The route was therefore used to transport foods, raw materials and non-military goods such as lorries and other road vehicles, railway locomotives and rolling stock.
[2] The operations of the Pacific Route were organized by Leonid Belakhov, Deputy Commissar and Chief Political Officer of the Ministry of the Maritime Fleet (MorFlot).
[4] Cargoes including military goods avoided Japanese inspection during the summer months by partially unloading in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to reduce their draught to cross the shallow Amur River estuary and enter the Sea of Japan via the Strait of Tartary.
[2] A branch of the Pacific Route began carrying goods through the Bering Strait to the Soviet Arctic coast in June, 1942.
From July through September convoys of shallow draught ships and icebreakers assembled in Providence Bay, Siberia to sail north through the Bering Strait and west along the Northern Sea Route.
[2] The total distance to the Trans-Siberian Railway transfer wharves was 6,000 miles (9,700 km) and took 18–20 days [6] From Vladivostok nearly 400,000 railway car loads of goods were transhipped via the Trans-Siberian Railway to the industrial heart of the Soviet Union, a further 5,000 miles (8,000 km)[2] An Anglo-American delegation visited Moscow in October 1944 to discuss the Soviet Union joining the war against Japan, Russia required 60 divisions to counter the expected 45 Japanese divisions in Manchuria, and Alanbrooke (who was impressed by Stalin’s knowledge of technical detail) asked whether they could maintain 60 divisions and their strategic air force over the TSR.
General Antonov (standing in for Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky, the CGS) replied in the affirmative, but Stalin himself said it was doubtful, and considered that assistance from America across the Pacific would be required.
[2] USS Spadefish sank Transbalt near the Perouse strait on 13 June 1945 because the ship was unlighted and allegedly "not following a designated Russian route.
Lend-Lease shipments were supported by holding and reconsignment points in Auburn, Washington and Lathrop, California where cargo that could not be promptly moved overseas was held until called to the ports.
These 600-acre sites employed thousands of civilians and hundreds of Italian prisoners of war and included shops, roundhouses, a mess hall, fire station, dispensary, cafeteria, bachelor officers’ quarters and administration buildings.