WW2 Canadian, Australian and New Zealand Transport

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

much of the merchant fleets used/chartered by the Allies during the war were essentially foreign: much of the military hardware transported to and from Australia went on Dutch, Greek, Danish, Norwegian, and other, 'non-Dominion' shipping.

It's a good point you make Mike, we tend to regard such countries as having been sidelined by German occupation, but of course the bulk of their shipping remained at sea and made a huge contribution to the Allied war effort. We also forget that relatively small countries like Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands were possessed of enormous merchant fleets, dating from their historical association with the Baltic trade. It would be interesting to know the actual figures, but I suspect that in the early years of WW2, perhaps a third of Allied merchant shipping was foreign. Given that shipping was the limiting factor in Allied strategy, it's difficult to overestimate that contribution.