Across the triumphal homecoming of the Commander in Chief of Brazil's victorious Expeditionary Force fell the shadow of Brazil's worst naval disaster.
It was the Fourth of July. The ancient cruiser Baía was patrolling the South Atlantic along the route that Allied planes fly from Natal to Dakar. With four U.S. Navy technicians aboard, some of the Brazilian sailors were celebrating Independence Day. A stunning explosion rocked the Baía. Subsequent blasts literally blew her apart. Blue-bloused sailors were tossed into the waves. Commander Davila Garcia Albuquerque, his arm shattered by the explosion, shouted to his crew, "Save...
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