Policy, Negotiation, and the First Deliveries

This opening volume in Vladimir Kotelnikov's authoritative four-part history examines the origins of the Lend-Lease programme and its impact on Soviet aviation in the critical first years of the Second World War. Drawing on Soviet, British, and American archival sources, the author provides the most detailed analysis yet of how policy was shaped, how negotiations were conducted, and how the first deliveries of Western aircraft reached the USSR. The book begins with the political and military background to the programme, including early Soviet requests for matériel, the British government's decision to dispatch Hurricanes and other aircraft in 1941, and the debates within Washington and London over the extent of aid. It explores the practicalities of implementing Lend-Lease, from the establishment of ferry routes across the Arctic and through Iran, to the difficulties of coordinating deliveries during a period of crisis on the Eastern Front. Particular attention is paid to the first aircraft received-Hurricanes, Kittyhawks, and others-and to the way Soviet commanders and pilots responded to these unfamiliar machines. Training, maintenance, and adaptation were immediate challenges, with Soviet ground crews and airmen required to master foreign systems under combat conditions. Kotelnikov evaluates these early experiences, showing how lessons learned in 1941?42 influenced the wider integration of Lend-Lease aviation into Soviet operations in later years. Illustrated with colour profiles, rare photographs, maps, and statistical tables, this volume offers a comprehensive study of the diplomatic, logistical, and operational background to Allied aid. It sets the essential foundation for the following volumes, which explore in detail the combat use of fighters, bombers, transports, and naval aircraft supplied under Lend-Lease, and their long-term impact on the Red Air Force. AUTHOR: Vladimir Kotelnikov was born in Moscow on 9 December 1951. He graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute (University) in 1975 and was engaged in research and development in the area of high-temperature strength. Vladimir defended the academic degree of the Candidate of Science in 1981 and read lectures on aircraft piston engine design at the Moscow Aviation Institute. Since the 1980s Kotelnikov has conducted archive research on the history of Russian aviation of the inter-war and Second World War periods. In addition, he paid specific attention to the history of foreign aircraft testing and operations in Russia. As the result of his work he published several hundred articles and dozens of books in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States, among them Lend-Lease and Soviet Aviation, Americans in Russia, Russian Piston Aero Engines, Early Russian Jet Engines, Air War Over Khalkhin Gol, Le Petlyakov Pe-2 and others. Being an aviation historian, he received a diploma as a professor of the Academy of Aviation and Aeronautics Science and currently acts as a consultant on piston aero engine design to Russian aviation museums as well as to different aircraft restoration groups. From 2003 Vladimir held the post of an editor of the Aviakollektsiya aviation history journal, published in Moscow. He passed away in 2022. 103 b/w photos, 8pp colour profiles, 1 b/w map