2(3*) cruisers, 2(3*) destroyers, 4(6*) submarines, 3 gunboats, 30 auxiliaries and small patrol vessels
*decommissioned 1939-40 or prior
Peruvian Day !
The Peruvian Navy was the fourth largest in South America when the second world war broke out in 1939. It was just in the process of modernization, with the 1909 destroyer Rodriguez discarded and hulked, and in 1940 the 1881 school cruiser Lima. During the Presidency of Augusto B. Leguía between 1919 and 1930, a Navy Ministry was established and a Navy Aviation Corps in 1920. There were border conflicts with Colombia in 1911 and 1932 and a war with Ecuador in 1941, the Navy being involved with skirmishes in support of the Army. In WW2, Peru remained neutral and fielded two modernized light cruisers (the Almirante Grau class, British built), two destroyers (The guise class, Russian built, ex-Estonian), four submarines (US built R1 class), and three riverine gunboats, two recent, one old. Peru did not declare war on the Axis until June 1945, and the navy took on patrol missions against possible Imperial Japanese Navy interference from early 1942 up to mid-1945.
