Editing Blockade runner (section)

=== World War II ===

==== Axis blockade runners ====

[[File:Abzeichen für Blockadebrecher.jpg|thumb|German [[Blockade Runner Badge]]]]
On the outbreak of war, the Royal Navy imposed a [[Blockade of Germany (1939–1945)|naval blockade of Germany]]. The fall of France provided the German occupying forces with access to the French Atlantic coast and between 1940 and 1942, many blockade running trips succeeded in delivering cargoes of critical war supplies - especially crude rubber - through the port of Bordeaux; a trade that increased with the entry of Japan into the war in December 1941.  Allied attempts to disrupt these operations initially had only a limited effect; as in [[Operation Frankton]].  From 1943 improved Allied air superiority over the Bay of Biscay rendered blockade running by surface ships effectively impossible.  By some counts, during the war Germans sent 32 (surface) blockade runners to Japan, only 16 of them reaching their destination. Later in the war, most of the trade between Germany and Japan was by cargo submarine.<ref name=harvey581>{{citation
|first=A. D. |last=Harvey
|publisher=Continuum |year=1992
|isbn=1852850787
|title=Collision of Empires: Britain in Three World Wars, 1793–1945
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Ah4cfjAHMm0C&pg=PA581
|pages=581–582}}</ref>

Italian ships, interned in Spain after Italy entered the war in June 1940, crossed the [[Bay of Biscay]] to [[Bordeaux]] and some of them, such as ''[[SS Fidelitas|Fidelitas]]'' and ''Eugenio C'', dashed through the [[English Channel]] bound for Germany and Norway.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://catalogo.casd.difesa.it/Document.htm&numrec=031964357914610|title=Navi mercantili perdute|last=Notarangelo|first=Rolando|publisher=Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare|year=1977|location=Roma|pages=185|language=it}}</ref><ref>Notarangelo (1977), p. 176</ref>

To transfer technology to Imperial Japan, on 25 March 1945 Nazi Germany dispatched a submarine, {{GS|U-234||2}}, to sail to Japan. Germany surrendered before it arrived. The Japanese submarine ''[[Japanese submarine I-8|I-8]]'' completed a similar mission.

The German ship ''Ramses'' was in China when the war started. On Nov. 23, 1942, she attempted to sail from Batavia (now [[Jakarta]]), to Bordeaux with a cargo of rubber. The hope was that maintaining a sharp 24-hour lookout they could evade the Allied blockade.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/macslog/BlockadeRunner.html|title=Ahoy - Mac's Web Log - Blockade Runner Ramses|website=ahoy.tk-jk.net}}</ref> [[HMAS Adelaide (1918)|HMAS ''Adelaide'' (1918)]] caught and sank her.

A small number of planes succeeded in flying between the Axis-controlled Europe and the Japanese-controlled parts of Asia. The first known flight was by an Italian [[Savoia-Marchetti SM.75]] ''Marsupiale'', which [[Savoia-Marchetti SM.75#Rome-to-Tokyo flight|flew in July 1942]], according to various sources, either from [[Zaporozhye]] to [[Baotou]] or from [[Rhodes]] Island to [[Rangoon]].<ref name=harvey581/> Later, German [[Junkers Ju 290]]-A aircraft prepared for (or, according to some sources, completed) [[Junkers Ju 290#Flights to Japan|similar flights]].<ref name=harvey581/>

==== Allied blockade runners ====

During World War II, trade between Sweden (which remained neutral throughout the war) and Britain was severely curtailed by the German blockade of the [[Skagerrak]] straits between Norway and the northern tip of Denmark. In order to import vital ''materiel'' from Sweden, such as [[ball bearings]] for the British aircraft industry, five [[Motor Gun Boat]]s, such as the [[HMS Gay Viking|''Gay Viking'']], were converted into blockade runners, using winter darkness and high speed to penetrate the German maritime blockade. Larger Norwegian ships succeeded in escaping through the blockade to Britain in [[Operation Rubble]] but later attempts failed.