Blockade Running run away to the countryside to look for food and that in any case lacked resources to continue production Blockade thus not only seriously disrupted Japanese production, it reduced the population to near-starvation levels by mid-1945 See also blockade runners; convoys; Leningrad, siege of; Phoney War; Switzerland; U-boats BLOCKADE RUNNING Smuggling is an ancient and honorable profession Blockade running is smuggling by neutrals or belligerents in time of war In a truly global war such as World War II, that became a far more deadly game than usual Sometimes, it was a last resort For instance, the British used submarines to run critical aircraft fuel into Malta during the siege of that island base because their tanker convoys were savaged by Italian and German air attack Americans used private ships from the Dutch East Indies to move supplies in to Corregidor and fast PT boats to get General Douglas MacArthur out Smuggling operations supported isolated coast watchers in the South Pacific The British also used submarines and small craft to smuggle in spies and commando teams and to supply resistance movements with arms in German-occupied Europe Résistance leaders were smuggled in to take control of fractious local movements in France and out to brief officials in London Several Norwegian surface blockade runners made a dangerous passage from Sweden, carrying vital finished war matériel to Great Britain in January 1941 They were bombed, but survived A second run from Sweden in March 1942, by 10 Norwegian ships with British crews, was a disaster: only two vessels completed the voyage after encountering neutral Swedish and hostile German armed opposition Later in the war, as Sweden sidled more toward the Western Allies with the obvious approach of German defeat, British Motor Gun Boats (MGBs) operated by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) made a number of dashes to Sweden and back Blockade running was mostly unattractive to neutral shipping once Allied naval supremacy was established But Axis blockade runners—on and below the water—operated wherever enemy surface navies or land-based aircraft intercepted regular maritime traffic They concentrated on critical raw materials and other contraband goods One German blockade runner was caught disguised as a U.S ship Japanese–German blockade breaking was facilitated by the Soviet Union until June 1941 The Japanese also ran materials to Germany by surface ship, especially natural rubber but also vegetable oils The first surface blockade runner left Japan for France on December 28, 1940 It did not arrive in Germany until April 4, 1941 Operation BARBAROSSA shut down the trans-Siberian rail route from Manchuria to Germany from the end of June 1941 Seventeen Japanese ships were then sent west, carrying enough natural rubber to serve as a base for the German synthetic rubber program for two years The Germans asked for even more blockade runners, but only a few Japanese dozen ships were sent out in 1942 Their loses rose steeply during 1943 German goods went back to Japan in surviving ships This surface trade ceased entirely in January 1944 Yet, the small amounts of rubber, tin, and wolfram sent to Germany before then proved critical to continued war production in 1944 After cancellation of the surface trade, U-boats and converted Italian submarines were used Obvious limitations of space and improved Western Allied anti-submarine 169