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. 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. Later, German Junkers Ju 290-A aircraft prepared for (or, according to some sources, completed) similar flights. 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. 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.