Page 266 - Il Mediterraneo quale elemento del Potere Marittimo - Atti 16-18 settembre 1996

252 LUIZ P. MACEDO CARVALHO

tion Felix" was submitted for Hitler's approvai on 5 December 1940. By that ti-
me, the three separate German forces informed Hitler that they had completed their
planning and the·high command informed their headquarters that Franco had agreed
to launch operations in the beginning of February.
Hitler pressured Franco to move forward the start of operations, but the Spa-
nish leader refused to go to war before the planned date. Thus, Hitler had no choi-
ce butto postpone "Operation Felix". With insufficient time to begin the invasion
of Russia, the Fiihrer reluctantly abandoned the idea.
If "Operation Felix" had been implemented, the security of the United States
and the Western ·Hemisphere would have been seriously threatened. A Nazi occu-
pation of Morocco would ha ve jeopardized the future alli ed invasion ofNorth Africa.
The contro} of North and W est Africa by che Germans would have deeply
affected Latin America, where various governments showed sympathy for the Axis,
and would have forced the United States to take urgent defensive action in that area.
On the day before the German invasion of Poland, President Roosevelt and
the US State Department were alarmed by reports that Hitler intended to take over
the island of Fernando de Noronha, 215 miles off the Brazilian coast, and turn
it into a submarine base. However, there is no evidence that the Germans had planned
an attack o n che bulge of the Brazilian N ortheast.
Admiral Raeder confessed in Nuremberg that, on 15 January 1942, Hitler
had personally ordered him to attack Brazilian ships and ports: "Thus, the insi-
stence of Jodl, the Army Chief-of-Staff, that it would be necessary to subdue Brazil
to prevent ics bases from being used for an alli ed attack o n Africa, was successful".
In January 1942, Captaih Romolo Polacchini, the Commander of Betasom,
the ltalian submarine base in Bordeaux, sent five ocean-going submarines from
the House of Savoy to the coast of Brazil, starting the naval war in the territorial
waters of the Northeast O>.
This flotilla was followed by smaller German submarines. During the subma-
rine war waged by the Axis, Brazillost 38 ships, totaling 150,209 tonnes.

Defense plans and bases in the Brazilian northeast
In view of informa don received from the British Admiralty in May 1940 war-
ning of the possibility of German military aggression agains.t Brazil, President Roo-
sevelt ordered the preparation of a pian to send US forces to prevent such a threat.
The pian, code-named Pot of Go/d, proposed moving a large expeditionary force
2
of 100,000 men < > to sites located along the Brazilian coast between Belém and
Rio deJaneiro. That force would be preceded initially by 10,000 men transported
by air to the Northeast as soon as there was any_ sign of Axis troop movement in
that direction. Naturally, the US Government only intended to put Pot ofGold into
operation, either partly or totally, in an emergency siruation and after prior nego-
ti ati o n with Brazil. There were immediate objections that the pian would revive
Latin American fears of Yankee imperialism, apart from the fact that there were