The material cost of World War II far transcended that of the rest of history’s wars put together and has been estimated at $1.5 trillion (£1.04 trillion).

The total cost to the former Soviet Union was estimated in May 1959 at 2.5 trillion roubles, while a figure of $530 billion (£369 billion) has been estimated for the USA.

In the case of the UK the cost of £34.42 billion ($49.43 billion) was over five times as great as that of World War I (£6.7 billion) and 158.6 times that of the Boer War of 1899–1902 (£217 million).