What was happening in Portugal during WWII?

by PianoMaestro
vonadler

Plenty, actually. Salazar, who maintained a semi-fascist "new state" authoritarian dictatorship sent "volunteers" to aid the nationalist side in the Spanish Civil War - sources I have read range the number of "volunteers" from 200 to 20 000, of which most are said to have served in the Spanish Foreign Legion (which, despite the name, consisted mostly of Spaniards).

Portugal (and Spain) were one of the few sources of tungsten for Germany during the war. Tungsten is a very hard metal and was sued for all kind of metal industry - machining tools neded tungsten tips to be effective. Tungsten is also very heavy and thus ideal for armour penetrating ammunition.

Throughout the war, Germany was hampered by a deficit of tungsten. Thus they tried to buy every gram they could get from Portugal. On the other side the British (and later Americans) pumped in money to buy the same thing, not because they needed it, they had their own sources, but to deny it to the Germans. It was a good time to be a tungsten mine owner in Portugal, as prices kept going up.

Both sides tried to put diplomatic pressure on the Portugese government in order to have them make laws limiting the amount of export to the other side. This resulted in a complicated set of laws, where a country that owned a mine could increase the amout that was exported to it, further requiring more money to purchase mines and stocks in mining companies.

A small note here - the Germans had to do all their purchasing with gold, weapons or industrial products as they lacked hard currency and no-one accepted the reichsmark outside of Germany and German-occupied territory. The Germans thus needed all gold they could get, but still used gold to purchase granite blocks from Sweden for monuments during the war. The Germans dutifully paid their bills, but after 1943 they opted to notpick up the stone (5 000 cubic meters had been delivered and picked up), awaiting better fortunes in the war, and 1945, when the last bill was paid, there were 20 000 cubic meters of Swedish granite blocks in Sweden, ready and paid for in gold, waiting to be picked up by the nazis.

In December 1941, the Dutch and Australian forces in the Dutch East Indees occupied the Portugese colony of East Timor and were defeated by the Japanese who then occupied the Portugese part of Timor without a declaration of war. A Portugese convoy from Angloa with artillery, two battalions of colonial infantry and other arms to make sure they could enforce their neutrality had to turn around.

1943, the Portugese saw where the tides were going, and a deal was struck with the Allies, offering them bases (for anti-submarine air and naval forces) on the Azores and in the Portugese colonies. IN return, the western allies delivered modern arms to Portugal.

Portugal got 2pdr AT guns, Universal Carriers tracked APCs, Valentine Mk IV tanks, 25pdr howitzers, 3,7 inch AA guns, Spitfire V, P-26, P-38 and P-39 fighters and Blenheim bombers.

dezassete

Portugal during the war was also a "nest" of spies from all over the world and warring states who'd meet at a stable nation to exchange information. Besides to this, a good part of european royalty stayed here, despite the fact that Portugal at the time had very few luxury hotels fit for kings and queens. Most would be at Estoril, a popular beach destination (that had, like I said, one high level hotel, were you'd find a surrealist situation of all the royalty of europe crowding a single dining room ). The Estoril Casino actually set the inspiration for 007. The Hotel Avenida Palace in central Lisbon was one of the most luxurious hotels in Portugal and became famous for it's spy stories and secret passageways and stuff.

In another angle, Lisbon was the last stop for war refugees of all of europe awaiting passage in a plane or ship bound to America. Refugees who'd leave everything behind to get a ticket on a ship or plane, afterall, Portugal was still rumored to be in Germany's bombers' sight. Still, Lisbon was at the time, a relatively small capital city compared to those in Europe. Foreigners and refugees off all kind suddenly crowded the city's downtown streets and cafés, though seemingly to the relative indifference of the populace.

One thing that impressed the european refugees staying in Lisbon were the Christmas nightime lighting, something they clearly were not used to see, coming from a bomber menaced, blackouted europe.

One curious story is that of one Italian, Luca Giovanni, who had planned to embark to America, but he noticed Lisbon had no Ice Cream shops! He was apparently delighted enough at the place to settle and and open the first Ice-cream shop in Lisbon (Right in the corner of the Hotel Avenida Palace). So I have to thank this man for bringing ice-cream over. xD

One last thing, during WW2 that Portugal celebrated 800 years of existence, and so Salazar decided to organize a huge exposition in honor of all portuguese accomplishments, from it's founding to the Descoveries and Colonialism, in a clear nationalistic expression, meant to impress. Despite it's grandiose, "The world had it's eyes set on the happenings over Britain and the Eastern Front". Antoine de Saint-Éxuperie, the famous french aviator and author of the "Little Prince" described Lisbon as a "Surrealist, sad paradise", I think it was.

Anyways, sorry if I went on and on here, surely these are more like "stories" of a rather obscure angle of WW2. Definitely nothing like the Battle of Britain or Kursk, you'd see.