Oh, I haven't heard about these in Brazilian news.
That's a nice find.
Some interesting points:
* This was the last Brazilian ship sunk during WWII
* Brazil was an US ally, providing raw materials, but mainly rubber after Asia trade routes were suspended by the Japanese
* If Brazil didn't become an US ally, there was a plan to invade the rubber producing area - known as Plan Rubber [1] - it was not necessary since Brazil joined the allies
* To warm up Brazilians public reception to a US partnership even Disney got involved (and Carmen Miranda!) creating the character Zé Carioca [2]
I understand the rationing of gasoline in the US during the war was intended to conserve rubber, not (just) gasoline. Eventually synthetic rubber became available but this took a while and was a huge effort.
The Brazilian government was a dictatorship closely aligned with Italy. The Brazilian society was closely aligned with the US.
At the moment that ship sank, you could replace US with Italy and that phrase would be about as true. That ship was basically the last drop that made Brazil push the government into breaking ties with Italy.
And yeah, shortly after that Brazil participated on the taking of Italy.
Brazil was playing both sides, much like Sweden. Profiting from the war while staying out of it. Brazil only joined the war because the US gave big loans to Brazil to fund the creation of steelworks factories to kickstart the steel production in the country. The sinking of the ships was just the official excuse to declare war, but Brazil was aligned with the US a few years before that.
> Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha's five-week visit to the United States earlier in the year secured Brazil substantial lines of credit, loans, and technical assistance for the development of Brazilian rubber and mining industries. On September 26, 1940 the United States and Brazil signed agreement for the financing and construction of the Volta Redonda steel mill. By the end of 1940, Brazil had privately resolved to throw its lot in with the Allies.
I recommend reading the whole article, very interesting. I remember my history teacher in high school actually teaching this (he mentioned only steel, not rubber), I am very surprised this fact is downplayed and a lot of Brazilians don't know about it. I remember my teacher also mentioning that Brazil tried to secure similar deals with Germany but with no luck, but I can't find any sources for that.
My history teacher in high school said the official excuse to join the Allies was the sinking merchant boat done by a German submarine.
He also said there was no direct proof it was actually the Germans, and it may as well have been the US to force us to join on their side.
Which ultimately led me to find a pro-military website contesting this whole idea, and the author presented convincing arguments like, Brazil was sending resources to the US, so why the hell would they sink a ship that would bring resources to them?
Sadly, I cannot find the link. And it turns out the widely accepted theory is that Germans actually sunk the merchant boat, and it wasn't a covert US operation.
Since so many ships were sunk during WW2, is there a list of what they transported at the time? Have their countries ever made an attempt to recover them?
There has been a trend of "finding" things that nobody was looking for, now that there is an excess capacity to scan and then automaticaly analyise the data, people will be looking for ways to monitise that, even if it's just sending clicks to there advertainment platform, of course they are realy hopeing for a Spanish galleon, but are quite unlikely to publish that....
though the push will be on, as things like having side scan sonar attached to any old random ship
is becoming a trivial expense, and routing ships traffic, in ever so slightly offset tracks, would also be trivial, the common occurance of ships having to wait off shore, in a holding patterns,
provides another oportunity to gather data, for use in refining algorithms on known wrecks , fish, whales and whatever else is going on ,over 70% of the planet.....so, ya
Also, some of the wrecks can be salvaged for low-background steel, which has had some extra value (not sure if that's still the case.) This is often not legal -- the wrecks are war graves -- but it has happened nonetheless.
There have also been advances in algorithms for estimating where ships have gone down, so-called "renavigation". This has enabled search areas to be reduced in size. This was used to locate some of the carriers sunk at Midway.
Oh, I haven't heard about these in Brazilian news.
That's a nice find.
Some interesting points:
* This was the last Brazilian ship sunk during WWII
* Brazil was an US ally, providing raw materials, but mainly rubber after Asia trade routes were suspended by the Japanese
* If Brazil didn't become an US ally, there was a plan to invade the rubber producing area - known as Plan Rubber [1] - it was not necessary since Brazil joined the allies
* To warm up Brazilians public reception to a US partnership even Disney got involved (and Carmen Miranda!) creating the character Zé Carioca [2]
* Brazil sent 25k+ troops to the Italy front
--
[1] Plan Rubber - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Rubber
[2] Zé Carioca - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Carioca
> * Brazil sent 25k+ troops to the Italy front
The Smoking Snakes!
As part of that they had pilots flying P-47s.
I understand the rationing of gasoline in the US during the war was intended to conserve rubber, not (just) gasoline. Eventually synthetic rubber became available but this took a while and was a huge effort.
http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/R/u/Rubber.htm
Sabaton wrote an amazing song about the Smoking Snakes: https://sabaton.fandom.com/wiki/Smoking_Snakes
> Brazil was an US ally
The Brazilian government was a dictatorship closely aligned with Italy. The Brazilian society was closely aligned with the US.
At the moment that ship sank, you could replace US with Italy and that phrase would be about as true. That ship was basically the last drop that made Brazil push the government into breaking ties with Italy.
And yeah, shortly after that Brazil participated on the taking of Italy.
Brazil was playing both sides, much like Sweden. Profiting from the war while staying out of it. Brazil only joined the war because the US gave big loans to Brazil to fund the creation of steelworks factories to kickstart the steel production in the country. The sinking of the ships was just the official excuse to declare war, but Brazil was aligned with the US a few years before that.
From: https://guides.loc.gov/brazil-us-relations/brazil-world-war-...
> Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha's five-week visit to the United States earlier in the year secured Brazil substantial lines of credit, loans, and technical assistance for the development of Brazilian rubber and mining industries. On September 26, 1940 the United States and Brazil signed agreement for the financing and construction of the Volta Redonda steel mill. By the end of 1940, Brazil had privately resolved to throw its lot in with the Allies.
I recommend reading the whole article, very interesting. I remember my history teacher in high school actually teaching this (he mentioned only steel, not rubber), I am very surprised this fact is downplayed and a lot of Brazilians don't know about it. I remember my teacher also mentioning that Brazil tried to secure similar deals with Germany but with no luck, but I can't find any sources for that.
My history teacher in high school said the official excuse to join the Allies was the sinking merchant boat done by a German submarine.
He also said there was no direct proof it was actually the Germans, and it may as well have been the US to force us to join on their side.
Which ultimately led me to find a pro-military website contesting this whole idea, and the author presented convincing arguments like, Brazil was sending resources to the US, so why the hell would they sink a ship that would bring resources to them?
Sadly, I cannot find the link. And it turns out the widely accepted theory is that Germans actually sunk the merchant boat, and it wasn't a covert US operation.
Really depends on how many impact dents there are on the wrack ?
Just one detail, that's not the ship that was the last straw. There dozens of sunken ships, this is the last one that was attacked by the Axis.
Since so many ships were sunk during WW2, is there a list of what they transported at the time? Have their countries ever made an attempt to recover them?
It seems to lie on the continental shelf, at a depth of abount 40 meters. Surprised it took so long to locate.
I think it is mostly because it wasn't being looked for. WWII is not as present in Brazilian mainstream culture as it is in the US, for example.
How big is the continental shelf on the Brazilian coast, in square miles? Has more than a fraction of it been explored?
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There has been a trend of "finding" things that nobody was looking for, now that there is an excess capacity to scan and then automaticaly analyise the data, people will be looking for ways to monitise that, even if it's just sending clicks to there advertainment platform, of course they are realy hopeing for a Spanish galleon, but are quite unlikely to publish that.... though the push will be on, as things like having side scan sonar attached to any old random ship is becoming a trivial expense, and routing ships traffic, in ever so slightly offset tracks, would also be trivial, the common occurance of ships having to wait off shore, in a holding patterns, provides another oportunity to gather data, for use in refining algorithms on known wrecks , fish, whales and whatever else is going on ,over 70% of the planet.....so, ya
Also, some of the wrecks can be salvaged for low-background steel, which has had some extra value (not sure if that's still the case.) This is often not legal -- the wrecks are war graves -- but it has happened nonetheless.
There have also been advances in algorithms for estimating where ships have gone down, so-called "renavigation". This has enabled search areas to be reduced in size. This was used to locate some of the carriers sunk at Midway.
WII U boat? I didn't really Nintendo had a navy.
You're missing a "W" but in case you didn't know, Pepsi once had a navy:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pepsi+navy