Portugal and WW2.

[Owen]

If Portugal is know as Britain's oldest Ally and had troops on the Western Front in WW1, why did they remain out of WW2?
Or did they secretly help?

[plant-pilot]

Something I've also wondered. Maybe if Portugal ahd been an active ally Gibralter wouldn't have been so important as a stopping off point to and from the Med. Important yes, but not as a stopping off point.

Maybe Portugal had seen the effectiveness of Germany when they got involved in the Spanish Civil War and decided to stay out of things. Can't blame them if they did. Isn't ZR of Portuguese descent? Maybe he can tell us.

[smc]

The Allies used the Azores as an airplane base from 1943 onwards. From what I gather Salazar was more inclined towards the Allies than the Axis. I'd imagine their position would be dictated by Spain. If they joined the Allies the Spanish may have decided to allow Germany to cross its territory or use bases to attack the Portuguese. Best thing to do was stay out and sell materials to both sides for much needed hard currency which is what they did.

[Za Rodinu]

First of all I am entirely Portuguese and mighty proud of it

Let's see... The alliance between England (at the time) and Portugal was signed in 1373 and still stands at this date, never having been interrupted, which says more for Portuguese character than...

I am going to leave WWI out of this as this was a very difficult time for us, and more proper for another forum, not an WWII one.

In 1926 Portugal fell under a right-wing military dictatorship, but actually that was quite an incompetent form of govenrment, the economy was and remained in the dumps. They recruited a college don who was actually quite brilliant, and through force of will forced his way to prime-minister, leaving the military with a presidency for show only while he held the real power. He was right-wing, catholic conservantist, but keeping the church well at arms length too, he knew which side HIS bread was buttered. Oh, and he did a fine work of book balancing, so at least there he did a good job at the time.

So, when the Spanish Civil War came up he supported Franco as the obvious candidate, considering the Legitimist side were Socialists or worse. Even so things were not entirely to his satisfaction, as he never got very close to Franco, Portugal was Portugal, Spain was Spain and no need to talk too much into that.

Relations with Italy were not bad, they were even allowed to sell us some Breda 65s (awful planes!) while those northern barbarians reluctantly (we were supposed to be all jews!) sold us a few Ju52s and Ju86s. The army made the Mauser Kar98k it's standard weapon until the early 60s.

All this caused an immense row with the UK, but at the same time WW2 broke out. Portugal had no casus belli with Germany (not the same in WWI), was too weak to go into any war, besides there was this big lump of a problem across the frontier called Spain who was neutral too.

So we went into a not very strict neutrality with the UK. I could say we were more neutral towards the Axis than towards the Allies, but the old Alliance was taken seriously and we did all we could under the counter to help the UK, (especially so after winter 1942, go figure!). This was duly discussed and consensus was reached that the status quo was better than full fledged belligerence, as then the Allies would have to give a much larger propo to the economy of their frail candidate ally.

So by that time the UK (and later the US) were given right to establish air bases in the Azores, in the middle of the Atlantic, an excellent place to go hunting for subs and closing the Mid-Atlantic Gap, which saved innumerable lives. At the same time Portugal allowed itself to be bribed not to sell tungsten to the Germans and sell the entire crop to the Allies.

In exchange we got a large influx of arms, including the 3.7"AA guns my father served with and some 300 Spits and Hurricanes, but after the war made the huge mistake of refusing the Marshall Plan which was actually offered.

[Za Rodinu]

Originally Posted by smc

If they joined the Allies the Spanish may have decided to allow Germany to cross its territory or use bases to attack the Portuguese.

Who cared about the Germans, we were scared stiff of the Spaniards deciding to invade!!!

[Owen]

ZaRodinu, (I prefer your real name, Miguel)
Thank You for that. Glad you deserted the Russian Front to give me a breif history lesson.
If you ever feel like expanding on the 1914-18 War involvement I invite you to join another Forum I visit.http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/

Could you drop the Soviet name for a more Portugese one?
Maybe it'll be better to stay Neutral on this Forum.
As you seem to get the Anti-Soviet Americans on your back alot.
(well 1 anyway.)
Cheers.

[Owen]

Miguel. In your post on the WW2 relatives thread you mentioned this incident.

QUOTE"Actually Portugal benefitted by this stream when 2 squadrons of P-39s went astray, had to land and interned. That's how the PAF got itself strenghtened by 30 P-39s "

Were the pilots interned for the Duration or sent back home?

[Za Rodinu]

Za Rodinu is the name I go for in another forum, and it goes well with my persona. If some people seem to dislike it, bad luck for them, besides I have enough true-blue American historians and militarymen on my side, so why worry.

Oh and I have another much worse alias which I use on a wargames group so Za Rodinu (Long live the Motherland) is okay here (see pm!)

Anyway my main field of interest is the Great Patriotic War (East Front to you) so a Russian name will be much more adequate than a bland first name.

I'm not really much into WWI, and the portuguese participation was rather unfortunate, so I'm not very interested.

[Story]

From what Miguel posted on the other thread, about his father and the P-39s:

eside Russian and British use, the P-39 saw service in Portugal where examples that had been forced to land while on ferry flights were impressed and used as interceptors. The Portuguese eventually got their hands on 18 Airacobras, which they purchased from America after the end of the war. The American pilots that had been flying these aircraft were interned but usually managed to "escape" back to England or to North Africa via merchant ships. The Portuguese Arma da Aeronautica were more than pleased to have what they considered modern aircraft.
http://www.lumiverse.com/p/articles/...2/pg_20?pi=lum

Like I suggested in the other thread, the "mistake" might have been deliberate.
Check out this guy's quest -
http://www.armyairforces.com/forum/m_69448/tm.htm