Len-Lease was the given name of the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material between 1941 and 1945 in return for, in the case of Britain, military bases in Newfoundland, Bermudas, and the British West Indies. It began in March 1941, over 18 months after the outbreak of the war in September 1939.