From January 1941, British authorities required Irish ships to visit a British port and obtain a "navicert"."Navicert system." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
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'Navicerts' were introduced. Ships with a navicert were permitted safe passage through allied lines. They were to follow the line of longitude at 12° west.Forde, (2000).
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It also added up to to the voyage.Fisk, (1983). In Time of War, page 272. A ship with a "navicert" was given free passage through allied patrols and fuel,Coogan, (2003).
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Italy, though an ally of Hitler, had not yet joined the war, and its captains enjoyed much faster turnarounds by following the Navicert system than the Americans, who largely refused to accept its legitimacy.
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Clipped forms are also used in compounds. One part of the original compound most often remains intact. Examples are: cablegram (cable telegram), op art (optical art), org-man (organization man), linocut (linoleum cut). Sometimes both halves of a compound are clipped as in navicert (navigation certificate).
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Possession of a Navicert proved that a consignment had already been passed as non-contraband by His Majesty's Ambassador in the country of origin and allowed the captain to pass Contraband Control patrols and ports without being stopped, sparing the navy and the Ministry the trouble of tracking the shipment. Violators, however, could expect harsh treatment. They could be threatened with Bunker Control measures, refused further certification or have their cargo or their vessel impounded. Conversely, neutrals who went out of their way to co-operate with the measures could expect 'favoured nation' status, and have their ships given priority for approval.
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Because of Germany's new proximity on the west European coastline and the decrease in shipping traffic, ships which would normally have been used for patrolling the high seas were diverted to more urgent tasks.UK National Archives. Britain discontinued its contraband control bases at Weymouth and The Downs and removed all but a skeleton staff from the control base at Kirkwall to continue searching the few ships bound for Sweden, Finland, Russia and her recently annexed Baltic satellites ( Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania surrendered on 21 June 1940 ). The Navicert system was greatly extended, introducing compulsory Navicerts and ships' warrants in an attempt to prevent contraband being loaded in the first place.
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Any consignment going to or from ports without a certificate of non-enemy origin and any ship without a ships Navicert became liable to seizure. The lost Dutch and Danish supplies of meat and dairy products were replaced by sources in Ireland and New Zealand. Canada held a whole year's surplus of wheat, while the U.S. reserve was estimated to be the greatest in history, but Britain was suffering very heavy shipping losses as a result of expanding U-boat numbers. Virtually all Dutch and Belgian ships not captured by the Germans joined the British merchant fleet, which together with the tonnage contributed by Norway and Denmark added about one-third to Britain's merchant marine, giving them a large surplus of vessels.
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A memorial erected in Dublin in 1991 to members of the Irish mercantile marine lost during the Emergency The great majority of Ireland's trade was with the United Kingdom, and most of its supplies came from there. This created great difficulties for the Irish government as Germany tried to blockade the UK. Additionally the UK required Irish ships to operate under their 'navicert' system. In September 1940, a joint agreement on trade, shipping and exports fell through, "the main sticking point between the two sides was the prices on offer from Britain" Griven, p 162 owing to the refusal to allow transshipment and repair facilities following German pressure, including the threat to blockade Ireland and the bombing of Ambrosetown and Campile in County Wexford.Duggan p.
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Although Swiss citizens largely rejected the Nazis and subscribed to the Internationalist view expressed by the League of Nations, in order to survive and continue to receive imports, Switzerland had little choice but to trade with Germany, for which she was paid largely in coal. Well-known companies such as Oerlikon-Bührle provided guns, Autophon A.G. provided transmitting apparatus, and other companies exported coal-gas generators, ball bearings, bomb sights, ammunition, carbon black, timepieces and rayon for parachutes. Because of her geographic position and trade with Germany, Switzerland was subject to Allied blockade measures throughout, although she remained able to move imports and other exports such as sugar and benzene overland, mainly to Germany and other countries in the neutral zone. In December 1941 an attempt by the Swiss military to purchase American machine-gun cameras was blocked by Britain's refusal to grant a Navicert, and in April 1942 the US Board of Economic Warfare considered quotas for Swiss imports from overseas sources, identifying Swiss commodities which might be bargained for.
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Elsewhere, the blockade began to do its work. From Norway, across and down the North Sea, in the Channel and throughout the Mediterranean and Red Sea, Allied sea and air power began slowly to bleed away Germany's supplies. In the first 7 days of October alone, the British Contraband Control detained, either by confiscating neutral cargoes or capturing German ships, 13,800 tons of petrol, 2,500 tons of sulphur, 1,500 tons of jute (the raw material from which hessian and burlap cloth is made), 400 tons of textiles, 1,500 tons animal feed, 1,300 tons oils and fats, 1,200 tons of foodstuffs, 600 tons oilseeds, 570 tons copper, 430 tons of other ores and metals, 500 tons of phosphates, 320 tons of timber and various other quantities of chemicals, cotton, wool, hides and skins, rubber, silk, gums and resins, tanning material and ore crushing machinery. Two months into the war, the Ministry reintroduced the 'Navicert' (Navigational Certificate), first used to great effect during World War I. This system was in essence a commercial passport applied to goods before they were shipped, and was used on a wide scale.
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