Lend Lease Act

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Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 74

I am in need of information regarding the Lend Lease Act between the USA and UK during WWII.

It is my understanding that the items that were lent/leased to the UK were to be given back to the USA at the end of the war, if they had not been otherwise destroyed in use.
This because the items were ordered under US Military (USAAF & USN) contracts and were presumably still considered the property of the US Military /Government.

I am aware that many lend/lease items eg: aircraft, were dumped/scrapped because the USA did not require them back.

In recent times, the USN has claimed continued ownership of USN aircraft and therefore will not allow recovery of crashed aircraft by anyone who is outside of the USN or USN Aviation Museum, or not authorised by them to do so.

The USAF does not ,apparently, continue to claim ownership of it's crashed aircraft, and will allow recovery by anyone if certain procedures are followed.

The following information is required please:-

This is only a hypothesis.
An aircraft that was lent/leased to the RAF by the USAAF is found as a wreck.

Q1: Would it belong to the RAF/UK Gov ?
A1:

Q2: Would it belong to the nation where it is found ?
A2:

Q3: Would it belong to the USAF/US Gov ?
A3:

Q4: Would it be able to be recovered ?
A4:

Q5: If the aircraft had been passed on to another country after use by the RAF, eg: Russia, who would it belong to then, would it be any of the above or would it be Russia ?
A5:

An aircraft that was lent/leased to the RNFAA by the USN is found as a wreck.

Q1: Would it belong to the RN/UK Gov ?
A1:

Q2: Would it belong to the nation where it was found ?
A2:

Q3: Would it belong to the USN/US Gov ?
A3:

Q4: Would it be able to be recovered ,given the rules governing the non-recovery of USN aircraft that actually served with the USN ?
A4:

Any information will be gratefully received, to try and clarify the ownership and recovery situation.

This is not intended to become an argument on the rights and wrongs of aircraft recovery Versus the USN policy.

Cheers..And Thanks in advance.
MickM

Original post

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 469

RE: Lend Lease Act

Mick as far as I am concerned the lease-lend ended that long ago that any wrecks that are recovered are the property of whoever
recovers them if they have the necessary permission from the Ministry of Defence and of course if offshore whoevers territorial waters they are in . Certainly when the UAS recovered the Wildcat from a Lough in Northern Ireland they (U.S Navy ) didn't try and get it back. Any paperwork must have been destroyed years ago and in reality any claim that the Ministry has in the U.K would be impossible to enforce abroad.
The only way they could seek to influence a foreign government would be if the wreck contained human remains and even then a local coroner I am sure would have the authority to
exhume . It's a very vague isssue but effectively when something has been abandoned for 50+ years in a court of law ownership would be very hard to establish and would I feel go to whoever's
land it's on. The policy that the U.S Navy has in rather amazing-
if for example the German Government came to Hendon and asked for it's hardware back I think the would be an outcry but thats really what the Navy is trying.
We have seen in the case of the Titanic how salvage rights are fought over - in that case the rights went to the initial salvor. That should be the case with aircraft .