'Give us the tools and we will finish the job'

9th February 1941: Churchill makes an international broadcast telling the world that with American support Britain can beat Hitler

The destroyer HMS CALDWELL, one of the American destroyers in commission with the Fleet under the Lend Lease agreement, steaming out of harbour for duty

A Lend Lease American Vought-Sikorsky Kingfisher aircraft going down the slipway at the Fleet Air Arm shore base at Arbroath, to set out on patrol

A corporal handles several Thompson ‘Tommy’ submachine guns at an ordnance depot in the Midlands following their arrival from the United States of America through the Lend-Lease scheme on 23 March 1942.

At the beginning of February 1941, Churchill had good reason to feel optimistic about the future. Roosevelt had declared that he wanted America to be the ‘arsenal of democracy’, and the Lend-Lease Bill was passing through Congress. Roosevelt’s personal emissary, Harry Hopkins, was just concluding his visit to Britain. His planned two-week tour turned into five weeks as Churchill took him into his full confidence and accompanied him around Britain as they inspected defences against invasion. Hopkins returned to America with a detailed picture of what Britain needed to continue the fight. He would soon have the personal authority to make it happen

Wendell Wilkie, in 1941, steered the Republican Party away from isolationism. He went back to the US and testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in support of the Lend-Lease bill, which passed in March 1941.

But Roosevelt had also sent Wendell Wilkie, his Republican opponent in the recent Presidential election, on a fact-finding tour of Britain. It was part of a strategy of building bipartisan support for America becoming the ‘arsenal of democracy’. It was a reminder to Churchill that American public opinion counted for a lot, even after the election. Most people did not want to go to war, but there was growing support for playing a critical role in supporting Britain.

So Churchill had several audiences in mind when he spoke of “the whole English-speaking world” bearing the “swords of justice”:

In order to win the war, Hitler must destroy Great Britain. He may carry havoc into the Balkan States; he may tear great provinces out of Russia, he may march to the Caspian; he may march to the gates of India. All this will avail him nothing. It may spend his curse more widely throughout Europe and Asia, but it will not avert his doom. With every month that passes the many proud and once happy countries he is now holding down by brute force and vile intrigue are learning to hate the Prussian yoke and the Nazi name as nothing has ever been hated so fiercely and so widely among men before. And all the time, masters of the sea and air, the British Empire—nay, in a certain sense, the whole English-speaking world—will be on his track, bearing with them the swords of justice.

The other day, President Roosevelt gave his opponent in the late Presidential Election [Mr. Wendell Willkie] a letter of introduction to me, and in it he wrote out a verse, in his own handwriting, from Longfellow, which he said, “applies to you people as it does to us.” Here is the verse:

...Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

What is the answer that I shall give, in your name, to this great man, the thrice-chosen head of a nation of a hundred and thirty millions? Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt: Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing, and, under Providence, all will be well.

We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

Lend Lease was about much more than arms and munitions. In 1941, especially, there was a real food shortage in Britain. Dock workers give the thumbs up and ‘V’ signs as they lunch on American canned meat at a London Dockworkers Canteen.

Elizabeth Rothwell of Bolton, Lancashire, sitting on a table drinking from a mug containing orange juice. The orange juice was supplied from America under the Lend Lease Programme from a mug. In the foreground next to her is a bottle of Ministry of Food Concentrated Orange Juice and a wooden pull-along toy. Elizabeth Rothwell was a normally healthy baby at nine months, weighing 17 lbs. 2 ozs. Then her health began to deteriorate and she was losing weight at the rate of 1lb per month. It was decided to try a dietary supplement of concentrated orange juice, sent to Britain from America. After a few weeks her health improved and Elizabeth began to take more interest in what was around her. Elizabeth thus became Britain’s “Lease-Lend” War Baby, for the concentrated orange juice from America had helped to save this tiny life.

Britain was soon making great strides in growing more food at home. Land Girl Kathleen Johnson demonstrates the ploughing capabilities of a Caterpillar D2 tractor and Oliver deep digger plough to American farmers; Mr Heline, Mr Howard and Mr Robinson on grassland, somewhere in Buckinghamshire. The plough is from the Oliver Farm Equipment Company of Chicago. 1943.