Brazilian Navy in World War II

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The Brazilian government declared itself neutral after the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939, and declared war on Germany and Italy in August 1942, entering the conflict on the Allied side.^[2] At sea, the threat consisted of Axis submarines (German and Italian) sinking Brazilian merchant ships.^[3][4] The Brazilian Navy was unprepared for this threat.^[5][6] Most of the ships were remnants of the Fleet of 1910, used in World War I.^[6][7] Their state of maintenance was very poor and ammunition stocks were small.^[8]

Most assets were subordinate to the Fleet, whose flagship was the battleship Minas Geraes. Its sister ship São Paulo, another remnant of 1910, remained in service, as did the cruisers Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul and five destroyers of the Pará class, one of which, the Paraíba, was not seaworthy. There was another destroyer of a more recent class, that is, from the First World War, Maranhão. Minas Geraes had been refitted in 1935–1939, replacing coal with oil. The cruisers, with a displacement of three thousand tons, were only slightly larger than modern destroyers, and their guns were of 120 mm caliber, below the 127 mm standard of U.S. destroyers. The Pará class destroyers were referred to as torpedo boats in some sources.^[9][10]

The high seas force also included the submarine Humaytá and three T class submarines, two tenders, two tankers and four tugboats. The Minesweeping Flotilla had ten ships, and the Directorate of Hydrography and Navigation had three hydrographic vessels and two lighthouse tenders. The training ship was the sailing ship Almirante Saldanha.^[11] These assets were concentrated in Rio de Janeiro, then Brazil's federal capital, but there were river flotillas in Ladário, Mato Grosso, and Belém, Pará.^[11][12] A naval base was under construction in Natal, and others were being considered in Recife and Salvador for operations in Northeastern Brazil.^[13] The coastline was patrolled with the few available assets, especially between the mouth of the Pará River and Santa Catarina, including the archipelagos of Fernando de Noronha and Trindade and Martim Vaz.^[12]

There was no knowledge or equipment for modern anti-submarine tactics. The ships lacked radar and sonar, and crews were not trained in modern damage control techniques, firefighting, sea rescue, and other procedures.^[13] The routine training of battleships in the interwar period was limited to occasional gunnery exercises at Ilha Grande, returning to port the same day. Officers who wished to serve longer at sea volunteered for hydrographic service. There were pockets of expertise in the Submarine Flotilla and Naval Aviation,^[14] but the latter was disbanded in 1941, along with its Army counterpart, to create the Brazilian Air Force. Until then, it possessed 97 aircraft.^[15]

The Corps of Naval Fusiliers (CFN) had a nominal strength of 2,638 men since 1940.^[16] It was essentially a guard infantry with typical Army procedures. The regulations stipulated that they should carry out amphibious landing operations, but there was no equipment or specialized training for such.^[17][18] With the opening of courses at the Naval School for marine and supply officers in 1936,^[19] officers promoted from the ranks, who were looked down upon by the Navy Corps, were replaced in the CFN.^[20]

Organization of naval units in 1940[21]
Battleship Division	Minas Geraes and São Paulo
Cruiser Division	Rio Grande do Sul and Bahia
Destroyer Flotilla	Maranhão, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, Sergipe, Santa Catarina and Mato Grosso
Submarine Flotilla	Humaytá, Tupy, Tymbira and Tamoyo
Auxiliary fleet	Tenders Belmonte and Ceará, tankers Novais de Abreu and Marajó, tugboats Aníbal de Mendonça, Muniz Freire, Henrique Perdigão and DNOG
Minesweeping Flotilla	Ten ships
Directorate of Hydrography and Navigation Flotilla	Three hydrographic vessels and two lighthouse tenders
Training ship	Almirante Saldanha
Amazon Flotilla (river)	Gunboat Amapá and tugboat Mário Alves
Mato Grosso Flotilla (river)	Monitors Parnaíba, Paraguaçu and Pernambuco, avisos Oiapoque and Voluntários and tanker Potengi

Brazilian naval policy in the interwar period lacked a well-defined orientation. General priorities were centered on the regional scenario, especially the rivalry with Argentina, and on surface operations and units.^[22] Naval acquisitions were justified on the basis of defending the eight thousand kilometers of coastline and maintaining parity with the Argentine and Chilean fleets. The Naval War School (EGN) studied hypotheses of a South American conflict with interceptions, protection of bases, transport of Army troops, and the maintenance of maritime communication lines to Europe and the United States. Anti-submarine, however, was ignored.^[23][24] As for fleet composition, proponents of battleships competed with advocates of smaller vessels.^[25] Wargames in the 1930s already included aviation, amphibious landings, and wars against European powers, but the enemies employed only surface forces.^[26]

The period was marked by economic difficulties and profound reforms. Strategic thinking and tactics were modified by the influence of the North American Naval Mission (MNNA) on the Naval War School (EGN) and the Navy General Staff. Low-ranking officers who had trained in the U.S., the so-called "archdukes," proposed updates to naval thinking.^[27] The MNNA contract was signed in 1922, abandoned in 1931, and resumed in 1935. American instructors taught at the EGN.^[14][28] The United States Navy supplanted the British Royal Navy as the main influence on the Brazilian Navy.^[29]

The Presidency of Brazil was held by Getúlio Vargas from 1930 to 1945. From 1937 onward, Vargas headed, with the support of the Armed Forces, the Estado Novo dictatorship.^[30] For most of this period, the Ministry of the Navy was headed by Admirals Protógenes Guimarães (1931–1935) and Aristides Guilhem (1935–1945).^[31] Guimarães was one of the former tenentist rebels of the 1920s,^[32] amnestied by the president in one of his first measures upon taking power. In the Navy, those pardoned were few and their reintegration was not as difficult as in the Army.^[33] Guilhem' long tenure ensured some continuity in naval plans,^[31][34] as decision-making was centralized and personalistic, despite the advisory structure of the Navy General Staff and the American naval mission.^[31] The president could choose whether or not to implement the planning presented by the military.^[34]

The naval force fought the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932, contributing to Vargas' stay in power,^[35] but many officers sympathized with the rebels.^[36] Vargas eventually released funds to the Navy as he needed military support, even amid the Great Depression,^[34] and due to foreign policy needs, with two wars in neighboring countries: Colombia-Peru (1932–1933) and Bolivia-Paraguay (1932–1935).^[37] The project to reactivate Brazilian shipbuilding was compatible with the government's import-substitution industrialization policy.^[38][39] Steel for shipbuilding was imported from the United States, drawing the ministers' interest to the cause of nationalizing the steel industry.^[40] The Estado Novo propaganda exploited keel-laying and launching ceremonies, presenting them as affirmations of nationality, modernity, and development.^[41]

Two more movements attempted to overthrow Vargas in the 1930s: the Communists, in 1935, and the Integralists, in 1938. The former did not directly involve the Navy, whereas the latter resulted in the imprisonment of many of its officers and enlisted men.^[42][43] In response, Vargas did not reduce the naval program, but restricted the fuel and ammunition available to the Fleet until 1942.^[28] A presidential decision would prove controversial within the Navy: the dissolution of the Army and Navy aviations services to create a new military ministry, the Ministry of Aeronautics, which redistributed the bases of political-military support.^[44]

At the outbreak of war in 1939, Brazilian shipyards were working on one monitor, six minelayers, and three destroyers. Another monitor of the same origin had entered service in 1937. Six destroyers, ordered by the Brazilian Navy, were under construction in the United Kingdom,^[45][46] and three Italian submarines had already been commissioned a few years earlier.^[47] All were part of a naval program instituted in 1932 and revised in subsequent years.^[37][48] Only a small part of the planned program would actually be implemented in the 1930s.^[8]

To finance the program, the government approved, on 11 June 1932, annual credits of 40 billion réis over ten years.^[49] The objective was a modest naval force, within the country's financial and technical capabilities. There was no strategic or political planning,^[50] only a concern to reduce inferiority to the Argentine and Chilean navies.^[8] The official diagnosis in the Ministry of the Navy's 1932 report was that the "fleet is agonizing from age and, having lost the habit of voyages–replaced by the parasitic and bureaucratic life of the ports–all traditions are dying".^[51]

The original proposal was to purchase abroad two cruisers, nine destroyers, four submarines, two minelaying submarines, six minelayers and three tankers.^[32] The acquisitions were hampered by international naval limitation agreements and the lack of hard currency or gold. In the United States, legislation restricted exports^[37] and foreign policy sought to maintain a balance between the South American powers, denying, for example, the supply of eight destroyers due to protests from the Argentine government.^[52] The alternative was to build domestically, reviving a dormant industry:^[37] the last modern warship of Brazilian design and construction had been the cruiser Tamandaré, in 1890. Since then, imports had been the main means of acquiring ships, including those of the Fleet of 1910.^[53] Brazil was a country with few industries,^[54] though undergoing relatively rapid industrialization.^[55]

The main industrial facility was the new Navy Arsenal, under construction on Ilha das Cobras, in Rio de Janeiro, since the 1920s.^[56] The keel laying of the monitor Parnaíba, in June 1936, marked the resumption of Brazilian shipbuilding after decades of neglect. An abandoned hull was used for another monitor, Paraguaçu.^[57] Six minelayers, the Carioca class, were to be built in Brazil, six destroyers, the Javari class, in the United Kingdom,^[58] and six submarines, the Perla/Tupi class, in Italy.^[59]

The Italian case was a move to diversify suppliers, in which Brazil circumvented the shortage of foreign exchange by paying directly in agricultural products.^[60] Germany supplied machinery to the Navy Arsenal, and Italy supplied the submarines, delivered in 1938 after the personal intervention of Benito Mussolini to secure the sale.^[59] The United States reacted to the growing Italian and German commercial advance in Brazil. Circumventing its own export difficulties, it sold the construction plans for the Mahan class at a symbolic price. In Brazil, these became the three destroyers of the Marcílio Dias class, whose keels were laid in 1937.^[58] By 1938, the plan had grown to include three cruisers, eighteen destroyers, nine submarines, and twelve minelayers.^[58] On the horizon was the prospect of building a cruiser and submarines in Brazil.^[61]

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Since 1939 there had been signs that hostilities would reach Brazil.^[8] The Axis was interested in cutting off Brazil's supply of raw materials to the U.S. and Great Britain,^[2][62] although maritime traffic off the Brazilian coast was of secondary importance: the main theater of submarine operations was off the east coast of the United States.^[63] The Americans feared a Brazilian alignment with the Axis and attempted to negotiate bases on Brazilian territory.^[64] The Brazilian and American navies had better relations than the armies of the two countries, and opinion in the Brazilian Navy favored the Allies, but it had less political influence than the Brazilian Army.^[65][66]

If diplomacy failed, there was an American plan to invade Brazil. It was projected that the Brazilian Navy would be incapable of offering significant resistance.^[67] Likewise, in the event of an Axis campaign, Brazil would be vulnerable. It would be easy for enemy submarines to enter Guanabara Bay and the Bay of All Saints, which had no anti-submarine defenses, to sink the ships anchored there.^[68] Maritime trade was the lifeblood of the Brazilian economy, due to a lack of communication between the major urban centers.^[69] Coastal cities north of Rio de Janeiro–Vitória, Salvador, Maceió, Recife, Natal, Fortaleza, São Luís, and Belém–were in effect islands. Nothing moved between them without passing through the Atlantic.^[68]

At the Havana Conference of 1940, representatives of the countries of the Americas established a maritime security zone around the continent. Based on this guideline, U.S. Navy "neutrality patrols" began frequenting the port of Recife in May 1941 and established a naval base there in October.^[8] The U.S. entered the war on 7 December 1941. On the 10th, American maritime patrols were already departing from Natal,^[12] and by the end of the month, the U.S. was already transferring depth charges to Brazilian ships.^[70]

In January 1942, Brazil severed diplomatic and commercial relations with the Axis powers, created a naval cooperation commission with the U.S.,^[71] and transferred the Cruiser Division and some minelayers to Recife to maintain contact with the American forces led by Admiral Jonas H. Ingram.^[70] From February to August 1942, Axis submarines torpedoed seventeen Brazilian cargo ships, tankers and transports,^[71] among them the Baependy, which was carrying part of the Army's 7th Coastal Artillery Group. It had no naval escort, as the two forces did not usually cooperate and the Navy lacked anti-submarine means.^[72]

The sinkings culminated in the declaration of war by the Brazilian government.^[71] The threat hung over the supply of the major coastal cities. Disruptions to maritime traffic soon afflicted the population with food and fuel rationing.^[73][74] In the first moments, the reaction was one of panic, to the point that proposals were made to transfer the capital to Belo Horizonte.^[75]

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Brazil's advantage was its alliance with an industrial power, the United States. The Americans participated in the defense of Brazilian maritime traffic,^[73] provided war materiel through the Lend-Lease Act, and assisted in Brazilian shipbuilding and the adaptation of existing ships to anti-submarine warfare.^[76][77] Crews and garrisons were instructed in new techniques and equipment of American origin.^[7] Vargas personally requested ships from the Americans, and Admiral Ingram interceded with his superiors on behalf of Brazil.^[78] Starting "from scratch",^[79] unprepared and improvising,^[80] the Brazilian Navy modernized itself in administrative, professional, and bases and floating assets terms to transform into an anti-submarine force. It was a cycle of naval expansion dictated by international events–the American strategy of hemispheric defense–and not by prior intentions of the Brazilian authorities, who until then were more concerned with regional and internal contexts.^[61][79]

The ongoing naval program lost access to the European arms market in 1939. The Americans were now the only viable suppliers.^[46] The six Javari class destroyers were requisitioned by the Royal Navy, and Brazil received a refund of the amounts paid.^[41] Similarly, Italy's entry into the war in 1940 left the submarine order incomplete.^[59] The Javari class would have been ideal for the struggle Brazil would face: HMS Hesperus, former Juruena, sank five German submarines.^[75] Instead, the Navy Arsenal took advantage of British plans to build the Amazonas class. Construction was slow, and the ships of the class would only be commissioned from 1949 to 1960.^[61][81] In the case of submarines, construction plans in Brazil were abandoned due to lack of priority.^[59]

Among the constructions started before the war, the six minelayers of the Carioca class (Carioca, Cananeia, Camocim, Cabedelo, Caravelas and Camaquã) were commissioned between September 1939 and June 1940,^[82] the monitor Paraguaçu in 1940^[83] and the three destroyers of the Marcílio Dias class (Marcílio Dias, Mariz e Barros and Greenhalgh) in November 1943.^[82] The Laje Shipyard, in Niterói, produced six corvettes (actually trawlers) of the Matias de Albuquerque class.^[84] Six submarine chasers of the Piranha class, ordered from the same shipyard, would only be ready after the war.^[85] The Americans assisted the Brazilian projects, especially in the first years of the war, when encouraging Allied production freed up American war production for more important areas. By the end of the war, production by the "Arsenal of Democracy" exceeded the needs of the U.S. military, and interest in Brazilian industry waned.^[76]

The 1932 naval program resulted in the construction of sixteen major combat ships (corvettes and destroyers), compared to nine frigates, corvettes and submarines built in the period from 1945 to 2005. There was little connection with civilian shipbuilding and the nationalization index was very low: plates and profiles for hulls, machinery, boilers, shafts, propellers, electronic materials and equipment, armaments and even paints were imported.^[86] Still, at the end of the war there was limited production of cannons, ammunition, torpedoes and some electronic equipment and increasing independence in smaller ships.^[85]

The existing ships were modernized with the installation of depth charge rails on cruisers, destroyers, monitors, Carioca class minelayers and hydrographic vessels, sonar on cruisers, Carioca class ships and hydrographic vessels, K mortars on Carioca class ships and hydrographic vessels, 120 mm guns on the tanker Marajó and tender Belmonte and 20 mm Oerlikon machine guns on hydrographic vessels, tanker Marajó, monitors and tugboats and other auxiliaries.^[87][88] The hydrographic and minelayers were reclassified as corvettes.^[84]

It was agreed in October 1941 that Brazil would receive a Lend-Lease credit of 200 million dollars from the U.S., of which fifty million would go to the Navy. Two million dollars were earmarked for arming merchant ships.^[89] As resources were provided, the Americans transferred their units to more important theaters of operations, allowing the Brazilians to increase their participation in operations.^[90]

Within the program, the U.S. transferred 24 ships of three classes to Brazil throughout the war: eight iron-hulled submarine chasers of the Guaporé class or G class (SC-497 in the U.S.), received between September 1942 and November 1943, eight wooden-hulled submarine chasers of the Javari class or "J" class (PC-461 in the U.S.), between December 1942 and April 1943, and eight escort destroyers of the Bertioga class (Cannon in the US), between August 1944 and May 1945.^[91][92] They were small ships, but modern for anti-submarine warfare.^[93] After the war in Europe ended, the transport ship Duque de Caxias would also be transferred in July 1945.^[94]

The J class submarine chasers, Javari, Jutaí, Juruá, Juruema, Jaguarão, Jaguaribe, Jacuí and Jundiaí,^[94] were mass-produced in the U.S. to relieve larger ships from oceanic operations. 435 units of the SC-497 class were built throughout the war.^[95] The "cacinhas"^[96] or "caça-paus", as they were nicknamed in Brazil, displaced only 136 tons at full load. They did not exceed the speed or firepower of a surfaced submarine, but they could threaten a submerged submarine with depth charges, K mortars and anti-submarine rocket launchers, the "mousetraps". For detection, they used sonar. The G class submarine chasers, or "iron hunters," Guaporé, Gurupi, Guaíba, Gurupá, Guajará, Goiana, Grajaú, and Graúna, had radar, sonar, and greater armament, displacing 463 tons fully loaded.^[97] The escort destroyers Bertioga, Beberibe, Bracuí, Bauru, Baependi, Benevente, Babitonga, and Bocaina, with 1,520 tons fully loaded, were more suitable for engaging submarines, but were only received in the final period of the war.^[98]

In 1943, Vargas wrote to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt requesting "half a dozen cruisers of seven to ten thousand tons and ten destroyers similar to the Marcílios," so that the Brazilian Navy could operate further from the coast. The following year, while the Argentine government was in crisis with the U.S., Vargas presented a naval program drawn up by the Navy General Staff, which would include four cruisers, two aircraft carriers, and fifteen destroyers. Roosevelt sympathized with the demands but replied that the resources were needed in the Pacific theater. It was this request that would result in the transfer of the Bertioga class.^[93]

Another program, presented in 1945, proposed the acquisition via Lend-Lease of two Nevada class battleships, two Independence class aircraft carriers, four Cleveland class cruisers, 24 destroyers, thirteen submarines, and twelve torpedo boats. The insistence on a powerful surface fleet showed the survival of old naval thinking, focused on rivalry with Argentina, even when there was a clear orientation towards anti-submarine warfare. The American military showed sympathy for the project, interested in the monopoly of supplying war materiel and in standardizing Latin American forces along American lines. However, the American ambassador Adolf A. Berle argued to his superiors that Brazil would be incapable of maintaining such complicated machinery and that the money and effort would be better spent on infrastructure and education. It was the State Department that blocked the proposal, fearing the fostering of a South American military power.^[99][100]

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There were fears of torpedo attacks against ships docked in ports and of hostile landings for acts of sabotage. The three Armed Forces branches were responsible for the defense of the coastline.^[101] The Army reinforced the northeastern coast, transferring units from the central-southern part of the country, since 1941. Its coastal artillery, previously present only between Rio de Janeiro and Santos, was extended to all regions of the country, with new groups installed in Belém, Natal, Fernando de Noronha, Recife, Salvador, Imbituba and Rio Grande.^[102][103] The Navy divided the coastline and navigable rivers into Naval Commands, headquartered as follows: North (Belém), Northeast (Recife), East (Salvador), Central (Rio de Janeiro), South (Florianópolis) and Mato Grosso (Ladário). The Naval Commands were directly subordinate to the Navy General Staff and were involved in logistical support and local defense.^[101]

Even before the declaration of war, port defense measures were already underway. In Rio de Janeiro, Guanabara Bay was protected by Army fortresses and an anti-torpedo steel network, installed on the Boa Viagem-Villegagnon Island axis and operated by tugboats. Minelayers (Itacurujá, Itajaí and Itapemirim) were organized into the "João das Botas Flotilla" for internal patrolling, while the old Pará class destroyers carried out external patrolling.^[104] Piauí, Santa Catarina and Sergipe were decommissioned in July 1944, while Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Norte served until the end of the war. There is no information on the date of decommissioning of Paraíba, which had been seaworthy since before the war.^[105]

The old battleships were moved to Recife (São Paulo) and Salvador (Minas Gerais) as artillery platforms, in cooperation with the Army.^[106] Salvador was reinforced in April 1943 by the monitors Parnaíba and Paraguaçu, transferred from the Mato Grosso Naval Command.^[107] Armed tugboats patrolled Santos and Rio Grande. In Vitória, the Navy ceded 120 mm naval guns to the Army.^[107] Regional Marine Corps Companies were installed in Natal (3rd Company, in 1942), Salvador (4th Company, in 1943) and Recife (5th Company), in 1944. A detachment was installed on Trindade Island.^[108] There were discussions about who should garrison Fernando de Noronha, the Navy or the Army, and the National Security Council opted for the Army in 1941. According to Admiral Alberto Lemos Bastos, this occupation "should, I think, have been carried out by the Navy. When I spoke to the minister about this, he told me that the Navy was not in a position to do it".^[18]

The coastal fishing colonies were incorporated into the surveillance system, and to that end, the government transferred jurisdiction over the colonies from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of the Navy in October 1942, where they were subordinated to the Naval Commands and Harbormaster Offices. The promotion of fishing and fish processing industrialization remained the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, which was tasked with organizing cooperative, medical, and educational institutions. The idea was not new: the Navy itself had organized the fishing colonies after the First World War. An illustrative document, issued by the Harbor Master of Paraíba in January 1942, ordered fishermen to show "absolute obedience to everything determined by the overseer of this Harbor Master’s Office […] with regard to information related to coastal surveillance" and to make the "immediate report of any vessel sighted offshore".^[109] At the same time, Army infantry and artillery were present among the fishermen. The General Staffs of the two branches took until 1943 to agree on an information-sharing structure.^[110]