What Role Did Brazil Play in World War II?

When Brazil entered World War II—the only South American nation and one of just two Latin American countries to take up arms—it reshaped the balance of power in the South Atlantic. Its alliance with the United States gave Americans vital naval and air bases to secure shipping lanes, while its 25,000-man Brazilian Expeditionary Force (BEF), nicknamed the "Smoking Snakes," crossed the ocean to fight alongside Allied forces in Europe. While Brazil only saw combat briefly toward the end of the war—and lost far fewer men than the U.S., the Soviet Union or Great Britain—the deaths of BEF soldiers reverberated through families and communities at home.

In return for its sacrifice, Brazil emerged from the war with heightened international standing, economic momentum and a modernized military that bolstered its prestige on the global stage.

Brazil’s road into World War II was a gradual one, as it walked a delicate line between neutrality, domestic tensions and growing external threats. At the center of this struggle was strongman Getúlio Vargas, who had risen to the Brazilian presidency—some say dictatorship—through armed rebellion in late 1930. He was “a complicated figure,” says Tom Long, a professor international relations at the University of Warwick and author of the 2015 book Latin America Confronts the United States. “He was hardly a liberal or a committed democrat, but he did more than perhaps any other figure to build a modern state in Brazil.”

Among Vargas’ concerns in the tumultuous 1930s and into the early days of World War II were Brazil’s sizable immigrant communities: Italians in São Paulo, German-descended people in the southern states and Japanese—considered the least integrated—scattered across the country. Vargas feared that their possible Axis sympathies, if aligned with neighboring Argentina, could lead to the overthrow of his regime, wrote Brazilian historians C.C. Maximiano and R. Bonalume Neto in their 2011 book Brazilian Expeditionary Force in World War II.

So, he opted for neutrality.

That stance collapsed in August 1942, when the German submarine U-507 sank five Brazilian ships in the South Atlantic, killing hundreds. Amid public outrage, Brazil formally declared war on Germany and Italy on August 22, 1942—ending its neutrality and joining the Allied cause.

Brazil was ill-prepared for war. Its military had little or no combat experience for 72 years. Its last serious confrontation had come in the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-70), when Brazil, later joined by Uruguay and Argentina, fought Paraguay. In 1942, most of Brazil’s weapons dated to World War I, as did the tactics in which its soldiers had trained. As a result, Brazilian troops were not ready to join the fighting until 1944.

By then, Brazil had already agreed to host U.S. Navy bases to aid in the fight against German submarine attacks in the South Atlantic, as well as Army Air Force bases, especially the Parnamirim Air Base in Natal. Locally nicknamed the "Trampolim da Vitória" or “Springboard of Victory,” Parnamirim became one of the war’s busiest and largest military airfields. Its position on South America’s “bulge” made it a key hub for transporting supplies and refueling flights between the U.S., Africa and onward to the Mediterranean. In return, the U.S. provided Brazil with “significant defense spending” and with military hardware through its Lend-Lease program, Long says.

Meanwhile, the BEF landed at Naples in mid-1944 as part of the Italian campaign following the Allied victory in North Africa. It first saw hostile fire in September 1944. The following month, it moved southwest of Bologna, where its positions were hit by elements of the German 232nd Infantry and Italian troops. Brazilian units repelled the assault—but only after firing their last three bazooka rounds and nearly exhausting their small-arms ammunition.

The BEF then advanced into the Reno River valley, fighting through early winter snow and rough mountain terrain. At Monte Castello, they battled entrenched German units until finally overrunning them in February.

On May 5, 1945, the Allies declared the Italian offensive over. Three days later, the war in Europe ended. Brazil’s losses totaled 1,889 soldiers and sailors killed, along with 31 merchant vessels, three warships and 22 fighter aircraft. Mexico, the only other Latin American combatant, had sent a single Mexican air unit to fight with U.S. troops in the Philippines. Its greater contributions came through steady shipments of raw materials for U.S. industries.

With the war over, Brazil had expected to receive “the same sort of Marshall Plan aid received by both former Allies and defeated powers Germany and Japan,” Long says. Instead, it received little postwar economic assistance compared with European and Asian nations soon drawn into the Cold War.

President Vargas, however, did secure the steel-mill complex at Volta Redonda, which he had been negotiating with the Americans. According to Long, the alliance with the U.S. gave Brazil access to “capital goods during a regulated war economy” and a $45 million loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank—about half the steel mill’s initial cost. The Ex-Im Bank also extended additional loans in the 1950s, Long says. For many years, Volta Redonda stood as the largest steel complex in South America.

President Getúlio Vargas was ousted from office by a coup d’état on October 29, 1945—the same month the United Nations was founded in San Francisco, with Brazil as an original member of its General Assembly. He returned to power in 1951 and ruled until his death on August 24, 1954.

The second time, however, “he was more hostile to the U.S.,” says Long, believing the “U.S. had hastened his exit from power in 1945.”