Australia and Lend-Lease

[Mike Cecil]

Lang,

The CDC disposals reporting I have located thus far is quite specific as to the source of the materiel: Australian army, RAAF and RAN equipment, including items supplied under LL, are listed as such, and RLL equipment returned to the Commonwealth from US Forces is listed separately as the value had to be accounted for against the RLL account. Virtually all vehicles are listed by chassis/engine numbers and military registration number - be that RAN, RAAF, Aust Army, US Army, US Navy, etc.

All I can say is that I've not come across any CDC listings for the disposal of US Forces equipment left in Australia (other than RLL equipment being returned to the Commonwealth) which, if there was so much of it as suggested by the article, you would anticipate some lists would have surfaced.

As for the back-orders, most were simply cancelled. For example, as of 30 June 1945, Australia had about 1,000 jeeps allocated from the monthly production quota in America against orders and awaiting shipping. Most of these were subsequently shipped to Australia, but the back-orders for a further 4,000-odd were simply cancelled.

Mike