The Japanese occupation of most of Southeast Asia from 1942 to 1945 had a devastating effect on fishing just as it did on most other economic activities. By the end of the war a great deal of equipment — boats, fishing gear, and ice plants — had been destroyed or badly damaged, imports of twine, nets, sail cloth, hooks, wire, and other materials needed for fishing had been cut off, transport and marketing systems had been disrupted, and the purchasing power of consumers had been greatly diminished. There is no direct way of measuring the course of catches during this period, but there are many indicators of the scale of the collapse. According to official statistics, fish landings in Malaya in 1946, when the industry had already begun to recover, amounted to 46,000 tons, as compared to an average of 85,000 tons in 1936–40. The number of trawlers operating in Manila Bay fell from seventy-one in 1940 to two by the end of the war. At Estancia subsistence fishing continued during the war, but commercial fishing came to a halt. Nearby on tiny Botlog Island “fishing activities … experienced a drastic change, since [the people] had to hide from time to time”. At Perupok fishing was severely disrupted, as the Japanese took people away (“the men with promise of work and the women as prostitutes”), paid little or nothing for the fish they wanted and appropriated much of the local rice harvest. The long-distance trade in fish products came almost to a standstill. Exports from Thailand fell from 17,000 tons in 1941 to 26 tons in 1945. The collapse in the long-distance trade meant that consumption of fish in areas such as Java and the west coast of the Malay Peninsula that had long depended on imports fell much more than the drop in local catches would suggest. At the same time the trade in salt, essential for the preservation of fish not consumed immediately after landing, virtually disappeared during the occupation. Exports of salt from Thailand fell from 139,000 tons to 2,000 tons between 1941 and 1945. Presumably the importation of salt from across the Indian Ocean ceased altogether right at the start of the war.