What if: United States invades Brazil (1942)

What if: United States invades Brazil (1942)

The possibility that Brazil entered the Second World War with Germany was very worrying to he United States, because of its probable impact on the Atlantic navigation and the geographic location of the South American country, which represented an enormous potential strategic base for the Axis. This led the US military to design a plan of invasion that was called Plan Rubber which would see the occupation of the Northern coast of Brazil during World War II.



In fact, this approach was first shaped by the so-called Rainbow Plan (1939), which sought to militarily secure the northwestern part of Brazil, because that area significantly shortened the distance traveled between America and Africa, apart from constituting a stopover towards the Pacific. The fact that at the head of the Brazilian government was a fascist dictator, Getulio Vargas , and that in 1941 he had denied the United States the establishment of its soldiers on the bases of its territory, by the North American and British obstacles in the supply of The weapons with which to modernize their backward army (which the Germans offered to do more efficiently), made the situation even more tense even though relations between the two nations had been cordial since the previous century (Brazil even participated in the First World War on the Allied side).

In reality, the Brazilian military was divided between alíádofilos (mainly the navy and the air force) and supporters of the Axis (land army and especially the one of the south part, that was where the bulk was congregated to defend the borders and where Most of the 1.5 million Brazilians of German descent lived).

For all this, after the attack on Pearl Harbor and, above all, when a Nazi plot in Uruguay came to light, “Plan Rubber,” ore the full title of the plan being "Joint Basic Plan for the Occupation of Northern Brazil [Joint], Serial 737 of 21 December 1941" was written which called for 64,000 United States Marines to land in Brazil and on an outlying island to secure the vital airfields. The primary target was the airport at Natal, the primary airfield in the transatlantic link. Other mainland targets were Salvador in the south and Belém in the north, and also Fernando de Noronha Island (an island in the middle of the ocean where, in addition, it was feared that the German navy would install a base For your U-boat operations). 

The clear objective of the United States invasion of Brazil is evidenced from the following two maps:

Map I



Map II



The plan contemplated the artillery coverage of the battleship USS Texas and the aerial bombardment by aircraft operating from the aircraft carrier USS Ranger. The forces destined for the assault were the 1st and 5th Marine Division plus the 9th Infantry Division, which even came to conduct a drill in Virginia.

Because one thing was theory and another was practice. Except Salvador, which had large beaches, the rest of the sites had beaches too small and strongly hit by the sea or even belts of reefs that would hinder any amphibious operation, forcing the boats to leave the boats at a great distance from the shore (Up to 9 miles); Not to mention the fact that the landing points were very far from the cities and, therefore, from the airports, which were the objective after all. And then there was the geography, which would be another problem because urban areas used to be surrounded by easily defensible hills.

Brazil who navy could oppose the United States landing was little and outdated:

2 battleships: Minas Geraes and São Paulo.

2 light cruisers:  Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul.

10 destroyers: Pará, Piaui, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraiba, Alagoas, Santa Catharina, Parana and Maranhão. 

4 submarines: Tupy, Humaitá, Tymbira and Tamoyo.

The Brazil navy also was made up of other smaller ships, the Brazil Air force was made up of 330 aircraft but many of these were obsolete fighters and bombers. The number of aircraft that were reported as being in service at the time of Plan Rubber were as follows:

Fighters

Boeing 256 (export version of the Boeing F4B) - 14.

Boeing 69 (export version of the Boeing F2B) - 46.

Attack Bombers

Vultee V-11 Bomber - 18.

Vultee V-11 Torpedo Bomber - 12.

North American NA-44 - 6.

Fairey Gordon - 10.

The Brazilian Air Force was concentrated mainly in the south, but could be quickly mobilized and sent northward. In the regions to be seized.

The Brazilian Army could mobilize a total of 16,700 soldiers in the area (3,500 troops at Natal, 2,900 at Fortaleza, 5,500 at Recife, 3,500 at Salvador and 1,300 at Belém), in addition to those that moved from the south - with many problems, given the poor communications and territorial immensity. Likewise, the coastline was studded with sporadic and irregular defensive installations with 75 mm guns and machine guns; Fernando de Noronha which was a penal colony with only 65 guards, 600 inmates and 900 other inhabitants, but its airfield meant it could be reinforced rapidly by air. There were also a number of shore defense installations, but the status of these was largely unknown to United States planners, and indeed it is very difficult to get reliable information on them even today. It is known that the Brazilians had drawn up plans for defenses by mounting 12" and 6" guns, supported by mobile batteries with 75 mm guns and machine guns. Whether these were in place at the time Plan Rubber was due to start is a matter of some debate. However, the Brazilians were as aware as anyone of the limitations on littoral operations imposed by their geography and as such it is likely that, had word of Plan Rubber been leaked, that at least some form of defense would have awaited the attacking Americans

In the end it was not necessary to activate the Rubber Plan and, even with stripes and loops, diplomacy solved the issue. In December 1941 Undersecretary of State Welles succeeded in allowing Vargas to agree that in the Brazilian airfields there would be Marines disguised as mechanics with the mission of supervising and avoiding the penetration of Nazi agents. In exchange, Roosevelt authorized the export to the South American country of material, instructors and modern armament to definitively appeal to its military.