Sorry for the poorly worded title, English is my first language so I've no excuse really.
I'm looking to find out about life in countries who were involved in WWII but not so completely as USA, UK etc. South Africa and Brazil both joined on the Allies side but were quite geographically removed from the main fronts (as far as I'm aware). Plus they didn't get quite as involved like the US.
How many men enlisted? What sort of assistance did they provide? Was there rationing? Public opinion on the war? Stuff like that.
No reason for wanting to know other than it sounds interesting so I hope you braining folks can help.
Cheers.
I can tell a bit about Brazil.
As far as international politics are concerned, we were not quite sure to which way to go at first. True, Brazil had a historical pan-american tradition since the beginning of the Republic in 1889, but at the 1930's some things had changed.
Brazil went through a Revolution in 1930 which brought down the Old Republic (or, rather, gave it the fatal blow) and brought new elites to the power. The new government was way less pan-american in its core. It was more nationalistic, with all the autonomy speech known to those kinds of governments.
In 1935 Brazil, despite still being nominally a Democracy, was already under a authoritarian government and, in 1937, Getúlio Vargas's coup instituted a Dictatorship, the Estado Novo.
At that time, the War in Europe was already being expected by the world, and the US was trying to bring all America under its influence. Getúlio tried to capitalize on this, bargaining its adherence to the US by making some commercial treaties with Germany and some anti democratic speeches.
Long story short, after the US helped financing our Steel Industry and promised us military equipment through the Land and Lease program, we gave them permission to put troops in northeastern Brazil (those bases were used to supply Ally troops in North Africa) and, after Pearl Harbor, finally decided to sever diplomatic relations with the Axis.
Throughout 1942 u-boats sunk several Brazilian ships and after much public outrage, we declared war on Germany.
Brazil has sent an Expeditionary Division to Europe (the FEB). It was trained as an American infantry division. It had 3 regiments of about 5 men each. If you count the support units it was 25,600 men strong.
It fought under the Fifth Army in Italy. Brazil also sent a aerial Fighter Group with 350 men (43 pilots).
Despite being a small contribution, the FEB was (and for those who remember, still is) a matter of great pride to Brazilians. We were attacked and we fought back.
I still visit the veterans association near my house (I live in the region from where it was formed the 11 Regiment) and talk to them. Most of the soldiers who fought at the FEB were voluntaries from the country. Many of them wore their first shoes at the training camp.
One effect of Brazil's role in the war wasn't expected by Getulio. It quickly became pretty evident that there was a incongruity in it. While there was Brazilian men dying in the name of democracy and freedom overseas, we had a Dictatorship at home.
Getúlio was overthrown in 1945.