Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations and Glossary
- 1 The Anglo-American Relationship and the Need for Historical Interpretation
- 2 The Evolution of Transatlantic Aircraft Supply Diplomacy, 1938–40
- 3 The Diplomacy of Critical Dependency, 1940
- 4 Lend-Lease and the Politics of Supply, 1941
- 5 The Limits of Dependency: American Aircraft in Action, 1940–2
- 6 Heavy Bomber Supply Diplomacy, 1941–2
- 7 The Problem of Quality: the Fighter Supply Crisis of 1942
- 8 Collaboration and Interdependency
- Appendix RAF Air Strength by aircraft type on 3 September 1939, 1940, 1941 and 1942
- Unpublished Sources Cited in Text
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - The Evolution of Transatlantic Aircraft Supply Diplomacy, 1938–40
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations and Glossary
- 1 The Anglo-American Relationship and the Need for Historical Interpretation
- 2 The Evolution of Transatlantic Aircraft Supply Diplomacy, 1938–40
- 3 The Diplomacy of Critical Dependency, 1940
- 4 Lend-Lease and the Politics of Supply, 1941
- 5 The Limits of Dependency: American Aircraft in Action, 1940–2
- 6 Heavy Bomber Supply Diplomacy, 1941–2
- 7 The Problem of Quality: the Fighter Supply Crisis of 1942
- 8 Collaboration and Interdependency
- Appendix RAF Air Strength by aircraft type on 3 September 1939, 1940, 1941 and 1942
- Unpublished Sources Cited in Text
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Is it possible to maintain a great Fleet and an immense Air Force requiring a vast labour force behind it, to sustain the dislocation of continued bombardment from the air, to provide munitions at a rate contemplated for Allies as well as ourselves, and at the same time to fight with an unlimited Army on the continent backed by an unlimited supply of materials?
This was the question posed by Sir John Simon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as British rearmament policy took priority over normal trade in 1939. This development was long before the crisis of 1940 or the appearance of Lend-Lease in 1941, and indicates how concepts of the economic limitations on British military power stretch back into the pre-war period. The conundrum posed by Simon could be resolved only by national economic mobilisation on a scale beyond the Chamberlain government's initial preferences and eventually by plans for American aid on an enormous scale.
During the rearmament period between 1938 and 1940, British policy would have to grapple with this problem without American aid. Between 1932 and 1939 the strategic alignment of British defence policy changed dramatically. In 1932 Britain remained ostensibly wedded to the ‘Ten-Year Rule’, the assumption that no war with a major power could be expected in the next ten years, and military planning and expenditure were limited as a result.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Arsenal of DemocracyAircraft Supply and the Anglo-American Alliance, 1938-1942, pp. 28 - 63Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2013