On the very day that the bill was signed, Great Britain and Greece (then at war with Italy) were declared eligible for lend-lease aid. Goods started to move almost immediately. China, engaged in a desperate struggle with Japan, was declared eligible on May 6, and Norway on June 4, 1941.
Congress appropriated 13 billion dollars for the lend-lease program by October 28, 1941, but the movement of goods overseas got under way slowly. Our munitions industry was still largely in the tooling up state. And the flow of finished weapons was at first only a trickle. The stimulus of lend-lease and our own defense orders, however, rapidly expanded American war industry. In the meantime, food made up the largest part of lend-lease shipments:
Machinery was set up to handle the requests of foreign governments for lend-lease aid and to arrange for the production of the needed articles and services. To avoid duplication, purchasing for lend-lease was tied in closely with purchasing for our own armed forces. For example, the job of procuring lend-lease munitions was entrusted to the War Department; warships and naval aircraft and supplies to the Navy Department; merchant ships and shipping to the Maritime Commission (and later to the War Shipping Administration); food to the Department of Agriculture; and industrial materials (such as metals, chemicals, lumber, coal, textiles, clothing, etc.) to the Procurement Division of the Treasury. A special agency, the Office of Lend-Lease Administration, was created to decide matters of lend-lease policy, keep operations going smoothly and in gear, and handle the records.
