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Subject: [AZORES-L] Azores in WWII
Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 01:26:13 EDT

I found this on the Library of Congress webpage:

"In the years before World War II, Salazar cultivated good relations with all
major powers except the former Soviet Union. Intent on preserving Portuguese
neutrality, he had entered into a nonintervention convention with the
European powers during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39); however, Soviet
activity in Spain and the leftward course of the Spanish Republic persuaded
him to support Francisco Franco's nationalists, with whom more than 20,000
Portuguese volunteers served. The war in Spain also prompted Salazar to
mobilize a political militia, the Portuguese Legion, as a counterweight to
the army. Although he admired Benito Mussolini for his equitable settlement
of Italy's church-state conflict, Salazar found the "pagan" elements in
German nazism repugnant. He opposed appeasement, protested the German
invasion of Poland in 1939, and would appear to have been among the first,
with Winston Churchill, to express confidence in ultimate Allied victory as
early as 1940. Portugal remained neutral during World War II, but the
Anglo-Portuguese alliance was kept intact, Britain pledging to protect
Portuguese neutrality. The United States and Britain were granted bases in
the Azores after 1943, and Portuguese colonial products--copper and
chromium--were funneled into Allied war production. Macau and Timor were
occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1945."

OK, so Portugal was neutral in WWII (I remember Switzerland was). So the
photos I am looking at are not WWII but maybe the Spanish Civil War???

Cheri

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