If he gave in to the Allied demand for bases in the Azores, Hitler would go ahead with Felix and invade the Portuguese homeland. The plans were never put into operation. In order to secure international support for its authority in Africa, Portugal entered the war on the side of Britain and the Allies. Helpful. The NPRC told me his records were destroyed in the fire of 73. Portugal was able to maintain its neutrality until 1944, when a military agreement was signed to give the United States permission to establish a military base in Santa Maria in the Azores and thus its status changed to non-belligerent in favor of the Allies. In December 1942, the Japanese Army occupied the Portuguese territory of East Timor in the Pacific. If you wanted out of Europe during World War II, all signs pointed to Portugal. The Treaty of Windsor (1386) between Portugal and England, is the oldest alliance in the world that is still in force today. As Adolf Hitler's occupation swept across Europe, neutral Portugal became one of Europe's last escape routes. Enforce respect of the country’s neutrality from sea and air, home waters and on its colonies. On 12 October 1941 the neutral ship Corte Real was stopped for inspection by U-83 80 miles west of Lisbon. Despite the authoritarian character of the regime Portugal did not experience the same levels of international isolation as Francoist Spain did following World War II. He helped produce the battalion history which I posted as a Website, http://www.skydozer.com. The results of these investigations are to be submitted to me as soon as possible," Hitler added.[29]. Both the Allies and the Axis sought to control the strategically located Azores islands during World War II. Helpful. He also said he was stationed on the Azores and that he had some heavy trucks and a crew of Portuguese assigned to him. Portugal was able to maint… In addition, Macau's government traded some of the colony's defensive guns for food and agreed to sell supplies of aviation fuel to Japan in early 1945. To win the war, the sea lanes had to be protected and that could be accomplished only by long-range bomber patrols flying from air bases on neutral territory around and in the Atlantic. Salazar's reaction was violent. But, as one of the only open and non-combatant cities in Europe during the war, the streets of Lisbon became the "The Capital of Espionage” In a spy-based proxy cold war. Although the 801st does not represent all of the men in the regiment it is the majority, as the 928th was primarily a headquarters company and was unique among Engineer Aviation Regiments in WWII for only having one battalion attached (the 801st). At the same time Life magazine, in a long article titled: "Portugal: The War Has Made It Europe's Front", called Salazar "a benevolent ruler", described him as "by far the world's best dictator, he [Salazar] is also the greatest Portuguese since Prince Henry the Navigator", and added that "the dictator has built the nation". A new chapter for Jews in Portugal was marked by World War II. [14] The Portuguese capital became a symbol of hope for many refugees. Ships were destroyed faster than they could be replaced. Portugal remained neutral throughout the Second World War. On 5 June 1944, just before the Normandy invasion, following the threats of economic sanctions by the Allies, the Portuguese government opted for a complete embargo on wolfram exports to both the Allies and the Axis, thereby putting 100,000 Portuguese labourers out of work. Salazar informed the British Ambassador that he wanted heads to roll and ended up requesting Beevor's withdrawal. Salazar denounced the allied operation as an invasion of a neutral territory. [15][16], In July 1940, the civilian population of Gibraltar was evacuated due to expected attacks expected from Germany and Italy. They contain enough information to piece together the story of the Azores bases. Portugal is our oldest ally; the alliance is over 700 years old. Admiral Dönitz’s submarine fleet had been using the Azores for provisioning. On 26 June 1940, four days after France's armistice with Germany, Salazar authorised the main Office of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society ( HIAS-HICEM) in Paris to be transferred to Lisbon. He protested, saying that the Allies had violated Portuguese sovereignty and jeopardised Portuguese neutrality. The four convoys—UGS 4, 5, 6, and 7—to sail from New York and Hampton Roads, Virginia, to the Mediterranean from January 13 to April 1, 1943, lost 13 ships with an aggregate tonnage of 83,500. In an aide-mémoire of 5 September 1939, the British Government confirmed the understanding. A solid history of Portugal's role as a neutral country and Antonio Salazar's efforts to keep the country from being drawn into World War II -- or worse, being attacked by Spain. Lagens Field, now called Lajes, has become an important link in the defense networks of the United States and NATO. As World War II raged across Europe, Portugal sold tungsten and other goods to Nazi Germany, profiting handsomely from its neutral status in the … D-day for Operation Felix was to be January 10, 1942. Debate in the German high command then narrowed to two choices for the next campaign, Operation Barbarossa against Russia or Operation Felix, the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula—crossing Spain to seize Gibraltar and Portugal, then North Africa and the Spanish and Portuguese Atlantic islands. The American engineers landed a week later without the threat of resistance but unfortunately accompanied by a storm, which snapped an anchor chain and drove their landing ship onto a rocky beach. The government of Macau was subsequently forced to accept the presence of Japanese "advisers", recognise Japanese authority in southern China and withdraw the colony's garrison from several bases. However, this was not to be an advance runway but a full-fledged airfield that expected heavy use from transport and bomber aircraft, so a 6,000-foot- long runway was constructed at Lagens Field. [28], On 12 November 1940 Hitler issued Führer Directive No. The engineers, with construction by local labor, laid out a temporary earthen emergency landing strip in a matter of weeks. The Spaniard Juan Pujol García, better known as Codename Garbo, passed on misinformation to the Germans, hoping it would hasten the end of the Franco regime; he was recruited by the British as a double agent while in Lisbon. They constructed the airbase at Lagens Field. [23] The foreigners who served in the Waffen-SS numbered "some 500,000", including those who were pressured into or conscripted. Even though there was almost no chance of an attack—German troops had been driven out of North Africa and were on the defensive in Italy and Russia—the Portuguese dictator was still fearful of some kind of retribution by Hitler. Civilian deaths in Portugal exceeded 220,000: 82,000 caused by food shortages and 138,000 by the Spanish flu. Salazar was especially worried about a possible German invasion through Spain and did not want to provoke Hitler; nor did he want to give Spain an excuse to take sides with the Axis and invade Portugal due to the strategic importance of the Canary Islands. This concept was laid out by Hitler, but was never executed. In the files at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, The Narrative History of the 928th Engineer Aviation Regiment begins, “The unit having completed its overseas mission returned to the United States 10 March 1945 … for 30-day recuperation leave and furlough while en route from the Port of Entry (Hampton Roads, Virginia), to Geiger Field, Washington.”. (Get a deeper look at the political—and military—events that led to the greatest war in history by subscribing to Military Heritage magazine.). A similar opinion is shared by Carlton Hayes, the American Ambassador in Spain during World War II, who writes in his book Wartime Mission in Spain: [Salazar] didn't look like a regular dictator. The British might come in under the 1373 treaty, and the Americans would follow according to the provision in the treaty that Britain and Portugal would be “friends to friends.” American engineering know-how was needed to build an airfield capable of handling the heavy traffic expected for the coming liberation of Europe and, more immediately, for increased submarine patrols by long-range bombers. Umberto II, the King of Italy, lived for 37 years in exile, in Cascais. Even Ilsa and Rick, the star-crossed lovers in the film Casablanca, sought a ticket to that "great embarkation point". Salazar (far left) kept Portugal neutral during World War Two For those thronging Bordeaux's streets hoping to cross into Spain and escape Nazi persecution there was no … Now, finally, the complete story of Operation Alacrity could be told. [25][26], Portugal was also neutral during the Pacific War. Both the Axis and the Allies wanted to get the Azores first, and each had their own ideas on how to do it. This base is in an area called Lajes, a broad, flat sea terrace that had been a farm. Wolfram was of particular value in producing war munitions. This concept of neutrality through equal division of products supplied to belligerents was different from that of the Northern European neutrals who worked on the basis of "normal pre-war supplies". So reading this was gave me some insight to at least some of what he did. 26 people found this helpful. An additional protocol to the pact was signed on 29 July 1940, after the fall of France. By 1945 the British owed Portugal over $322 million under this arrangement. Several American reports called Lisbon "The Capital of Espionage". The Portuguese troops stayed in their barracks, and the critical American contribution to Operation Alacrity began. Along with Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho, under Salazar's direct guidance, they rented houses and apartments to shelter and protect refugees from deportation and murder. 4[4] and the Portuguese government expanded the runway and sent troops and equipment to Lajes, including Gloster Gladiator fighters. They stretch over 373 miles (600 km) from Corvo in the northwest to Santa Maria in the southeast, with Santa Maria closest to Europe, about 930 miles (1,500 km) from Lisbon. The British 247th Air Group, the American 928th Engineer Aviation Regiment, and the 96th Naval Construction Battalion (Seabees) were charged with accomplishing the task. Calouste Gulbenkian, the Armenian oil magnate known as "Mr. Five Percent", also chose Portugal as a place to settle. Operation Felix must have been known to the Allies as well as to Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain, who was kept well informed by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, German military intelligence, and an avowed anti-Nazi. Following the war the US Government paid compensation for the damage to Macau's harbour.[27]. In that group were also included Polish, Dutch and Belgians, most of whom were soldiers or would-be soldiers. He had favoured the Spanish nationalist cause, fearing a communist invasion of Portugal, yet he was uneasy at the prospect of a Spanish government bolstered by strong ties with the Axis. In August 1944 the team sailed aboard a Portuguese inter-island ferry of the Imprêsa Insulana de Navigação from Terceira to Santa Maria. "[12] The number of refugees that escaped through Portugal during the war has estimates that range from one hundred thousand to one million; an impressive number considering the size of the country's population at that time (circa 6 million). [17] In 2010 a monument was commissioned in Gibraltar and shipped to Madeira where it was erected next to a small chapel at Santa Catarina park, Funchal. In 1942 Lajes Field on the Azores was assigned the name Air Base No. On November 9, the first kill was registered when a surprised U-707 was sunk by an RAF bomber based at the new field. Each outfit was equally ignorant of where it was going and of the other’s existence, but they were soon to join up on a secret mission—Operation Alacrity—planned in meetings in Casablanca, Canada, and Washington by the Allied chiefs of staff with the collaboration of their leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Churchill ended his speech saying: A few months later, on 1 December 1943, British and U.S. military representatives at RAF Lajes signed a joint agreement outlining the roles and responsibilities for the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and United States Navy (USN) at Lajes Field. Although Operation Alacrity is conspicuously missing from official and unofficial histories of World War II, the Azores Islands clearly played a key role in winning the war in the Atlantic. Unlike Spain, Portugal under Salazar was accepted into the Marshall Plan (1947–1948) in return for the aid it gave to the Allies during the final stages of the war. Klemmer, Harvey "Lisbon – Gateway to Warring Europe", Wheeler Douglas L. "The Price of Neutrality: Portugal, the Wolfram Question, and World War II", This page was last edited on 24 April 2021, at 11:29. The British worked quickly to construct a temporary airstrip. I’ve been searching for my fathers Army WW2 records. Lajes Field is a plateau rising out of the sea on the northeast corner of the island. As reasonable as these arguments appeared to the Allies, Salazar was not buying any of them. Great Britain and the United States devised plans to set up air bases regardless of Portugal's disapproval. At the start of World War II in 1939, the Portuguese Government announced on 1 September that the 550-year-old Anglo-Portuguese Alliance remained intact, but since the British did not seek Portuguese assistance, Portugal was free to remain neutral in the war and would do so. It's amazing. Life declared that "most of what is good in modern Portugal can be credited to Dr. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar (...) The dictator is everything that most Portuguese are not – calm, silent, ascetic, puritanical, a glutton for work, cool to women. Portugal resisted, defending its right as a neutral to sell to anyone and fearing that any reduction in its exports would prompt Germany to attack Portuguese shipping. Read more. In April 1939, Portugal refused th… American aircraft also accidentally attacked Macau on 25 February and 11 June 1945. Churchill wrote, “The U-boat attack was our worst evil. It would have been wise for the Germans to stake all upon it.”, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull said, “Our whole democratic civilization twice hung by a thread during the recent war—once during the summer of 1940 after Dunkirk and the fall of France, when Britain even with her Navy might have failed to repulse a full-scale German attack across the Channel, and again during 1942, when German submarines were sinking three Allied merchant vessels for every one constructed.”. The Portuguese Colonial War (Portuguese: Guerra Colonial Portuguesa), also known in Portugal as the Overseas War (Guerra do Ultramar) or in the former colonies as the War of Liberation (Guerra de Libertação), was a thirteen year long conflict fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974. Their time in action would become almost unlimited. Rather, he appeared a modest, quiet, and highly intelligent gentleman and scholar...literally dragged from a professorial chair of political economy in the venerable University of Coimbra a dozen years previously in order to straighten out Portugal's finances, and that his almost miraculous success in this respect had led to the thrusting upon him of other major functions, including those of foreign minister and constitution-maker. Its colony of Macau was isolated following the Japanese conquest of nearby areas of China and the fall of Hong Kong in December 1941. Gen. Cyrus R. Smith, who led Military Air Transport Command, commended the enlisted men involved and appointed several to Officer Candidate School. This was a key turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic, allowing the Allies to provide aerial coverage in the Mid-Atlantic gap; helping them to hunt U-boats and protect convoys. Report abuse. American forces constructed a small and short-lived air base on Santa Maria Island. During World War II, Portugal could be better described as being under a fascist-oriented regime known as the Estado Novo. German newspapers howled, “Invasion of Iceland; Roosevelt provokes war; Arm-in-arm with Bolshevik mass murderers; Roosevelt has irrevocably torn up the Monroe Doctrine.”. On 28 April 1944, the Hungarian Gestapo raided the ambassador's home and arrested his guests. [9], Just a few days before the end of the Spanish Civil War, on 17 March 1939, Portugal and Spain signed the Iberian Pact, a non-aggression treaty that marked the beginning of a new phase in Iberian relations. Salazar stood doggedly by his "juridical neutrality" to the end of the War. Finally revealed were the high-level military decisions and diplomatic maneuvering and the adventures, misadventures, and accomplishments that led to the Allied mission to the Azores. ww2dbase Portugal held some overseas colonies during this time, some of which saw minor involvement in the war. In May 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill met in Washington to discuss war strategy. Portugal allowed Great Britain to trade and receive credit backed by the pound, allowing the British to obtain vital goods at a time when it was short on gold and escudos and all other neutrals were prepared to trade their currencies only against gold. 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