"The United States' Lend-Lease program contributed greatly to the victory in World War II, and the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union in particular. The volume of material transferred from the United States to the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1945 was indeed staggering; nearly 15,000 airplanes, 7,000 tanks, 51,000 jeeps, 376,000 trucks, 132,000 machine guns, 4.5 million tons of food, 107 million tons of cotton, and more than 15 million pairs of army boots, among other items."--P. xv.