Team USA already sent Yank Tanks to Murmansk, by ship... ;)
73 years late - an American tank sent to Stalin is almost ready for first mission on Russian soil
siberiantimes.com
By The Siberian Times reporter, 10 April 2018
Rusting Sherman dating from WW2 airlifted all the way across Russia for use in major military parade.
The tank was earlier plucked from an icy grave at the bottom of the Barents Sea.
It was this week flown from Murmansk region to Vladivostok - where it will be restored to working order 73 years after it was sent by the US to help the Soviets defeat the Nazis.
With US-Russian relations at a new post-Cold War low, the tank is a potent symbol of an earlier era when ideology was set aside by Washington and Moscow to crush Hitler.
This Sherman tank was part of a consignment of military equipment sent by the West to boost Stalin’s firepower to defeat the Germans, but it never reached Russia after the Thomas Donaldson cargo ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat in March 1945.
WATCH Old US Tanks Recovered From Sea Floor Join V-Day Parade in Russia's North
sputniknews.com
13:28 GMT 09.05.2019 (Updated: 13:35 GMT 09.05.2019)
© Sputnik / Pavel Lvov
Cities across Russia marked the 74th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 on Thursday, with traditional military parades held in major Russian cities.
Two painstakingly restored American-made tanks, recovered from the Barents Sea, have joined their historical Soviet counterparts in this year's Victory Day parade in central Murmansk on Thursday.
One of the tanks was an M3 Lee, recovered from the Barents Sea off northern Russia in July 2018 after spending decades some 50 metres below the sea surface near the Murmansk coast. The other was a Sherman, the Western Allies' main battle tank during World War 2. The US sent nearly 1,400 M3s and 4,100 Shermans to the USSR during the war. This was the M3's first-ever appearance at a Victory Day parade in the city.
After their discovery, the tanks were reassembled from scratch by servicemen from the Northern Fleet, who dismantled them, cleaned them of corrosion, mud and sediment, replaced any broken components, rebuilt and painted them, and restored their engines, tracks and weapons systems to full working order.
Over 3,000 Allied seamen perished while making the highly treacherous journey to Murmansk during World War II as part of the Lend-Lease assistance program to the Soviet Union, with 101 supply ships and escorts, or about 7 percent of the total tonnage that was shipped, sent to the bottom of the sea by Nazi U-boats.
The Arctic convoys delivered much-needed tanks, fighter aircraft, fuel, ammunition and food, with the help proving particularly important during the siege of Leningrad. In return, the Soviets sent the Allies precious metals, ores, chemicals and timber.
All told, Lend-Lease accounted for nearly 5 percent of total Soviet wartime industrial output, undoubtedly helping to save countless Soviet lives and bringing the war to a speedier end. |
