Although I have heard of a few engagements, can anyone tell me about the role played by South American and African nations in WWII? Seems they must have played some sort of role.

(And you can safely omit the action of the Mediterranean coast of Africa, everyone knows that, though I would be interested in what happened to Ethiopia and French West Africa.)

Ethiopia and Somalia were sites for the East Africa Campaign (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African_Campaign_%28World_War_II%29), the only front where the Italians didnt recieve of need German help.
The only S American nation to my knowledge that participated in WWII was Brazil: she contributed munitions and other such things, and her cities served as bases for other allied ships operating in the S Atlantic.
French West Africa i cant help you with.

I also believe that some of England's colonial African posessions, ie S Africa, contributed troops to the Commonwealth in the same way that India, Canada, and the ANZACs did

Okay I know mexico is not part of south america but on the of hand chance that
you meant latin america too, and because I just learned about this too.

Mexico was drawn into the war: Faja de Oro (Golden Belt), was a Mexican oil transporter that was sunk during the Second World War. It was originally an Italian ship, classified as a tanker and identified by the name "Genoano". In 1941 this vessel was seized by the Mexican government when the ship was anchored in the Port of Tampico, Mexico one day after the Japanese Pearl Harbor Attack (December 7, 1941 consequently the ship took the denomination of Faja de Oro. The Faja de Oro was sunk at 2.15 a.m. on May 21, 1942; off Key West in the Gulf of Mexico on a voyage from Philadelphia to Tampico by the German submarine (U Boat) U-160, this submarine U-160 was under command of Captain Lieutenant Hermann Rasch. The attack is today not so clear because of the neutrality of Mexico at the beginning of World War Two. Some theories assumed that the ship was sunk by some disguised American submarine in order to force the entrance of Mexico in the War. The attack killed 10 of the 37 men crew and forced the Mexican Government to declare war on the Axis powers on May 22, 1942.








Mexico joined the fight via tha aztec eagles: El Escuadron 201 (also known as "The Aztec Eagles") was a Mexican fighter squadron that aided the Allied war effort during World War II. Squadron 201 was composed of more than 300 volunteers – 36 experienced pilots and the rest ground crewmen. The ground crewmen were electricians, mechanics, radiomen, and armament.

Their formation was caused by the attack by Germans submarines against Mexican oil tankers that were providing fuel and materials to the allies. These attacks eventually caused the Mexican government to declare war on Germany.
Escuadron 201 P-47D Thunderbolt with USAF and FAM insignias
Enlarge
Escuadron 201 P-47D Thunderbolt with USAF and FAM insignias

The Aztec Eagles were attached to the U.S. Air Force's 58th Fighter Group during the liberation of the main Philippine island of Luzon in the summer of 1945. The pilots flew P-47D "Thunderbolt" single-seat fighter aircraft carrying out tactical air support missions.

The squadron left Mexico for the United States on July 24, 1944, arrived at Laredo, Texas, on July 25, and moved on to Randolph Field in San Antonio, where they received medical examinations and weapons and flight proficiency tests. They received five months of training at Majors Field in Greenville, Texas and Pocatello (Idaho) Army Air Base; Foster Army Air Field in Victoria, Texas as well as Randolph. The pilots received extensive training in armament, communications or engineering as well as combat tactics, formation flying and gunnery.

This marked the first time Mexican troops were trained for overseas combat. The "Aztec Eagles" flew more than 90 combat missions, totaling more than 1,900 hours of flight time. They participated in the Allied effort to bomb Luzon and Formosa (now Taiwan) to push the Japanese out of those islands. During their fighting in the Philippines, 5 pilots died (one was shot down, one crashed, and three ran out of fuel and died at sea).




On a side note:
Brazilian Expeditionary Force of 25,000 personnel joined the Allies in the Italian campaign. The other countries in this group contributed support units, small combat forces, or to lesser degrees.
Those others being
Bolivia
# Colombia
# Costa Rica
# Cuba
# Dominican Republic
# El Salvador
# Guatemala
# Haiti
# Honduras
# Mexico
# Nicaragua
# Panama

French West Africa i cant help you with.
Sub-Saharan French Africa went with de Gaulle and the Free French, thanks to the political acumen of Felix Eboué. With the exception of the important port of Dakar.

http://worldatwar.net/biography/e/eboue/index.html

Elta, excellent post.

All, let us not forget the role Uruguay played in the sinking of the Admiral Graf Spee. Graf Spee was in the port of Montevideo (home to around half of Urugauy's population). Uruguay cooperated a little bit more with the British than the Germans, and Graf Spee became the first major Kreigsmarine loss when her crew scuttled her in the Rio de la Plata (December 1939). Ironically, this was the border with Argentina, and Admiral Maximillian Graf von Spee went down with his squadron near the southern coast of Argentina in December 1914.

Elta, excellent post.

All, let us not forget the role Uruguay played in the sinking of the Admiral Graf Spee. Graf Spee was in the port of Montevideo (home to around half of Urugauy's population). Uruguay cooperated a little bit more with the British than the Germans, and Graf Spee became the first major Kreigsmarine loss when her crew scuttled her in the Rio de la Plata (December 1939). Ironically, this was the border with Argentina, and Admiral Maximillian Graf von Spee went down with his squadron near the southern coast of Argentina in December 1914.
Her captain was led to believe that a few ships she had met in battle beforehand were part of a much larger task force, and thus she was scuttled. What I don't understand was why didnt she break out of harbor, guns blazing, and try and make it to sea? Surely a Pocket Battleship like Admiral Graf Spee could have made it away from a British task force. The point of just blowing the ship up escapes me.

Captain Langsdorff sent the following message to Berlin shortly before Graf Spee was scuttled: "Strategic position off Montevideo. Besides the cruisers and destroyers, Ark Royal and Renown. Close blockade at night; escape into open sea and break-through to home waters is hopeless....request decision on whether the ship should be scuttled in spite of insufficient depth in the estuary of the Plate, or whether interment is preferred."

So Langsdorff thought there was an aircraft carrier and a battlecruiser at hand. While Graf Spee should have been able to get past the actual ships outside the River Plate (the 8" cruiser Cumberland and the 6" cruisers Ajax and Achilles), going up against a 15" gunned battlecruiser was a different story. Renown could have stayed out of range of Graf Spee and pounded her all day until she sank, just as happened to Graf Spee's namesake off the Falkland Islands in 1914.

So why didnt he fight it out? You lose the ship either way
this way, you die with honor, instead of just giving up.

Like any sensible and responsible military commander, Captain Langsdorff didn't want to waste the lives of the men he led (his ship wasn't crewed by robots and hence wasn't totally expendable, as you seem to suggest). As he believed that he was faced with a force which his ship had no chance of damaging, much less surviving against, he made the correct decision, and as a result all of his crew survived - I believe that many of them even made it back to Germany during the war, something which wouldn't have happened if he'd taken his ship to sea.

The behaviour you're suggeting that Langsdorff should have taken was that adopted by almost all the Japanese commanders in the Pacific when faced with massively superior Allied forces. To say that this was a waste of lives is putting it mildly.

Did anyone die on South American soil during the fighting over the Graf Spree? I don't think they did.

If so, than South America was the only continent other than Antarctica where no fighting occured that resulted in casualties. This is classifying Australia and the South Pacific together, and bearing in mind the few casualties on the West Coast in the US from random Japanese attacks.

Langsdorff committed suicide.

Langsdorff committed suicide.

OK, so maybe that should count - why the heck not. Anyone else, or was he the only fatality in all of South America during the war? If so, he should be remembered for that; quite an achievement.

This is classifying Australia and the South Pacific together

There's no need to do that - about 600 people were killed in Japanese air raids against the Australian mainland during the war.

While I don't believe that there was any fighting in South American during the war, the Germans waged a sustained submarine campaign against Brazil and Venezuala resulting in the deaths of many seamen and passengers off the South American coast.

This wouldn't have anything to do with the other thread now would it ? :lol:

We Argentinians were pro-axis at the time... we were under the rule of a fascist military dictatorship then, but 15 days before the end of the war we declared war on the Axis.