Upon the start of World War II in 1939, the
Portuguese Government announced on 1 September
that the 600-year-old Anglo-Portuguese Alliance
remained intact, but that since the British
did not seek Portuguese assistance, Portugal
was free to remain neutral in the war and
would do so.
In an aide-mémoire of 5 September 1939, the
British Government confirmed the understanding.
As Hitler's occupation swept across Europe,
neutral Portugal became one of the Continent's
last escape routes.
Portugal managed to remain neutral throughout
the war despite extraordinary pressures from
both sides, notably over the strategically
located Azores islands and over the wolfram
(tungsten) trade.
== Portugal and the war in Europe ==
=== 
Overview ===
At the outbreak of World War II, Portugal
was ruled by António de Oliveira Salazar,
the man who in 1933 had founded the Estado
Novo ("New State"), the corporatist authoritarian
government that ruled Portugal until 1974.
Salazar's dislike of the Nazi regime in Germany
and its imperial ambitions was tempered only
by his view of the German Reich as a bastion
against the spread of communism.
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.
Salazar's policy of neutrality for Portugal
in World War II thus included a strategic
component.
The country still held overseas territories
that, because of their poor economic development,
could not adequately defend themselves from
military attack.
Upon the start of the war in 1939, the Portuguese
Government announced on 1 September, that
the 600-year-old Anglo-Portuguese Alliance
remained intact, but that since the British
did not seek Portuguese assistance, Portugal
was free to remain neutral in the war and
would do so.
In an aide-mémoire of 5 September 1939, the
British Government confirmed the understanding.On
15 May 1940, Salazar's important role in the
war was recognized by the British: Douglas
Veale, Registrar of the University of Oxford,
informed Salazar that the University's Hebdomadal
Council had "unanimously decided at its meeting
last Monday, to invite you [Salazar] to accept
the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Civil Law".
Salazar's decision to stick with the Anglo-Portuguese
Alliance allowed the Portuguese Island of
Madeira to come to the aid of the Allies and
in July 1940 around 2,500 evacuees from Gibraltar
were shipped to Madeira.
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".
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.
He found a country in chaos and poverty.
He has balanced the budget, built roads and
schools, torn down slums, cut the death rate
and enormously raised Portuguese self-esteem."In
September 1940, Winston Churchill wrote to
Salazar congratulating him on his ability
to keep Portugal out of the war, asserting
that "as so often before during the many centuries
of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance, British
and Portuguese interests are identical on
this vital question."
Despite Portuguese neutrality, in December
1941, Portuguese Timor was occupied by Australian
and Dutch forces, which were expecting a Japanese
invasion.
Salazar's reaction was violent.
He protested, saying that the Allies had violated
Portuguese sovereignty and jeopardized Portuguese
neutrality.
A strong Portuguese garrison force (about
800 men) was then sent from East Africa to
take over the defense of east Timor but did
not arrive on time; on 20 February 1942 the
Japanese began landing troops in Timor.
=== Azores ===
Portugal managed to remain neutral despite
extraordinary pressures from both sides.
Both the Allies and the Axis sought to control
the strategically located Azores islands during
World War II.
Dictator 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 side
with the Axis and invade Portugal due to the
strategic importance of the Canary Islands.
Both Great Britain and the United States devised
several plans to set up air bases in the Azores
regardless of Portugal's disapproval.
The plans were never put into operation.
In 1942 Lajes Field on the Azores was assigned
the name Air Base No. 4 and the Portuguese
government expanded the runway and sent troops
and equipment to Lajes, including Gloster
Gladiator fighters.
Military activity in the Azores grew as the
Gladiators' role progressed into flying cover
for Allied convoys, reconnaissance missions
and meteorological flights.
In August 1943, Portugal signed the Luso-British
agreement, which leased bases in the Azores
to the British.
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.
Churchill surprised members of parliament
(MPs) when he said he would use a 14th-century
treaty; many MPs had not known that Portugal
and England had the oldest operational alliance
in the world, the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty
of 1373.
Churchill ended his speech saying:
I take this opportunity of placing on record
the appreciation by His Majesty's Government,
which I have no doubt is shared by Parliament
and the British nation, of the attitude of
the Portuguese Government, whose loyalty to
their British Ally never wavered in the darkest
hours of the war.
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.
The agreement established guidelines and limitations
for the US to ferry and transport aircraft
to Europe via Lajes Field.
In return, the US agreed to assist the British
in improving and extending existing facilities
at Lajes.
Air Transport Command transport planes began
landing at Lajes Field immediately after the
agreement was signed.
In 1944, Portugal signed an agreement with
the United States allowing the use of military
facilities in the Azores.
American forces constructed a small and short-lived
air base on Santa Maria Island.
By the end of June 1944 more than 1,900 American
aircraft had passed through Lajes Air Base.
Using Lajes, the flying time relative to the
usual transatlantic route between Brazil and
West Africa was cut nearly in half from 70
to 40 hours.
Lajes also served as one of two main stopover
and refuelling bases for the first transatlantic
crossing of non-rigid airships (blimps) in
1944.
The US Navy sent six Goodyear-built K-ships
from Naval Air Station South Weymouth in Massachusetts
to their first stopover base at Naval Station
Argentia Newfoundland and then on to Lajes
Field in the Azores before flying to their
final destination at Port Lyautey, French
Morocco.
From their base with Fleet Air Wing 15 at
Port Lyautey, the blimps of USN Blimp Squadron
ZP-14 (Blimpron 14) conducted nighttime anti-submarine
warfare (ASW), surveillance of German U-boats
around the Straits of Gibraltar using magnetic
anomaly detection (MAD).
In 1945, two ZP-14 replacement blimps were
sent from Weeksville, North Carolina to the
Bermudas and Lajes Air Base before going on
to Port Lyautey.In 1945, a new air base was
constructed in the Azores on the island of
Terceira and is currently known as Lajes Field.
This base is in an area called Lajes, a broad,
flat sea terrace that had been a farm.
Lajes Field is a plateau rising out of the
sea on the northeast corner of the island.
This Air Force base is a joint American and
Portuguese venture.
Lajes Field continues to support United States
and Portuguese military operations.
During the Cold War, the United States Navy
P-3 Orion anti-submarine squadrons patrolled
the North Atlantic for Soviet submarines and
surface spy vessels.
=== Wolfram ===
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.
By 1945 the British owed Portugal over $322
million under this arrangement.Another delicate
issue was the wolfram (or tungsten) trade.
After the invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany
became dependent on Portugal and Spain for
its wolfram supplies.
Wolfram was of particular value in producing
war munitions.
To maintain its neutrality, Portugal set up
a strict export quota system in 1942.
This concept of neutrality through equal division
of products supplied to belligerents was different
from that of the Northern neutrals who worked
on the basis of "normal pre-war supplies".
But in January 1944, the Allies began to pressure
Salazar to embargo all wolfram sales to Germany.
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.
Salazar's fears were not groundless as, despite
Portuguese neutrality, the steamer Ganda was
torpedoed and sunk by the Germans in June
1941.
On 12 October 1941 the neutral ship Corte
Real was stopped for inspection by U-83 80
miles west of Lisbon.
The U-boat opened fire with the deck gun,
setting the ship on fire and finally sinking
her with two torpedoes.
On 14 Dec 1941 the unescorted and neutral
Cassequel was hit in the stern by one of two
torpedoes from U-boat-108 about 160 miles
southwest of Cape St. Vincent, Portugal, and
sank immediately.
The Serpa Pinto was also stopped and boarded
in 1944 (26 May) in the mid-Atlantic by the
German submarine U-541, but the ship was ultimately
allowed to proceed after the German naval
authorities declined to approve its sinking.
On 5 June 1944, 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.
=== Portugal's role in keeping Spain neutral
===
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.
Meetings between Franco and Salazar played
a fundamental role in this new political arrangement.
An additional protocol to the pact was signed
on 29 July 1940, after the fall of France.
The pact proved to be a decisive instrument
in keeping the Iberian Peninsula out of Hitler's
continental system.
In November 1943, Sir Ronald Campbell, the
British ambassador in Lisbon, wrote:strict
neutrality was the price the allies paid for
strategic benefits accruing from Portugal's
neutrality and that if her neutrality instead
of being strict had been more benevolent in
allies' favour Spain would inevitably have
thrown herself body and soul into the arms
of Germany.
If this had happened the peninsula would have
been occupied and then North Africa, with
the result that the whole course of the war
would have been altered to the advantage of
the Axis.The British diplomat Sir George Rendell
stated that the Portuguese Republican Government
of Bernardino Machado was "far more difficult
to deal with as an ally during the First War
than the infinitely better Government of Salazar
was as a neutral in the Second."
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.
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.Hayes
is very appreciative of Portugal's constant
endeavours to draw Spain with Portugal into
a genuinely neutral peninsular bloc, an immeasurable
contribution, at a time when the British and
the United States had much less influence,
toward counteracting the propaganda and pleas
of the Axis.
=== Haven for refugees ===
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).
"In 1940 Lisbon, happiness was staged so that
God could believe it still existed," wrote
the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
The Portuguese capital became a symbol of
hope for many refugees.
Even Ilsa and Rick, the star-crossed lovers
in the film Casablanca, sought a ticket to
that "great embarkation point".
Thousands flooded the city trying to obtain
the documents necessary to escape to the United
States or Palestine.
Not all found their way.
On 26 June 1940, four days after France's
capitulation to Germany, Salazar authorized
the main Office of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid
Society ( HIAS-HICEM) in Paris to be transferred
to Lisbon.
According to the Lisbon Jewish community,
Salazar held Moisés Bensabat Amzalak, the
leader of the Lisbon Jewish community, in
high esteem, allowing Amzalak to play an important
role in getting Salazar's permission for the
transfer.
In July 1940, the civilian population of Gibraltar
was evacuated due to imminent attacks expected
from Nazi Germany.
At that time, Portuguese Madeira agreed to
host about 2,500 Gibraltarian refugees, mostly
women and children, who arrived at Funchal
between 21 July and 13 August 1940 and who
remained there until the end of the war.
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.
The monument was a gift and a symbol of ever-lasting
appreciation from the people of Gibraltar
to the people of Madeira.The Portuguese consul
general in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes,
helped an undetermined number of refugees,
and his actions were not unique by any means.
Issuing visas in contravention of instructions
was widespread at Portuguese consulates all
over Europe, although some cases were directly
supported by Salazar.
The Portuguese Ambassador in Budapest, Carlos
Sampaio Garrido, helped an estimated 1,000
Hungarian Jews in 1944.
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.
On 28 April 1944, the Hungarian Gestapo raided
the ambassador's home and arrested his guests.
The ambassador, who physically resisted the
police, was also arrested, but managed to
have his guests released on the grounds of
extraterritoriality of diplomatic legations.
In 2010, Garrido was recognised as Righteous
Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
Other Portuguese who deserve credit for saving
Jews during the war include Professor Francisco
Paula Leite Pinto and Moisés Bensabat Amzalak.
A devoted Jew and a supporter of Salazar,
Amzalak headed the Lisbon Jewish community
for 52 years, from 1926 until 1978.
Historian Carlton Hayes, American Ambassador
in Spain during the war, writes of a "prodigious
number of refugees", who began pouring into
Spain in November and December 1942.
Most were Frenchmen, half starved, without
money or clothes, and Hayes writes of the
decisive intervention of the Ambassador Pedro
Teotónio Pereira in favour of 16,000 refugees
of French military refugees who were trying
in 1943 to get from Spain to North Africa
in order there to join the Allied forces.
In that group were also included Polish, Dutch
and Belgians, most of whom were soldiers or
would-be soldiers.
According to Hayes the Poles in particular
were destined to perform brilliant feats in
the later Italian campaign.
=== Portuguese volunteers fighting the Soviet
Union on the Axis side ===
After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in
Operation Barbarossa, recruits from France,
Spain, Belgium (including Walloons), the territory
of occupied Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the
Balkans signed on.
The foreigners who served in the Waffen-SS
numbered "some 500,000", including those who
were pressured into or conscripted.
An estimated number of 159 Portuguese volunteers
fought for the Axis in the World War II, mainly
in the Spanish Blue Division.
They were mostly veteran volunteers of the
Spanish civil war, the so-called Viriatos
and were essentially adventurous mercenaries
or Portuguese fascist nationalists fighting
the communist and Bolshevik threat.
== Portugal and the Pacific War ==
=== 
Macau ===
Portugal was also neutral during the Pacific
War.
Its colony of Macau was isolated following
the Japanese conquest of nearby areas of China
and the fall of Hong Kong in December 1941.
This led to food shortages for the remainder
of the war which contributed to high rates
of death from disease.While Japan did not
invade Macau, its forces attacked a British
merchant ship anchored off the colony in August
1943 and killed 20 members of its crew.
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.
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.On 16 January 1945 US
Navy aircraft attacked Macau as part of the
South China Sea raid.
The main targets were the aviation fuel stores,
which the Allies had learned were to be sold,
and a radio station in or near the fort of
Dona Maria II.
In addition, urban areas and the colony's
harbour were damaged.
American aircraft also accidentally attacked
Macau on 25 February and 11 June 1945.
Following the war the US Government paid compensation
for the damage to Macau's harbour.
=== East Timor ===
On 17 December 1941, following the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor, Dutch and Australian
troops disembarked at East Timor in disrespect
of Portuguese sovereignty.
Salazar denounced the allied operation as
an invasion of a neutral territory.
On 20 February 1942, alleging self-defence,
Japan invaded the island of Timor.
=== Goa ===
From December 1942, German merchant ships
which had sought refuge in the territory of
Goa in Portuguese India in 1939 began providing
regular intelligence on Allied shipping via
radio to German U-boats of the Monsun Gruppe
operating in the Indian Ocean.
Once the British discovered this, the Special
Operations Executive launched Operation Creek,
using a group of part-time soldiers called
the Calcutta Light Horse to infiltrate the
harbor and sink the German ship Ehrenfels
with limpet mines, ending the transmissions.
Due to the violation of Portuguese neutrality,
the operation was kept secret until 1978.
== Military operations that threatened Portuguese
neutrality ==
=== 
By the Axis ===
==== 
Operation Felix ====
The Germans had planned an attack on Gibraltar,
codenamed Operation Felix, which was never
initiated.
It included the potential invasion of Portugal
if the British gained a foothold and considered
the occupation of Madeira and of the Azores.
==== Führer Directive No. 18 ====
On 12 November 1940 Hitler issued Führer
Directive No. 18, which outlined the plan
to invade Portugal if British forces were
to gain a footing there.
"I also request that the problem of occupying
Madeira and the Azores should be considered,
together with the advantages and disadvantages
which this would entail for our sea and air
warfare.
The results of these investigations are to
be submitted to me as soon as possible," Hitler
added.
==== Operation Isabella ====
In June 1941, Operation Isabella was a Nazi
German plan to be put into effect after the
collapse of the Soviet Union to secure bases
in Spain and Portugal for the continuation
of the strangulation of Great Britain.
This concept was laid out by Hitler, but was
never executed.
=== By the Allies ===
==== 
Operation Alacrity ====
Operation Alacrity was the codename for a
proposed Allied seizure of the Azores during
World War II.
The islands were of enormous strategic value
with regard to the defeat of the German U-boats.
Portugal was too weak to defend the Azores,
its large colonial empire, or its homeland,
and tried to stay neutral in the war.
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.
Great Britain and the United States devised
plans to set up air bases regardless of Portugal's
disapproval.
The plans were never put into operation.
Instead in 1943 Britain requested, and Portugal
agreed, to allow Britain to set up bases there.
Operation Alacrity was preceded by War Plan
Gray.
==== War Plan Gray ====
War Plan Gray was a plan for the United States
to invade the Azores Islands in 1940–41.
Gray is one of the many color-coded war plans
created in the early 20th century.
On 22 May 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
directed the U.S. Army and Navy to draft an
official plan to occupy the Portuguese Azores.
Approved by the Joint Board on 29 May, War
Plan Gray called for a landing force of 28,000
troops, one half Marine and one half Army.
== Espionage ==
Several American reports called Lisbon "The
Capital of Espionage".
However, the PIDE (Portuguese secret police)
always maintained a neutral stance towards
foreign espionage activity, as long as there
was no intervention in Portuguese internal
policies.
Writers such as Ian Fleming (the creator of
James Bond) were based there, while other
prominent people such as the Duke of Windsor
and the Spanish royal family were exiled in
Estoril.
German spies attempted to buy information
on trans-Atlantic shipping to help their submarines
fight the Battle of the Atlantic.
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.
Conversely, William Colepaugh, an American
traitor, was recruited as an agent by the
Germans while his ship was in port in Lisbon
– he was subsequently landed by U-boat U-1230
in Maine before being captured.
In 1941 John Beevor, the head of Special Operations
Executive (SOE) in Lisbon, established an
underground network with the aim of carrying
out sabotage tasks in the event of a German
invasion of Portugal.
The targets for immediate destruction were
oil refineries, railroads, bridges and industrial
and mining facilities.
The Portuguese police discovered that Beevor's
network included several "anti-Salazar" Portuguese
members, which irked the Portuguese authorities.
Salazar suspected that British flirtation
with his opponents could be hiding an attempt
to install in Lisbon a "democratic" alternative
to his regime, one willing to bring the country
under British patronage.
Salazar informed the British Ambassador that
he wanted heads to roll and ended up requesting
Beevor's withdrawal.
Despite the incident Capt. Agostinho Lourenço,
the founder and first head of Portugal's security
and immigration police, earned a reputation
with British observers, recorded in a confidential
print generated at the British Embassy, which
suggested a "pro-British" bias on his part.
Lourenço always kept a good relationship
with the MI6 which allowed him later in 1956
to become the head of international police
organization, Interpol.
In June 1943, a commercial airliner carrying
the actor Leslie Howard was shot down over
the Bay of Biscay by the Luftwaffe after taking
off from Lisbon.
== Aftermath ==
Salazar stood doggedly by his "juridical neutrality"
to the end of the War.
On the death of Hitler, he followed the protocol
and ordered flags to be flown at half mast.
Salazar also allowed German Ambassador Hoyningen-Huene
to settle permanently in the Lisbon area,
where he lived out part of his retirement.
Portugal continued to welcome refugees after
the war.
Umberto II, King of Italy lived for 37 years
in exile, in Cascais.
The Count and Countess of Barcelona, the heir-apparent
to the defunct Spanish throne D. Juan de Bourbon
and his wife D. Maria de las Mercedes, were
exiled in Estoril, Cascais on 2 of February
1946.
Later, in April, they were joined by their
children Pilar, Juan Carlos (the future King
Juan Carlos of Spain), Margarita and Alfonso.
Calouste Gulbenkian, the Armenian oil magnate
known as "Mr. Five Percent", also chose Portugal
as a place to settle.
In an operation organised by Caritas Portugal
from 1947 to 1952, 5,500 Austrian children,
most of them orphans, were transported by
train from Vienna to Lisbon and then placed
in the foster care of Portuguese families.Portugal
survived the horrors of war not only physically
intact but significantly wealthier.
To commemorate the fact that it was spared
the destruction of the war, in 1959 the Cristo
Rei monument was built in Almada, overlooking
Lisbon.
Despite the authoritarian character of the
regime Portugal did not experience the same
levels of international isolation as Spain
did following World War II.
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.
Furthermore, also unlike Spain, it was one
of the 12 founding members of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949, a reflection
of Portugal's role as an ally against communism
during the Cold War in spite of its status
as the only non-democratic founder.
== See also ==
Foreign relations of Portugal
Anglo-Portuguese Alliance
Neutral powers during World War II
