A Lot Of Old Trucks

Studebaker and Willys won defense contracts over the Big Three:

 

The only history book of The Great Patriotic War, published back in the late Forties, made only one mention of the Allied effort to keep the Soviets afloat, mentioning the term "Lend-Lease" only once. But now, it's cool to see that the Russians make acknowledgement that our contributions did keep them from getting taken over by the Nazi German armies.

 

Collectors can thank Uncle 'Dolph that these trucks even landed in the Soviet Union. Had he not declared war on the U.S. just because Japan did, those trucks would have never been manufactured

 

That point is debateable. England was sending some of their LL materiel to the Soviets in '41; even if no declaration of war happened the way it did, we still would've been pulled into the conflict simply by the U-Boat actions, as we had been in WW I.

 

SBC 3 Helldiver being Towed to Canada
Contributed by Aroostook County Historical and Art Museum
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Description
Houlton Army Air Base was established in 1941 because of its proximity to Canada. Prior to the United States entry into the war, the United States "lent" military equipment to Great Britain to enable it to continue the war against Nazi Germany. Planes were flown to Houlton Army Air Base but U.S. military pilots could not fly the planes directly into Canada, a British ally, because that would violate the official U.S. position of neutrality in the war between Great Britain and Germany. In this picture, Arnold Peabody, a Houlton area farmer is towing an SBC-3 Helldiver across the border to Canada.

Plane pulled across Canadian border in Houlton, 1940
Courtesy of Henry Gartley, an individual partner
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Description
Due to the U.S. Neutrality Act planes going to Canada from the U.S.A to help with the war effort could not be flown across the border. This prompted the planes to be flown to the Houlton Air Base and then pulled across the border.

Local tractors and farm trucks were used to pull these planes across the border. Once across, the road would be shut down in order for the planes to take off once again to complete their journey. In this June 2, 1940 photo a farm truck pulled the plane, the border customs building is in the background, and an arrow points to the international border marker.

 

Lately, despite all that I do know about WW II, I'm still learning things I didn't know.

 

Those U-Boot actions were contained to the European theater, much of it defensive sinking of supply ships. U-Boot incursions into American territorial waters didn't happen, before Germany's declaration of war

 

That's not true. There were highly-publicized coastal sinkings, including, IIRC, a Texaco tanker that was inside the 20-mile limit off the Carolinas. The photos that were taken of NYC and Boston from sub periscopes were done after declarations were made, but the author of the book that Das Boot was based on, he had said that many U-Boats went into East-Coast bays and river estuaries during 1940-41.

 

Yes, but at that time, they were behaving themselves. This was probably done for reconaissance purposes, in case war between the two nations were to get declared. In fact, U-boots were reported to have navigated through the St. Lawrence River.
That Texaco tanker was probably suspected of heading to Britain. Had it been a naval ship which had been sunken, that would have been grounds for military reprisal, even to the point as to where a declaration of war could have been declared

 

Get this one, and the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile together, and it'll be a delicious party!