In May 1940 both France and Britain wanted to acquire large amounts of military equipment from
USA
. Though the army could ill-afford it, the US Government allowed the
French and
British Governments to buy 535.000 US-17 rifles, 25.000 BAR light machineguns, 10.000 Browning machineguns and 100 mill. cartridges to be shared by the two contries.
However, before the weapons had reached Europe France had capitulated, and June 17 all the French orders were taken over by the British. The following year Great Britain bought an additional 785.000 US-17 rifles. With the introduction of the American "LendLease Act" Britain got a further 119.000 US-rines giving a total of 1.654.000 US-17 rifles delivered to Great Britain. The US-17 rifles were mainly used to arm the newly created "Home Guard". To avoid confusion with the P-14 rifles in use a red band was painted around the foreend of the US-17 rifles.
Immediately after the evacuation of the British army from Dunkirk,
Canada sent almost all her military equipment to Great Britain. As a result Canada had to ask USA for weapons to the defence of Canada itself. InJuly 1940 Canada asked for 280.500 US-17 rifles. At that moment USA could only spare a tenth of that number. However during 1940 and 1941 Canada received 100.000 US-17 rifles. They were marked with a red band similar to the one on the British US-17 rifles, but placed further forward immediately behind the nose-eap. They were in use until the beginning of the 1950's.
In August 1941 Dutch East-India was included among the nations entitled to Lend-Lea~e assistance and received 20.000 US-17 rifles.
China was also included to Lend-Lease. InJune 1941 the representatives of Chiang Kai-Shek asked for 50.000 US-17 rifles. However, as the Chinese intended to rebuild the rifles, a project considered unrealistic by the Americans, they were denied the rifles.
When USA entered the Second World War in December 1941 the supplies to China got a higher priority, and in spite of the difficulties of getting the material over the Himalayas USA delivered 152.241 US-17 rifles, 107.470 Springfield M1903 rifles and 40.000 LeeEnfield rifles to Nation-alist China during the war. The majority of these weapons fell into Communist hands in 1949. They were later used in Korea, and remained in use with the People's Militia until the 80's.
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