The Brazilian Navy (Portuguese: Marinha do Brasil) is the naval service branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces, responsible for conducting naval operations. The Brazilian Navy is the largest navy in South America, and the second largest navy in the Americas, after the United States Navy.
The largest vessel in the Brazilian Navy is its flagship, the NAe São Paulo, a 32,800-ton aircraft carrier, formerly the Foch of the French Navy. The Brazilian Navy's tonnage also consists of British-built frigates, locally built corvettes, coastal diesel-electric submarines and many other river and coastal patrol craft, among other vehicles.
The navy was involved in Brazil's war of independence from Portugal. Most of the Portugal's naval forces bases in South America were transferred to the newly-independent country. In the initial decades following independence, the country maintained a large naval force and the navy was later involved in the Cisplatine War, the River Plate conflicts, the Paraguayan War as well as other sporadic rebellions that marked Brazilian history.
By the 1880's the Brazilian Navy was the most powerful in South America. After the 1893 naval rebellion, there was a hiatus in the development of the navy until 1905, when Brazil acquired two of the most powerful and advanced dreadnoughts of the day which sparked dreadnought race with Brazil's South American neighbours. The Brazilian Navy participated in both World War I and World War II, engaging in anti-submarine patrols in the the Atlantic.
Famous quotes containing the words brazilian and/or navy:
“If I were a Brazilian without land or money or the means to feed my children, I would be burning the rain forest too.”
—Sting [Gordon Matthew Sumner] (b. 1951)
“The Navy is the asylum for the perverse, the home of the unfortunate. Here the sons of adversity meet the children of calamity, and here the children of calamity meet the offspring of sin.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)