WW2 Canadian, Australian and New Zealand Transport

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by motto

Even global war and ocean wide operations were nothing new. As an example. During the war of 1812 the Royal Navy blockaded the entire East Coast of the United States at the same time as strangling all French ports and shipping. This inevitably involved interfering with shipping of other nations.

...meanwhile Napoleon blockaded the Baltic to deny the British their lucrative trade routes, thus interfering with even more nations shipping!

An even earlier example of global maritime warfare/commerce would be the various East India Trading Companies - British, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, French, Swedish - who roamed the world's seas in heavily armed gunships, plying their trade and conquering new empires as they went, and routinely engaging eachother on the high seas to defend their sales territory! This went on for a couple of centuries, with the British EITC ultimately prevailing - hence the British Empire, with a few crumbs left for the rest to colonize!

As you say David it's an interesting thread, although we seem to have digressed a bit from CMP shipments!