Brazil was on the Allied side in World War II (1939–1945) despite the fascist sympathies of its ruling Estado Novo regime. German and Italian submarines torpedoed Brazilian ships in February 1942 in retaliation to Brazil's adherence to the Atlantic Charter, which called for automatic support for any nation on the American continent which was attacked by an extra-continental power. Over several months 36 Brazilian merchant ships were sunk causing a total of 1,691 shipwrecks and 1,074 deaths.

Overview

Brazil's maritime losses influenced its declaration of war on Germany and Italy.^[1] Its traditional isolationist international policy automatically aligned it against "disturbers of the international order and trade". People took to the streets and the Brazilian government declared war on Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in August 1942. In 1942, American incentives and diplomatic pressure led to the installation of airbases along the northeastern Brazilian coast.^[2][3]

The Brazilian population at the time was largely rural and illiterate, and its economy focused on exporting commodities. It lacked the industrial, medical, and educational infrastructure needed to support the war.^[2][3] The Brazilian Expeditionary Force, whose formation was defined at the Potenji River Conference soon after the Casablanca Conference, was not created until a year after the declaration of war.

Deployment

They were deployed to the front in July 1944, almost two years after the declaration of war, and put under the Allied 15th Army Group. Around 25,000 men were sent out of the 100,000 initially planned. Once in Italy, trained and equipped by the Americans, the Brazilian Expeditionary Force fulfilled the main missions assigned by the Allied command.^{[citation needed]}

Pre-involvement

Predecessors

In February 1942, German and Italian submarines began to torpedo Brazilian vessels in the Atlantic Ocean, according to Goebbels' diaries, for adhering to the Atlantic Charter (which provided for automatic alignment with any nation of the American continent that was attacked by a foreign power).

Gradually aligning itself with the United States was of some importance to the Brazilian government, leading to Brazil facing Germany's and Italy's attempts to interfere in Brazilian internal affairs. Especially with the implementation of the Estado Novo, it became progressively more difficult from the end of 1940 to maintain stable and effective trade relations with these countries due to British and later American naval pressure. One point of pressure was the Good Neighbor policy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which, among other economic and commercial incentives, financed the construction of a steel mill, the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN).^[4][5][6] Reports at the time stated that the United States had planned to invade the northeast of Brazil (Plan Rubber) if Getúlio Vargas insisted on maintaining Brazil's neutrality.^[7][8]

In 1942, after the United States proposed to finance the construction of CSN, the Americans installed aircraft bases along the Brazilian North-Northeast coast. The most important of these was in the city of Parnamirim, near the capital Rio Grande do Norte, Natal. This base, called "Trampoline of Victory" ("Trampolim da Vitória" in Portuguese), was especially important to the Allied war effort before the Anglo-American landing in North Africa in November 1942, during Operation Torch. From the stabilization of the Italian front in late 1943 and the weakening of the German submarine campaign, the American bases on Brazilian soil were progressively deactivated in 1944-45, although the Americans remained on the island of Fernando de Noronha until 1960.^[4]

Brazilian ships sunk

Attacks on the ships by Axis submarines between 1941 and 1944 caused the death of more than a thousand people and precipitated Brazil's entry into the conflict. Until then the country had remained neutral. Thirty-five ships were attacked and thirty-two were sunk.^{[note 1]} The other attacks occurred after Brazil broke off diplomatic relations with the Axis on January 28, 1942. The attacks peaked in August 1942, when in only two days, six ships were sunk, causing the death of more than 600 people, and leading Brazil to officially declare war on August 21.

In 1943, despite considerable improvement in patrolling and anti-submarine warfare systems in joint Brazilian and American operations, Axis "u-boats" still attacked throughout the South Atlantic, especially off the coasts of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Most of the vessels were merchant or mixed cargo and passenger ships, and belonged to large shipping companies - Lloyd Brasileiro, Lloyd Nacional, and Costeira.^{[note 2]} Ships from smaller companies were also attacked,^{[note 3]} as well as vessels owned by regional shipowners and seafarers, such as the barge Jacira, and the fishing boat Shangri-lá. Lloyd Brasileiro, the largest of these companies, also lost the most ships and crew members: There were 21 vessels attacked, and 19 of them were sunk.

The Brazilian Navy itself lost only three warships, the auxiliary ship Vital de Oliveira, en route to Rio de Janeiro after stops in the Northeast and Espírito Santo, it was also the last Brazilian ship torpedoed in World War II, by U-861 on July 19, 1944; the corvette Camaquã, which capsized in a storm on July 21, 1944, when 23 crew members died; and the cruiser Bahia, which set off its own depth charges during gunnery practice and sank on July 4, 1945, killing 333 men. The Cabedelo and the Shangri-lá were the two ships that did not survive.^[9]

"Atlantic Belt"

The "Atlantic Belt", the narrowest stretch between South America and Africa, was strengthened to hinder the influx of raw material to the enemy, especially, the 1,700-mile straight line from Natal to Dakar. The Allies called the route ending in Brazil the "Northeast Ridge".^[10] For this to happen, bases had to be installed in Brazil, which began in mid-June 1941, when Task Force No. 3 arrived and the ports of Recife and Salvador were cleared for use by the US Navy. In turn, the Axis tried to interrupt shipments of raw materials to the United States and England, thus beginning the attack on merchant vessels sailing through the Atlantic.^[11]

Pre-entry attacks

Beginning of hostilities

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On March 22, the merchant ship Taubaté was attacked by a German aircraft in the Mediterranean, off the Egyptian coast. In this event, Brazil had its first war casualty, the gate clerk José Francisco Fraga.^[12] On June 13, a German submarine stopped the merchant ship Siqueira Campos, near the Cape Verde archipelago, with cannon fire, and only released it after inspecting it.^[13] Since 1940, Brazilian ships had been seized three times: (the Siqueira Campos, the Buarque, and the Itapé) by the British, under different pretexts, especially for transporting goods and/or passengers of German origin. On January 18, 1941, the French merchant ship Mendoza was captured in the safety zone waters off the Brazilian coast by a British auxiliary cruiser. This incident led the Brazilian government to send a note of protest to the British government.^{[note 4]}

The rupture of diplomatic relations and the American bases in the Northeast made Brazil a hostile country in the eyes of the Germans and Italians, in the words of German ambassador Pruefer, "in a state of latent war" with the Axis.^[11][14] From then on, Brazilian ships were attacked off the American coast and in the Caribbean. The first was the Buarque (one killed) and the Olinda (no casualties), on February 15 and 18, 1942, respectively. The most emblematic case, and also the most tragic until then, was the "disappearance" of the Cabedelo, somewhere in the Atlantic east of the Caribbean, after setting sail from the United States on February 14, when at the peak the submarine offensive. Fifty-four men died, and it is not known who sank the ship. The most likely hypothesis is that it was the Italian submarine Da Vinci, but there is no definitive proof. The possibility that the Cabedelo was torpedoed by other Italian submarines: the Torelli^[15] or the Capellini has also been considered.^[16] The date of the sinking is controversial. Some sources consider say the 14th, the day it left the United States.^[10][11] Others say February 25.^[9][13][15]

By the end of July, Brazil had also lost:

• The SS Arabutan (one dead).
• The Cairu (fifty-three dead).
• The Parnaíba (seven dead).
• The Gonçalves Dias (six dead).
• The Alegrete (no casualties).
• The Paracuri (no data on the number of people on board, or if there were casualties).
• The Pedrinhas (no casualties).
• The Tamandaré (four dead).
• The Barbacena (six dead).
• The Piave (one dead).

All were attacked far from the Brazilian coast, and except for the Cairu, the number of casualties was not catastrophic. Many shipwrecks of national merchant ships were interrogated by commanders and crew of the German U-boats, interested in the voyages of other vessels and the cargoes taken to the United States.

Attacks in the South Atlantic

On May 18, the Italian submarine Barbarigo made the first attack in the South Atlantic basin, close to Brazil's national waters, against the freighter Commander Lira. The ship was traveling from Recife to New Orleans when it was torpedoed 180 nautical miles off the Fernando de Noronha archipelago. The crew sent an SOS signal and abandoned the vessel, which was also shelled, and left burning after Barbarigo pulled away, believing that its target would soon sink. But the SOS had been picked up by American ships, and on the morning of 19 May, sailors from the American light cruiser USS Omaha boarded Commander Lira and put out the fire. The merchant crew needed to steer the ship were taken back on board, and the ship was towed by the small American minesweaper USS Thrush, in conjunction with the Brazilian Navy tug Heitor Perdigão, to Fortaleza, arriving 25 May.^[17] The episode was a diplomatic triumph for the US, helping turn Brazilian opinion against the Axis.

Two days after attacking Commander Lira, Barbarigo attacked what its commander thought was an American battleship, and reported sinking it. It was actually the cruiser USS Milwaukee, which was not hit.^[10]

After these episodes, Barbarigo was attacked between the Rocas Atoll and Fernando de Noronha by a B-25 Mitchell bomber of the newly created Brazilian Air Force (FAB). The plane belonged to the Adaptation Aircraft Grouping, a training unit that the FAB had organized to receive planes from the United States. The crew of the B-25 was mixed American and Brazilian. Captain Affonso Celso Parreiras Horta was in command, and the other Brazilian officer on board was Captain Oswaldo Pamplona Pinto. The American pilot training them was First Lieutenant Henry B. Schwane of the US Army Air Force. This would be the first combat mission in the history of the FAB.^[10]

At the same time, three other Italian submarines were in action off the coast of Brazil: Archimede, Cappellini, and Bagnolini. Archimede attacked the convoy of Commander Lira. Although the attack did no damage, her captain thought he had sunk a heavy cruiser, likely mistaking for a torpedo hit the detonation of a depth charge from the destroyer USS Moffett. The events of that week were widely reported; US President Roosevelt congratulated Brazilian President Vargas for Brazilian attacks on the submarines.^[10]

By July, Brazil had lost 14 ships (not counting Taubaté, machine-gunned down the year before). On 7 August 1942, Befehlshaber der U-Boote (the German submarine command) ordered submarines in the South Atlantic, among them U-507 (commanded by Captain Harro Schacht), to attack all ships that sailed into Brazilian waters, except those that were Argentine and Chilean.^[10] Brazil was still neutral, but in that month considerable US forces had already established themselves in Northeast Brazil.

Within four days (August 15-19), U-507, sailing close to the coasts of Bahia and Sergipe, sank five coasting ships and another small boat, causing 607 casualties, including many women and children.^[14] This caused indignation and consternation among the Brazilian public, and led to a formal declaration of war against the Axis powers at the end of August. Many other attacks by enemy forces took place afterward, which also took many lives. They were: Baependi (270 dead), Araraquara (131 dead), Aníbal Benévolo (150 dead), Itagiba (36 dead), and Arará (20 dead).^[10][14][18]

Public response

In a matter of days, the number of dead had more than quadrupled from those since the beginning of the year (607 versus 135). The photos of the dead on the beaches, and the accounts of the survivors made the population realize that war had indeed come to the country. "Challenge and outrage to Brazil", was the headline of O Globo on the 18th of August. By then, the number of victims had already exceeded six hundred. Panic erupted among the population, especially those who needed to travel from one state to another. There were no highways or railroads connecting the regions of the country. Civil aviation was incipient and there were virtually no airports.^[14]

For these people, one of the only and cheapest options available was to use ships. It was common for merchant ships to carry passengers, who took advantage of the stopovers to travel from one point to another in the country. Thus, any Brazilian family traveling by ship at that time ran the risk of being a victim of a submarine attack. And for those who lived on the coast of the Northeast, the war did not seem as distant a reality as it might have seemed to Brazilians in other regions. With time, the initial commotion and panic gave way to general indignation. In 1942 Rio de Janeiro, a series of marches and popular rallies were held, in which the population demanded retaliation; they headed to the Itamaraty Palace - headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - clamoring for Chancellor Oswaldo Aranha, who exclaimed to the people:^[14]

"The situation created by Germany, practicing belligerent, barbaric and inhumane acts against our peaceful and coastal navigation, imposes a reaction at the level of the processes and methods employed by them against Brazilian officers, soldiers, women, children, and ships. I can assure the Brazilians who are listening to me, as to all Brazilians, that, compelled by the brutality of the aggression, we will oppose a reaction that will serve as an example to the aggressor and barbaric peoples, who violate the civilization and the life of peaceful peoples."

The National Union of Students (UNE) organized marches in the main Brazilian cities, demanding that the country enter the war on the side of the Allies.^[15] This forced the reluctant government of Getúlio Vargas to enter the war. On August 22, after a ministerial meeting, Brazil declared a "state of belligerency" against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy,^{[note 5]} formalized by Decree-Law 10,508, issued on August 31.

Demonstrations against immigrants from Axis countries

After the sinking of the Brazilian ships and the high number of deaths, several violent popular demonstrations against immigrants from the Axis countries, especially Germans, Japanese, and Italians, took place in several cities. There were many episodes of depredation of commercial establishments belonging to immigrants from countries that were part of the Axis - and even attempts to lynch such people.^[15] After Brazil entered the war, many of these immigrants began to be watched by Brazilian authorities as part of the conflicts involving the "home front" of the war. Brazil was the scene of intense espionage activity during the war, and many immigrants who did not speak Portuguese were considered suspects of espionage.^[19][20]

It was also in the midst of this process that newspapers and radio programs in the languages of the Axis countries were banned in Brazil. The Brazilian government created prisons for foreigners suspected of anti-Brazilian activities, which served for prisoners coming from the crew of German vessels captured or damaged off the Brazilian coast. The Brazilian government's concern was linked to the Axis powers' use of the ties they had with immigrants and their Brazilian descendants, as countries like Germany, Italy, and Japan tried to mobilize and manipulate their emigrants in their favor in the war.^[19][20] In the Japanese case, after the end of the conflict, 80% of the 200,000 Japanese immigrants and descendants living in São Paulo believed that Japan had won the war.^[21]

At the time, German and Italian immigrant groups in Brazil spread rumors that American submarines were responsible for the attacks, to force Brazil's entry into war. According to historians, this was a rumor created by the war propaganda of the Axis collaborators infiltrating the Brazilian population, called the "Fifth Columns", documentation shows that German submarines were responsible for torpedoing most Brazilian ships during World War II.^[15]

In all, 66 attacks by the Brazilian Navy on German submarines in the South Atlantic were recorded, resulting in damage to or the sinking of 18 submarines off the Brazilian coast, of which nine - the U-128, U-161, U-164, U-199, U-513, U-590, U-591, U-598 and the U-662 - were officially recorded by the German Navy as having been sunk by the Brazilian Navy.^[22] The German Navy also recorded the sinking of the Brazilian submarines.

Entry into the war

Brazil entered the war through decree No. 10.358 of August 31, 1942.^[23]

The deployment of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) to the front began in July 1944, almost two years after the declaration of war. Brazil's participation in the war and the way it unfolded contributed decisively to the end of the Estado Novo regime.^[1]

Brazil's participation was more significant than the participation in World War I, considering the political and diplomatic game waged between Americans and Germans for Brazilian support, and the numbers of the real tactical and strategic contribution that the country provided compared to those of other allied countries. The Brazilian participation in World War II can be equated to that of Japan in World War I. If on one hand, in numerical and tactical terms, the Brazilians had a greater participation in the Allied cause in the Second World War than the Japanese three decades earlier, on the other hand, the Japanese, between the 1920s and 1930s, were able to better capitalize politically and strategically at the international level on their participation in the 1914-18 conflict.^[1][3]

Air force

The support offered by Brazil to the allies through the 1st Fighter Aviation Group, created on December 18, 1943, was significant. After a training period in Aguadulce, Panama, where they participated in the Panama Canal defense campaign, the Brazilian pilots, all volunteers, went to Suffolk, New York where they were introduced to the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. The group, which became known as Senta a Pua!, was sent to northern Italy.^[24]

Operations began on October 31, 1944, at the Tarquinia airfield, then moved to Pisa, closer to action, where the Group remained until the end of the war, being subordinated to the 350th Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), where it received the codename "Jambock". On February 10, 1945, a squadron of the 1st G.Av.Ca. returning from a mission discovered a large concentration of trucks, destroying 80 of them and 3 buildings. On February 20, the Group helped the FEB in the conquest of Monte Castello. On March 21, another victory, in the attack on a railroad repair shop, in the Po Valley: a direct hit destroyed four buildings and the return flight destroyed 3 Savoia-Marchetti SM.79, in the Galarate Field.^[24]

The Group initially consisted of four squadrons, of which only three remained. The missions given to the Brazilians involved attacking bridges, ammunition depots, and transport vehicles. There were no problems regarding air advantage in this region, held by the Allies, the major concern being anti-aircraft artillery.^[24] Among the pilot officers who exercised aerial activities in the Group, a total of 48, there were 22 casualties, in addition to 4 more officers, victims of aviation accidents.^[24]

Attacks against Brazilian ships after the declaration of war

A little over a month after the most tragic sinking, and less than a month after the declaration of war, three more ships would be targeted by the U-Boats: The Osório (5 dead), the Lajes (3 dead) and the Antonico (16 dead). As a result of this, at the end of the war, Brazil tried unsuccessfully to have the commander of the U-516, Captain lieutenant Gerhard Wiebe, and Lieutenant Markle, who fired shots at the shipwrecked men, extradited to Brazil for war crimes.^[25] The Porto Alegre was sunk on November 3, off the Indian coast of South Africa, with one fatality. The year would end with the sinking of the Apalóide on November 22, west of the Lesser Antilles, causing five more deaths.^[25]

In 1943, the U-507, responsible for the August massacre of the previous year, had been sunk on January 13, in the Atlantic Ocean, about 100 miles off the coast of Ceará, causing the death of all its 54 crew members. However, other ships would succumb to the U-Boats still operating off the Brazilian coast. On February 18, the Brasilóide was torpedoed by the U-518 off the coast of Bahia. There were no fatalities in this sinking, but the following day, March 2, the war claimed the lives of 125 people aboard the Afonso Pena, sunk by the Italian submarine Barbarigo off Porto Seguro.^[25]

On the same day, the Natal Air Base (BANT) was created at the then Parnamirim Field, later known as "Trampolim da Vitória" ("Trampoline of Victory"). The activities of the Natal Air Base would only begin on August 7 of the same year.^[25]

Other Brazilian vessels hit during the war were:

• Tutoia, on the first of July (7 dead).
• Pelotaslóide (5 dead), hit by the U-590 on 4 July.
• Shangri-la, on the 22nd of July (10 dead).
• Bagé, on the 31st of July (28 dead).
• Itapagé, on the 26th of September (22 dead).
• Cisne Branco, on the following day (4 dead).
• Campos on the 23rd of October (12 dead).

By this time, the U-Boats were already suffering heavy casualties, not only on the Brazilian coasts but also in other places. The South Atlantic Force was created, with headquarters in Recife, as well as support bases in Natal and Fernando de Noronha. Air patrols began to be more effective at the end of December 1942, with American and FAB aircraft groups. The naval fleet was reinforced with the presence of American vessels. The following year, Brazil still suffered the loss of the Vital de Oliveira, their only military ship sunk by enemy action in the war. The sinking, which occurred on July 20, 1944, off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, cost the lives of 99 people.^[25]

The submarines sunk in Brazilian territorial waters were U-590; U-662; U-507; U-164; U-598; U-591; U-128; U-161; U-199; U-513 and Archimede.^[26][27]

Post-war period

According to historian Frank McCann,^[28] Brazil was invited to join the occupation force in Austria.^[29] But the Brazilian government feared the FEB would capitalize politically on its contributions to the Allied victory, however modest, and officially demobilized it as soon as the war ended, while it was still in Italy.^[30]

Restrictions were imposed on its members upon their return to the country, non-military veterans (who were discharged upon their return) were forbidden to wear decorations or expeditionary garments in public, while professional (military veterans) were transferred to frontier regions or far from major centers.^[31]

Veteran associations

A pension for surviving veterans was established in 1988, when all surviving Brazilian veterans of the Second World War became legally entitled to a special compensation, equivalent to the pension left by a second lieutenant in the army.^[32] This benefit not only extended to veterans who had not been in the Italian or Atlantic campaigns but did not differentiate between them and those who had served in continental Brazil during the war.^[33]

In the time between the end of the war and the granting of this pension, the veterans achieved small victories, such as access to the civil service for those who were not literate (which excluded a considerable number of veterans), and the construction of a Housing Complex for ex-combatants (in the Benfica neighborhood), in Rio de Janeiro, inaugurated at the beginning of the 1960s.^[34] Those who could not readapt to civilian life often became dependent on the associations.^[30][33]