Interesting “Facts”

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Don’t know how true they are:

“IN ONE OF HIS FAMOUS SPEECHES Churchill asked America ‘Give us the tools and we will finish the job’. But America wouldn’t ‘give’ anything without payment. After two years of war, Roosevelt had drained Britain dry, stripping her of all her assets in the USA, including real estate and property. The British owned Viscose Company, worth £125 million was liquidated, Britain receiving only £87 million. Britain’s £1,924 million investments in Canada were sold off to pay for raw materials bought in the United States. To make sure that Roosevelt got his money, he dispatched the American cruiser, ‘Louisville ‘ to the South African naval base of Simonstown to pick up forty two million Pounds worth of British gold, Britain’s last negotiable asset, to help pay for American guns and ammunition. Not content with stripping Britain of her gold and assets, in return for 50 old World War 1 destroyers, (desperately needed by Britain as escort vessels) he demanded that Britain transfer all her scientific and technological secrets to the USA. Also, he demanded 99 year leases on the islands of Newfoundland, Jamaica, Trinidad and Bermuda for the setting up of American military and naval bases in case Britain should fall. (Of the 50 lend-lease destroyers supplied to Britain, 7 were lost during the war. After 1943, when no longer useful, eight were sent to Russia, while the others were manned by French, Polish and Norwegian crews)

QUOTE. Lord Beaverbrook was later to exclaim ‘The Japanese are our relentless enemies, and the Americans our un-relenting creditors’.”

“QUOTE. On hearing of a proposal to fire-bomb the Black Forest, Britain’s cabinet minister, Kingsley-Wood, said in September, 1938, ‘Oh, we can’t do that, that’s private property, next you will be insisting that we bomb the Rhur!'”

From Lesser Known Facts of WWII

1 thought on “Interesting “Facts””

  1. About the Americans and British money — in fairness, Britain had defaulted on its WWI debts to the USA while running the world’s largest empire. Once bitten, twice shy. (The Americans simply didn’t believe the British were so poor.) I’ve read about it too, in other sources.

    Also — in return for transferring her atomic secrets to the USA, Britain was to receive the research from the Manhatten Project. It didn’t — Truman didn’t honour FDR’s word. Britain had to develop the bomb on its own in the 1950s.

    The USA was in the process of replacing England as the world hegemon. Thankfully, it never came to war. But that isn’t to say it was all sunshine and roses.

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