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The Vanished Golden Submarine’s Final Journey and Fate

Khalid Elhassan December 8, 2024 14 min

I-52 - Underwater wreckage of the Golden Submarine — Underwater wreckage of the Golden Submarine. National Geographic

18. The Two Way Trade Between Germany and Japan

Burnt out wreckage of Hamburg, Germany, after Allied bombers were done with it. Imperial War Museums

By the spring of 1944, both Japan and Germany were in dire straits. The Axis partners were on the defensive as Allied forces steadily advanced upon and steadily shrank their empires. Simultaneously, enemy aerial forces – and in Japan’s case naval forces as well – cut off their access to desperately needed materials and reduced their factories to rubble. The Japanese desperately needed advanced German technology and instruments, while the Germans were desperate for any exchange of information or materials with the Japanese. So a precarious two-way trade was conducted between the two countries, via the only practical means still left to them: via submarines.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.