ABSTRACT
There were three crucial problems concerning Britain’s supply programme during 1939 and 1940. Firstly, Britain had been woefully unprepared for war; she could only offer four army divisions to France in September, 1939. Britain urgently needed supplies of arms and material, and as months of war passed it became clear that problem was not solely one of a lack of preparedness, but also of a general inability on part of economy to meet Britain’s war requirements. Secondly, the British Government knew that German U-boat attacks upon shipping, bringing food, raw materials and equipment to the UK, would hinder Britain’s war production, threaten the British people with severe privation and might possibly do worse. Thirdly, while supplies from the US, including destroyers, were seen as a potential solution to the first two problems, the American Neutrality Law constituted an obstacle which would have to be surmounted before agricultural and industrial capacity of the US could be fully drawn upon by Britain.
