Within hours of the Pearl Harbor attack, the nations of Costa Rica, Nicaragua and the Dominion of Canada all declared war upon Imperial Japan. The United States wouldn’t do so until the next morning. Before the year was out, Guatemala, too, would declare war on the Axis. By January first the following year, twenty-six nations would sign the Declaration of the United Nations – that served as an agreement among the signing nations to uphold the Atlantic Charter, and to deploy all their resources in the battle against the Fascist powers, and to swear that no nation would ever pursue a separate peace with any of the Axis nations. Eight Latin American countries signed the agreement: Panama, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
Only two Latin American nations, Brazil and Mexico, put men in the field (Mexican nationals served in the U.S. military)- click here to read about the Brazilians.
More about Mexico can be read here
Click here to read more about Latin America during the Second World War.
