you that same report. Brings it to you in vital dramatic terms. The story of Lend Lease, Weapon for Victory, by Edward R. Statenius Jr. Later on in this program, Mr. Statenius, who has just recently returned from a series of conferences in London, will speak to us from Washington. Toward the end of May 1940, while the cherry blossoms were still in full bloom around the tidal basin in Washington, and the capital dome was incandescent with electric lights, time was running out. The Nazi octopus had spread his tentacles across the continent of Europe, crushing one nation after another, pushing westward and northward, devouring everything within its bloody path. And at Dunkirk after ten days of constant bombardment and desperate retreat, the last remaining front had crumbled. I guess you want them. Yes, we will. I'll get them right away. You didn't know when you'd start coming. All right men, this is how. I mean, I certainly never thought I'd see Dover again. Come on, lad, I'll help you. The first detachment of the survivors of Dunkirk came ashore at Dover on May 29th. They came ashore like sleepwalkers, exhausted and stunned. But they'd need more than sleep and food and healing of battle wounds before they could fight again. For left on the roads to Dunkirk and on the beaches were all their tanks, their trucks, their artillery, and most of their lighter equipment as well. In the House of Commons, one week later, Winston Churchill flung down his challenge to the enemy. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island for a large part of it. And even as the Prime Minister spoke, stack after stack of guns for the defenders of Britain were being moved from America's arsenals to the railroad sightings at Rarratton, New Jersey. I'll be trying with the stuff that's supposed to go to England. Now, are you gonna unload it? That's right. How many cars you got to unload? Six hundred. How many men you got to do the unloading? Five hundred. Not enough. We need twice as many. This is important, pal. Important. Okay, then we'll give you a thousand. Ten thousand if you need them. Come on, you guys! Let's go! Six hundred freight cars to help stave off defeat. Six hundred freight cars containing five hundred thousand Enfield rifles, nine hundred seventy-five millimeter guns, eighty thousand machine guns, a hundred and thirty million rounds of ammunition for the rifles, a million rounds for the seventy-fives. And the price to England... Thirty-seven million, six hundred and nineteen thousand, five hundred and fifty-six dollars and sixty cents. Paid in accordance with our cash and carry policy. Before the end of that crucial year, the octopus had swallowed another nation. The ring of steel was drawn even tighter around the Nazi perimeter. And England placed orders for more ammunition with the arsenal of democracy. An order for six thousand airplane engines and a factory to build them. The price to England... Twenty-four million, nine hundred thousand dollars. Paid in accordance with our cash and carry policy. An order for two thousand tanks plus the facilities to build them. The price to England... Eight million dollars. Paid in accordance with our cash and carry policy. An order for ships. For planes. For guns. For food. For the children of Britain and for mothers. To sustain life. And all this to fight a war. To defend an island against the enemy who sat on the shores of France across eighteen miles of channel water. To resist the Nazi challenge and by resisting, keep the fires from spreading across the Atlantic. To us. All paid for with cash on the line with American dollars. In accordance with our cash and carry policy. But by the end of 1940, Britain had no more American dollars to spend. No more gold reserve to invest in ammunition and equipment. No more money to buy the weapons of war. No money, no sale. Sorry. Yes, we were sorry. This was the worst time in Britain's history. The lifeline from the United States was Britain's last hope. And we were sorry. And time was running out. And then in this darkest of hours, while the headlines were screaming disaster on every corner and fires burned nightly in the rubble littered streets of London, we, the people of the United States, began to think. If Britain should collapse, what next? Who follows on the list? If Britain should collapse. If Britain should collapse because she had no dollars with which to stop the enemy. If we should be attacked because Britain had no dollars. A solution had to be found before it was too late. And soon it would be too late. Ladies and gentlemen, we are speaking to you from the capital in Washington, D.C. In another minute, the President of the United States will address... On January 7th, 1941, in his annual message to Congress on the State of the Union, President Roosevelt proposed the solution. Three days later at noon, Senator Barkley introduced the bill in the Senate and Representative McCormick introduced it in the House. The clerk in the House of Representatives stamped the bill, H.R.1776. That bill was the Lend Lease Act. And then the debate on the Lend Lease Bill began in editorial magazine articles on the radio on street corners at conventions and union meetings in churches and around stoves and country stores, the people spoke. They spoke pro. We must increase our aid to Britain and the other nations battling the Axis. And calm. What Britain does is our own affair. Even if the rest of the world falls to the Axis, we're safe here. They spoke pro. Lend Lease is the only solution to our future. Our only hope is a free people lies in the defeat of the Axis. And Lend Lease is like throwing good money after bad. The American people are about to commit suicide. They spoke pro. I say we ought to have Lend Lease. I tell you, it's the only thing to do. It's protection. That's what it is. Protection. And calm. And I say nuts. As pro and calm the debate raged. Businessmen were lined up on opposite sides. Labor organizations were sharply divided. College presidents differed. Members of Congress were flooded with postcards, letters and resolutions. But the man on the street, the average American, had his mind pretty much made up. He knew where he stood, and he wasn't afraid to say it. If it's gonna stop Hitler from coming over here, I'm off for it. Then the debate began in Congress. No holds were barred. This bell means dictatorship. And the debate was violent. We're willfully involving the American people in war. And the words were bitter. We're giving away the defenses of the United States. Charges and countercharges flew freely. And I call this Lend Lease bell a new deal. On Washington's Capitol Hill, a verbal war raged. And in the streets of London. Mommy! And the people living in the shadow of the swastika were tense and waiting. We have given our ultimatum to Yugoslavia. Come to our side, or suffer the fate of Poland. We have given our ultimatum to Greece. Come to our side, or suffer the fate of Norway. The Nazi octopus stirred after winter sleep. Ready to strike again. Achtung, the fuel has spoken. Before this year is over, all Europe shall be ours. And time was running out. And then the debate was over and the voting began. All in favor. All in favor. All opposed. And when the votes were counted, the eyes had won. On March 11, 1941, HR 1776 had become a law. The Lend Lease Act, HR 1776. Further to promote the defense of the United States and for other purposes, be enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America and the Congress assembled that this act may be cited as an act to promote the defense of the United States. We had truly become the arsenal of democracy. Our decision was slowly arrived at. But when the decision was made, it was proclaimed not with a voice of one man, but with a voice of 130 millions. A stream of Lend Lease supplies began to flow from our production line to the fighting fronts of the world. A thin stream at first almost to trickle. But then the flow began to accelerate from day to day to spread in every direction to every continent to surge ahead until the stream became a river, the river a torrent. Convoys laden with Lend Lease supplies, liberty ships carrying precious cargoes crept out in the night and spanned the oceans. Lend Lease for Britain bringing life and hope and the will to resist and the means for resisting. Plains for defense and attack. Captain Langley to control tower. Captain Langley to control tower. Over. This is control tower. Go ahead, Langley. Coming into land. Got a brand new B-27 with me. With the compliments of the USA. Over. Come in, Captain Langley. We've been expecting you. And welcome to England. Thanks to Stop Rommel's Panzer Division's an apricot. Men, that is an American tank. It's the first of its kind they're sending us under their Lend Lease program. With the help of these tanks we shall try to persuade Herr Rommel to cut his visit short in Egypt and perhaps Africa. Yes, food. Food for the British people. Food for sustenance, for life. Next. May I see your cart, please? Yes, sir. I have two children. A boy, two years of age, and my little girl will be four this month. We haven't had any milk for them for such a long time. Well, you shall have it now. Here you are. One tin for each child. Oh, thank you, sir. God bless America for this. And Lend Lease for China. Fighting desperately alone, almost forgotten. Meager supplies, not happy enough with supplies. Trucks and planes and guns flowing through China's tortuous lifeline, the Burma Road. Hey, holy cats, take it easy, Chin. This is an American truck. It was made to take almost anything but not the way you're driving it. Hey, slow down. At no time must get to Konming Jap's attack. We must stop them. Must hurry. Bring American supplies. Bring American supplies to China. And Lend Lease for the Soviet Union. Convoys breaching the North Atlantic to Murmansk to decide the fate of Moscow, perhaps the future of the world. Curtis P-40 fighters and North American B-25 Mitchell's. Thank you, America. Spasiba. 20,000 jeeps. Zamachenko. They are, as you say, swell. 189,000 field telephone. At last. Now we can have complete communication with the front. Submachine gun. To kill Nazis. And don't forget, every Nazi we kill is one less Nazi for you to kill. Boots for the Russian soldiers. For the cold Russian winter. When the temperature drops to 40 below zero. If you don't have boots, warm boots, your feet freeze. Just like that. Ask the Nazis. General Sherman tanked. General Sherman must be a great man to make a tank like that. A very great man. Help for the Red Army. For the Russian people fighting their enemy and ours. Fighting him with stubborn determination with an unconquerable will for victory. Help for the Soviet Union to stem the tide of aggression. And Lend Lease for the undefeated. The Polish armies in exile. For the Belgian squadrons flying over Germany. For the Czech soldiers fighting under the United Nations banner. For the fighting French, for the Norwegian Air Forces and Navy. For Greece occupied but unconquered. For the Yugoslav people. For all people fighting aggression. Guns, planes and ships to keep the blaze and spreading to resist the enemy. To fight for victory. Yes, we had won the battle of supply. The torrent was beginning to engulf totalitarian tyranny. Time was on our side. And when December 7th came, when our house had been set ablaze, we were not alone. We were not isolated. We were not surrounded by the enemy. We were not invaded. At least not on the mainland. We had paid for time. The price to the American people for three years of Lend Lease. Twenty-four and a quarter billion dollars. Twenty-four and a quarter billion dollars. Say, that's a lot of money in anybody's country. As an American, I think I'm entitled to know if we got our money's worth. After all, I'm paying for this. Fair question, Mr. American. Everyone is entitled to know, should know the answer. Have we got our money's worth? Listen. Those are guns. German guns, Japanese guns. They're killing people. Killing civilians, women and children included. But not here in America. They're burning, destroying everything within their path. But not here in America. Here in America, the people are safe, comfortable and protected. Far removed from the horrors of war. If Lend Lease had accomplished nothing else except to keep those guns from our shores, it would have been worth it. We would have gotten our money's worth. For the dividends Lend Lease has paid are enormous. If we hadn't had Lend Lease, if Britain had gone under, if Hitler had isolated the Soviet Union, if Japan had completed the conquest of China, and we in the Western Hemisphere had stood alone against the Axis-dominated world, the story would have been different. And you might not be here tonight to listen to this program. But here is something most people don't understand. Not all the expenditures for Lend Lease have been made by the United States, by the people of America. Lend Lease is a two-way proposition. Hut, two, three, four. Hut, two, three, four. Come on, you alligators. Snap it up. Snap it up. Hut, two, three, four. Now, those are American soldiers moving into barracks in England. Barracks that were built and paid for by Britain. American soldiers in the jungles of the southwest Pacific, getting food provided by New Zealand and Australia. Here's a list of the stuff that's just come in, Sarge. 1,000 overcoats, 5,000 shirts, 2,000 pairs of boots. Uniforms manufactured in Australia for American forces. Okay, Joe, start on this trip now. Get a move on. Those planes are scheduled to come into Mara. And flying fields constructed by the United Nations to accommodate our flying fortresses. American troops at Britain's expense. That is reverse Lend Lease, to balance the ledger. Aid from the United Nations to us. From Australia, New Zealand, Britain, the Soviet Union, China, the fighting French, Belgium, the Netherlands. Each government pledging itself to employ its full resources, military and economic, to achieve victory. March 11, 1944 was the third anniversary of Lend Lease. The conflagration that was raging throughout the world has been checked. We're beginning to put out the fires now. Using our garden hose and letting our neighbors use it. Pooling our efforts and our resources for victory and the peace that's to follow. And now we are privileged to present the former Lend Lease administrator and now Under Secretary of the State, the Honorable Edward R. Statenius Jr. Mr. Statenius has just recently returned from a series of conferences in London and will speak to us from Washington. Mr. Statenius. When a fire breaks out in a town endangering the lives and property of everyone, neighbors must pool their equipment and join together in a common effort if they are to save anything for any of them. That is how the United Nations are fighting the fires of access aggression. We are joined together in a common struggle against a common enemy. Through Lend Lease and Reversed Lend Lease and other forms of mutual aid, we are using our combined resources where they will strike the hardest blows for victory. It was only three years ago that the access aggressors seemed well on their way toward conquering the world. Now it is we of the United Nations who are on the offensive. We are striking at Germany from all directions. The island defenses of Japan are being broken. The fire of aggression, which we are fighting together, is no longer spreading, but it has not yet been put out. There is still ahead of us a long hard road of heavy fighting. Now more than ever, it is vital to our defense that the combined armies of the United Nations have everything they need. In the summer of 1942, I visited Britain as Lend Lease administrator. The Lend Lease program was then just getting into its full stride. Reversed Lend Lease was only in its beginning. We were still preparing for our first great offensive. I have just returned from another visit to Britain. I saw there an inter-allied pooling of men, supplies and leadership, such as the world has never known before. Soldiers of many nationalities are joined together into a powerful fighting team. Their equipment represents the combined production and resources of many nations. During the dark years, when the freedom-loving peoples of the world were being pushed back on every front, Lend Lease pointed the way toward the United Nations spirit of cooperation and mutual confidence, which we have stopped and went through this, we have stopped the onward march of tyranny. With that same spirit and unity, we shall crush the power of the Axis, once and for all, and preserve for ourselves and future generations the hope of a free and a prosperous world for all men. Thank you, Mr. Stotinias. We return you now to Words at War in New York. As another program of Words at War, we brought you Lend Lease, Weapon for Victory by Edward R. Stotinias Jr. The book was adapted for radio by Ben Kagan of the NBC script staff. The honorable Edward R. Stotinias Jr. appeared in person on the program. The narrator was Ernest Chappell, and the cast included Kathleen Cordell, Madeline Pierce, Joseph Boland, Kenneth Lynch, Ted Jewett, Phil Clark, Stotz Cotsworth, Ralph Sedan, and Norman Rose. The music was arranged and played by William Meader, and the entire production was under the direction of Anton M. Leder. Next week, Words at War will present an adaptation of CGR 3070 by Lieutenant Lawrence Thompson. Words at War is brought to you in cooperation with the Council on Books and Wartime by the National Broadcasting Company and the Independent Radio Stations associated with the NBC network. This is the National Broadcasting Company. Thank you.