Although the Brazilian Navy was small, it had modern minelayers suitable for coastal convoy escort and aircraft which needed only small modifications to become suitable for maritime patrol. During its three years of war, mainly in Caribbean and South Atlantic, alone and in conjunction with the US, Brazil escorted 3,167 ships in 614 convoys, totalling 16,500,000 tons, with losses of 0.1%. Brazil saw three of its warships sunk and 486 men killed in action (332 in the cruiser ); 972 seamen and civilian passengers were also lost aboard the 32 Brazilian merchant vessels attacked by enemy submarines. American and Brazilian air and naval forces worked closely together until the end of the Battle. One example was the sinking of in July 1943, by a coordinated action of Brazilian and American aircraft. In Brazilian waters, eleven other Axis submarines were known to be sunk between January and September 1943—the Italian "Archimede" and ten German boats: , , , "U-507", , , , , , and .