Blockade runner

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For the book by Jules Verne, see The Blockade Runners.
Blockade runner SS Banshee, 1863

A blockade runner is usually a lighter-weight ship used for evading a naval blockade of a port or strait, as opposed to confronting the blockaders to break the blockade. Very often blockade running is done in order to transport cargo, for example to bring food or arms to a blockaded city. In other cases the blockade runners would carry mail in an attempt to communicate with the outside world.


Blockade runners are often the fastest ships available, and come lightly armed and armored. Their operations are quite risky since blockading fleets would not hesitate to fire on them. However, the potential profits (economically or militarily) from a successful blockade run are tremendous, so blockade-runners typically had excellent crews. Although having modus operandi similar to that of smugglers, blockade-runners are often operated by state's navies as part of the regular fleet. Notable users of blockade runners include the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War and Germany during the World Wars.

Blockade runners have always been considered enemy combatants by the blockading party and have been fired upon or captured when detected.

Blockade runners are often the subject of press coverage when they reach port, giving the act of blockade running a propaganda value.

In history[edit]

Ancient Greece, Peloponnesian War[edit]

There were numerous blockades and attempts at blockade running during the Peloponnesian War.

  • With his fleet blockaded, Leon of Salamis dispatched blockade runners to seek reinforcements from Athens.

Ancient Rome, Punic Wars[edit]

During the Punic Wars, the Carthaginian Empire attempted to get around Roman blockades of its ports and strongholds. At one point, blockade runners brought in the only food reaching the city of Carthage,[1][2]

American Revolutionary War[edit]

War of 1812[edit]

American Civil War[edit]


Cretan Revolt (1866–1869)[edit]

During the Great Cretan Revolt, Greek blockade runners supplied the Christians revolting against the Turkish rule during this time. Names of the ships include: Arkadion (named after the Arkadi Monastery, sunk by the Ottoman sloop-of-war Izzedin in August 1867);[6] Hydra; Panhellenion; and Enosis (Unification), which was detained in Syros by Hobart Pasha in December 1868, just about the time the rebellion collapsed.

Prohibition era[edit]

World War I[edit]

During World War I the Central Powers, most notably Germany, were blockaded by the Entente Powers. In particular the North Sea blockade made it nearly impossible for surface ships to leave Germany for the then neutral USA and other locations.

The blockade was run with cargo submarines, also called merchant submarines, Deutschland and Bremen, which reached the then neutral USA.[7]

The Marie successfully ran the British North Sea blockade and docked, heavily damaged, in Batavia, Dutch East Indies (now called Jakarta) on May 13, 1916.[8]

In 1918 Germany tried unsuccessfully to supply their forces in Africa by sending Zeppelin LZ104.

World War II[edit]

Axis blockade runners[edit]

On the outbreak of war, the Royal Navy imposed a naval blockade against Germany. However, 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, however, improved Allied air supremacy 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.[9]

In an attempt to transfer technology to Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany dispatched a submarine, U-234, to sail to Japan. The war ended before the ship could arrive in Japan. The Japanese submarine I-8 completed a similar mission.

On Nov. 23, 1942, the German ship Ramses attempted unsuccessfully to sail from Batavia (now called Jakarta), the ship being in the Pacific when the war started, to Bordeaux with a cargo of rubber. The hope was that maintaining a sharp 24-hour lookout they would be able to evade the Allied blockade.[10]

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 flew in July 1942, according to various sources, either from Zaporozhye to Baotou or from Rhodes Island to Rangoon.[9] Later, German Junkers Ju 290-A aircraft prepared for (or, according to some source, completed) similar flights.[9]

Allied blockade runners[edit]

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 Boats, such as the Gay Viking, were converted into blockade runners, using winter darkness and high speed to penetrate the German maritime blockade.

Modern era[edit]

In modern times, tracking equipment such as radar, sonar, and reconnaissance satellites make evading a total blockade by a world power nearly impossible. Drug smugglers and groups like the Tamil Tigers are able to run blockades due to the partial nature of the blockade, or because the navy imposing the blockade is weak and under-equipped. Reminiscent of earlier German attempts, drug smugglers have used semi-submersibles (narco submarine) in their smuggling operations.[11]

See also[edit]




  1. ^ Kern, Paul Bentley: Ancient siege warfare (p. 294)
  2. ^
  3. ^ Wyllie, 2007 p.22
  4. ^ Scharf, 1894 pp.479-480
  5. ^ "Confederate blockade mail". Richard Frajola, philatelist and historian . Retrieved 17 November 2010. 
  6. ^ Morning Post, London. 5 September 1867 citing Official Ottoman report of the incident.
  7. ^ German U-boat WWI Blockade Runners
  8. ^ SURVIVED BRITISH SHELLS.; German Blockade Runner, Almost a Sieve, Sailed from Africa to Java.
  9. ^ a b c Harvey, A. D. (1992), Collision of Empires: Britain in Three World Wars, 1793-1945, Continuum, pp. 581–582, ISBN 1852850787 
  10. ^ Blockade Runner Ramses
  11. ^ Colombia navy seizes submarine supected of hauling cocaine