We all know about the allied troops which consisted of the US, British, Soviet, Australian, Indian and South African forces and there were others of course.
However, one country that is always overlooked as a supplier of troops during World War II was Brazil.
Roosevelt knew it was important to get the whole continent of America (North and South) involved in the efforts to fight the Axis powers. He held several conferences. Although President Getúlio Vargas of Brazil did feel sympathetic to the idea of a totalitarian state, he himself was a dictator, he did eventually agree to join forces with the US against the Axis powers.
The Germans themselves had done quite a bit pushing Brazil to war, by attacking Brazil’s coast with U-Boats and sinking several ships killing over 600 of its citizens, including women and children.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Vargas decided to honour his nation’s commitments to the United States and, in January 1942, broke diplomatic relations with Germany, Japan, and Italy. Although it would take up to 28 January 1943, before Brazil would commit to sending troops.
The Brazilian Expeditionary Force, or in Portuguese: Força Expedicionária Brasileira, FEB consisted of about 25,900 men from both the army and air force fighting alongside the Allied forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War II. This air/land force consisted of a complete infantry division, a liaison flight, and a fighter squadron.
The Brazilian Navy was not directly connected to the FEB it had already been engaging in battle with the German navy in the Atlantic since mid As a result of the Axis attacks, Brazil suffered nearly 1,600 dead, including almost 600 civilians and more than 1,000 of Brazil’s 7,000 sailors involved in the conflict. Brazil had assigned three destroyer escorts to protect merchant traffic in the Atlantic, escorting 2,981 merchant ships in 251 convoys carrying over 14 million tons of supplies to the fighting forces. No ship escorted by the Brazilian Navy was lost to enemy action during the war. Its own merchant marine suffered the loss of 31 ships sunk and 969 crew members killed.
The Brazilian FEB troops took 20,573 Axis prisoners, including two generals, 892 officers, and 19,679 others. Brazil was also the only South American independent state that would send ground troops to Europe.
The Battle of Monte Castello would mark the Brazilian Expeditionary Force’s first contribution to the land war in Europe. The battle took place between 24 November 1944 to 21 February 1945.
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