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Sanctuary Lost: The Air for ―Portuguese‖ , 1963-1974

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State

By

Matthew Martin Hurley, MA

Graduate Program in History

The Ohio State University

2009

Dissertation Committee:

Professor John F. Guilmartin, Jr., Advisor

Professor Alan Beyerchen

Professor Ousman Kobo

Copyright by

Matthew Martin Hurley

2009

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Abstract

From 1963 to 1974, and the African Party for the of

Guinea and (Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, or

PAIGC) waged an increasingly intense war for the independence of ―Portuguese‖

Guinea, then a but today the of Guinea-. For most of this conflict

Portugal enjoyed virtually unchallenged and increasingly based its strategy on this advantage. The Portuguese (Força Aérea Portuguesa, abbreviated

FAP) consequently played a central role in the war for Guinea, at times threatening the

PAIGC with defeat. Portugal‘s reliance on air power compelled the insurgents to search for an effective counter-measure, and by 1973 they succeeded with their acquisition and employment of the Strela-2 shoulder-fired surface-to-air , altering the course of the war and the future of Portugal itself in the process. To date, however, no detailed study of this seminal episode in air power history has been conducted. In an international climate plagued by , , and the proliferation of sophisticated , the hard lessons learned by Portugal offer enduring insight to historians and current air power practitioners alike. This study consequently aims to correct that shortfall in the existing literature.

Much of the information in this document has been derived from the reflections and first-hand recollections of combatants on both sides of the conflict. Additional data

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has been drawn from the archival record, particularly the Archivo Histórico da Força

Aérea outside and collections of PAIGC documentation in the United

States. The collected evidence is presented as a narrative detailing the context and course of the conflict itself, the struggle for air mastery, and the aftermath. Additional contextual information is presented in separate chapters to frame the central narrative regarding the air and air defense war for Guinea.

The evidence demonstrates that the FAP—despite the many challenges it faced— was indeed effective against its insurgent adversaries in Guinea, so much so that those insurgents devoted considerable military effort and diplomatic capital to the problem of air defense. Their subsequent use of the Strela-2 missile, a ideally suited to guerrilla needs, downed five Portuguese within a two-week period in the Spring of 1973. Those losses initiated a cascade of effects that impacted, in turn, the FAP‘s ability to prosecute the air war, the Portuguese ‘s ability to maintain its military position on the ground, and Portuguese forces‘ willingness to continue the three colonial then raging in and as well as Guinea. Ultimately, this cascade of effects contributed to—and in some respects precipitated—the 25 April 1974 coup that overthrew the authoritarian regime in Lisbon and led to the independence of Portugal‘s

African . The air war for Guinea thus represents a near-textbook case of war‘s inherent complexity (given the disproportionality between and result), as well as the value—and the vulnerabilities—of air power in a counter-insurgency context.

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Dedication

Dedicated to the memory of the 505 Portuguese airmen who gave their lives for their

in Angola, Guinea, and Mozambique from 1961 to 1974. Ex Mero Motu.

Also dedicated to Third Class Christopher Sullivan, First Jim Poppo,

and Keith Sands—fallen airmen of a different .

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Acknowledgements

No work of this scale springs from the efforts of a single being; rather, the author‘s output inevitably reflects the influence and assistance of too many others to count, let alone to acknowledge in a paltry few pages. The following, however, warrant special consideration and gratitude for the incomparable assistance they have rendered me as I trooped this particular trail.

First, I extend my heartfelt appreciation to Professor John F. Guilmartin, my mentor during these past few years and, particularly, during the production of this document. I understand it is considered somewhat rare for an academic advisor and a graduate student to work together so easily, to share so many common interests, and to contribute to each others‘ continued learning. I would not have had any idea, given my relationship with ―Dr. G.‖ He has provided invaluable guidance and feedback throughout many graduate seminars and review sessions, at the cost of untold hours of his time, which is always in demand by others. Additionally, it has been a privilege to work so closely with a living American hero.

Similar thanks must be extended to Professor Alan Beyerchen, who is not only a true ―intellectual heavyweight‖ but an exceptionally congenial human being. His insight and scholarly depth have given me, in turn, befuddlement, headaches, and finally some insight of my own that never would have come to light but for his patient efforts. His

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multi-disciplinary approach to history has proven especially valuable to me in this enterprise, particularly in relation to my dawning understanding of non-linearity and complexity in military operations. I arrived here as a one-dimensional ―A to B‖ thinker of the linear school, regrettably like so many of my compatriots in uniform; thanks to

Professor Beyerchen, I plan to torment planners and the over with reminders that this type of thinking all too often finds us, confounded and paralyzed, at

―Q‖ or beyond.

Thanks also should go to Professor Ousman Kobo, the third member of my dissertation committee and my African history graduate advisor. I came to The Ohio

State University with some real-world appreciation of recent African events, given my and previous duties as an instructor at Air Command and College.

Professor Kobo, however, opened my eyes to the nuances—and the regrettable but inevitable gaps—inherent within African history, and the importance of both respecting the field‘s specificity while recognizing its limits. As such, he has taught me to better value what evidence is available, and to strive to fill the gaps through a lifetime‘s worth of further research.

The faculty and staff of the Air Command and at Maxwell Air Force

Base, Alabama, also deserve kudos, particularly Dr. Charles Costanzo. Without his mentorship and support I would never have been given the opportunity to attempt this program. I further extend my gratitude to him for providing me the necessary advice to successfully complete it. I very much look forward to working with him and the rest of the ACSC team in the future; they have consistently provided convincing proof that pure

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patriotism and profundity of thought are not mutually exclusive, whatever some of our collective critics say.

Dealing with primary sources in a variety of foreign languages can always pose a challenge, particularly when the acquisition of those sources involves overseas travel. As such, several personnel, active and retired, deserve laudatory mention. I extend my thanks to Ismael Gomes Alves, Director of the Arquivo

Histórico da Força Aérea in Alfragide, Portugal. His assistance proved critical in finding the resources I needed to build a coherent picture of Portuguese air operations in Guinea, and he extended me every courtesy in copying documents, declassifying them if necessary, and preparing them for use. I am told that the degree of cooperation Colonel

Alves exhibited is rare for an archivist, but again, from his example alone I would have had no idea that archival research could pose any sort of challenge or frustration.

Colonel Miguel Pessoa, a retired Portuguese , also provided me with considerable assistance, most significantly in telling me his own story. Colonel Pessoa represents a living ―pivot‖ of the air war in Guinea, having been the first Portuguese pilot shot down by an air defense missile there. He has been extremely open and forthcoming with details of the incident, in matters of translation, and in my efforts to seek out other veterans of the war in Guinea for additional details or clarifications. To him and his wife

Giselda, I owe a heartfelt ―obrigado.‖

Dr. Luís Graça has also been exceptionally helpful in this last regard. An army veteran of the war in Guinea, Dr. Graça currently runs a website by and for Portuguese personnel who served in that conflict. Not only did Dr. Graça translate and post my

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prospectus for comment by other veterans, he also relayed my request for photographs which could be used in the finished work. While the images are extremely useful, the veterans‘ perspectives he acquired for me have proven priceless. I am indeed fortunate to have had his cooperation, as well as the insight of those veterans who took the time to provide their comments.

I am also indebted to Alberto Cruz, another former Portuguese Air Force pilot who served in Guinea. In addition to more perspectives and opinions regarding the war there, Major Cruz provided critical new information, that has never before been published, regarding the loss of his aircraft over that . Those are the sorts of ―nuggets‖ that make the sometimes tedious task of research a joy, and his willingness to freely share his recollections is much appreciated. Together, Miguel

Pessoa, Luis Graça and Alberto Cruz have shown themselves to be the utmost paragons of duty, dedication, and helpfulness; I am privileged that we paths.

I must also extend my thanks to José Augústo da Luz Matos, a Portuguese municipal councilman, astronomer, and published enthusiast. As my first

Portuguese ―contact‖ José reviewed my previous works regarding the African wars and provided invaluable comments. Additionally, he has given me important translation assistance and continues to send me documents he thinks would be useful to my research.

His dogged determination to uncover the truth about air power‘s role in the African wars has put my own sense of dedication to shame; whenever I think I‘ve come up with the most interesting or enlightening bit of information ever, he trumps me—but he does so to

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our mutual benefit. Our association has made this work far more than it would have been otherwise, and I am indeed in his debt.

Closer to home, Dr. John P. Cann, a scholar-in-residence at the University of

Virginia and the author of two books on Portugal‘s African wars (with a third in the works), deserves recognition as well. His forthcoming book covers some of the same ground as this dissertation, and he has been very helpful in recommending sources, providing comments, and warning me away from sources of dubious accuracy and credibility. Our collaboration to date has been brief, but I dearly hope to continue it well into the future.

Finally, though perhaps foremost, I extend my gratitude, my appreciation, my admiration, and my to my wife Faith Anne. Not only has she been a real trooper as a new military spouse, she‘s also been my teacher, my sounding board, my editor, and my most valued colleague. More than anyone else, she has had to deal with my

―dissertation mode‖ through countless hours stretching across seemingly interminable months, but she has borne that burden with patience, grace, and understanding. Her turn is next, and I only hope I have it within me to be as helpful and tolerant to her as she has been to me. I am proud and privileged to share rings and a life with her.

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Vita

June 1986…...... West Springfield High School, Springfield,

1990………………... B.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado (Distinguished Graduate; Air Force Historical Foundation Award; Class of 1990 Outstanding Cadet in Humanities; Class of 1990 Outstanding Cadet in International Affairs; Franklin C. Wolfe Fellowship)

1991…….………….. M.A. History, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

1992………………... Intelligence Training School, Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas (Honor Graduate and Distinguished Graduate)

1992-1993………….. Assistant Chief of Intelligence, 436th , Dover Air Force Base, Delaware (Air Force Commendation Medal; Air Force Achievement Medal; Southwest Service Medal; Kuwait Liberation Medal)

1993-1994………….. Assistant Chief of Intelligence and Executive Officer, 604th Air Support Operations Center , Camp Red Cloud, Republic of (Air Force Commendation Medal; Korea Defense Service Medal)

1994-1997………….. Staff Intelligence Officer, , Aviano , (Air Force Meritorious Service Medal; Armed Forces Service Medal; Organization [NATO] Medal)

1997-2000………….. Chief of Combat Intelligence, NATO Tactical Leadership Programme, Florennes Air Base, (Defense Meritorious Service Medal)

2000-2003………….. Operations Officer, 11th Operations , and Wing Intelligence Officer, , , of Columbia (Air Force Meritorious Service Medal; Global War on Terrorism Service Medal)

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2003-2004………….. Chief, North Korean Analysis Branch, U.S. Forces Korea Intelligence Directorate, Yongsan, Republic of Korea (Defense Meritorious Service Medal)

2005………….…….. MMOAS, Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama (Distinguished Graduate)

2005-2006………….. Course Instructor and Advisor, Department of International Security and Military Studies, Air Command and Staff College (Air Force Commendation Medal)

Publications

Hurley, Cadet First Class Matthew M., U.S. Air Force. ―The Bekaa Valley Air , June 1982: Lessons Mislearned?" Journal 3, no. 4 (Winter 1989), 60-70.

Hurley, First Lieutenant Matthew M., U.S. Air Force. ―Saddam Hussein and Iraqi Air Power: Just Having an Air Force Isn‘t Enough.‖ Airpower Journal 6, no. 4 (Winter 1992), 4-16.

Fields of Study

Major Field………….History

MA Fields………….. History Military Operational Art and Science

BS Fields……………Area Studies History

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Dedication ...... iv

Acknowledgements ...... v

Vita ...... x

List of Figures ...... xiv

Notes on Terminology ...... xvi

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms...... xxiv

List of Principle Weapons Systems ...... xxvii

Introduction – ―Surprise!‖...... 1

Chapter 1 – Contexts of Conflict ...... 9

Chapter 2 – The War for ―Portuguese‖ Guinea: A Strategic Overview ...... 53

Chapter 3 – Air Power as a Counter-Insurgency Tool ...... 89

Chapter 4 – The Portuguese Air Force Prepares for War ...... 113

Chapter 5 – The Air War for Guinea ...... 143

Chapter 6 – Guerrilla Air Defense: Its Origins, Raison d‘être, and Development ...... 171

Chapter 7 – Guarding Guinea‘s Skies ...... 202

Chapter 8 – The Unholy GRAIL ...... 225

Chapter 9 – Ripples to Riptide ...... 241

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Conclusions – African Butterflies, Iberian Hurricanes ...... 265

Appendix A – Literature Review ...... 287

Appendix B – Afterward ...... 313

Bibliography ...... 317

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List of Figures

Figure 1.1. Map of modern-day Guinea-Bissau ...... 10

Figure 1.2. ―Portugal Is Not a Small Country‖ ...... 27

Figure 1.3. Monument to the Discoveries, Belem, Portugal ...... 33

Figure 2.1. Map of Guinea showing initial PAIGC operations...... 60

Figure 2.2. Map of Guinea showing besieged Portuguese garrisons ...... 74

Figure 3.1. U.S. leaflet dropped to Viet Cong forces ...... 99

Figure 4.1. Major FAP airfields in Guinea ...... 116

Figure 4.2. Macro-level organization of the FAP and ZACVG ...... 117

Figure 4.3. Organization of BA12 and its operational elements ...... 118

Figure 4.4. North American F-86F ―Sabre‖ ...... 120

Figure 4.5. North American T-6 ―Texan‖ ...... 123

Figure 4.6. Dornier Do-27 ...... 124

Figure 4.7. Fiat G.91 ...... 126

Figure 4.8. Aérospatiale ―Alouette III‖ in Guinea ...... 127

Figure 4.9. The ―helicanhão‖ ...... 128

Figure 4.10. Douglas C-47 ―Dakota‖/―Skytrain‖ ...... 129

Figure 4.11. Douglas C-54 ―Skymaster‖ ...... 130

Figure 4.12. Nord 2501 ―Noratlas‖ ...... 131

Figure 4.13. Lockheed P2V-5 ―Neptune‖ ...... 132

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Figure 4.14. Portuguese Air Force inventory in Guinea ...... 133

Figure 4.15. Portuguese Air Force inventory in Guinea ...... 134

Figure 4.16. FAP aircraft operability rates in Guinea ...... 140

Figure 5.1. "The of the Cross of Christ" ...... 144

Figure 5.2. FAP counter-insurgency functions ...... 149

Figure 6.1. A 1963 Viet Cong stamp commemorating the destruction of a U.S. Army helicopter during the battle of Ap Bac ...... 179

Figure 6.2. The FIM-43 "Redeye" shoulder-fired missile ...... 183

Figure 6.3. The Strela-2M shoulder-fired missile ...... 186

Figure 6.4. ―Both of them! Both Fell!‖ , 17 September 1991 ...... 201

Figure 7.1. DShK 1938 12.7 mm Anti-Aircraft Machinegun ...... 209

Figure 7.2. ZPU-1 14.5 mm Anti-Aircraft Machinegun ...... 209

Figure 7.3. MiG-17 fighter in Vietnamese markings ...... 218

Figure 8.1. The rescue of Lt. Miguel Pessoa ...... 235

Figure 8.2. Lt. Pessoa‘s return to BA12 – Bissalanca ...... 235

Figure 8.3. Lt. Col. Brito‘s name on the memorial wall, Monumento ãos Combatentes do Ultramar, Belem, Portugal ...... 236

Figure 8.4. Confirmed Strela-2 launches in Guinea ...... 238

Figure 10.1. The ―spiral of effects‖ ...... 266

Figure 10.2. Simplified feedback loop in Guinea ...... 270

Figure B.1. Monumento ãos Combatentes do Ultramar, Belem, Portugal ...... 316

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Notes on Terminology

Any historical work is also a work of translation, for terms taken from historical documentation may have acquired new meanings, or lost old ones, over time. Similarly, new descriptors are continually being devised to illustrate enduring concepts, and equal care must be exercised when discussing the past through the use of newer labels or metaphors. It is therefore incumbent upon the historian to clarify the meaning of any potentially contentious terms and descriptors, both as intended by chroniclers in the past and as understood by observers in the present. This problem is particularly acute when discussing warfare and its context, given diverse and ever-changing views regarding the purpose and utility of force, evolving theories of tactics and leadership, and often radical new directions in . With these issues in mind, and with full understanding of the limitations contained in the next few pages, the author proposes the following clarifications, which he intends to apply throughout the remainder of this work.

Categories of Conflict

For the purposes of this paper, the following definitions from Joint Publication 1-

02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (12 April 2001, as amended through 17 2009) will apply throughout:

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 ― – Military and paramilitary operations conducted in enemy-

held or hostile territory by irregular, predominantly indigenous forces.‖i

 ―Insurgency – An organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted

government through the use of subversion and armed conflict.‖ii

―,‖ meanwhile, is defined as ―Those military, paramilitary,

political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to

defeat insurgency.‖iii

 ― – A violent struggle among state and non-state actors for

legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s).‖iv

 ― – A broad spectrum of military and paramilitary

operations, normally of long duration, predominantly conducted through, with, or

by indigenous or surrogate forces who are organized, trained, equipped,

supported, and directed in varying degrees by an external source. It includes, but

is not limited to, guerrilla warfare, subversion, sabotage, intelligence activities,

and unconventional assisted recovery.‖v

These definitions, accepted throughout the U.S. Defense community by virtue of their incorporation into joint doctrine, provide a useful baseline for clarifying terminology

i Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (12 April 2001, as amended through 17 March 2009), 235. ii Joint Publication 1-02, 268. iii Joint Publication 1-02, 130. iv Joint Publication 1-02, 282. v Joint Publication 1-02, 574.

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regarding forms and modes of warfare that do not fall within commonly-held U.S. military conceptions of ―conventional‖ war. Their utility is enhanced when one considers how, depending on the nature of a specific conflict, armed actions might fit into several of the above categories; for example, a ―guerrilla‖ fighter might employ ―terrorism‖ to advance an ―insurgent‖ cause. Fortunately, the case study under review in this work involves a genuine insurgency operating primarily in a guerrilla context, so the terms

―insurgent‖ and ―guerrilla‖ can accurately be used more or less interchangeably.

Interestingly, current Department of Defense doctrine contains no common definition of ―war‖ or ―warfare,‖ although the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations document defines war as ―organized, reciprocal violence for political purposes.‖vi

Additionally, doctrine does not define ―regular‖ or ―conventional‖ warfare, and even the

Capstone Concept mentioned above only defines these concepts in self-referential terms.vii

Geo-Political Terminology

The precise geopolitical status of Portugal‘s overseas territories remained a matter of considerable legal and diplomatic grappling from the time of Portugal‘s admission to the in 1955 until the overthrow of the authoritarian (or ―new vi Capstone Concept for Joint Operations, Version 3.0 (15 2009), 8. vii Specifically, that ―Warfare against the regular forces of a using orthodox means and methods can be called conventional or regular warfare.‖ Accounting for synonyms or their practical equivalents, this statement merely says that ―Regular warfare is war conducted by regular forces, using regular means, against regular adversaries.‖ Capstone Concept for Joint Operations, 8.

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state‖) regime in 1974. Portuguese statesmen preferred the term ―overseas ,‖ as

Portugal‘s revised constitution had christened its holdings around the world. The

Portuguese armed forces tended to refer to them as ―territories‖ or ―theaters,‖ preferring the latter if active fighting occurred. Portugal‘s critics, on the other hand, overwhelmingly and consistently used the term ―,‖ usually with a pejorative modifier such as ―oppressed‖ or ―exploited.‖ Since this work will focus only one such entity, and since the thesis and evidence do not concern the juridical implications of nomenclature, any or all of these terms may be used to refer to that territory depending on the context and the source of the evidence presented. Whenever possible, the author will simply employ the word ―territory.‖

Likewise, weightier minds than the author‘s have long labored to delineate the precise boundaries between ―‖ and ―.‖ Dichotomies such as practice vs. motivation, economic exploitation vs. cultural assimilation, and control vs. settlement have in part framed this debate, which continues today.viii This work is not intended to settle the debate. Rather, the author considers Portuguese ―colonialism‖ and

―imperialism‖ to be intimately related in both intent and impact: namely, that the

Portuguese ―empire‖ consisted of the Iberian metropole and its overseas ―colonies,‖ however Lisbon chose to refer to them. Consequently, this work will refer to

―imperialism‖ when referring to the expansionist and exploitative impulses of Portugal

viii See, for example, Frederick Cooper‘s introduction in Frederick Cooper, ed., Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley, CA: University of Press, 2005). Another useful discussion attempting to beat the intellectual bounds can be found in Neil Larson‘s essay ―Imperialism, Colonialism, ,‖ in Henry Schwarz and Sangeeta Ray, eds., A Companion to Postcolonial Studies (Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishers, 2000).

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between the mid-15th century and 1974; the term ―colonialism,‖ on the other hand, denotes the drive to incorporate those territories into a whole through the various mechanisms of metropolitan control.

The precise name of the subject entity must also be addressed. During the period under study it was variously referred to as ―,‖ ―Guinea-Bissau,‖ or simply ―Guinea‖ (or ―Guiné‖ in most Portuguese works). The label of choice depended on the perspective of the commentator; indeed, at one point the major liberation movement proposed the name ―Kinara‖ for the future independent polity.ix Unless quoting another text directly, this work will use the term most often employed by both the

Portuguese and its insurgent adversaries: ―Guinea.‖ The term enjoys the advantages of neutrality and simplicity, but to forestall confusion the neighboring state of the same short-form name shall be referred to as the ―Republic of Guinea‖ or ―Guinea-.‖

Likewise, Guinea after formal independence in 1974 will be called ―Guinea-Bissau‖ (or more properly, ―the Republic of Guinea-Bissau‖).

Weapons Systems

Referring to different weapons systems can be similarly confusing and frustrating, particularly in the cases of one specific type of aircraft and a particular missile.

ix I. William Zartman, ―‘s Quiet War: Portuguese Guinea‖ (Africa Report, February 1964, 8-12), 11.

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Military aircraft are typically identified by one of three elements: the originating enterprise (e.g., ―‖ or ―MiG‖ x), its alphanumeric designation (e.g., ―B-52‖), its official moniker, if one has been given (e.g., ―Stratofortress‖), or a combination of these.

Sometimes an informal nickname, such as ―Warthog‖ or ―Viper,‖ is the most familiar identifier.xi Often, such informal nicknames are deliberately derogatory, e.g. ―Mud Hen,‖

―Lawn Dart,‖ or ―BUFF.‖xii In the West, Soviet- and Chinese-produced aircraft may also be identified by their North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) reporting name, which is properly spelled in capital letters (―FLANKER,‖ ―BEAR,‖ or ―HIND,‖ for example).xiii

One important aircraft flown by the Portuguese Air Force in Guinea has been referred to by a variety of terms and designators: the ―G-91‖ (or ―G.91‖), the ―Fiat,‖ the

―G-91-R3,‖ the ―Yato,‖ the ―Porquinho,‖ or the ―Gina.‖ Each of these identifiers refers

x ―MiG‖ refers to the Soviet (now Russian) aircraft design bureau founded by Artem I. and Mikhail I. Gurevich in the early 1940s. The abbreviation is properly spelled with a lower-case ―i‖ between the capitalized initials for Mikoyan and Gurevich, as the ―i‖ is Russian for ―and‖ (―и‖ in ). The MiG design bureau has been justly renowned for its production of superlative , including the MiG-15 of fame, the MiG-21 of notoriety, and the Mach-3 MiG-25 interceptor. xi These informal nicknames refer to the Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II and the General Dynamics (now Lockheed-Martin) F-16 Fighting Falcon, respectively. That said, no self-respecting A-10 or F-16 driver would ever refer to those aircraft as the ―Thunderbolt II‖ or ―Fighting Falcon.‖ Many a new U.S. Air Force lieutenant has learned the seriousness of this taboo the hard way, typically accompanied by much ridicule, flammable beverages, insulting (and enduring) nicknames of their own, and other forms of informal chastisement. xii The first is applied to the F-15E ―Strike ‖ (get it?) ground- by pilots of the ―pure‖ air- to-air fighter variant, the F-15C ―Eagle.‖ The second refers to the F-16‘s tendency to plunge almost vertically to the ground when its single engine fails. ―BUFF,‖ meanwhile, is a nickname applied to the B- 52 by the crews themselves. It is an acronym whose polite expansion is ―Big Ugly Fat Fellow.‖ xiii NATO ―reporting names‖ for Soviet/Russian, , and Chinese aircraft follow a predermined pattern. Reporting names beginning with the letter ―B‖ refer to (such as the BEAR), while ―F‖ indicates a fighter aircraft (FISHBED, for example), ―C‖ stands for cargo/ (e.g. CUB), ―H‖ means helicopter (such as HIP), and ―M‖ is a catch-all for miscellaneous types such as tankers, trainers, reconnaissance platforms, and aircraft (MAYA, MIDAS, MIDGET, etc.). NATO reporting names that feature only a single syllable refer to propellered aircraft, while those with two syllables indicate jet propulsion.

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to the same type and model of aircraft used in Guinea. This study will consistently employ the proper official nomenclature, unless a direct quote uses a different term. That correct form is ―Fiat G.91,‖ which may be shortened to ―G.91‖ or ―the Fiat.‖xiv

The missile system in question appears in the literature as the ―Strela‖ (―Стрела‖ in Cyrillic script; ―‖ in English), the ―Strela-2,‖ the ―9K32,‖ the ―SA-7,‖ or the

―GRAIL,‖ and sometimes as a of one of those terms (such as ―SAM-7,‖

―Strella,‖ or ―Stella‖). These all refer to the same type of missile system. In English, that system is properly called the ―PZRK 9K32 Strela-2 (NATO SA-7 GRAIL),‖ where:

 ―PZRK‖ (in Cyrillic, ПЗРК) stands for Переносного Зенитного Ракетного

Комплекса (―mobile anti-aircraft missile system‖);

 ―9K32‖ is the Soviet article designation for the missile system;

 ―Strela‖ (Russian for ―Arrow‖) is the series name;

 ―-2‖ indicates the system‘s sequence in the series;

 ―SA-7‖ is its NATO alpha-numeric designation (i.e., the seventh identified

communist-bloc ―Surface-to-Air‖ missile);

 and ―GRAIL‖ is its NATO reporting name.

For the purposes of brevity and simplicity, however, after its first mention the system will be referred to as simply the ―Strela‖ or the ―Strela-2.‖ Again, the only exceptions will occur in the context of direct quotations.

xiv In this instance, ―Fiat‖ is the designer and prime manufacturer (although the aircraft was also built under license in ), ―G.91‖ is the alphanumeric designation, and ―R3‖ is the NATO indicator of the aircraft‘s role (reconnaissance and ground attack) and modification mark (the third).

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Miscellaneous Military Terminology

To ease potential confusion, some liberty has been taken in translating and operational terms from Portuguese-language documents. Rather than discussing

―aircraft of reaction,‖ ―proximate air support,‖ or ―air means,‖ for example, these literal translations will instead be rendered into English in their more familiar forms: ―,‖ ―,‖ and ―air assets.‖ Likewise, terms that literally translate as

―flagellated‖ and ―bleached‖ will instead be translated as ―repeatedly fired upon‖ and

―targeted,‖ which more closely cohere to the intended military meanings.

Transliteration of Proper Nouns

Finally, transliteration conventions regarding some languages—notably Chinese and Korean—have changed in recent years. When discussing names, places, or persons affected by these changes, the newer conventions will be used, except when the older transliterations appear in referenced bibliographical information. ―Mao Tse-Tung‖ becomes ―,‖ for example, and ―‖ becomes ―Guomindang,‖ with the exceptions noted above.

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List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

Portuguese

Abbreviation Portuguese Meaning English Translation

AB Aérodromo Base (or secondary) Base

BA Base Aérea Air Base (main)

CCAA Conjunto de Apoio Aérea Joint Air Support Center

EP Exército Popular People‘s Army

FAN Forças Armadas Nacionais National Armed Forces

FAP Força Aérea Portuguesa Portuguese Air Force

FARP Forças Armadas People‘s Revolutionary Armed Revolucionárias do Povo Forces

GO Grupo Operacional Operational Group

GP Guerrilla Popular People‘s Guerrillas

MFA Movimento das Forças Armed Forces Movement Armadas

MP Popular People‘s Militia

PAIGC Partido Africano da African Party for the Independence Independência da Guiné of Guinea and Cape Verde e Cabo Verde

RA Regiõe Aérea Air

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SCAP Secção Conjunta de Joint Air Support Apoio Aérea

ZACVG Zona Aérea de Cabo Cape Verde and Guinea Air Zone Verde e Guiné

ZLIFA Zona de Livre Intervenção Air Force Free Intervention Zone da Força Aérea

Other / General

Abbreviation Meaning English Translation (if applicable)

AAA Anti-Aircraft

AAMG Anti-Aircraft Machinegun

COIN Counter-Insurgency

FLIR Forward-Looking Infra-Red

FLN Front de Libération National Liberation Front () Nationale

GBAD Ground-Based Air Defense

IADS Integrated Air Defense System

MANPADS Man-Portable Air Defense System

MEDEVAC Medical Evacuation

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NLF National Liberation Front (the ―Viet Cong‖)

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PAVN People‘s Army of Vietnam

PZRK Perenosnoi Zenitno- Mobile Anti-Aircraft Missile System Raketnyi Kompleks

RAF ()

RPG -Propelled

RVN Republic of Vietnam

SAM Surface-to-Air Missile

SEAD Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses

STOL Short Take-Off and Landing

UN United Nations

USA

USAF United States Air Force

USMC United States Marine

USSR Union of Soviet Socialist

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List of Principle Weapons Systems

Designation and Name NATO Designation Country Type

AIM-9 ―Sidewinder‖ N/A U.S. Air-to-air missile

Alouette III N/A Helicopter

Do-27 N/A Germany Multi-purpose aircraft

DShK 1938 N/A USSR 12.7 mm towed anti- aircraft machinegun

FIM-43 ―Redeye‖ N/A U.S. Shoulder-fired SAM

G.91 N/A Italy Fighter-bomber

MiG-17 MiG-17 FRESCO USSR Fighter-bomber

MIM-23 HAWK N/A U.S. -guided SAM

PZRK 93K2 ―Strela-2‖ SA-7 GRAIL USSR Shoulder-fired SAM

PZRK 9K34 ―Strela-3‖ SA-16 USSR Shoulder-fired SAM

PZRK 9K38 ―Igla‖ SA-18 GROUSE USSR Shoulder-fired SAM

PZRK 9K310 ―Igla-1‖ SA-16 GIMLET USSR Shoulder-fired SAM

S-75 ―Dvina‖ SA-2 GUIDELINE USSR Radar-guided SAM

T-6 ―Texan‖ N/A U.S. Armed trainer

ZPU-1 N/A USSR 14.5 mm towed anti- aircraft machinegun

ZPU-4 N/A USSR 14.5 mm towed quad-mounted anti- aircraft machinegun

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Introduction – “Surprise!”

―It was a surprise,‖ then-Lieutenant Miguel Pessoa recalled, two decades after he became the first Portuguese aviator to fall victim to a surface-to-air missile in 1973.

―Perhaps there was already some information about the existence of the Strela,1 but we

[pilots] had no knowledge.‖2 That ignorance translated to a lack of preparation for which both the pilot and his aircraft suffered. ―I was hit in the rear of the aircraft,‖ Pessoa recalled. ―I lost the engine and then the controls.‖3 The rapidly deteriorating condition of his aircraft soon compelled Pessoa to eject from a very low altitude over hostile territory. He broke his leg in the process, but the adrenaline of danger and the shock of the ejection numbed his pain to such an extent that he initially thought he had suffered only a sprain.4 He then spent the next 20 hours hiding from his antagonists in the , until rescued by a team of and the following day. Meanwhile, the guerrilla who launched the successful round—a Guinean named Caba Fati—

1 Referring to the Soviet-manufactured PZRK 9K32 Strela-2 (NATO SA-7 GRAIL) shoulder-fired air defense missile.

2 Col. Miguel Pessoa, ―Um ‗Fiat‘ Abatido,‖ in José Freire Antunes, ed., A Guerra de África (1961-1974), . 1 (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996), 987.

3 Pessoa, ―Um ‗Fiat‘ Abatido,‖ 988.

4 Pessoa, ―Um ‗Fiat‘ Abatido,‖ 989.

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celebrated with his comrades as he watched Pessoa‘s aircraft absorb the missile impact and plummet to the forest floor.5

Pessoa, of course, was not the first military pilot to face an analogous predicament; aircraft had been shot down from the earliest days of their employment in combat. Aircraft losses to missile , even man-portable shoulder-fired , had lost much of their novelty during preceding encounters such as the war in

Vietnam. Pessoa‘s ―adventures‖ on 25-26 March 1973, however, heralded the dawn of something entirely new—and potentially disastrous—for Portuguese pilots serving in

Guinea. For the first time, their insurgent enemies had successfully fielded a weapon that could neutralize the ‘ most important military advantage in

Guinea, one they had maintained and relied upon for ten years. That advantage was absolute air superiority, which could not be preserved in the face of this new and unanticipated threat. Worse, were advantage lost the Portuguese would almost certainly lose the war along with it. This was the outcome the Portuguese most feared, and the outcome their foes most eagerly sought. It was also the outcome which ultimately came to pass, albeit through a series of events that neither side could have foreseen in the

Spring of 1973.

5 Col. Miguel Pessoa, ―Memórias de Guerra 1967/1974—Passei a Voar Sempre a Dois: Eu e o Medo,‖ http://www.correiomanha.pt/noticia.aspx?channelid=00000009-0000-0000-0000-000000000009& contentid= 00245439-3333-3333-3333-000000245439; Col. Miguel Pessoa and Luis Graça, ―Afinal Quem Foi o Camarada Artilheiro do PAIGC que Me ‗Strelou‘ em 25 de Março de 1973?‖ http://blogueforanadaevaotres.blogspot.com/2009/04/guine-6374-p4217-fap-24-afinal-quem-foi.html. The first URL is that of the online edition of the Lisbon daily Correio da Manhã, while the second refers to ―Luis Graça e Camarades da Guiné,‖ an internet message board for Portuguese veterans of the war in Guinea.

2

Throughout its course, the war in Guinea offered a near-textbook demonstration of the uses and vulnerabilities of air power in counter-insurgency (COIN) operations.

From 1963 to 1974 the Portuguese Air Force (Força Aérea Portuguesa, or FAP)— despite chronic shortages in aircraft, armament, and personnel—effectively fulfilled roles spanning the entire spectrum of air power roles and missions, from bombing attacks to goodwill ―presence‖ flights. Their insurgent opponents, meanwhile, executed a wide range of tactics and operations to combat Portuguese air power, from passive concealment measures to raids against Portuguese air bases. The interplay between the FAP‘s operations and the insurgents‘ responses immediately assumed a distinctly asymmetric character, with each side attempting to pit any advantage against its adversary‘s weaknesses. This asymmetry, in turn, led to a revealing demonstration of nonlinearity in warfare; indeed, during the conflict relatively small-scale operations and their immediate effects yielded profoundly disproportionate ―Nth-order‖ results, usually unexpected and often disastrous despite the courage, skill, and resilience of the respective antagonists.

At the immediate level of tactical action and military outcomes, the FAP proved extremely effective in the counter-guerrilla fight—perhaps too effective. In fact, at times the employment of a few dozen aircraft6 came close to collapsing the insurgent campaign in its entirety. Yet precisely because the FAP was so effective, Portugal‘s surface forces and command elements became overly dependent on air power, while the Guinean

6 According to existing data, the FAP‘s inventory of aircraft in Guinea reached a peak of 80 in 1970. Less than half of these were operational at any given time, however. See Chapter 4 for a full discussion of the FAP‘s fleet and operational rates.

3

insurgents soon came to regard air defense as one of their chief priorities. Subsequent guerrilla efforts led to the acquisition and successful employment of increasingly effective air defense weaponry, culminating with the Soviet-made PZRK 9K32 Strela-2

(NATO SA-7 GRAIL) shoulder-fired air defense missile.7 Between 25 March and 6

April 1973, Strela missiles launched by Guinean guerrillas downed a sizeable proportion of the FAP‘s fleet—five confirmed and acknowledged aircraft, although the insurgents claimed more than twice that number during the same period.8 For relatively large air forces such as those of the United States or the former , the loss of five aircraft—or even more than double that number—within a two-week period has historically proven acceptable, indeed expected during combat operations.9 For the

Portuguese, however, those losses represented a handful of pebbles tossed nearly simultaneously into a previously tranquil pool, generating an overlapping series of unpredictable, mutually amplifying, and manifestly disproportionate ripples.

At one level of impact, this comparative handful of losses over a two-week period temporarily crippled the Portuguese air effort in Guinea. Given the FAP‘s limited

7 ―PZRK‖ is the Russian abbreviation for ―Perenosnoi Zenitno-Raketnyi Kompleks,‖ translated as ―Mobile Anti-Aircraft Missile System.‖ ―9K32‖ is the Russian designation for the Strela-2 system, whose NATO designation and reporting name are ―SA-7 GRAIL.‖

8 At the time (1973), the FAP‘s inventory in Guinea numbered 55 aircraft, of which 44 were available for operations. The loss of five translates to some nine percent of the total, and over eleven percent of operational aircraft. See Chapters 4 and 7 for a full accounting of these numbers, as well as source information.

9 During the first two weeks of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, for example, the United States Air Force, , and Marine Corps lost 14 aircraft to Iraqi air defenses. See Dick Pawloski, ― Chronology‖ (working paper, Lockheed-Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems, 6 July 1994) and Daniel L. Haulman, ―USAF Manned Aircraft Combat Losses 1990-2002‖ (working paper, Air Force Historical Research Agency, 9 December 2002).

4

inventory and the dim prospects of acquiring additional or more capable aircraft, the losses inflicted by guerrilla Strela-2 missiles forced the FAP to adopt defensive measures that severely restricted the service‘s ability to fulfill its missions. Following the loss of three aircraft in a single day, the FAP even ceased operations altogether for at least two days. Although operations soon resumed under tactical restrictions intended to protect

Portuguese aircrews, the FAP‘s aggregate effectiveness had suffered a sudden, unexpected drubbing from which it would never fully recover.

These developments resulted in an intensifying cascade of effects that soon washed over the ground forces. Numerous firsthand accounts by veterans of the war in Guinea recount how air support, previously virtually guaranteed, became irregular at best. When such support was provided, the FAP‘s new restrictive tactics further mitigated its timeliness and operational utility. At the same time,

Portugal‘s insurgent foes took the opportunity to launch a series of offensives unprecedented in their size and intensity. These developments, in turn, sapped the morale of Portuguese ground forces, already eroded by long tours in harsh conditions and the growing improbability of military victory following a decade‘s worth of hard campaigning. This contributed to—and in some respects precipitated—the formation of a dissident movement within the armed forces and the 1974 coup that cost Portugal the war, its African possessions, and any future for its Estado Novo regime.10

10 The Estado Novo, or ―New State‖ in English, was an authoritarian regime that came to power in Portugal as the result of a military coup in 1926. While in power the regime extolled ―traditional‖ values, exercised strict censorship, and forbade political opposition.

5

When considering this cascade of effects, from its initial ripples to the final tsunami upon Portuguese politics, one may conclude the following: First, the insurgents‘ increasing air defense capability—motivated by the effectiveness of Portuguese air power—ultimately stripped Portugal of air superiority, its greatest military advantage in the Guinean war. Forced by limited resources and external restrictions to curtail air operations and adopt restrictive tactics, the FAP consequently found itself unable to respond adequately to the ground forces‘ air support requirements. Morale and within the ground forces correspondingly suffered, hastening the April 1974

―Captains‘ Revolt‖ that overthrew Portugal‘s authoritarian regime and led directly to

Guinean independence later that year. Consequently, while the following narrative incorporates considerable discussion of African and European history, air power employment, and insurgent theory, it is fundamentally a story about effects—unforeseen, disproportionate, and indirect effects that cumulatively altered the fates of two nations.

This work thus endeavors, hopefully without too much impertinence, to correct a number of shortfalls in the existing literature. While the war in Guinea has drawn extensive investigation and commentary, the air component of that conflict has never yet been the subject of an entire substantive work. This is a significant oversight, since more than any other factor the air and air defense battle determined the course and outcome of that war. Such assessments as there are generally treat the air and air defense battle in strikingly one-dimensional fashion, with little apparent thought or regard for the complex processes involved—or for accuracy and even-handedness, in many cases. Additionally, the author hopes to dispel lingering stereotypes of African guerrillas during the era of

6

as either invincible, ideologically-sterling freedom fighters on the one hand, or simple-minded, bloodthirsty ―terrorists‖ on the other. The author believes the

Guinean guerrillas, like their Portuguese opponents, were never perfect: both sides suffered setbacks; both occasionally committed egregious missteps on the battlefield; and both intermittently committed abhorrent excesses despite their high standards of professionalism and conduct. However, in much modern scholarship and commentary

African guerrillas have yet to shed the veneer of technical ineptitude, a stigma that never afflicted their European adversaries. Clearly, the insurgents who defeated the Portuguese in Guinea did not conform to the stereotypical image of machete-wielding representatives of some ― tribe.‖ Rather, they proved themselves technically and tactically adept, able to successfully employ the latest air defense weaponry their sponsors would offer, to the lasting detriment of a founding member of the world‘s most powerful military alliance.

Finally, this document presents a warning to those who cling to the belief that the

West, and the United States in particular, has mastered the problem that plagued the

Portuguese Air Force in the skies above Guinea. Since 1973, shoulder-fired surface-to- air missiles11 have seen action around the world and have been responsible for the destruction of an estimated 500 aircraft, both military and civilian—more than any other category of air defense weapon.12 Although the Strela and its successors are now generally recognized as just one of many variables in the continuing competition for

11 Also known as ―Man-portable Air Defense Systems,‖ or MANPADs.

12 Al St. Onge and John Watkins, ―Aircraft Loss Summary 1972-2000‖ (working paper, Defense Intelligence Agency – Missile and Space Intelligence Center, 3 October 2000), 1-5.

7

mastery of the air, this was not always the case, and certainly not in Guinea during the

Spring of 1973. This one weapon did not, by itself, win a war and demolish an empire.

No one weapon, by itself, ever has. Yet in virtually every conflict, in any era, the defeated side has reached a breaking point that can be discerned in a sequence of key events, triggered by—or culminating in—a catalyst that appeared to block any remaining avenues to victory. Such was the situation facing Portugal in 1973-1974, after Miguel

Pessoa had first faced its initial expression.

8

Chapter 1 – Contexts of Conflict

Origins: Pre-Colonial Guinea and Early Portuguese Presence

The historical record covering the pre-colonial period in the now known as

Guinea-Bissau remains fragmented and woefully incomplete. A handful of historians have expended some effort to outline the broader themes of the region‘s history, but most have focused on the ―great states‖ that once existed further inland.13 Nonetheless, oral traditions, indigenous written sources, and European observations permit a general reconstruction of the area‘s history prior to Portugal‘s campaigns of beginning in the late 19th century.

Present-day Guinea-Bissau is situated in an area bordering the known generally to European explorers as in the north and Upper Guinea in the south.14 Oral narratives and early written records suggest an ethno-linguistic group now known as the Balanta once occupied inland territories within this area, in a pocket of land bounded by the Geba and rivers, before their migration to the coastal regions during the course of Mandinga expansion from the 12th to the 16th centuries. Ultimately,

13 Walter Hawthorne, ―Nourishing a Stateless Society during the Slave Trade: The Rise of Balanta Paddy- Production in Guinea-Bissau‖ (The Journal of African History 42, no. 1 [March 2001], 1-24), 1.

14 John Illife, Africans: The History of a Continent (: University Press, 1995), 128.

9

Figure 1.1. Map of modern-day Guinea-Bissau, showing the Geba River (solid) and the Casamance River (dashed) (graphic based on United Nations Map 4063, Revision 3, June 2004; used with permission).

the Balanta and the Mandinga would form two of the most populous ethnic groups in modern-day Guinea-Bissau.15 Their homeland comprised a backwater of the Malian

Empire during its 14th century heyday, but it was spared ―the dramas of centralization and intrusion‖ that characterized Malian imperial administration in regions further south. As Malian power waned in the 15th and 16th centuries one of its component states, the Mandinga-dominated Empire, succeeded to dominance in the areas comprising

15 Hawthorne, ―Nourishing a Stateless Society during the Slave Trade,‖ 4.

10

modern-day Guinea-Bissau. The densely-populated Balanta territories were then incorporated into the Kaabu state‘s ―slaving frontier.‖16

Mandinga had been staging raids against the coastal Balanta and other interior peoples to supply European traders with slaves as early as the late 15th century.

As the 16th century ended and the 17th began, however, violence associated with the

Atlantic slave trade expanded dramatically, fundamentally altering patterns of life in the coastal regions particularly. Throughout the rest of the century the Balanta reacted to

Kaabu slave raiding by ―refashioning their social structures and agricultural practices to meet the challenges of a new era:‖ establishing relatively large defensive in isolated areas near mangrove swamps, and transitioning from and yam cultivation to rice farming more suitable to their new homesteads. These measures succeeded to the extent that ―In the era of the , the stateless Balanta managed not only to survive but to thrive.‖17

According to oral narratives, the Balanta also employed of resistance to resist Mandinga domination and enslavement. Their effectiveness may be indicated by the fact that the Mandinga word balanto literally translates as ―those who resist.‖ In the Balantas‘ Graça language, however, b’alante means ―men,‖ while b’alante b’ndang refers to ―big men‖—an oft-employed label of respect for heads of household in acknowledgement of their social status and authority. European explorers and traders, as well as other African visitors to coastal territories in the Guinea-Bissau

16 John K. Thornton, Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800 (: Routledge, 1999), 41-42.

17 Hawthorne, ―Nourishing a Stateless Society during the Slave Trade,‖ 2-3, 5.

11

region, likely heard the term ―b‘alante‖ with sufficient frequency that they applied it to the people collectively as ―Balanta.‖18

This bit of linguistic nuance highlights an important characteristic of pre-colonial

Balanta social structure: although the b‘alante b‘ndang—the heads of household and male elders—collectively wielded considerable social and political authority, that power was diffused and irredeemably fragmented. Unlike neighboring empires or states, such political power as existed was never concentrated in a ruling household or class. Thus the earliest European observers indicated that the Balanta constituted a stateless, virtually ungoverned people—a ―race without a king,‖ in the words of one 17th century Portuguese explorer.19 Yet the decentralized nature of Balanta social and political organization was not reflected in the Mandinga state; nor was it characteristic of the Fula ethno-linguistic group, which would later comprise a major demographic force in Guinea-Bissau.

The Fula proved as keen on state construction and expansion as the Mandinga or their Malian predecessors. Consequently, the area that today comprises Guinea-Bissau was strongly influenced by Fula states established in the nearby interior, such as Bundu

(from the 1690s on), Futa Jallon (from the 1720s), and most importantly the Tukolor

Empire of the mid-18th century. The Fula, relatively warlike and militantly Muslim, controlled much of present-day Guinea-Bissau by the mid-19th century, having sacked the

Kaabu capital, Kansala, in 1865—thus putting an end to Mandinga predominance in the

18 Hawthorne, ―Nourishing a Stateless Society during the Slave Trade,‖ 5-6.

19 Hawthorne, ―Nourishing a Stateless Society during the Slave Trade,‖ 5-6.

12

region.20 The duration of Fula dominance would be short-lived, however, as it predated

Portugal‘s campaign to ―effectively occupy‖ the area by a mere three decades.

By that time Portugal had maintained a West African presence for nearly three centuries. Beginning in the late 15th century, Portugal established trading posts and manufacturing outlets along the Upper Guinea Coast from present-day to Sierra

Leone. Portuguese settlers known as lançados—many of them convicts banished from

Portugal—settled along the coast, where many intermarried with local inhabitants. The lançados acted as intermediaries between African traders and European merchants, and despite early royal discouragement they ―played an important role in [Guinean] trade with Portugal and the Cape Verde islands.21 That role proved particularly important in the burgeoning Atlantic slave trade, for the lançados‘ commercial and client connections were ―effective mechanisms for extracting slaves from decentralized societies because they mobilized agents within the targeted societies…These agents cracked the resistance of decentralized societies and found collaborators for their slaving activities.‖22

Yet until the end of the 19th century, shortly after the Fula conquered the Kaabu kingdom and extended their dominance over the Balanta, Portugal‘s presence in Guinea remained limited to a frail array of coastal posts and . Several factors

20 George E. Brooks, ―A Provisional Historical Schema for Western Africa Based on Seven Climate Periods (ca. 9000 B.C. to the I9th century)‖ (Cahiers d’Études Africaines 26, nos. 101/102 [1986]), 43-62), 56-58.

21 Peter Mark, ―The Evolution of ‗Portuguese‘ Identity: Luso-Africans on the Upper Guinea Coast from the Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth century‖ (The Journal of African History 40, no. 2 [July 1999], 173-191), 173-174; David Birmingham, Portugal and Africa (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1999), 14.

22 Martin A. Klein, ―The Slave Trade and Decentralized Societies‖ (The Journal of African History 42, no. 1 [March 2001], 49-65), 58.

13

explain Portugal‘s reluctance to impose colonial authority further inland. First, and quite unlike Portuguese designs on Angola and Mozambique, Lisbon‘s policy regarding West

Africa was modest from the start. Portugal‘s main objective in the region had always been trade rather than conquest, and its presence along the Guinea coast remained limited to factories, trading posts, and related defensive strongholds during this period. To facilitate the uninterrupted flow of slaves and trade goods, Portugal preferred to maintain peaceful relations with important indigenous leaders in the interior.23 Second, as the demand for slaves increased during the 16th and 17th centuries, Portugal faced increasing pressure from competing colonial enterprises. The Dutch, for example, had evicted the

Portuguese from the Gold Coast in 1642, and the French and British concurrently began to squeeze Lisbon‘s West African possessions from the north and south. Portugal, its power and prestige weakened by Spanish rule from 1578 to 1640, lacked any effective means to resist this pressure, and correspondingly found it increasingly difficult to maintain even its extant holdings in . Expanding further inland remained a distant dream at best, at least for the next two and a half centuries.24

Like representatives of other European powers, Portuguese settlers, explorers, and would-be conquerors also had to contend with the endemic to tropical Africa, including Guinea. Penetration into the interior on a relatively permanent basis consequently had to await the development of effective prophylaxis, a process that began

23 James Duffy, Portugal in Africa (Baltimore, MD: Books, 1963), 31, 34.

24 Duffy, Portugal in Africa, 36.

14

with the successful isolation and extraction of quinine in 1820.25 By the mid-19th century, quinine was distributed widely as a malaria cure and preventative. Along with other medical advances that proved effective against insect- and water-borne diseases, quinine permitted Europeans in Africa—including the Portuguese—to break out of their coastal enclaves and temperate sanctuaries and foray ever deeper into the tropical interior of the continent.26

Perhaps most significantly, until the late 19th century Portugal lacked the means and the motive to project sufficient military force to break the power of indigenous inland polities. Following the 1885 among ‘s colonial powers, however, Portugal found the motive in existential threats to their African empire:

Lisbon‘s newfound determination to ―effectively occupy‖ its imperial domain derived directly from a desire to prevent the loss of its African territories to other European powers.27 By this time Portugal could field the appropriate means of conquest, in the form of magazine-fed , machineguns, and steam-powered watercraft. Though in short supply to the Portuguese, these assets in general proved to be ―the final and easily the most decisive factor‖ in 19th-century European efforts to penetrate the African interior, and even in limited numbers they allowed the Portuguese to prosecute their

25 A. Adu Boahen, ed., UNESCO General , Volume VII: Africa under Colonial Domination 1880-1935 (London: James Currey, 1990), 18; Piero Gleijeses, ―The First Ambassadors: ‘s Contribution to Guinea-Bissau‘s War of Independence‖ (Journal of American Studies 29, 1 [February 1997], 45-88), 73; Frederick F. Cartwright, Disease and History (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1991), 143-144.

26 Cartwright, Disease and History, 163-165.

27 Bruce Vandervort, Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa, 1830-1914 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), 34.

15

campaigns of conquest in Guinea and elsewhere.28 Though the Portuguese suffered some spectacular reverses during their various expeditions, by 1915 Guinea had been effectively subdued and incorporated into imperial administration under Portuguese rule.29 It would remain ―pacified‖ to Lisbon‘s satisfaction for the next five decades.

Who, Where, and What: Guinean Demography and Geography

In retrospect, it seems that only the indigenous Guineans and the Portuguese cared enough to learn much about the territory. In 1973, for example, U.S. Undersecretary of

State for African Affairs David D. Newsom described Guinea as ―a Godforsaken country with very little economic interest to the Portuguese.‖ At the time his boss, Henry

Kissinger—after five years as Advisor and —did not even know where the was located.30 ―Portuguese‖ Guinea was generally regarded with such inconsequence for a number of reasons. First, Guinea was small in terms of both area and population. Based on a 1960 census, the last before the outbreak of hostilities, the province was home to 544,184 persons. Among this number were 4,568 mixed-race inhabitants and 2,263 Europeans, mostly and colonial

28 Vandervort, Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa, 150-151, 155.

29 Boahen, ed., UNESCO General History of Africa, Volume VII, 85-87.

30 When the subject of ―Portuguese‖ Guinea was brought up at a senior staff meeting at the U.S. State Department in October 1973, Kissinger‘s first response was ―I‘ll have to check my map.‖ U.S. Department of State. ―Secretary‘s Staff Meeting October 2, 1973,‖ 6 October 1973, 16-17.

16

administrators.31 The European presence, while inconsequential in comparison to that in

Angola or Mozambique, still represented a 133-fold increase from 1870, when only 17

Europeans could be counted as permanent settlers in Guinea.32

Among its African inhabitants, some 25 to 30% belonged to the Balanta ethno- linguistic grouping, making them the largest such group in Guinea. They were also among the least ―privileged‖ under colonial rule, and would prove to be a major source of manpower for the insurgents fighting the Portuguese. A further 20-22% of the province‘s inhabitants were affiliated with the predominantly Muslim Fula, whose leaders had generally cooperated with the Portuguese in order to maintain traditional privileges. An additional 14-15% of Guinea‘s inhabitants were identified as Manjanco, while the rest of the indigenous population—nearly 40%--was comprised of those representing smaller ethnicities. Regarding religious affiliation, 58% of the population identified itself as animist, with a further 38% professing adherence to Islam; despite centuries of European work, only 4% of Guinea‘s African population claimed membership in any

Christian church, whether Roman Catholic or some flavor of .33

Guinea ranked as low on a geographic scale as it did in terms of population. The territory occupied approximately 36,000 square kilometers, a figure slightly larger than

31 John Biggs-Davison, ―The Struggle in Portuguese Guinea‖ (NATO’s Fifteen Nations, August-September 1964, 97-99), 99.

32 Michael H. Glantz, ―The War of the Maps: Portugal vs. PAIGC‖ (Pan-African Journal, Autumn 1973, 285-296), 287.

33 John Biggs-Davison, ―The Current Situation in Portuguese Guinea‖ (African Affairs, October 1971, 385- 394), 385; Maj. Gen. Sérgio Augusto Margarido Lima Bacelar, A Guerra em África, 1961-1974: Estratégias Adoptadas pelas Forças Armadas. (: Ligo dos Amigos do , 2000), 55; Col. Carlos de Matos Gomes and Lt. Col. Aniceto Afonso, Os Anos da Guerra Colonial 4—1963: Guiné, uma Nova Frente de Combate (Matosinhos, Portugal: Quidnovi, 2009), 15.

17

the U.S. state of Maryland, and was bounded by 680 kilometers of land frontiers (380 of which bordered the Republic of Guinea) and 350 kilometers of Atlantic coastline.34

Within those boundaries, the terrain and foliage would prove determinant factors in the conduct of the war. One factor initially favored the Portuguese: Guinea‘s lack of mountains and . As noted by Amílcar Cabral, the founder and General

Secretary of the insurgent Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde

(PAIGC),35 ―Guinea is a flat country. It has no mountains, and everyone knows that in general [a] guerrilla force uses the mountains as a starting point for the armed struggle.‖36

This conclusion led to one of Cabral‘s most famous ―guerrilla-isms,‖ namely that ―We had to convert our people themselves into the mountains needed for the fight in our country.‖37

To the insurgents‘ advantage, however, the territory contained thousands of miles of navigable rivers and streams, many of them hidden from aerial observation by mango groves and dense forest. Additionally, the southern swampland was virtually impenetrable to mechanized forces or large formations, since it flooded twice daily with the tidal cycle. Portugal‘s neglect in developing the province had also left it with a dearth of paved roads, inadequate , and few airfields of militarily-significant

34 Bacelar, A Guerra em África, 1961-1974, 53.

35 In English, the ―African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde.‖

36 Amílcar Cabral, ―The Party and the Army,‖ in Aquino de Bragança, and Immanuel Wallerstein, eds., The African Liberation Reader, Volume 3: The Strategy of Liberation (London: Zed Press, 1982), 164. Cabral was most likely referring to the iconic guerrilla experiences of the Mao‘s People‘s Liberation Army and Castro‘s focoist movement, and possibly the lesser-known examples of Greek and Cypriot .

37 Amílcar Cabral, ―The Party and the Army,‖ 164. ―Our People Are Our Mountains‖ became a popular PAIGC slogan, and the title of one of Cabral‘s books.

18

capacity.38 The province thus represented something of ―a guerrilla‘s dream and a counter-insurgent‘s nightmare,‖ requiring extensive—and expensive—riverine and helicopter patrols to detect and pursue the insurgents.39 From the perspective of contemporaneous counter-guerrilla experts such as Major David Galula,

Guinea‘s dispersed population, ample vegetation, paltry transportation , and difficult-to-secure frontiers bordering insurgent-friendly states represented a serious setback to Portuguese forces before the first shots had even been fired.40

Yet despite Guinea‘s challenging terrain—and precisely because of its small size—the colony did confer one indispensible advantage on the Portuguese, an edge their guerrilla foes initially could neither emulate or eliminate: any point in the province could be reached by air from the FAP‘s main air base at Bissau within 45 minutes, even by helicopter.41 This bit of aeronautical minutiae, taken together with the facts of geographical reality, helped to more precisely define the nature of the war to come in

38 Gomes and Afonso, Os Anos da Guerra Colonial 4, 15.

39 Thomas H. Henriksen, ―Lesson‘s from Portugal‘s Counter-Insurgency Operations in Portugal‖ (RUSI: Journal of the Royal Unified Services Institute for Defence Studies, June 1978, 31-35), 32; Thomas H. Henriksen, ―People‘s War in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau‖ (The Journal of Modern African Studies, September 1976, 377-399), 385.

40 David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006), 24-25. Galula‘s work, originally published in 1964, was based on the author‘s experiences in Indochina and Algeria, and has long since reigned as a ―classic‖ in counter-insurgency studies. For example, key contributors to the development of the 2006 U.S. Army-U.S. Marine Corps counter-insurgency manual, such as Dr. Conrad Crane and Lt. Col. John Nagl, hailed Galula‘s writings as one of the most important influences considered during the development of the latter document. Dr. Crane and Lt. Col. Nagle expressed this opinion at the U.S. Air Force Counter-Insurgency Symposium, held at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, in April 2007, at which the author was present.

41 Al J. Venter, ―Portugal‘s Forgotten War‖ (Air Enthusiast, February 1972, 59-62+), 59; Gérard Chaliland, ―Independence of Guinea Bissau, a New Step in the War of Liberation‖ (Le Monde Diplomatique, November 1973, 14+), 14.

19

Guinea: namely, that the force which exerted greater control over Guinea‘s skies could project power at will throughout the territory, even if it could not exercise permanent control on the surface. Or, as succinctly summarized by Guinean schoolchildren in

PAIGC-dominated areas (no doubt after considerable coaching), ―We have the land. The

Portuguese have only the sky.‖42

Questions of accuracy notwithstanding, the schoolchildren‘s refrain again raises the question of the land‘s value. As Undersecretary Newsom had informed Kissinger, the territory of Guinea yielded little of economic value to Portugal. Guinea‘s were characterized as ―none of significance‖ during the period in question, and its trade balance was described as ―most unfavorable.‖43 Its output consisted almost entirely of agricultural products, particularly groundnuts and coconuts. Raw materials of industrial significance were practically non-existent, and only 8% of the territory‘s land area was arable.44 Given the challenges of Guinea‘s climate and terrain, combined with the dearth of material rewards to be won, Portuguese unsurprisingly described Guinea as ―a beastly place.‖45 Yet the Portuguese regime thought enough of the province to fight to

42 George M. Houser, No One Can Stop the Rain: Glimpses of Africa’s Liberation Struggle ( New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1989), 207.

43 U.S. Department of State. ―Secretary‘s Staff Meeting October 2, 1973,‖ 16-17; Norrie MacQueen, ―Portugal‘s First Domino: ‗Pluricontinentalism‘ and Colonial War in Guinea-Bissau, 1963-1974,‖ (Contemporary European History 8, no. 2, 1999, 209-230), 209; Norrie MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa: Metropolitan Revolution and the Dissolution of Empire (London: Longman, 1997), 37.

44 Gomes and Afonso, Os Anos da Guerra Colonial 4, 15.

45 Quoted in Douglas Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1977), 64.

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keep it, while the majority of its African populace foresaw sufficient reward to justify waging eleven years of intensifying warfare to win its independence.

Why and How: Portugal‟s Motives and Methods of Popular Mobilization

By the latter half of the the decolonization of Portuguese Africa had been a long time in coming; in fact, Portuguese explorers had been the first to plant a

European flag in the soil of sub-Saharan Africa. Portugal‘s overseas expansion began after the ejection of the in the 14th century, as Portuguese leaders began to search for trade routes to the east that would effectively bypass their Islamic foes.46 In the decades following Lisbon‘s first imperial forays in the early 15th century, Portugal pioneered further European expansion by chronicling oceanic wind and current patterns and developing improved technologies for long-range maritime navigation. In the process, they not only opened trade routes to Africa and Asia but also ―initiated the explosive interaction of cultures, peoples and economies that have made the modern world.‖47 By 1443, Portuguese explorers first dropped anchor off the Guinean coast, where they soon began to enrich the metropole through the trade of spices, gold, and slaves.48 Portugal‘s imperial expansion continued through most of the 16th century, and

46 John Biggs-Davison, ―The Current Situation in Portuguese Guinea‖ (African Affairs, October 1971, 385- 394), 386.

47 Kenneth Maxwell, ―The Thorns of the Portuguese Revolution‖ (Foreign Affairs, , 250-270), 270.

48 Malyn Newitt, Portugal in Africa: the Last Hundred Years (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1981), 1; Karibe Mendy, ―Portugal‘s in Colonial Guinea-Bissau: Rhetoric and Reality‖ (International

21

the Portuguese have historically harkened back to the period from 1497 to 1578 as O

Século Maravilhoso (―The Marvelous century‖), as these years represented the height of

Portuguese glory, power, and prosperity on a global scale.49 The dates 1497 and 1578 correspond to Vasco de Gama‘s first expedition to and Portugal‘s temporary loss of independence to , which lasted until 1640.

Portuguese power never fully recovered from that latter episode, and by the early

19th century Portugal‘s African ―empire‖ had been reduced to an anemic network of trading posts and forts populated by castoffs from the metropole, reliant on fragile maritime links and often paying tribute to indigenous sovereigns for the privilege of flying the Portuguese flag. This changed, however, in the late 19th century when the

―‖ gathered pace, a process which ―shattered Portugal‘s complacency and nourished a new spirit of national exertion to save the colonies.‖50 The late 19th century, then, saw the initiation of Portugal‘s ―Third Empire,‖ so called for two reasons.

First, Portugal‘s African holdings would ultimately cover more territory than any other

European overseas empire save those of Great Britain and France; second, Portuguese imperial policy envisioned Africa as replacing Lisbon‘s lost imperial holdings in Asia and the New World.51 Beginning in 1895, ten years after the Conference of Berlin

Journal of African Historical Studies, 36, no. 1, 2003, 35-58), 37; Thomas Henriksen, ―Portugal in Africa: A Noneconomic Interpretation‖ (African Studies Review, December 1973, 405-416), 406; Rona M. Fields, The Portuguese Revolution and the Armed Forces Movement (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1976), 15.

49 John P. Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portuguese Way of War, 1961-1974 (St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer Publishing, 1997), 14.

50 Henriksen, ―Portugal in Africa: A Noneconomic Interpretation,‖ 407.

51 Charles E. Nowell, ―Portugal and the Partition of Africa‖ (The Journal of Modern History, March 1947, 1-17), 9; MacQueen, ―Portugal‘s First Domino.‖ The MacQueen essay is perhaps the most comprehensive

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mandated ―effective occupation‖ to validate imperial claims in Africa, the Portuguese in

Guinea embarked on a concerted campaign of pacification and consolidation. Although

Portugal faced considerable difficulties in this endeavor, given both its own relative weakness and the determination of many Guineans to resist colonial rule, Lisbon had effectively completed the occupation and imperial incorporation of the territory by

1915.52 This campaign of conquest in Guinea, along with those in Angola and

Mozambique, originated in ―the simple matter of pride in Portugal‘s older exploits and a determination that the country that had been first in Africa should not be left behind now.‖53 Indeed, Portuguese writers of the period drew explicit comparisons between medieval crusaders fighting the Moors and contemporary soldiers engaged against the

African ―infidel‖54—echoing an earlier drive for a finalidade (or ―conclusion‖) that evoked the prospect of a similarly glorious outcome.

By the time António de Oliveira Salazar became Prime Minister of the quasi- fascist Estado Novo (―New State‖) regime in 1932, Portugal‘s African colonies—Angola,

Mozambique, Guinea, Cape Verde, and São Tome and Principe—had been ―effectively discussion of the imperial ―‖ that shaped regime policy during the Estado Novo period, but the theme has appeared repeatedly in a number of other works, particularly given the content and impact of the critical exchange between and António de Spínola discussed later in this work.

52 Joye L. Bowman, ―Abdul Njai: Ally and Enemy of the Portuguese in Guinea-Bissau, 1895-1915‖ (Journal of African History 27, no. 3, 1986, 463-479), 463. See also two noteworthy contemporaneous Portuguese first-person accounts of the ―pacification‖ campaign waged after 1895: Luiz Nunes da Ponte (Tenente d‘Artilharia), A Campanha da Guiné (1908): Breve Narrativa (Porto: Typographia a vapor da Empreza Guides, 1909) and João Teixeira Pinto, A Ocupação da Guiné (Lisbon: Divisão de Publicações e Biblioteca Agência Geral das Colónias, 1936). The latter was one of the key Portuguese figures in the ―effective operation‖ of Guinea during the early 20th century, whose campaigns were celebrated throughout the Estado Novo period.

53 Nowell, ―Portugal and the Partition of Africa,‖ 9.

54 Henriksen, ―Portugal in Africa: A Noneconomic Interpretation,‖ 409.

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occupied.‖ Salazar subsequently focused his efforts on two related projects. First, he began a program to consolidate Lisbon‘s rule through a centralized, uniform system of administration in the overseas territories.55 At the same time, to garner continued support for the imperial project, the Estado Novo regime consciously and continuously promoted the twin themes that the Empire was Portugal, and Portugal was the empire. Both efforts were sufficiently successful that during Salazar‘s rule Portuguese political culture became characterized by what may be described as

an ‗imperialist ‘ where the national and colonial are conflated. Thus 20th-century expressions of Portuguese national identity have deep colonial roots such that empire enables the very imagination of national identity, enframing a vision of Portugalidade and marking out the notion of a metropolitan center.56

This brand of imperialist nationalism emphasized ―a national ‗specificity‘, a specific national difference‖ [emphasis in original],57 based on the notion that Portugal itself had, over the centuries, grown as a polity beyond its narrow Iberian origins and had, unlike other European empires or states, attained an ―essential, ‗pluricontinental‘ unity.‖58 That conflation of the national and colonial, and the resultant notion of a unified,

―pluricontinental‖ state, conceptually fused Portugal and its empire in the minds of the

Estado Novo elite and the Portuguese populace. In this sense the empire had become the

55 Newitt, Portugal in Africa, 43.

56 James D. Sidaway and Marcus Power, ―‘The Tears of Portugal‘: Empire, Identity, ‗Race‘, and Destiny in Portuguese Geopolitical Narratives (Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 23, no. 4 [2005], 527-554), 529. ―Portuglalidade‖ translates, roughly, as ―Portuguese-ness.‖

57 Sidaway and Power, ―‗The Tears of Portugal‘,‖ 545.

58 MacQueen, ―Portugal‘s First Domino,‖ 210.

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nation and the nation had become the empire, thus idealizing a theoretical construct that might justly be labeled the ―Empire Metaphor.‖

To support the Empire Metaphor, Salazar‘s Estado Novo developed a series of rationalizations to demonstrate the benefits of Portuguese imperialism to its subjects and citizens. The first of these, and one of the most oft-mentioned in the literature on the subject, equated Portuguese imperialism to Portuguese prosperity.59 To a certain degree, this argument held true in a historical sense: Portugal‘s original purpose in Africa was predominantly economic, and over several centuries Portugal expropriated immense wealth from Africa in the form of mineral resources, trading concessions, agricultural products, and slaves.60 Even in the Portugal‘s larger African territories promised considerable economic potential, particularly given Angola‘s diamond and and the ready availability of protected markets for goods produced in the metropole.61

However, dreams of wealth alone did not compel the Portuguese regime to maintain its dominion in Africa. The ideology of the Estado Novo also equated empire with power, specifically in terms of geopolitical relevance. To Salazar and his coterie,

Portugal without its empire would shrink to absolute insignificance on any international

59 The relative importance of economic motives in the Portuguese colonial endeavor has been a subject of considerable debate. The predominant scholarly trend during the 1960s and relied on Leninist analysis of imperialist exploitation to explain Portugal‘s motives. Examples of this trend include (The People’s Cause: A History of Guerrillas in Africa; No Fist Is Big Enough to the Sky; multiple journal articles), and Arslan Humbaraci and Nicole Muchnik (Portugal’s African Wars). Other scholars, however, have recognized that the economic advantages of Portuguese Africa remained more potential than actual, and that Portugal‘s chief motivations lay elsewhere. Thomas Henriksen presented a compelling case against the argument for economic primacy as early as 1973 (―Portugal in Africa: A Noneconomic Interpretation,‖ op. cit.), and more recent literature has emphasized similar interpretations.

60 Newitt, Portugal in Africa, 1-11.

61 Maxwell, ―The Thorns of the Portuguese Revolution,‖ 251.

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stage of note, and perhaps even lose its again.62 As African analyst Thomas

Henriksen observed in 1973, ―Without the immense African territories—over twenty times the size of the metropole—Portugal would lack significance in Iberia and

Europe….With Portugal as with some individuals, symbols of achievement help compensate for small physical stature.‖63 Furthermore, from the regime‘s point of view

Portugal‘s imperial expanse not only created ―a privileged position from which to imagine and define [Portugal‘s] sense of national identity and belonging,‖ it could also be wielded as ―a weapon in the diplomatic arena.‖64

The conflation of territory with national importance was routinely represented in official publications, most explicitly in maps. Maps, as visual representations of conceptual metaphors, have always played a critical role in the construction of national identities, and the Estado Novo regime explicitly used maps to support its imperial mythos.65 One such map, first displayed at the Colonial Portuguese Exhibition of Porto in 1934, attempted to display this greatness graphically—a greatness, the map suggests,

62 Marcello Caetano, who became Prime Minister in 1968, remarked in the 1930s that ―Africa is for us a moral justification and a raison d’être as a power. Without it, we would be a small nation; with it, we are a great country.‖ See Douglas Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 13-14. For an American intelligence summary of this position, see Central Intelligence Agency, ―Intelligence Memorandum: The Coup in Portugal,‖ 27 April 1974, 1.

63 Henriksen, ―Portugal in Africa: A Noneconomic Interpretation,‖ 410.

64 Sidaway and Power, ―‗The Tears of Portugal‘,‖ 535.

65 Heriherto , ―‗Portugal Is Not a Small Country‘: Maps and Propaganda in the Salazar Regime‖ (Geopolitics 11, 2006, 367-395), 367. Cairo‘s ―‗Portugal is Not a Small Country‘‖ is the most comprehensive of the Estado Novo’s use of maps that I have been exposed to. Much of his argument strongly echoes those of Denis Wood‘s The Power of Maps, although Wood‘s work was not a major acknowledged source for Cairo‘s essay.

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which could be achieved only through the possession of empire.66 The map, entitled

―Portugal Is Not a Small Country,‖ displayed geographic representations of Portugal‘s colonial possessions superimposed on a map of Europe, visually conveying the message that the territory ruled from Lisbon was nearly half as expansive as Europe itself. At the time the map prompted Amindo Monteiro, then Portugal‘s Colonial Minister, to proclaim

Figure 1.2. ―Portugal Is Not a Small Country.‖ Note the size comparisons to other European powers in the legend (Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, cartographic file C.C. 381 R.; used with permission).

66 Cairo, ―‗Portugal Is Not a Small Country‘,‖ 379.

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―we look small in Europe, but we are big in the world.‖67 Similar maps appeared in

Portuguese textbooks, schoolhouses, and government facilities, perpetuating a notion that remained dominant in Portuguese political discourse through the early 1970s: that

Portugal owed its status as a regional and global power to its imperial stature.

Conversely, according to the dogma of the Estado Novo, without its empire Portugal would fade to insignificance within Europe and the world at large.68

The Estado Novo regime further justified the drive for imperial prosperity and power by evoking the notion of providence, particularly as it related to Portugal‘s purported ―national destiny‖ or ―colonial mission.‖ The regime argued that Portugal‘s

African territories represented Europe‘s oldest and most enduring overseas empire for a reason: Portuguese imperialism, Salazarist ideology maintained, was ―perpetual and divinely ordained.‖69 The Estado Novo regime deliberately cultivated notions of

Portugal‘s imperial ―destiny,‖ seeking to ―embed and enshrine [within Portuguese political and cultural thought] a sense of Portugal‘s historical destiny in its empire.‖70

One of the imperatives embedded in this imperial ―destiny‖ was Portugal‘s self- assumed obligation to serve as a bulwark defending the West against alien, hostile forces from without. These included not only Islamic pressures emanating from North Africa between the 9th and 15th centuries, but the more recent phenomenon of international

67 Quoted in Cairo, ―‗Portugal Is Not a Small Country‘,‖ 381.

68 Cairo, ―‗Portugal Is Not a Small Country‘,‖ 381.

69 Sidaway and Power, ―‗The Tears of Portugal‘,‖ 529.

70 Sidaway and Power, ―‗The Tears of Portugal‘,‖ 533.

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—―the winds of the red monsoon‖—in the 20th.71 To Salazar and his fellow

Estado Novo elites, communism represented ―systems of ideals which are literally systems of crime,‖ and considered the menace grave enough to threaten Western civilization itself.72 The regime‘s longtime figurehead President, Américo Tomáz, echoed this theme in 1962 by warning, ―It may be hoped that the West is awakening finally from the lethargy in which it has been living, perceiving that it may be proceeding rapidly towards the worst of all slaveries,‖ by which he meant subjugation to a monolithic Marxist-Leninist world order.73 Salazarist ideology mandated the commitment of any and all available resources in order to forestall that slide into

―.‖ Foreign Minister Ruis Patricio reiterated this notion in 1970, warning of

Soviet designs on Portugal‘s African possessions and remarking that ―Portugal carried alone the tremendous expenses of its fight in the defense of the West in Africa.‖74

Regime proponents further maintained that the providential nature of Portugal‘s imperial project was rooted in another ―divine‖ imperative, that of Portugal‘s missão

71 Fernando Farihna, ―For a Better Guinea‖ (Noticia, 29 August 1970, 45-54, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 946,‖ JPRS 51448, 28 September 1970), 53; Sidaway and Power, ―‗The Tears of Portugal‘,‖ 529.

72 Narana Sinai Coissoró, ―Winds of Revolt over the Portuguese African Territories,‖ in John P. Cann, ed., Memories of Portugal’s African Wars, 1961-1974: Proceedings of a Conference, King’s College London, 10 June 1997 (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Foundation, 1998), 9.

73 American Embassy Lisbon, ―Foreign Service Despatch,‖ 5 , 10. Marcello Caetano, who succeeded Salazar as Prime Minister, highlighted the importance of Cape Verde to the Soviet Union in 1968: ―No one can be blind to the importance of Cape Verde if it were in power of those friendly to . Europe is being surrounded.‖ Marcello Caetano, Portugal’s Reasons for Remaining in the Overseas Provinces: Excerpts from Speeches made by the Prime Minister Prof. Marcello Caetano (Lisbon: Office of the Secretary of State for Information and Tourism, General Direction for Information, 1970), 12.

74 U.S. Secretary of State, ―Memorandum for the Record: Dr. Kissinger‘s Meeting with the Portuguese Foreign Minister, Ruis Patricio, November 17, 1970,‖ 19 November 1970, 2, 3.

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civilizadora (or ―civilizing mission‖). As decreed in the Colonial Act of 1930, ―It is the organic essence of the Portuguese nation to carry out the historic function of possessing and colonizing overseas dominions and civilizing the indigenous populations therein contained.‖75 As the Portuguese ambassador to Great Britain further explained in 1939, assimilation represented a ―guiding principle‖ of Portuguese imperialism: ―We have always considered that which was not based on union with the Natives could not be fruitful save in exceptional cases.‖

Assimilation was to be attained, in part, by ―hold[ing] up to the lands across the seas the institutions of the mother-country as the ideal to be attained by the development of the social structure, customs, and capacities of the Natives.‖76 These attitudes persisted well into the 1960s, prompting Salazar‘s successor as Prime Minister, Marcello

Caetano, to claim that Portugal‘s continued domination of its African territories was ―not imperialistic in the sense of constituting a process of racial domination and economic exploitation,‖ but rather represented an attempt to build ―a community of peoples.‖77

This community was to be based not only on shared notions of ―Portugalidade,‖ but on shared Christian beliefs as well. As Colonial Minister Armindo Monteiro proclaimed in the early 1930s, Portuguese imperialism was ―moved by a sacred impulse….In this heroic

75 Mendy, ―Portugal‘s Civilizing Mission in Colonial Guinea-Bissau,‖ 49-50; alternative translations appear in A.H. de Oliveira Marques, , Vol. II: From Empire to Corporate State (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 227; Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 15; and Cairo, ―‗Portugal Is Not a Small Country‘,‖ 372, but the differences are merely stylistic. The meaning is consistent in all three translations.

76 Armindo Monteiro, ―Portugal in Africa‖ (Journal of the Royal African Society, April 1939, 259-272), 262-263.

77 Mendy, ―Portugal‘s Civilizing Mission in Colonial Guinea-Bissau,‖ 35.

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element is carried the most noble sentiment of our mission as a chosen people, since the task of civilizing must have, above all else, a spiritual content.‖78 This belief also persisted among Estado Novo elites until the regime‘s downfall; as Caetano explained,

Portugal‘s colonial mission endeavored ―to extricate [indigenous populations] from the darkness of paganism and save their soul.‖79

Implicit in each of these three justifications—prosperity, power, and providence—was a widespread belief that Portugal‘s imperial possessions conferred a degree of prestige upon its people and government alike. This perceived prestige was predicated on Portugal‘s ―glorious‖ legacy of exploration and conquest, and the quest to maintain it revealed a desire to keep that legacy alive and relevant—in the words of a

1930s Portuguese writer, to uphold ―the ancestral memory of an astonishing gallery of discoverers and heroes.‖80 This determination, according to one American observer during the early 1970s, made the Portuguese appear ―drunk with history;‖ no wonder, then, that they consequently felt compelled to preserve what they considered their

―heritage‖ in attempt to maintain continuity with a more glorious past.81

This characterization applied to the populace at large as well as the government, for by the middle of the 20th century the ―imperial mystique‖ had been deeply instilled in the Portuguese popular consciousness, and until the latter years of the African wars it

78 Quoted in Duffy, Portugal in Africa, 151.

79 Quoted in Mendy, ―Portugal‘s Civilizing Mission in Colonial Guinea-Bissau,‖ 49.

80 Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 10.

81 Henriksen, ―Portugal in Africa: A Noneconomic Interpretation,‖ 414.

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continued to strike a responsive chord in the popular Portuguese mind. One visiting

American journalist, for example, reported in 1969 that ―many Portuguese maids, shopkeepers and clerks still speak with pride about ‗Our Africa‘.‖82 However, the

Ultramar, or ―overseas,‖ represented more than just a historical legacy; the Portuguese also considered it the present embodiment of past achievements. Portugal‘s overseas possessions represented both the culmination and the continuation of a tradition of exploration and conquest, resulting from the skills pioneered by Portuguese mariners developed in the 15th century. The importance of this heritage to Portuguese national identity can still be seen in its flag, which features a navigational armillary sphere at its center, and heard in its national anthem, which begins with an invocation to past ―Heroes of the Sea.‖83 Perhaps nowhere is the summons to past grandeur more evident, however, than in the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries) erected outside

Lisbon in 1960. Standing on the monument‘s ―prow,‖ Vasco de Gama faces seaward in space, and figuratively backwards in time to a more glorious national epoch, with a parade of Portugal‘s ―heroes of the sea‖ following close behind.

The frequent references to Portugal‘s imperial heyday led some commentators to observe that the 16th century appeared to coexist, however awkwardly, alongside the 20th in Portuguese political discourse during the 1960s and 1970s. As U.S. diplomat George

Ball remarked following a 1963 visit to Lisbon, Portugal appeared to live ―in more than one century, as though Prince Henry the Navigator, Vasco de Gama, and Ferdinand

82 Quoted in Henriksen, ―Portugal in Africa: A Noneconomic Interpretation,‖ 410.

83 Sidaway and Power, ―‗The Tears of Portugal‘,‖ 528.

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Figure 1.3. Monument to the Discoveries, Belem, Portugal (photo by Faith Anne Hurley; used with permission).

Magellan were still active agents in the shaping of Portuguese policy.‖84 This fixation on history-in-the-present led Portugal‘s government and populace to consider its imperial holdings a national birthright which could never be surrendered voluntarily.85 As the

Portuguese Ambassador to Great Britain described in 1939,

84 Kenneth Maxwell, The Making of Portuguese (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 18.

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Starting from nothing, we explored the sea and coasts, we studied the winds, we penetrated inland…This was the tremendous work of many generations, carried out day by day, inch by inch, stone by stone, at the of undescribable [sic] sufferings, anxieties and with great sacrifice of human lives. Thus we can say that all that exists in our Colonies is ours.86

The persistent reference to ―we‖ demonstrated the regime‘s identification with historical figures who lived centuries earlier; the ambassador‘s ―we‖ also incorporated the

Portuguese nation as a people, both historically and in the present, implicitly unchanging in their national character.

However unchanging the Portuguese perceived themselves, though, by the early

1960s the dynamics of international relations had changed dramatically. Portuguese prestige would suffer a painful blow as a result at the end of 1961, when Indian forces invaded and occupied Portugal‘s remaining territories on the subcontinent. The enclaves of , Damão and Diu—collectively known as the ―State of India‖ to the Portuguese government—fell within 40 hours of the initial Indian attack on 18 December 1961.

Portuguese forces surrendered after offering only token resistance, in the process

―exploding‖ the myths that ―the armed forces would fight to the last man to defend all

Portuguese territory and…that as long as the Salazar regime stayed in power the territorial integrity of the Portuguese State would remain intact.‖87 These realizations reportedly shocked and saddened the Portuguese at all levels of society, especially after

85 Marques, History of Portugal, Vol. II, 225; Central Intelligence Agency, Office of National Estimates, ―Significance of Portuguese and Spanish Colonial Problems for the US,‖ 11 July 1963, 1.

86 Monteiro, ―Portugal in Africa,‖ 264.

87 P.N. Khera, Operation Vijay: The Liberation of Goa and Other Portuguese Colonies in India (New Dehli: Ministry of Defence Historical Section, 1974), 136-137; American Embassy Lisbon, ―Foreign Service Despatch,‖ 29 December 1961, 2.

34

government-propagated stories of heroic resistance in the face of insurmountable odds gave way to the more pedestrian reality: Portuguese forces suffered only 30 dead and 57 wounded, while 3,301 surrendered and were taken prisoner.88 The inglorious conclusion to Portugal‘s centuries-long presence on the Indian subcontinent prompted Salazar to weep openly in his next television address to the nation, and subsequently hardened the regime‘s determination to maintain dominion over its African possessions at any cost.89

The impact of Goa‘s loss further demonstrated how Portugal‘s imperial holdings were critical to the nation‘s sense of itself, and not just at the higher levels of government. That sense, in turn, rested on the twin pillars of ―pluri-continentalism‖ and

―pluri-racialism.‖ The Portuguese government not only proclaimed the essential indivisibility of the state, however far-flung its component territories; the regime also extolled the unity of its inhabitants, whatever their location or ethnicity.90 As Caetano once remarked, ―We are a pluri-continental and pluri-racial country, with only one spirit, only one government and only one flag.‖91 Regarding race specifically, Caetano also insisted that ―In our Homeland there is room for all who were born under the guiding shadow of our flag, regardless of the color of their skin, their social customs, their religious beliefs.‖ Portugal, he concluded, was ―a cauldron in which all differences melt

88 Khera, Operation Vijay, 237-240.

89 Stewart Lloyd-Jones and António Costa Pinto, ed., The Last Empire: Thirty Years of Portuguese Decolonization (Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2003), 4; Henriksen, ―Portugal in Africa: A Noneconomic Interpretation,‖ 414.

90 Martiniano Homem de Figueiredo and José de Freitas Soares, et al, Portuguese Armed Forces (Lisbon: Defensa Nacional, 1961), 19.

91 Quoted in Sidaway and Power, ―‗The Tears of Portugal‘,‖ 543.

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away and all divergences mingle.‖92 However, such statements denied the reality then extant in the Portuguese realm, and especially in Guinea, where the European presence remained inconsequential and inter-ethnic tensions belied any claim to racial, let alone pluri-racial, unity. Facts aside, however, the Estado Novo regime clung grimly to the fiction of pluri-racialism as a matter of policy and preference until its downfall.

―Pluri-continentalism‖ occupied a niche as high, if not higher, than pluri-racialism in the pantheon of Estado Novo mythology. As an Estado Novo-era Ministry of Foreign

Affairs publication declared,

The sovereign State known as Portugal should not be confused with the European territory called by the same name…. An authoritative document dating 1612 states quite clearly that Portugal‘s extra-European provinces are ―not distinct nor separate from this realm nor yet belong to it by union, but they are parts of the same realm.‖ It goes on to say that he who is born in Goa or in Angola is ―as much Portuguese as he who lives and is born in Lisbon‖ [emphasis in original].93

Consequently, the publication contends, ―the Portuguese provinces in Africa are not under Portuguese sovereignty; they are constituent parts of that sovereignty, which they share with the other parts of the Portuguese State including the European part.‖94 To legally buttress this position, however transparently, the Estado Novo regime enacted a series of laws from 1928-1933 reaffirming that the African colonies, as well as other overseas possessions, represented an integral part of the Portuguese state rather than

92 Caetano, Portugal’s Reasons for Remaining in Africa, 18.

93 Portuguese Africa: an Introduction (Lisbon: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1973), 78. This source does not specify the name or nature of the ―authoritative document‖ of 1612.

94 Portuguese Africa: an Introduction, 21.

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conquered or occupied foreign territories.95 Juridically, the colonies became ―states‖ and

―provinces‖ of Portugal with the passage of additional decrees in 1951, although in practice and in popular discourse they remained ―colonies.‖96 But whatever their label, the Estado Novo regime remained adamant in its contention that Portugal was an integrated, indivisible state that just happened to exist on three continents and several archapelagos. As Salazar once elaborated when discussing the alleged indivisibility of the Portuguese state, ―There are no Portuguese possessions, but [rather] footprints of

Portugal disseminated in the world. In Lisbon, in Cape Verde, in Angola, in Guiné, in

Timor or in it is always the ‗Patria‘.‖97

Given these notions of ―pluri-continentalism‖ and indivisibility, the prevailing contention within the Estado Novo regime held that the ―amputation‖ of even one part of the Portuguese state would represent not a surgical procedure, but as a mutilation which might well prove fatal to the entire body politic.98 Leading regime figures frequently

95 Marques, History of Portugal, Vol. II, 229; Newitt, Portugal in Africa, 185. The specific laws were the Codigo do Trabalho Indígena (Indigenous Labor Code, 1928), the Acto Colónial (Colonial Act, 1930), the Carta Orgânica (Organic Charter, 1933), and the Administrative Overseas Reform Act (1933), and the new Portuguese constitution (1933).

96Duffy, Portugal in Africa, 191; Newitt, Portugal in Africa, 47. Newitt notes that ―It was typical of Salazar and his advisers to believe that such simple strokes of the pen could spirit away all Portugal‘s problems as a colonial power.‖ Further, Marques contends that ―The word ‗colonies meant little—a result of French influence.‖ He explains that the words ―colony‖ and ―province‖ were often used in official Portuguese texts with the same meaning apparently intended. Marques, History of Portugal, Vol. II, 225.

97 Quoted in Sidaway and Power, ―‗The Tears of Portugal‘,‖ 539.

98 MacQueen, ―Portugal‘s First Domino,‖ 229-230. General António de Spínola, the Portuguese and governor in Guinea from 1968-1973 and a key figure in the latter part of this work, used this analogy when comparing ‘s independence (1822) and the Indian of the Portuguese territories on the subcontinent: ―Brazil, thus, represented the birth of a son; but in remembering this, we are reminded of Goa, which was the amputation of a limb.‖ António de de Spínola, Portugal and the Future (Johannesburg: Preskor Publishers, 1974), 72.

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stated publicly that, deprived of their imperial holdings, ―Portugal would become a province of Spain.‖ Salazar‘s Foreign Minister Franco Nogueira concurred on more than one occasion, noting that if Portugal lost its African possessions it would ―immediately be absorbed by Spain.‖99 Comments such as this revealed lingering anxieties resulting from Spain‘s annexation of Portugal in 1578—a national trauma that contributed to a

―near-paranoiac insecurity‖ which apparently mandated the retention of all that was, and should continue to be, ―Portuguese.‖100

This institutional angst helps explain the urgency with which the Estado Novo regime reacted to rebellion in Africa, and why Noguiera‘s successor, Ruis Patricio, later characterized the potential for defeat in Guinea as a matter of ―our survival.‖ ―We are in mortal danger,‖ the latter Foreign Minister remarked to Kissinger during a 1973 meeting, clearly referring to the Portuguese state as a whole.101 Given the depths of these attitudes, the Estado Novo regime resolved to retain its overseas possessions in the face of whatever opposition its foes could muster.102 From the regime‘s perspective, the fact that Guinea offered few material benefits to the metropole paled in comparison to its historic place within the ―indivisible‖ Portuguese state.103

99 Quoted in Maxwell, The Making of Portuguese Democracy, 28.

100 Henriksen, ―Portugal in Africa: A Noneconomic Interpretation,‖ 410-411.

101 U.S. Delegation Riyadh, teletype message, 150752Z DEC 1973, to Secretary of State, 15 December 1973, 5-6.

102 Central Intelligence Agency, ―Significance of Portuguese and Spanish Colonial Problems for the US,‖ 1.

103 MacQueen, ―Portugal‘s First Domino,‖ 211.

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Estado Novo elites also foresaw a potential precedent in any or compromise involving Guinea, for they feared such a development would intensify efforts to strip Portugal of its remaining overseas possessions. As Salazar related to

Guinea‘s Governor-General in 1968, the loss of the territory would lead inevitably to the loss of the more lucrative possessions of Angola and Mozambique. References to this

―imperial domino theory‖ appeared repeatedly in Estado Novo policy-making deliberations, and Professor Norrie MacQueen104 concluded that the notion ultimately

―emerge[d] as the basis of the entire Portuguese endeavor in Guinea.‖105 Thus, while the

Estado Novo regime might have eventually reconciled itself to the loss of ―beastly‖

Guinea alone, it would not—could not—accept the complete disintegration of Portugal‘s empire, for Portugal could not be Portugal without its empire. According to the imperial mythos that guided Estado Novo elites, without the empire—that is, without the advantages imperial stature purportedly conferred—Portugal could not survive as a state of any consequence, and might even cease to exist as a state at all. Consequently, in some respects Lisbon was in fact fighting for its survival; along the amorphous frontiers

104 Since 1996, a Professor of Politics at the University of Dundee.

105 MacQueen, ―Portugal‘s First Domino,‖ 213. This is exactly how events ultimately transpired, but not in the way either Salazar or his successor feared. The Portuguese ―domino theory,‖ like its American counterpart in Southeast Asia, has resulted in some debate; while most historians agree that Salazar and Caetano believed in the theory and formulated their decisions accordingly, the general consensus among scholars contends that the three wars represented a series of related, but autonomous, struggles. There was considerable political and diplomatic cooperation between the three principal liberation movements—the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau, the MPLA in Angola, and FRELIMO in Mozambique—and by the 1970s they all enjoyed the support of the same sponsors in the Soviet bloc and the OAU. However, according to Cann especially, the Portuguese had effectively neutralized the fragmented insurgency in Angola by 1974, and the Mozambique insurgency had only recently intensified to the point where it could take the against the Portuguese. Meanwhile, there was no insurgency in Cape Verde, São Tome and Principe, Timor, or Macau. Such evidence argues against the validity of the ―imperial domino theory,‖ but the frequency of its mention in Estado Novo discourse suggests that regime elites—including Prime Ministers Salazar and Caetano—subscribed fully to the theory.

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that straddle the realms of perception and reality, the Estado Novo regime certainly saw the struggle that way. As it turned out, they were right—at least in terms of a Portuguese

Imperium and the Estado Novo regime itself.

Why and How: Guinean Insurgent Motives and Methods of Popular Mobilization

If every armed conflict can be characterized as a clash between opposing visions of the future, then the Estado Novo‘s program represented one of stasis. The regime feared and resented the decolonizing impulse sweeping through the postwar world, and stubbornly held to its determination to resist the changes re-shaping the geopolitical order—alone among the imperial powers, if necessary. The regime had no coherent program for its colonies other than that things should continue largely as they had been in the past. This alone opened Portugal‘s imperial enterprise to challenge from an extensive array of actors opposed to the status quo for a rich variety of reasons. The most successful of these challenges occurred in Guinea, where the Partido Africano da

Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, abbreviated PAIGC) waged an 18-year struggle to eject the Portuguese, ultimately succeeding after more than a decade of intensifying warfare.

For the first 16 years of its existence, the PAIGC was led by Amílcar Lopes

Cabral, one of the most dynamic, intelligent, and well-respected figures in the history of

African decolonization. Like many insurgent leaders in Portugal‘s African territories,

Cabral began his revolutionary career as a member of a comparatively elite and

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privileged group. As an educated Cape Verdean raised on the , he had achieved the assimilado (i.e., ―assimilated‖) status granted to less than one half of one per cent of

Guinea‘s African population. Cabral took advantage of this rare distinction to accept, in

1945, a scholarship to study agronomy at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia in

Lisbon.106 While in the Portuguese capital, Cabral received his first direct exposure to

European political and social theory as an active participant in the student group

Movimento de União Democrática-Juvenil (MUD-Juvenil). Its members schooled themselves in the political vogue of the day, particularly pan-Africanism and Marxism.107

Unlike some MUD-Juvenil members, however, Cabral did not fully adopt orthodox

Marxism; rather, he opted for a more pragmatic and flexible interpretation of socialist theory.108 Most significantly, though, Cabral‘s direct exposure to the distinctiveness of

Europe shook his previous self-identification as a Portuguese, while his active involvement with students from Africa heightened a nascent sense of affinity with that continent. This experience ―led him to identify himself with the plight of the indigenous

Luso-African, and by 1949, he was truly radicalized.‖ By the time he completed his

106 Patrick Chabal, Amílcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People’s War (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003), 35.

107 Patrick Chabal, ―The Social and Political Thought of Amilcar Cabral: A Reassessment‖ (The Journal of Modern African Studies, March 1981, 31-56), 32; Mustafah Dhada, Warriors at Work: How Guinea-Bissau Was Really Set Free (Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1993), 142.

108 Patrick Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea‖ (African Affairs, January 1981, 75-99), 81- 82; Chabal, ―The Social and Political Thought of Amilcar Cabral,‖ 33. Professor Patrick Chabal at King‘s College, London, has been one of the most prolific chroniclers of Amílcar Cabral‘s activities and the Guinean liberation struggle at large. In addition, several of his former students and advisees—notably John P. Cann, who is currently at work on his third book regarding Portugal‘s African wars—have also published relevant works since the late 1990s. Consequently, several of Chabal‘s works and lines of inquiry have proven to be of great utility in this treatment of the conflict in Guinea.

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studies in Lisbon, Cabral had conclusively jettisoned his previous self-identification as a

European, and instead considered himself wholly African.109

Upon his return to Guinea, Cabral applied his university studies as an agricultural advisor for the colonial administration. In this capacity he traveled throughout the province to conduct a comprehensive agricultural survey from 1952 to 1954, an experience that immersed him among the territory‘s rural populace—which in turn further focused his political ideas. Unlike the many guerrillas of his day who were driven primarily by theoretical considerations, Cabral acquired considerable practical insight into the peasantry‘s problems, their aspirations, and the thought processes that they employed to conceptualize and articulate both.110 The experience has since been characterized as ―a key factor in the development of the PAIGC strategy and the success with which it was put into practice.‖111

Additionally, Cabral‘s travels throughout Guinea highlighted the disparity between metropolitan Portugal and its poorest . As a he had witnessed and in his native Cape Verde, and had endured the privations of in Guinea.112 Traveling throughout Guinea as a young professional, he noted with dismay the appalling conditions in which Portugal kept the indigenous population: the province had only two hospitals, for example, with enough beds for only 300 patients

109 Dhada, Warriors at Work, 142.

110 H. Chilcote, ―The Political Thought of Amílcar Cabral,‖ The Journal of Modern African Studies 6, 3 (October, 1968), 374-375; Blackey, ―Fanon and Cabral,‖ 194.

111 Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 81-82; Houser, No One Can Stop the Rain, 202.

112 Chabal, Amílcar Cabral, 30-31.

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out of a population of half a million. The paucity of medical care resulted in abysmal rates and life expectancies, especially as compared to those in Portugal or elsewhere in the West. Responsibility for education was vested in the , which favored instruction in ―good and civilized behavior and attitudes‖ rather than literacy; as a result, in the early 1960s 99.7% of the population remained illiterate.113 As the PAIGC‘s leader, Cabral repeatedly referred to these and similar factors as key reasons for his decision to rebel against Lisbon.114

With these injustices in mind, Cabral and five other like-minded Guineans and

Cape Verdeans founded the PAIGC on 19 September 1956.115 Like the Algerian FLN116 before them, the PAIGC initially attempted an urban campaign stressing protest and political agitation. In one sense, the PAIGC met with some measure of success in mobilizing Guinea‘s diminutive urban populace: after several small-scale strikes and demonstrations, the PAIGC was able to muster enough support to orchestrate a major dockworkers‘ strike, one that was large enough be taken seriously by the authorities. 117

However, the ―Pidjiguiti dock strike‖ of 3 August 1959 proved to be a Pyrrhic victory at best, and at worst a damning indictment of the PAIGC‘s naïveté. The young party failed

113 U.S. Congress House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Report on Portuguese Guinea and the Liberation Movement (91st Congress, 2nd session, 26 ) (hereafter ―Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs‖), 3; Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 78.

114 Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Report on Portuguese Guinea and the Liberation Movement, 3; Chabal, Amílcar Cabral, 30-31.

115 Chabal, Amílcar Cabral, 54.

116 The ―Front de Libération Nationale,‖ translated as the National Liberation Front.

117 Houser, No One Can Stop the Rain, 203.

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to anticipate the brutality of the authorities‘ response, during which some 50 workers were killed and more than 100 injured during 20 minutes of one-sided gunfire.118 As

Cabral later admitted, ―In the beginning we thought it would be possible to fight in the , using the experiences of other , but that was a mistake. We tried strikes and demonstrations, but…realized this would not work.‖119

The strike‘s outcome exerted an immediate and profound effect on the PAIGC‘s program and the liberation struggle as a whole. At a clandestine meeting six weeks after the massacre, the party leadership reluctantly concluded they would have to abandon the urban struggle. Simply put, the methods employed by the Portuguese authorities— including informant networks, curfews, mass arrests, and censorship in addition to direct police action—worked most effectively in the . At the same time, the Portuguese colonial machinery was strongest in that same urban milieu.120 Therefore, the PAIGC decided to focus their future efforts on the countryside, among the rural populace.121

While the cities remained key reservoirs for recruits and arenas for agitation, the PAIGC drastically reduced its urban presence and took its urban activities underground.122

118 Mustafa Dhada, ―The Liberation War in Guinea-Bissau Reconsidered,‖ The Journal of 62, no. 3 (July, 1998), 72; Arslan Humbaraci and Nicole Muchnik, Portugal’s African Wars: Angola, Guinea Bissao, Mozambique (New York: The Third Press, 1974), 133-134; Chilcote, ―The Political Thought of Amílcar Cabral,‖ 376; Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 80-81; Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Report on Portuguese Guinea and the Liberation Movement, 3.

119 Robert Blackey, ―Fanon and Cabral: A Contrast in Theories of Revolution for Africa‖ (The Journal of Modern African Studies, June 1974, 191-209), 193.

120 Thomas H. Henriksen, ―People‘s War in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau,‖ 384.

121 Dhada,‖The Liberation War in Guinea-Bissau Reconsidered,‖ 572.

122 Blackey, ―Fanon and Cabral,‖ 199; Houser, No One Can Stop the Rain, 203-204; Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 80-81.

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The new rural-focused strategy was not without its own considerable difficulties, chief among them the laissez-faire attitudes of Guinea‘s peasantry. On the one hand, the peasantry had experienced little direct exposure to colonial exploitation; Cabral himself estimated that some 99% of Guinea‘s African population was ―untouched or almost untouched by the colonial power.‖123 For example, forced labor was employed far less frequently than in Angola or Mozambique, and even then only for relatively short-term projects such as road-building.124 Further, there were no or sizeable

European-owned farming enterprises as elsewhere in colonial Africa, and its peasantry had not suffered the land expropriation so common in other European possessions. Most arable land, in fact, was still owned communally by Guinean villagers. The question of land ownership thus became irrelevant, and the classic slogans of peasant mobilization rang hollow in Guinea; ―land to the landless‖ fell on deaf ears when the audience already owned it. Overall, then, the average Guinean villager‘s exposure to colonial exploitation was limited and indirect, consisting of mandated cash crop quotas and in kind— hardly the kind of gross injustice sufficient to warrant a war of liberation.125

In addition, Cabral found the general peasantry ―tradition-bound,‖ largely resulting from the near complete lack of education in rural areas. In the case of one

123 Amílcar Cabral, ―Culture, Colonization, and National Liberation,‖ in Aquino de Bragança and Immanuel Wallerstein, eds., The African Liberation Reader, Volume 1: The Anatomy of Colonialism (London: Zed Press, 1982), 160.

124 Humbaraci and Muchnik, Portugal’s African Wars, 135; Houser, No One Can Stop the Rain, 201.

125 Henry Bienen, ―State and Revolution: The Work of Amílcar Cabral‖ (The Journal of Modern African Studies, December 1977, 555-568), 561; Henriksen, ―People‘s War in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea- Bissau,‖ 380-381; Al J. Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War: The Campaign for Africa (Cape , : John Malherby Ltd., 1973), 117; Houser, No One Can Stop the Rain, 203.

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major —the hierarchically-structured Fula—the persistence of tradition in determining the roles and privileges of chiefs had presented the Portuguese a pre-existing system through which to wield indirect authority. Consequently, the Fula and allied groups proved hostile to notions of nationalism and egalitarianism which would threaten the privileges of traditional elites or deprive them of the rewards of colonial cooperation.126 Nonetheless, Cabral and other PAIGC leaders resolved to try, which mandated a much more intensive and intimate propaganda campaign in the and countryside than had been required in the cities.

To prepare the party‘s mobilizers for their upcoming encounters with the peasantry, the PAIGC established a political school in the neighboring Republic of

Guinea to teach current and future cadres the art of political persuasion in the context of what might well be called ―peasant logic.‖127 An estimated 800 to 1,000 cadres were trained in this school, and as early as 1960 the first of them were sent into the countryside of Guinea.128 This meant literally ―going from to village to gain the confidence of the rural population.‖129 In this effort the mobilizers‘ task did not differ greatly from missionary work; they were, however, careful to avoid any semblance of preaching or dealing with the peasantry from a position of superiority, whether moral or intellectual.

126 Thomas H. Henriksen, ―Some Notes on the National Liberation Wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau‖ (Military Affairs, February 1977, 30-37), 33; Henriksen, ―People‘s War in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau,‖ 382-383.

127 Blackey, ―Fanon and Cabral,‖ 195.

128 Houser, No One Can Stop the Rain, 205.

129 Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 87; see also Paul M. Whitaker, ―The Revolutions of ‗Portuguese‘ Africa‖ (The Journal of Modern African Studies, April 1970, 15-35), 24.

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The party also recognized it could not provide ready-made ―answers‖ to questions the peasants had not asked in the first place. As Cabral explained, ―We tried to avoid having the peasants suppose that we were outsiders come to teach them how to do things; we put ourselves in the position of people who come to learn with the peasant, and in the end the peasant was discovering for himself why things had gone so badly for him.‖130

To accomplish that end, the cadres employed a unique method whose origins could be found in Cabral‘s earlier experiences with the peasantry. They first recognized that they would have to speak to the peasant in his own vernacular. ―We had to find appropriate formulas to mobilize our peasants, instead of utilizing terms that our people couldn‘t yet understand,‖ Cabral later recalled. ―In its place we use a direct language that all can understand.‖ 131 This ―language‖ involved a Socratic method of question and answer through which the peasant would arrive at his own conclusions:

What is the situation? Did you pay taxes? Did your father pay taxes? What have you seen from those taxes? How much do you get for your groundnuts? Have you thought about how much you will earn with your groundnuts? How much sweat has it cost your family? Which of you has been imprisoned? You are going to work on road-building: who gives you the tools? You bring the tools. Who provides your meals? You provide your meals. But who walks on the road? Who has a car? And your daughter who was raped—are you happy about that?132

The PAIGC expected the peasant would come to realize the extent of his exploitation through such discursive methods. How successful these methods proved doubtlessly

130 Blackey, ―Fanon and Cabral,‖ 195.

131 Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 117-118. See also Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ for further descriptions of Cabral‘s theories of party-peasant discourse.

132 Amílcar Cabral, Revolution in Guinea: Selected Texts by Amílcar Cabral (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969), 159.

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varied from instance to instance; indeed, many of the first cadres ended up in Portuguese custody, betrayed by the villagers they had come to ―learn with.‖ In retrospect, however, the slow, painstaking, and often frustrating task of political education and trust-building proved to be the essential precondition for all of the PAGIC‘s future successes in

Guinea.133 Until the latter stages of the coming war, representatives of Portuguese authority never attempted to orchestrate a corresponding effort to justify Lisbon‘s rule.

Yet Cabral did not put all his hopes on mere verbal persuasion; rather, he initiated a program intended to build popular loyalty to the PAIGC as a ―state-in-being‖ or ―party- state‖ through the provision of practical benefits to inhabitants of insurgent-controlled areas. This, in turn, required the creation of rudimentary state structures and administration, a crude but functioning economy, and institutions promoting social welfare.134 Consequently, wherever the PAIGC had evicted Portuguese forces, there followed reconstruction and such development as the PAIGC could afford to orchestrate.

Several observers have characterized this program as the ―most significant aspect‖ of the liberation struggle in Portuguese Guinea. Certainly Cabral and the PAIGC considered this program ―the most effective way of gaining and maintaining the support of the population.‖135 As Cabral reminded his colleagues in an oft-cited passage:

Remember always that the people do not fight for ideas, for things that only exist in the heads of individuals. The people fight and they accept the necessary

133 Basil Davidson, The People’s Cause: A History of Guerrillas in Africa (Essex, UK: Longman Group Limited, 1981), 137, 167; Blackey, ―Fanon and Cabral,‖ 195.

134Basil Davidson, The People’s Cause, 79-82. In this respect the PAIGC foreshadowed more current episodes of insurgents-cum-social benefactors, such as Hezballah in or in Palestine.

135 Patrick Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea‖ (African Affairs, January 1981, 75-99), 94.

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sacrifices. But they do it in order to gain material advantages, to live in and to improve their lives, to experience progress, and to be able to guarantee a future to their children. National liberation, struggle against colonialism, building peace and progress—independence—all of that, they are empty words and without significance for the people if they are not translated into a real improvement in their living conditions.136

By no means is this to suggest that Cabral advocated mass bribery in the countryside.

Tangibly improving the lives of the peasantry not only appealed to his humanistic nature, it also served a practical political purpose by highlighting the Portuguese authorities‘ callous lack of regard for their subjects, for under Portuguese domination rural development programs simply did not exist. Portugal‘s only apparent interest related to rural development lay in facilitating the movement of cash crops to for and sale abroad.137 Programs promoting the welfare of those producing the crops did not exist, which kept the peasantry uneducated, immobile, and unattended by even rudimentary medical care. Recalling the dismal illiteracy rates, the dearth of health care, and the appalling infant mortality statistics under Portugal‘s ―civilizing‖ rule, Cabral lamented, ―You can realize what kind of situation we had after more than 500 years of

Portuguese presence in our country.‖138

136 Lars Rudebeck, ―Political Mobilization for Development in Guinea-Bissau‖ (The Journal of Modern African Studies, May 1972, 1-18), 3; Nzongola-Ntalaja, ―Amílcar Cabral and the Theory of the National Liberation Struggle‖ (Latin American Perspectives, Spring 1984, 43-54), 51.

137 Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 77-79.

138 Houser, No One Can Stop the Rain, 201. At one point early in the PAIGC‘s existence Cabral observed that ―Portugal is an underdeveloped country with 40% illiteracy and with one of the lowest standards of living in Europe. If she could have a ‗civilizing influence‘ on any people, she would be accomplishing a kind of miracle.‖ Amílcar Cabral, ―The Facts about Portugal‘s African Colonies,‖ in Aquino de Bragança and Immanuel Wallerstein, eds., The African Liberation Reader, Volume 1: The Anatomy of Colonialism (London: Zed Press, 1982), 10.

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To right that dismal legacy, the PAIGC introduced a comprehensive package of political, legal, educational, and economic programs in the liberated areas, even as armed conflict continued in neighboring regions. These included locally elected ―village committees‖ which the PAIGC advised but did not control, as well as ―people‘s courts‖ on which elected judges sat.139 Thus, for the first time, the rural inhabitants of these villages could exercise a degree of control over the policies which governed their daily lives. Cabral recognized, however, that self-government would remain problematic without education. Consequently, the PAIGC also established a network of schools. By

1973, according to the party‘s records, the PAIGC had established 164 primary and secondary schools in the liberated areas, with an enrollment of over 14,000. Alongside the schools sprang several dozen hospitals and clinics, affording the bulk of liberated peasants their first access to non-traditional methods of medical care.140 Through these programs the PAIGC endeavored, with considerable success, to demonstrate that communal membership in the nation-to-be would confer concrete improvements in the people‘s day-to-day existence.141 The PAIGC‘s program also reinforced the argument that the populace shared a significant stake in the outcome of the struggle, that ―they were fighting for their own interests…the struggle was theirs or it was no one‘s.‖142

139 Basil Davidson, The People’s Cause, 163-164; Rudebeck, ―Political Mobilization for Development in Guinea-Bissau,‖ 9, 13-14; Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 94.

140 Houser, No One Can Stop the Rain, 209.

141 Henriksen, ―People‘s War in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau,‖ 393; Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 94; Rudebeck, ―Political Mobilization for Development in Guinea- Bissau,‖4.

142 Basil Davidson, The People’s Cause, 167.

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Finally, Cabral recognized the crucial importance of inculcating the movement with some kind of unifying concept, one powerful enough to overcome the traditional ethnic and religious that had divided the territory‘s population. While Cabral understood that the Western model of the nation-state and the corresponding notion of nationalism ―was not an optimal alternative to the use of some other weapon,‖ he also realized that no such other weapon existed, at least not any that offered a measurable prospect of success.143 Yet any revolutionary struggle in Guinea—and any nation-state that would result—required some sense of political community across the entire territory.

Cabral consequently began the process of building national unity where no nation-state had previously existed. This, in turn, involved the inculcation of nationalist sentiment through shared hardship and ultimate success in the ―struggle.‖ Cabral believed that liberation warfare itself could promote political awareness and consolidate emerging notions of national unity and loyalty, despite the legacy of ethnic tension and competition;144 as Cabral later remarked, ―We are now forging our nation in the struggle.‖145 He recognized, however, that shared struggle and sacrifice were insufficient in themselves. To forge any semblance of a unified nation from a diverse and fragmented ethnic base, Cabral and the PAIGC also adopted such symbols of national community as

143 Basil Davidson, ―On Revolutionary Nationalism: The Legacy of Cabral‖ (Latin American Perspectives, Spring 1984, 15-42), 37.

144 Chilcote, ―The Political Thought of Amilcar Cabral,‖ 380. See also Whitaker, ―The Revolutions of ‗Portuguese‘ Africa,‖ 25, for a brief discussion of the obstacles to the PAIGC‘s program that arose from inter-ethnic strife.

145 Amílcar Cabral, Return to the Source: Selected Speeches of Amílcar Cabral (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973), 77-78. This particular summation of his theory of national formation dates from 1972, during an address to a U.S. audience.

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they could: Portuguese as a national language, the fusion of local traditions and customs through dances and songs popularized throughout PAIGC-controlled territory, and ultimately a national flag, a national anthem, and a name by which the new nation-state could be recognized.146 ―Nationalism proved the vital cohesive ingredient to the revolutionary movements of Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau in forging pan-ethnic unity,‖ one contemporaneous analyst concluded,147 but nationalism without a secure and internationally-recognized nation would remain a wish at best and a charade at worse. To win the nation, the PAGIC would first have to win the war that began in January 1963— even without its leader, Amílcar Cabral, who was assassinated as a result of Portuguese- inspired factional intrigue almost exactly ten years later. Such was the strength of his vision and the soundness of his program, however, that the insurgents were able not only to continue the struggle in his absence, but to prevail.

146 Henriksen, ―People‘s War in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau,‖ 393. The name, of course, was ―Guinea-Bissau,‖ but in the early 1960s, the PAIGC had instead preferred the name ―Kinara,‖ after a pre- colonial polity kingdom that had once existed in the vicinity. Zartman, 10.

147 Henriksen, ―Some Notes on the National Liberation Wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau,‖ 32.

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Chapter 2 – The War for “Portuguese” Guinea: A Strategic Overview

The Foundations of Guerrilla Theory in Guinea

Cabral took his party to war in 1963 with an arsenal of well-reasoned strategic and operational principles. First, he had noted earlier European accusations that

―liberation movements‖ in their colonies were, in fact, instances of external aggression originating in neighboring states. Consequently, Cabral determined that the PAIGC‘s campaign would be conducted within Guinean territory as much as possible, rather than based on raids from cross-border sanctuaries. Second, he dictated that political mobilization must precede any attempt to occupy an area; PAIGC forces would thus avoid attempting to hold territory without the assured support—or at least the tolerance— of its inhabitants. Third, Cabral recognized the damage to morale and credibility that would follow the loss of previously-held territory; he therefore placed heavy emphasis on defending ―liberated areas‖ against reprisals and counter-attacks. Cabral further understood the political repercussions of indiscriminate acts of terrorism or revenge, and instead directed the PAIGC from the start to fight a ―clean‖ war, prohibiting attacks against civilians or abuse against prisoners.148

148 From the evidence available, and despite the Portuguese characterization of PAIGC militants as ―terrorists,‖ it appears that these prohibitions were generally obeyed by PAIGC forces. Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 91-92.

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Strategically, Cabral developed a plan to advance from Guinea‘s rural frontier regions towards the major cities and towns in the interior. The aim of this ―centrifugal strategy,‖ as Cabral described it, was to encircle the urban areas that comprised the key nodes of Portugal‘s administrative, logistical, and communication networks in the territory. To seize them, however, would doubtless have proven too costly in terms of casualties on both sides, and another of Cabral‘s guiding operational principles mandated that PAIGC casualties be kept to a minimum for morale, humanitarian, and recruiting purposes. He consequently directed his militants to avoid, whenever possible, frontal assaults or direct confrontations with their better-armed Portuguese opponents.149 The inevitable result of these guidelines was a protracted campaign, as opposed to a -like ―knockout blow.‖150 Cabral thus opted for a intended to cumulatively exact an intolerable price in blood and treasure from Portugal. Although exceptions would occur—some successful, others catastrophic151—this attritional strategy remained the norm for the PAIGC throughout the conflict.152

149 Jock McCulloch, In the Twilight of Revolution: The Political Theory of Amilcar Cabral (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), 20-21; Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 92. This last guideline is a hallmark of modern guerrilla operations. As Robert noted in his landmark 1965 work War of the Flea, guerrillas generally fight ―in order to survive. Given their inferiority of resources, they can survive only by avoiding direct confrontation with a superior enemy.‖ Robert Taber, War of the Flea (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2002), 40.

150 A recent attempt at such a blow doubtless served as a precedent for Cabral. In , 5,000 Angolan militants directed by stormed into Angola with the apparent orders to wreak as much death and destruction as possible. Based on his interpretation of events in the during the previous two years, Roberto had intended the invasion and its consequences to result in a rapid Portuguese capitulation. In the end, this act of ―sheer barbarism‖ achieved nothing but the deaths of 21,000 people and an influx of Portuguese soldiers to Angola, as well as Mozambique and Guinea. See W.S. Van der Waals, Portugal’s War in Angola, 1961-1974 (Rivonia, RSA: Ashanti Publishing, 1993), 58-62.

151 The 1964 battle to retain Como Island provides an early example of successful confrontation against a superior Portuguese force; two years later, however, Cabral and the PAIGC were treated to ―the bloody and bitter lesson‖ of their failed assault against a Portuguese garrison at Madina de Boé. See Piero Gleijeses,

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That exceptions did occur highlighted the flexibility that Cabral consistently displayed, a characteristic that set him apart from other—and less effective—guerrilla leaders of the time. Indeed, by the time the PAIGC began its campaign a ―canon‖ of sorts had begun to dominate discourse on the subject of insurgency and guerrilla tactics.

As Robert Taber noted in his influential book War of the Flea (1965), Mao Zedong, Vo

Nguyen Giap, and Ernesto ―Che‖ Guevara had been elevated to the top tier of the guerrilla pantheon, and in some quarters their writings on the subject had acquired the status of doctrine to be heeded, if not dogma to be emulated in detail.153 While Cabral knew of and openly admired all three guerrilla leaders, he frequently warned against

―dogmatism‖ and the wholesale transplantation of externally-developed principles to the specific context of Guinea.154 As Cabral remarked of one global guerrilla icon,

You know very well that Che Guevara, the great Che Guevara for us, wrote a book, a book on the guerrilla struggle. This book, for example, like other documents on the guerrilla struggle in other countries…served as a basis of general experience for our own people. But nobody is committing the error, in general, of blindly applying the experience of others to his own country. To

Conflicting Missions: , Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 197-198.

152 Henriksen, ―People‘s War in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau,‖ 387.

153 The specific works available at the time include Mao‘s Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1961) and various essays, notably ―On Protracted Warfare‖ (1938), compiled in Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung (: Foreign Languages Press, 1967). Giap‘s best-known work chronicling strategy and execution during the (1945-1954) was, and remains, People’s War People’s Army (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2001), which was first published in English in 1961. Che‘s Guerrilla Warfare (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1998) first appeared that same year. While Mao explicitly warned that his writings reflected lessons learned in a specific country during a specific conflict, the latter two works were offered as ―handbooks‖ or ―manuals‖ with purportedly universal applicability.

154 McCulloch, In the Twilight of Revolution, 21.

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determine the tactics for the struggle in our country, we had to take into account the geographical, historical, economic, and social conditions of our own land.155

Cabral similarly warned against applying guerrilla methods learned in mountainous countries to the flatlands of Guinea; deliberately attempted to temper expectations of a decisive battle (an African ―Dien Bien Phu‖); and repeatedly resisted categorization of his party‘s program into allegedly universal Cold War typologies such as ―Marxist‖ or

―communist.‖156 ―We have certain reservations about the systemization of phenomena,‖ he later reiterated. ―In reality the phenomena don‘t always develop in practice according to the established schemes.‖157 In the end, his foresight and flexibility would serve his party as well on the international stage as it did on the battlefields of Guinea.

On only one point did Cabral impose a rigid orthodoxy: his fervent belief that the

PAIGC‘s military activities should remain subordinate to its political program. For the

PAIGC, ―the dominance of the political over the military aspect of the struggle determined all the other policies. It was built into the structure of the party and was enforced with extreme vigor and consistency.‖158 Cabral explicitly designed the

PAIGC‘s military campaigns to fulfill the preconditions necessary to realize the desired political end state, namely ―to create the political conditions under which favorable

155 Amílcar Cabral, ―Guerrilla Tactics and Guevara‘s Book,‖ in Aquino de Bragança and Immanuel Wallerstein, eds., The African Liberation Reader, Volume 3: The Strategy of Liberation (London: Zed Press, 1982), 164.

156 Amílcar Cabral, ―The Party and the Army,‖ 164; McCulloch, In the Twilight of Revolution, 22. When pressed on the question of his political ideology at a U.S. Congressional subcommittee hearing, Cabral stated insistently that ―Our ideology is nationalism.‖ Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Report on Portuguese Guinea and the Liberation Movement, 10.

157 Amílcar Cabral, Revolution in Guinea: Selected Texts by Amílcar Cabral, 141.

158 Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 85.

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negotiations for national independence could take place.‖159 ―Our fighters are defined as armed activists,‖ Cabral explained. ―It is the Political Bureau of the Party that directs the armed struggle.‖160 Although this created some complexities in command arrangements,

Cabral‘s insistence on political primacy nonetheless ensured that all military activities cohered with the ultimate political purpose of the insurgent war effort.

A Chance for Diplomacy: PAIGC Overtures and Portuguese Indifference

With this prescription in mind, Cabral launched the PAIGC‘s first ―offensive‖ not on the battle lines, but on the diplomatic front. The PAIGC leader ―tried to the last to avoid war,‖ appealing personally to Salazar for talks leading to a peaceful transition of power and launching an international publicity campaign to promote the cause of

Guinean independence.161 From 1960 to 1963 Cabral published a series of pamphlets and editorials abroad and wrote open letters urging a peaceful solution to the problem of

Guinea and Cape Verde.162 During this period he also presented a report on Portuguese colonial practices to the United Nations Special Committee on Territories under

Portuguese Administration, and delivered a related address to the General Assembly‘s

159 McCulloch, In the Twilight of Revolution, 22.

160 Amílcar Cabral, ―Guerrilla Tactics and Guevara‘s Book,‖ 165.

161 Gomes and Afonso, Os Anos da Guerra Colonial 4, 16.

162 Gomes and Afonso, Os Anos da Guerra Colonial 4, 17. The full text of the one of these pamphlets has been translated and reprinted in Aquino de Bragança and Immanuel Wallerstein, eds., The African Liberation Reader, Volume 1: The Anatomy of Colonialism (London: Zed Press, 1982), 7-10.

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Fourth Commission.163 Even after the PAIGC initiated its , Cabral openly declared that he would suspend armed action if the Portuguese government indicated its willingness to seek a peaceful solution. All of these initiatives, however, were received ―completely without answer‖ by the authorities in Lisbon.164

Portugal had in fact answered the PAIGC‘s initiatives, but not in the manner

Cabral had hoped for. Following the outbreak of armed insurrection in Angola and the first stirrings of organized dissidence in Guinea, Portugal intensified preparations for what it expected to be a protracted counter-insurgency campaign.165 These preparations included a massive buildup of military manpower in Africa: although Portuguese authorities in Guinea could call upon only two infantry companies and a single in 1961, those forces had swelled to nearly five thousand personnel by 1963.166

Lisbon employed those forces in an intensifying series of raids against villages suspected of pro-PAIGC sympathies and support. This campaign, characterized by Professor

Patrick Chabal as ―harsh‖ and ―repressive,‖ culminated in a major Portuguese offensive focused on southwest Guinea in the final months of 1962. As a result of Portugal‘s pre- emptive counter-insurgency, the PAIGC lost a significant amount of the rural support it had accrued during its earlier mobilization initiatives. However, the guerrillas did retain

163 These submissions have been published in Amílcar Cabral, Revolution in Guinea: Selected Texts by Amílcar Cabral (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969), 24-52.

164 Gomes and Afonso, Os Anos da Guerra Colonial 4, 17.

165 These measures also included the imposition of a 10 PM curfew on Bissau and the assumption of emergency powers by then-Governor Antonio Peixoto Correia. Richard Mathews, ―Portuguese Guinea to Erupt?‖ (Africa Report 6, no. 8 [August 1961], 2), 2.

166 Bacelar, A Guerra em África, 98, 133-134.

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sufficient backing, particularly in the south, to launch their first limited offensives in

January 1963.167

Fighting Back: The PAIGC Begins Its Guerrilla Campaign

The PAIGC‘s first guerrilla attacks occurred on 17 January 1963 in the Fulacunda region of southern Guinea, and further attacks over the following two weeks occurred throughout the party‘s newly-inaugurated ―southern front.‖168 Typical targets included small Portuguese military units, isolated military posts, and commercial enterprises, although the PAIGC also conducted repeated attacks against river transport and roads in an effort to cut Portuguese avenues for reinforcement and resupply.169 Although the

Portuguese clearly expected an armed insurgency in Guinea, they had misjudged its geographic focus and direction: based on the perceived lessons of Angola and Algeria, the Portuguese had assumed that the PAIGC would stage its attacks from sanctuaries in neighboring states, namely Senegal and Guinea-Conakry. Cabral‘s ―centrifugal strategy‖ thus caught the Portuguese forces, arrayed in a series of fortresses along the territorial

167 Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 72-73. The PAIGC had actually issued a ―Proclamation of Direct Action‖ on 3 August 1961, the second anniversary of the Pidjuguiti dock massacre. The declaration stated that ―all [the party‘s] militants and cadres are mobilized for direct action in the national liberation struggle‖ and heralded ―the passage of our national revolution from the phase of political struggle to that of national insurrection, to direct action against the colonial forces.‖ Nonetheless, the PAIGC‘s first armed attacks did not occur until a year and a half later. See Amílcar Cabral, Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979 ), 174.

168 Partido Africano da Independencia de Guiné e Cabo Verde (hereafter ―PAIGC‖), ―Communique,‖ 9 February 1963 (Ronald H. Chilcote Collection, University of California-Riverside Library), 1.

169 João Paulo Guerra, Memória das Guerras Coloniais, 2nd ed. (Porto, Portugal: Edições Afrontamento, 1994), 214.

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Figure 2.1. Map of Guinea showing 1). the region where the PAIGC conducted its first armed attacks in January 1963; 2). the area where the PAIGC initiated its ―northern front‖ in July 1963; and 3). Como Island (graphic based on United Nations Map 4063, Revision 3, June 2004; used with permission).

frontier, by surprise.170 The PAIGC consequently made significant gains in a relatively short period; just six months after the beginning of the guerrilla campaign, Portuguese

Defense Minister Gomes de Araújo was forced to concede the PAIGC had ―penetrated the territory of Guinea in an area equivalent to fifteen percent of the total surface.‖171 By

170 McCulloch, In the Twilight of Revolution, 21.

171 Guerra, Memória das Guerras Coloniais, 214.

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that time, the PAIGC had consolidated its hold on Guinea‘s southern littoral and opened a northern front in the vicinity of the Geba Estuary.172

The Party‘s first serious test, however, would come along that same initial front in the south. Among the territory wrested from Portuguese control during the PAIGC‘s earliest operations was Como Island, a strategically significant piece of real estate dominating the cash crop market center of Catió and the deltas of several major rivers— and with them, transportation throughout southeastern Guinea. Up to three thousand

Portuguese infantry, supported by air power, attempted to retake the island beginning in

January 1964. Cabral directed his forces to defend the island, thus heralding the first major PAIGC operation involving direct confrontation with Portuguese forces. The subsequent battle lasted 75 days and resulted in heavy casualties on both sides, but the

Portuguese effort eventually failed; with their failure, the PAIGC enjoyed a considerable boost in both internal morale and external prestige. The successful defense of Como

―marked a turning point in the war,‖ wrote Professor Chabal; ―The southern liberated areas remained firmly in nationalist hands and were never again seriously threatened by the Portuguese.‖ More importantly, the PAIGC had demonstrated its ability to defend territory it had wrested from colonial control, and had further shown its willingness to engage—and prevail—in a ―conventional‖ fight against better-armed Portuguese forces.173

172 Dhada, ―The Liberation War in Guinea-Bissau Reconsidered,‖ 572; Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 54.

173 Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 59-60; see also Dhada, Warriors at Work, 17-18 for a similar summary of the Battle of Como.

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Victories on that scale mandated battle, however, and battle required arms and ammunition. Lack of armament initially posed a daunting obstacle to the guerrilla effort, however. According to a PAIGC commander during the early stages of mobilization and armed action,

At the outset we had seven base camps. And three guns per base…one pachanga, which is our word for a submachine-gun, plus two revolvers. There were far more men than guns. Only the real specialists in guerrilla warfare were given the firearms, and we promptly got busy ambushing convoys (there were a lot of them in circulation at the time) in order to seize more guns.174

The PAIGC‘s material fortunes soon began to change thanks to the sympathies of other

African states and the motivations—both ideological and practical—of Communist bloc nations. and Algeria provided the PAIGC with its first substantial arms shipments, delivering machineguns, grenade launchers, and howitzers to the Guinean insurgents beginning in late 1962. Additional arms arrived from ,

Algeria, , and Guinea during the war‘s early years, while provided military training to PAIGC militants who traveled to the People‘s Republic for that purpose.175

During the struggle‘s later phases, Cuba and the Soviet Union provided the greatest degree of advisory and material support, while additional weaponry arrived from other nations such as , Senegal, and .176

174 Quoted in Gérard Chaliland, Armed Struggle in Africa: With the Guerrillas in “Portuguese” Guinea (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969), 82.

175 Luís Cabral, ―Prender Spínola,‖ in José Freire Antunes, ed., A Guerra de África (1961-1974), vol. 1 (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996), 536-537; Manuel dos Santos, ―Disparar os ‗Strela‘,‖ in José Freire Antunes, ed., A Guerra de África (1961-1974), vol. 1 (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996), 723; Dhada, Warriors at Work, 226.

176 Luís Cabral, ―Prender Spínola,‖ 537; Dhada, Warriors at Work, 186; ―PAIGC Leader Amílcar Cabral Upbraids Portuguese Colonialism‖ (France Nouvelle, 19 November 1969, 10-11, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 860,‖ JPRS 49761, 5 February 1970),

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Reassessment and Reorganization: The PAIGC‟s Cassacá Congress, 1964

Despite the PAIGC‘s victory at Como and its improving material situation, several missteps threatened to cripple the movement soon after the fighting began.

Defying Cabral‘s injunction against operations leading to excessive casualties, many of his guerrilla chiefs consistently took unnecessary risks to achieve personal prestige and glory. Ethnic bias among PAIGC leaders also raised the ugly specter of factionalism, while some undisciplined commanders took to acting in their own self-interest, exacerbating pre-existing prejudices among their peasant hosts.177 More than a few even installed themselves as ―local chiefs‖ and dealt with their new ―subjects‖ on the basis of tribal, familial, or religious affiliation, costing the PAIGC ―considerable loss of support among the population.‖178 Cabral and the PAIGC leadership learned, to their collective outrage, that ―abominable crimes were being committed in our names, and that people had begun to flee from some of our liberated areas.‖179

These developments led to the PAIGC‘s landmark Cassacá Congress, which took place within Guinea in February 1964. Cabral and the rest of the party leadership had recognized that inadequate political control, fragmentation of authority, and disunity of effort threatened to scuttle the entire liberation struggle. To correct these disturbing

10. In the latter source, Cabral specifically praised the Soviet Union as the PAIGC‘s most important benefactor.

177 Basil Davidson, The People’s Cause, 136.

178 Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 92.

179 Basil Davidson, The People’s Cause, 162; see also Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 78, for a slightly different translation.

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trends, the congress proposed a series of far-reaching measures to restore party unity and discipline. Those proposals drew the open defiance of a group of militant guerrillas, but with the support of the party‘s political leadership and several key commanders the beleaguered PAIGC leader prevailed and imposed a draconian punishment on the dissidents. Several trials took place at the congress, and those found guilty of disobeying orders or abusing civilians were stripped of their authority and imprisoned. Several were executed, as were those who resisted arrest when confronted. Despite the brutality and finality of these results—or perhaps because of it—the Cassacá Congress succeeded in stamping out the threat of factionalism and decisively upheld Cabral‘s principle of political primacy.180

The 1964 Cassacá Congress also led to the reorganization of the party‘s military elements into the Forças Armadas Revolucionárias do Povo (the ―People‘s

Revolutionary Armed Forces,‖ abbreviated FARP).181 The FARP was intended to operate more effectively and with greater flexibility than the initial, regaionally-focused guerrilla units. The new army comprised three separate elements: the Exército Popular

(―Popular Army,‖ or EP), the ―regular‖ military arm of the PAIGC, which could operate throughout the territory; the Guerrilla Popular (―People‘s Guerrilla,‖ or GP), composed of locally-recruited units intended to protect and hold the PAIGC‘s liberated areas; and the Milicia Popular (―People‘s Militia,‖ or MP), charged with protecting their own

180 Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 77-81.

181 Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 92.

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villages against Portuguese attack and also performing local police duties.182 To ensure political discipline and unity of effort, the congress also imposed a ―dual command‖ structure through which a senior FARP officer exercised command of military operations, while a commissar (also an experienced military commander) directed the political aspects of PAIGC operations.183

With its internal challenges dealt with—for the time being—and its new military structure in place, the PAIGC began to expand its operations throughout Guinea while simultaneously consolidating its hold on territory already under the party‘s control. By

1966 the PAIGC confidently claimed that it controlled 60% of Guinea‘s territory and a full half of its population. For the Portuguese, meanwhile, the war had become one of positional stalemate as government forces increasingly turned to defending their fortified camps and striking the PAIGC primarily from the air.184 By the following year, however, those air attacks presented the PAIGC with its most critical danger yet.

General Arnaldo Schulz, the Portuguese Governor-General of Guinea from 1964-1968,185 initiated a bombing campaign in 1966 that ―nearly paralyzed the FARP.‖ The wide- ranging air attacks forced thousands of villagers to flee their homes and, worse, abandon

182 This structure mirrors, almost exactly, that established in the Viet Minh during the First Indochina War. Vo Nguyen Giap, People’s War People’s Army (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2001), 51.

183 John Biggs-Davison, ―Portuguese Guinea: A Lesser Vietnam‖ (NATO’s Fifteen Nations, October- November 1968, 20-25), 24; Whitaker, ―The Revolutions of ‗Portuguese‘ Africa,‖ 24-25; Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 99-100. Biggs-Davison‘s article gives additional detail of FARP organization, down to the tactical level of grupos and bi-grupos (the latter approximately the size of a U.S. Army platoon). For information regarding later reorganizations of the PAIGC‘s military structure, see Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 102-103.

184 Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 92-93.

185 Upon his arrival in Guinea in 1964, Schulz famously—and erroneously—declared that the war would be over in six months.

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the crops upon which the FARP depended. As a result, some insurgent units were forced to forage for game and wild crops and ―began to question the war effort. What good was a war that brought not liberty and the good life but death and destruction?‖ In this climate of increasing hardship and declining morale factionalist tendencies began to re- emerge within the party and its armed wing, a threat Cabral considered ―worse than the

Portuguese.‖ The PAIGC also faced the unenviable task of trying to persuade villagers to remain in the targeted ―liberated‖ areas and continue supporting the war effort.186

“Smiles and Blood:” Lisbon‟s Belated Hearts and Minds Campaign

Ultimately, however, the PAIGC and its armed elements were able to withstand the attacks and outlast their architect, General Schulz, who returned to Portugal in 1968.

In part this must be attributed to the PAIGC‘s overall characteristics and capabilities, for despite its demonstrated emphasis on the political aspects of their war for independence, the party‘s armed elements also acquired a reputation for courage, tenacity, and military efficacy. As several Portuguese officers observed to a foreign journalist, the PAIGC occupied ―a class of its own.‖ Insurgent training and tactics were superlative, while their tenacity both impressed Portuguese commanders and worried Portuguese troops. ―In fact there are times when I sincerely wish I had some of their young leaders with me in the field,‖ one such officer concluded.187

186 Dhada, Warriors at Work, 34.

187 Al J. Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War: The Campaign for Africa (: John Malherby Ltd., 1973), 49, 80. General Manuel Diogo Neto, later a FAP , also praised the PAIGC‘s guerrillas

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Such perceptions contributed to the Portuguese armed forces‘ overall realization, by 1969, that they could not ―win‖ the war in Guinea through military means alone.188

By this time their presence had been reduced to major urban areas and a string of fortified, but isolated and frequently harassed, garrisons almost entirely dependent on aerial resupply. Recognizing that the war had largely devolved to one of attrition, the

Portuguese then attempted an ambitious program of political and social reforms to win the populace‘s loyalty and gratitude.189 This socio-political campaign, christened uma

Guiné Melhor (―a better Guinea‖), was the brainchild of António

Sebastian Ribeiro Spínola, the new Portuguese Governor-General who had arrived in

1968.190 Spínola, unlike his predecessor, understood and acknowledged the novel nature of the conflict, partially due to his experiences—and successes—in Portugal‘s contemporaneous war in Angola. His familiarity with that , as well as his knowledge of the ongoing insurgency in Mozambique, led him to conclude ―I do not believe in a military solution for the problem of Guinea.‖191 Rather, Spínola contended that ―Revolutionary war, the kind we are facing in Guinea, is primarily psychological and

for their bravery; see Gen. Manuel Diogo Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ in José Freire Antunes, ed., A Guerra de África (1961-1974), vol. 1 (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996), 321.

188 Henriksen, ―Lessons from Portugal‘s Counter-Insurgency Operations in Africa,‖ 32.

189 Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 90.

190 Spínola discussed the provisions of his Guiné Melhor program in two of his works: Por uma Guine Melhor (Lisbon: Agência-Geral do Ultramar, 1970) and Linha de Acção (Lisbon: Agencia-Geral do Ultramar, 1971). Together these books detailed his commitment to ―psycho-social‖ programs, negotiations, and political reforms in addition to military methods appropriate to a counter-insurgency campaign.

191 American Embassy Lisbon, Portuguese Guinea and Its Governor (U.S. Department of State Airgram, 19 October 1971), 6.

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is characterized by the conquest of people.‖192 This realization led to his contention that

―counter-subversion must be considered as an eminently moral question, and not simply as a military or police tactic, or even as a political maneuver adapted to the situation.‖

The problem of insurgency in Guinea required ―a genuine, clear, and decisive social revolution which anticipates and overcomes the ideology opposed to it,‖ according to

Spínola, in conjunction with ―programs which substantiate the just aspirations of the people and adapt themselves to evolutionary trends.‖193

Such ideas were in no way novel to the Portuguese armed forces; in fact, they had first appeared in Portuguese doctrine in 1963. The Portuguese manual O Exercito na

Guerra Subversiva (―The Army in Subversive War‖) explicitly stated that ―The struggle against subversion is a struggle for the populace and never against the populace. This is not the enemy, but the medium in which the struggle takes place.‖ Given this starting proposition, the framers of O Exercito na Guerra Subversiva concluded that

The struggle against subversion cannot be carried out in full by the military forces alone; on the contrary, a convergence of efforts is necessary in all fields, political, psychological, social, economic, etc. The military forces, in their sphere of action, should not limit themselves to working exclusively with weapons, but also in those other fields, to the extent that possibilities permit it.194

192 Dutra Faria, ―Governor Tells of Independence Party Activity‖ (ABC-Diario de Angola, 7 December 1969, 1, 12, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 867,‖ JPRS 49903, 20 February 1970), 1.

193 Santana Mota, ―Governor Says Conditions Exist for Success of Portuguese Cause‖ (Voz da Guiné, 28 July 1973, 1, 5, 11, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1375,‖ JPRS 60168, 1 October 1973), 5.

194 Portuguese Ministry of the Army, The Army in Subversive War (Lisbon: War Department General Staff 3rd Department, 1963, translated and reprinted in Headquarters Department of the Army, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, ―The Army in Subversive Warfare,‖ Translation no. I-5216, August 1964), 31, 35.

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These lessons had been distilled from the counter-insurgency experiences of other powers, particularly France and the , during the postwar era. Portugal had dispatched officers to attend training courses in both nations, sent observers to collaborate with French forces serving in Algeria, and incorporated the tenets of foreign counter-insurgency doctrine into their own.195 Such precepts were apparently forgotten or ignored, however, until Spínola put them into deliberate practice in 1969.

Spínola‘s program succeeded, at least to a point. By 1971, according to U.S. diplomatic assessments, Portugal had ―managed to arrest the deterioration of its position‖ in Guinea, thanks primarily to the social and political developmental programs instituted in 1969.196 Seventy doctors and 2,100 other health practitioners, drawn primarily from military manpower, now operated throughout Portuguese-controlled territory; primary school enrollment had jumped to some 120,000 students, compared to mere hundreds a decade earlier; and Portuguese-sponsored Congressos do Povo (―People‘s Congresses‖) gave the populace at least a modicum of political representation while demonstrating

Spínola‘s ―commitment to non-violent evolutionary change under the Portuguese flag.‖197

This progress, of course, did not spell the end of violence in Guinea; the PAIGC

195 See Gomes and Afonso, Os Anos da Guerra Colonial 4, 30; Portuguese Ministry of the Army, 5; and two complete essays: Almiro Canelhas, ―Lições na Argélia,‖ and Lemos Pires, ―Doutrina e Prática,‖ both in José Freire Antunes, ed., A Guerra de África (1961-1974), vol. 1 (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996). As noted by Bruno Cardoso Reis, of the Institute for Strategic and International Studies in Lisbon, ―Emulation was decisive in the initial steps of the development of Portuguese counterinsurgency.‖ Bruno Cardoso Reis, ―Theoretical Expressions of British, French and Portuguese Counterinsurgency Doctrine‖ (Paper presented at the British Institutional Studies Association Annual Conference, 19 December 2006), 20.

196 American Embassy Lisbon, Portuguese Guinea and Its Governor, 1; see also Al J. Venter, ―Portugal‘s Forgotten War,‖ Air Enthusiast 2 (February 1972), 60, for another positive assessment of Portugal‘s war effort under Spínola.

197 American Embassy Lisbon, Portuguese Guinea and Its Governor, 4-5, 7.

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continued its campaign against Portuguese forces, and Spínola also realized that the weight of the political struggle ―does not diminish the keenness of the military problem since we cannot ignore the fact that although these wars are not won on the battlefield, they can certainly be lost there.‖198

Therefore, even while building schools and hospitals, Spínola launched several major offensive operations against the PAIGC and its armed wing, the newly- rechristened Forças Armadas Nacionais (―National Armed Forces,‖ or FAN).199 These operations typically involved several days of bombing to ―soften up‖ a target area, followed by a heliborne infantry assault.200 Yet at the same time, Spínola began efforts to establish a political dialogue with his insurgent opponents, even as fighting continued in the field.201 The duality of Spínola‘s concurrent social-political and military efforts resulted in his ―Better Guinea‖ program being derisively labeled ―smiles and blood‖ by the insurgents.202

Unlike Spínola, Estado Novo elites in Lisbon seemed obsessed with an exclusively military solution—however unsatisfactory the ultimate outcome. Spínola‘s

198 Faria, ―Governor Tells of Independence Party Activity,‖ 1.

199 Among the more spectacular failures was Operation Mar Verde in November 1970, an incursion into Guinea-Conakry that included unsuccessful attempts to kill Amílcar Cabral and Guinean President Sékou Touré.

200 ―Intensification of Armed Struggle‖ (Info Tchad, , 1973, 11, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1304,‖ JPRS 58903, 2 May 1974), 11.

201 MacQueen, ―Portugal‘s First Domino,‖ 215-216.

202 In Portuguese, ―sorriso e sangue.‖ Luís Cabral, Crónica da Libertação (Lisbon: O Jornal), 1974, 365; Amílcar Cabral, Our People Are our Mountains: Amílcar Cabral on the Guinean Revolution (London: Committee for Freedom in Mozambique, Angola & Guinea, 1972), 8.

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misgivings in this regard intensified after Prime Minister Marcello Caetano, who had assumed office in 1968, bluntly informed him of the regime‘s expectations regarding the armed forces and their purpose.203 In an illuminating 1972 exchange related in Caetano‘s memoirs, the Prime Minister informed a dumbstruck Spínola that

For the overall defense of the overseas territories it is preferable to leave Guinea through a military defeat with honor than through an agreement negotiated with terrorists which would point the way to other negotiations [in other territories]. ―Then Your Excellency would prefer a military defeat in Guinea,‖ exclaimed the general, scandalized. [I replied that] exist to fight and they should fight to win, but it is not essential that they should win. If the Portuguese army was defeated in Guinea after fighting to its potential, such a defeat leaves us with the juridical and political possibilities intact to continue to defend the rest of the overseas territories. And the obligation of the government is to defend the overseas territories in their totality. [Spínola departed] profoundly shocked and without hiding his anguish.204

Granted, the armed forces of any nation are expected to fulfill the orders of their respective governments. Caetano himself later warned Spínola that ―the armed forces do not have their own policies, but must carry out those of the government.‖205 This is true to an extent, particularly in the case of governments more or less representative of the people the armed forces purportedly serve. But when an authoritarian regime‘s policies imply the willful destruction of those same armed forces, said regime should take careful notice when commanders protest as vehemently as Spínola did.

203 Caetano had ―temporarily‖ succeeded Salazar when the latter suffered a debilitating stroke in September 1968; after Salazar died in July 1970, Caetano‘s position became permanent. Marques, History of Portugal, Vol. II, 224, 261.

204 Marcello Caetano, Depoimento (: Distribuidora Record, 1974), 191-192.

205 Quoted in Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 86.

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Literary Debates and Military Defeats: The Portuguese Campaign Unravels

As events transpired, Caetano‘s apparent craving for Portugal‘s own ―Dien Bien

Phu‖ more than any other factor drove Spínola into conflict with the regime and its policies.206 This rift would widen as a result of additional developments between 1972 and 1974, ultimately leading to Spínola‘s outright opposition to the Estado Novo leadership. Two of these developments derived from PAIGC victories on the political and diplomatic front. The first occurred in April 1972, when a United Nations Special

Mission visited PAIGC-dominated areas of Guinea and reported that Cabral‘s party did indeed control most of the territory. As a result of this visit and the report subsequently delivered to the UN General Assembly, that body declared in November 1972 that the

PAIGC constituted ―the only and authentic representative of the people of the territory.‖207 The PAIGC‘s second political coup occurred on 24 September 1973, when the newly-elected Guinean Popular , convening for the first time in a liberated region, unilaterally declared the independence of the Republic of Guinea-

Bissau. Within three weeks more than sixty nations had extended formal diplomatic recognition to the new state, followed by another twenty by the following April.208 By

206 Kenneth Maxwell, The Making of Portuguese Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 81-82.

207 Horacio Sevilla Borja, ―What We Saw in Guinea-Bissau: An on-the-Spot Report of a Special United Nations Mission‖ (UNESCO Courier, November 1973, 20-22), 21; for additional details of the Special Mission, see ―Mission to Guinea (Bissau)‖ (UN Monthly Chronicle IX, no. 5 [May 1972], 42-50).

208 Chabal, Amílcar Cabral, 125-126, 130-131.

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that time the PAIGC had effectively accomplished what Mao Zedong had described as

―surrounding the cities with the countryside;‖ they now appeared to be doing the same to

Portugal on the international diplomatic stage.209

As hinted immediately above, the PAIGC was also increasingly active on the military front. Despite Amílcar Cabral‘s , the party‘s surviving leaders launched a series of large-scale assaults against Portuguese garrisons and fortifications in

1973. Calling the offensive ―Operation Amílcar Cabral‖ in their slain leader‘s honor, the

PAIGC‘s armed wing staged nearly-simultaneous assaults against the critical strongholds of Guiledje, Guidage, and Gadamael. The first of them, one of Portugal‘s best-fortified garrisons in Guinea, fell on 22 May 1973, relieving the pressure on the PAIGC‘s most important infiltration and resupply corridor.210 Portugal managed to maintain the others, but only at the cost of heavy casualties and increasingly scarce supplies. Conditions in all three besieged garrisons deteriorated rapidly and dramatically; veterans of the spoke of hunger, men ―living in holes without light or water,‖ and uniforms rotting on soldiers‘ bodies for lack of replacement clothing.211 Nine months later, on 12 February

1974, another major Portuguese outpost at Copa fell to PAIGC forces. After that latest

Portuguese defeat, an insurgent victory appeared ―only a matter of time‖ to both sides.212

209 Henriksen, ―People‘s War in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau,‖ 396.

210 Guiledje: na Rota da Independência da Guiné-Bissau (Bissau: Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisa, 2008), 3-4; Francisco de Vasconcelos, ―O ‗Inferno‘ de Guidage‖ (Público, 5 November 1995, 25- 32), 28.

211 Vasconcelos, ―O ‗Inferno‘ de Guidage,‖ 28.

212 Dhada, Warriors at Work, 53.

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Figure 2.2. Map showing 1). Guiledje, 2). Guidage, 3). Gadamael, and 4). Copa (graphic based on United Nations Map 4063, Revision 3, June 2004; used with permission)

These events, combined with memories of perceived governmental betrayal during the Goa episode of 1961, persuaded Spínola to seek other methods of altering the regime‘s African policy.213 As Copa fell in February 1974, several months after

213 Spínola complained that the Prime Minister‘s unrealistic orders raised ―the specter of Goa before the military,‖ referring to Portugal‘s 1961 debacle in India, during which Salazar ordered his hopelessly outnumbered and inadequately equipped forces to fight to the last man and the last round. ―I will not permit a truce or Portuguese prisoners,‖ Salazar had wired the Governor-General of when the invasion appeared imminent. ―No surrender of ships. Soldiers and sailors either victorious or dead.‖ For failing to obey such surreally ridiculous orders, Salazar brought judicial charges of cowardice and high treason against the Governor, thirteen senior officers, and a sergeant. This scapegoating opened ―intra- regime wounds‖ which never fully healed during the subsequent African wars. See Norrie MacQueen,

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Spínola‘s permanent return from Guinea, the former Governor-General published

Portugal e o Futuro (―Portugal and the Future‖). The book ignited a political , particularly since Spínola had previously been seen as so definitively representative of the Estado Novo elite. Arguing against ―emotional‖ and ―traditional‖ justifications for the wars in Africa, Spínola persuasively advocated resumed talks aimed at a loose federal arrangement, broadly analogous to the British Commonwealth, which would grant the

Ultramar provinces vastly increased autonomy.214 In making his case, Spínola had— publicly and in print—more roundly criticized the regime‘s colonial and military policies than any previous establishment figure.215 He acknowledged that the fundamental pre- requisite of African self-determination directly contradicted the imperial mythos of the

Estado Novo, but he countered that

The time for dogmas and doctrines has passed; nowadays one does not join a cause for emotional reasons, because of psychological conditions or because of social traditions. The era of epics, stirred by the thirst for glory, heroic deeds and respect for traditional honor, or based on romantic love or spiritual passion is definitely past.216

―António de Spínola and the Decolonization of Portuguese Africa‖ (Diplomacy and Statecraft, July 1996, 436-465), 442; Khera, Operation Vijay, 151-154; Lloyd-Jones and Pinto, eds., The Last Empire, 56; Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 35; and MacQueen, ―Portugal‘s First Domino,‖ 222.

214 MacQueen, ―Portugal‘s First Domino,‖ 226; António de Spínola, Portugal and the Future (Johannesburg: Preskor Publishers, 1974), 3, 29, 77, 91, 101. Beginning on page 96 of the latter, Spínola also discusses the general framework and distribution of powers for ―a type of ‗pluri-national-state.‘‖

215 MacQueen, ―António de Spínola and the Decolonization of Portuguese Africa,‖ 438-439; Fields, The Portuguese Revolution and the Armed Forces Movement, 23. In his book, Spínola declared that ―The time for dogmas and doctrines has passed; nowadays one does not join a cause for emotional reasons, because of psychological conditions or because of social traditions. The era of epics, stirred by the thirst for glory, heroic deeds and respect for traditional honor, or based on romantic love or spiritual passion is definitely past.‖ In effect, both his published proposals and his against notions whose time had ―passed‖ struck directly at the Estado Novo‘s core ideological tenets. Spínola, Portugal and the Future, 3.

216 Spinola, Portugal and the Future, 3.

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Consequently, Spínola warned, ―The myth that we have to continue to accept solutions that are forced upon us by historical reasons has to be exploded.‖ Only in this way could

Portugal escape the ―sterile dialogue‖ between hard-core integrationalists and advocates for the immediate abandonment of Portugal in Africa, and arrive at an acceptable alternative solution.217 In effect, however, both his plan and his rant against notions whose time had ―passed‖ struck directly at the Estado Novo‘s core ideological tenets.

Spínola‘s position within the government and military elite, as well as the timing of the book‘s publication, generated widespread interest as well as applause among many serving with the Portuguese armed forces in Africa.218 The publication of Portugal e o

Futuro in February 1974 also brought together two currents of dissent within the military: one concerned with professional prerogatives and privileges endangered by the rapidly- expanding wartime officer corps, and another concerned with the more fundamental political, economic, and international issues facing Portugal. Both currents originated in the African wars, and Spínola‘s book established the critical bridge between the two, not least by implicating rightist figures within the Estado Novo regime in both issues of concern.219 Additionally, many apolitical officers who otherwise would likely have stayed with the government instead threw their support behind the coup when it came on

25 April 1974. As one such officer admitted, ―When Spínola‘s book appeared, backed by

217 Spínola, Portugal and the Future, 5, 76-77; MacQueen, ―António de Spínola and the Decolonization of Portuguese Africa,‖ 443.

218 Kenneth Maxwell, ―The Hidden Revolution in Portugal‖ (The New York Review of Books, 17 April 1975, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/9208); MacQueen, ―António de Spínola and the Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 440.

219 MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 76.

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all of his prestige, we were certain that with this man our revolution would not come from the street.‖220 The stage was thus set for the most successful Portuguese 1974—an assault on its own government.

The “Captains‟ Revolt” in Lisbon221

The now-public debate between Spínola and Caetano, as well as their respective supporters in government and in the military, concerned the question of how best to secure the continued survival of a pluri-racial, pluri- led by the

Estado Novo regime. The question of whether or not such an entity was worth preserving had not yet entered into Portuguese political discourse at these higher levels, but the issue was on the minds of soldiers and lower-ranking officers, particularly in Guinea.

The seemingly unending nature of the conflict had led to chronic manpower shortages and an increasing of conscript officers (―milicianos‖), as well as the longest terms of any NATO nation—three and a half to four years.222 Many officers and NCOs had also been subjected to multiple two-year combat postings in

Africa by the early 1970s, enduring miserable conditions in the process. In fact, Guinea boasted the worst living and fighting conditions in the African Ultramar, making it the

220 Quoted in Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 85.

221 The Portuguese coup of 1974 has often been referred to as the ―Captains‘ Revolt,‖ given the fact that most of its origins lay in the attitudes and actions of junior officers. Of course, were also involved.

222 L.H. Gann, ―Portugal, Africa and the Future‖ (The Journal of Modern African Studies, March 1975, 1- 18), 9.

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least desired of all overseas postings.223 As one Portuguese lieutenant later recalled,

―Bissau was a beastly place. We had a very common saying: ‗I‘m fed up with this place!‘‖224 As for equipment and supplies, Portuguese forces suffered increasing shortfalls in both; indeed, by the early 1970s some Portuguese units were compelled to use captured weapons to combat the PAIGC—an ironic twist in an insurgency, wherein the guerrillas typically comprise the side forced to resort to such scavenging.225 One

Portuguese historian, describing ―The isolation and feeling of abandonment, the nervous tension, the psychological weariness, the saturation, the poor provisions, the mediocre arms and munitions,‖ concluded that these factors ―contributed to a breakdown in the moral state of , turning them into unhappy units with limited efficiency and disinterested in combat.‖226 Morale could not have been improved by the paltry compensation offered to Portuguese servicemen, even officers. ―I can say that as a sub- lieutenant in the combat zone I earned 4,500 escudos, less than a porter at the Imperial

223 Gann, ―Portugal, Africa and the Future,‖ 8.

224 Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 64.

225 Lt. Col. Aniceto Afonso and Colonel Matos Gomes, ―Guiné: Maio de 1973—O Inferno‖ (working paper, Avenida da Liberdade/Associação 25 de Abril, 22 February 2008), 1. Taber observed that ―it is a tenet of guerrilla theory, not only in China but in all revolutionary wars, that the enemy must be the main sources of weapons and ammunition….The enemy supply lines serve both armies, and often serve the guerrilla army better than they do that of the adversary.‖ Taber further noted that Che Guevera once remarked ―The guerrilla ought always to have in mind that his source of supply of arms is the enemy and that, except in special circumstances, he ought not to engage in a battle that will not lead to the capture of such equipment.‖ Taber, War of the Flea, 54, 162.

226 Quoted in Marcus Power, ―Geo-Politics and the Representation of Portugal‘s African Colonial Wars: Examining the Limits of the ‗Vietnam Syndrome‘‖ (Political Geography 26, 2001, 461-491), 478. Afonso and Gomes further note that ―In the beginning of 1973, the decisive year of the war in Guinea, the Commander-in-Chief spoke of a force that was generally ill-prepared, ill-equipped, and poorly commanded, which tried to defend itself in its garrisons and, as operated only its as units of maneuver and mobile reserves.‖ Afonso and Gomes, ―Guiné: Maio de 1973—O Inferno,‖ 2.

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Cinema in ,‖ one officer complained. ―As a captain in Mozambique I earned less than a barber in Nampula.‖227

However, the armed forces had more to grumble about than meager pay and spartan conditions. Casualties had steadily mounted throughout the course of the

Ultramar wars, ultimately totaling some 10,000 Portuguese military deaths and 30,000 wounded over 13 years of conflict.228 In addition, some 140,000 Portuguese troops

(nearly 20% of all those deployed to Africa) reportedly suffered some degree of psychological injury as a consequence of their service.229 However, the number of battlefield deaths among Portuguese European personnel proved remarkably similar in each of the three theaters despite the smaller force assigned to Guinea, thus translating to a much higher level of proportional risk to those serving in that territory.230 Already suffering from ―war fatigue‖ by 1973,231 Portuguese troops in Guinea now faced the very real prospect of an outright military defeat and all it implied, including the possibility of death or imprisonment at the hands of their guerrilla adversaries. Yet a September 1973 regime directive addressed to Brigadier General Bettencourt Rodrigues, the last

227 Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 47. In 1974, 4,500 escudos equaled approximately U.S. $167.

228 José Brandão, Cronologia da Guerra Colonial: Angola-Guiné-Moçambique 1961-1974 (Lisbon: Prefacio, 2008), passim; Power, 461. Brandão‘s work includes a list of Portuguese military deaths (by disease, accident, or combat) in Africa at the end of each of his chapters, which are organized by year from 1961 to 1974.

229 Power, ―Geo-Politics and the Representation of Portugal‘s African Colonial Wars,‖ 481.

230 Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 105. This owed to the fact that fewer Portuguese troops were deployed to Guinea than to Angola or Mozambique.

231 Power, ―Geo-Politics and the Representation of Portugal‘s African Colonial Wars,‖ 463.

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Portuguese Governor-General in Guinea, blithely ordered him to ―resist until exhaustion.‖232 The apparent inevitability of defeat, compounded by the regime‘s continued refusal to pursue a negotiated peace, led soldiers in Guinea to conclude that

Lisbon considered them ―the sacrificial arms,‖ according to one officer who helped organize the subsequent coup.233 Portuguese soldiers began to realize that they had not only been effectively given up for lost by their government, but that their government actually expected them to soldier on in that knowledge.

Given the challenges they faced day after day, year after year, Portuguese soldiers and officers quite naturally began to ask—increasingly openly—why they had been fighting, dying, and apparently losing in Guinea. Officers serving in that territory complained that they had been ―sent to a war that we did not understand or support.‖234

The recollections of multiple officers repeatedly expressed similar confusion as to their purpose.235 One officer, who played a major role in the approaching upheaval within the

Portuguese military, summed up the difficulties of rationalizing Portugal‘s African wars in the following manner:

It was very hard to try to tell , whether they came from the rural north, or the Latifundi in the south, or from the mountains of Guarda, that the military service and sacrifice required of them [in Africa] was to defend their

232 Nicole Guardiola, ―A Aliança Secreta do , Rodésia e Portugal‖ (África 21 no. 30 [June 2009], 16-25), 22.

233 Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 53.

234 Quoted in Patrick Chabal, David Birmingham, Joshua Forrest, Malyn Newitt, Gerhard Seibert, and Elisa Andrade, A History of Postcolonial Africa (London: Hurst and , 2002), 3.

235 Two recent Portuguese memoirs incorporate this theme: Nuno Mira Vaz, Guiné 1968 e 1973: Soldados uma Vez, Sempre Soldados (Lisbon: Tribuna da História, 2003), and António Graça de Abreu, Diário da Guiné: Lama, Sangue e Água Pura (Lisbon: Guerra e Paz, 2007).

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country.…That‘s when the armed forces began to understand that the arms they had to defend the people were being used to destroy the people.236

Yet another Portuguese officer characterized the conflict as ―a useless war, an unjust war, an avoidable war,‖237 while a third opined that ―the nation was being defrauded by a war without meaning, a war that had no connection with us‖ [emphasis added].238

Many junior and mid-grade officers, seeking some sort of ideological anchor, began to foster a growing sense of identification with their insurgent foes, to the detriment of their loyalties to Lisbon. ―We were at war with people who speak the same language,‖ according to one Portuguese officer serving in Africa. ―We had little sense of racial difference, much less of culture.‖ Exposure to revolutionary literature and extensive discussions with guerrilla prisoners also provided what one officer described as

―truly a political initiation.‖ The pragmatic Marxist approach of the principal liberation movements resonated strongly with many left-leaning junior officers and helped to persuade many more.239 First-hand exposure to the inevitable horrors of guerrilla warfare and counter-insurgency further tarnished the purported nobility of the Portuguese cause; as one infantry captain later recalled, ―It was the contact with the people and with [my company] during two years that aided me immensely in opening my eyes to see the

236 Quoted in Fields, The Portuguese Revolution and the Armed Forces Movement, 73.

237 Quoted in Power, ―Geo-Politics and the Representation of Portugal‘s African Colonial Wars,‖ 481.

238 Quoted in Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 73.

239 Henriksen, ―Lesson‘s from Portugal‘s Counter-Insurgency Operations in Portugal,‖ 34; Lloyd-Jones and Pinto, eds., The Last Empire, 5; Maxwell, ―The Hidden Revolution in Portugal,‖ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/9208; Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 55.

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injustice of the colonial war and the illegitimacy of the fascist government.‖240 As subsequent events demonstrated, such attitudes did not represent isolated cases of extreme radicalism. Rather, among officers in Guinea, they signified a groundswell of resentment against the African wars, the regime elites who demanded their continuance, and the imperial ethos that held the lives of soldiers and civilians alike in such contempt.

The cumulative impact of the military challenges, poor conditions, and institutional self-doubt was a ―thoroughly demoralized‖ Portuguese force, one that had, according to the Chief of the Portuguese General Staff, ―reached the limits of neuro- psychological exhaustion.‖241 Junior and middle-ranking officers, most of them veterans of Guinea, consequently concluded that to end the seemingly endless African wars—wars that had consumed the bulk of their professional lives— one of two major obstructions had to be removed: the enemy, or the regime. Spínola and other commanders had long since conceded that the enemy could not be decisively defeated on the battlefield,242 so their juniors in the officer ranks concluded that a coup d‘état was their only way to extricate themselves and their nation from the quagmire.243

240 Quoted in Maxwell, The Making of Portuguese Democracy, 30.

241 Power, ―Geo-Politics and the Representation of Portugal‘s African Colonial Wars,‖ 463; Al J. Venter, The Chopper Boys: Helicopter Warfare in Africa (London: Greenhill Books, 1994), 74.

242 Spínola, Portugal and the Future, 18, 20. Spínola first declared the impossibility of a military victory soon after taking command in 1968, and in Portugal and the Future he wrote that ―We could admit that the conflict might end with the annihilation of the guerrilla forces. But with regard to this hypothesis we must already admit its impossibility….We can, therefore, come to the conclusion that, in any war of this type, a purely military victory is not possible.‖

243 Kenneth Maxwell, ―The Thorns of the Portuguese Revolution‖ (Foreign Affairs, January 1976, 250- 270), 252. Two years before Spínola declared that the war in Guinea-Bissau could not be won militarily, his counterpart in Mozambique, General Kaúlza de Arriaga, had published a similar prediction in the Portuguese army journal Revista Militar. See Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 62.

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The engine for that coup would be the Movimento das Forças Armadas (―Armed

Forces Movement,‖ or MFA), which had originally been formed by junior and middle- ranking officers in 1973 as a forum for expressing professional grievances.244 However, those grievances—themselves a direct result of prolonged conflict—were soon overshadowed by opposition to the wars themselves. The thousand or so discontented officers who comprised the MFA identified the African wars as the ―focus of their humiliation‖ and found common cause in their desire to end the colonial conflicts.245

Indeed, professional concerns over promotions and seniority were later described as a

―pretext‖ for which officers could meet without fear of reprisal, thereby disguising the

MFA‘s real purpose and intent.246 As Professor Norrie MacQueen later observed,

―Africa lay at the root‖ of the MFA and its agenda.247

Significantly, the MFA began in Guinea, and its cadres in that territory were the most cohesive and widely supported throughout the armed forces. As described by

Captain Jorge Sales Golias, an MFA coordinator in the territory, Guinea was ―the cradle of the MFA [and] a scale model of what the MFA in Portugal was later to become.‖248

Guinea‘s centrality to the MFA‘s formation and program resulted in part from the

244 The specific catalyst for the formation of the MFA was a Ministry of Defense decree granting conscript officers the same promotion opportunities as regular officers. The decree was promulgated in an attempt to retain enough junior officers to continue prosecuting the three African wars. See Fields, The Portuguese Revolution and the Armed Forces Movement, 5, 7.

245 Fields, The Portuguese Revolution and the Armed Forces Movement, 5, 7.

246 Fields, The Portuguese Revolution and the Armed Forces Movement, 2; Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 78-79.

247 MacQueen, ―António de Spínola and the Decolonization of Portuguese Africa,‖ 445.

248 MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 99.

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perceived ―pointlessness‖ of Portugal‘s campaign in the territory, a pointlessness which led officers there to question the imperial project as a whole. These questions might not have seemed so perplexing or urgent had the subject involved only the more lucrative— and less militarily challenging—territories of Angola and Mozambique. However, to

Salazar and his posthumous supporters in the Caetano regime, the indivisibility of the empire could not be compromised; consequently, even the most inconsequential limb of the body politic had to be defended with as much power as the whole could muster.249

Many in the armed forces, however, adopted a different resolution, one which drew them together to overthrow the regime. The MFA acted on 25 April 1974, and their

―Captains‘ revolt‖ toppled Caetano in a bloodless coup. A ―Junta of National Salvation,‖ with Spínola as President,250 assumed tentative control of the government shortly before the MFA publicly proclaimed its program. In its preamble, the program clearly linked the MFA‘s decision to rebel against the regime to the African wars.251 Kenneth Maxwell succinctly summarized the origins and impact of the coup when he observed that

―Developments in Guiné were central to what happened in Portugal over the summer of

1974. A tiny, poverty-stricken territory with small economic and only indirect strategic

249 MacQueen, ―Portugal‘s First Domino,‖ 229.

250 Spínola was essentially ―drafted‖ by the MFA, and also by Caetano who urged him to take power to forestall anarchy. There is very little evidence that Spínola had forewarning of the coup or agreed with the notion of overthrowing the regime by force.

251 Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 93, 244. As translated, the opening words of the MFA program‘s preamble read ―As after thirteen years of fighting overseas, the existing political system has failed to define an overseas policy which will lead to peace among Portuguese of all races and creeds.‖

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importance, it was central to the drama.‖252 The drama in the metropole was to have an equally powerful impact on Portugal‘s overseas territories over the following months, as the MFA iniated an accelerated decolonization program—the ―first item‖ on the new regime‘s agenda.253

With a Whimper: The End of Portuguese Rule in Guinea

The coup in Portugal caused considerable political upheaval in the metropole, but the immediate result in Africa was a pronounced relaxation of tensions and the virtual suspension of conflict. A ―tacit cease-fire‖ soon settled over Guinea, although some attacks—primarily FAP bombing raids and PAIGC artillery strikes—continued in the days immediately following the coup in Lisbon.254 On 1 July 1974, scarcely two months after the coup, MFA representatives in Guinea approved a motion calling for the

―immediate and unequivocal recognition‖ of the PAIGC‘s unilateral declaration of independence. After a brief round of negotiations between Portugal‘s new government and the PAIGC, the former adversaries signed the Accords of 26 August 1974.

The agreement led to Portugal‘s formal recognition of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau on

252 Kenneth Maxwell, ―The United States and the Portuguese Decolonization (1974-1976)‖ (working paper, Instituto Portugûes de Relaçãos Internacionais, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2002), 11.

253 Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 220.

254 ―Continued Bombing Decried‖ (O Seculo, 4 May 1974, 9, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1479,‖ JPRS 62170, 5 June 1974), 9; ―Situation of Troops in Portuguese Guinea‖ (O Seculo, 6 June 1974, 9, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1493,‖ JPRS 62507, 18 July 1974), 9.

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10 September, and the of all Portuguese troops from the new nation by the end of October.255

So ended Portugal‘s centuries-long presence in Guinea, despite the manpower, material, and funding devoted to maintaining it. In fact, Portugal had committed a vastly disproportionate share of its manpower to Guinea than to its other—and more lucrative—

African provinces: by 1973, over 32,000 Portuguese troops were fighting in Guinea, or one soldier to every 17 Guinean inhabitants. By way of comparison, Portugal had only one soldier for every 74 inhabitants in Angola, and one for every 128 in Mozambique.256

Relatively speaking, then, Portugal had committed over four times as many troops to

Guinea as to Angola, and eight times as many as to Mozambique.257 Consequently, of

Portugal‘s three African wars, the conflict in Guinea proved to be both the most militarily intense and manpower-intensive, even while it was the most meaningless in terms of the expected rewards for Portugal, making Guinea a breeding ground for anti-war and anti- regime sentiment.258

Some observers, however, insisted—and continue to insist—that Portugal‘s determination to hold out as long as they did represented a ―strategic miracle‖259 and ―a

255 Lloyd-Jones and Pinto, The Last Empire, 22.

256 João Paulo Borges Coelho, ―African Troops in the Portuguese Colonial Army, 1961-1974: Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique (Portuguese Studies Review, September 2002, 129-150), 136; Humbaraci and Muchnik, Portugal’s African Wars, 18-21.

257 MacQueen, ―Portugal‘s First Domino,‖ 226. Some estimates put the number of Portuguese forces in Guinea in 1973 at 43,000, which if correct would render the disparity even more dramatic.

258 MacQueen, ―Portugal‘s First Domino,‖ 209.

259 Biggs-Davison, ―The Current Situation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 392.

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remarkable feat of arms.‖260 Other commentators have noted that Portugal still retained control of the major towns and cities in Guinea, as well as the airfields, ports, and main communications routes, when the war ended. Additionally, Portugal could still claim significant support among Guinea‘s African population, notably among the Fula who had most benefited—relatively speaking—from cooperation with the colonial authorities.261

Despite these relative successes, however, there can be no doubt that the PAIGC emerged as the victors: the liberation party achieved its goal of independence, while Lisbon ultimately failed in its attempt to keep Guinea within the Portuguese polity. Even more significantly, the war itself precipitated a radical ―regime change‖ in metropolitan

Portugal—not just a transfer of power within the established political structure, but a wholesale overthrowing of the old political order, its hierarchies, its policies, and the foundations on which it rested its legitimacy. However ―miraculous‖ or ―remarkable‖ the

Portuguese war effort, its ultimate resolution was perhaps best summed up by Lieutenant

General Jose M. Brochado de Miranda, the FAP‘s Chief of Staff following the 1974 coup: Portuguese forces during the three African wars, he observed, lurched ―From military victory to military victory, until the final political defeat.‖262 The general would

260 Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 1.

261 Henriksen, ―Lesson‘s from Portugal‘s Counter-Insurgency Operations in Portugal,‖ 32.

262 Lt. Gen. Jose M. Brochado de Miranda, ―El Empleo del Arma Aérea en la Lucha Antiguerrilla,‖ Revksta de Aeronautica y Astronautica, July-August 2002, 599. Portugal had achieved considerable victories in Mozambique and Angola; in fact, the insurgency in the latter territory had largely been neutralized by 1974. Additionally, Portuguese forces did attain a number of tactical victories in Guinea, particularly during the first years of Spínola‘s tenure as Governor-General; strategically, by 1971 they had managed to arrest the PAIGC‘s progress, although Portugal was never any closer to winning the war itself. One is reminded of Col. Harry G. Summers Jr.‘s famous anecdote from the end of the war in Vietnam: ――You know you never defeated us on the battlefield‘ said the American Colonel. To which the North Vietnamese

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know; his branch of service had long served as the decisive element of Portuguese power during the Guinean war.

When the PAIGC credibly threatened that element beginning in 1973, it precipitated a cascade of effects that aggravated and accelerated Portugal‘s slide to defeat and revolution. The threat came in the form of a tubular device less than five feet in length, an air defense missile eminently well-suited to a guerrilla‘s needs and to the detriment of their airborne antagonists. Before turning to the story of that weapon and its impact, however, a brief discussion of air power‘s role in counter-insurgency operations—as well as the purpose and potential of guerrilla air defense—will be necessary to further shape the context.

Colonel replied, ‗That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.‘‖ Col. Harry G. Summers, Jr., On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1982), 1.

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Chapter 3 – Air Power as a Counter-Insurgency Tool

Biplanes and Bandits: Early Developments

Air power first began to attract attention as a potential counter-insurgency tool at the same time that First belligerents struggled to define its role in . As early as 1916, the U.S. Army‘s First Aero Squadron participated in the hunt for Pancho Villa during Brigadier General John J. Pershing‘s

―punitive expedition‖ in Mexico. The experience proved less than satisfactory, given the challenges of maintenance, supply, and tactical employment in rugged and hostile terrain.263 Nonetheless, other powers would soon unleash their own air arms against insurgent threats. The perceived such a threat in the Arab forces advised by T. E. Lawrence, and consequently launched frequent—if not uniformly effective— against the Bedouin rebels.264 The Royal Air Force‘s (RAF‘s) inaugural forays into imperial ―air policing‖ after 1918 appeared to offer much more promise. In one notable episode at the start of the third Anglo-Afghan War (1919), three

RAF BE2C bombers ―routed‖ a force of tens of thousands of Afghan tribesmen

263 James S. Corum and Wray R. Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars: Fighting Insurgents and Terrorists (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 11, 17-20.

264 T. E. Lawrence, The : A Triumph (New York: Anchor Books, 1991), 349, 595, 612, 615.

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threatening India‘s North-West Frontier Province. This obscure encounter established a precedent of sorts, and the RAF consequently ―found it much easier to make and sustain arguments for the economy and effectiveness of air power in peripheral conflicts,‖ thus establishing the premise and the rationale for its prevailing interwar doctrine of ―air control.‖265

Those early uses of counter-insurgency air power focused on air-delivered firepower, dovetailing neatly with the lessons of the First World War then being digested.

The design and employment of combat aircraft—in other words, aircraft using firepower to destroy an enemy target—subsequently dominated air power theory and development throughout the , during the Second World War, and well into the Cold War.266 This trend found its ultimate expression in the U.S. Air

Force‘s almost exclusive emphasis on intercontinental strategic bombers and supersonic, missile-armed interceptors in the early 1960s. During this same period, however, the

Western powers found themselves embroiled in an accelerating progression of insurgencies, rebellions, and revolutions less amenable to the application of prevailing air power doctrine. The conduct and character of conflicts in , the ,

Indochina, Malaya, and Algeria—to name a few prominent examples from a very long

265 Bruce Hoffman, British Air Power in Peripheral Conflict, 1919-1976 (Santa , CA: RAND Corporation, October 1989), p. 4.

266 Notable examples include the air power musings of Giulio Douhet, Brigadier General William ―Billy‖ Mitchell, Air Marshall Hugh Trenchard, and the staff of the U.S. Army Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS)—theories which formed the foundation of air power thinking and planning well into the . See Col. Phillip S. Meilinger, USAF, ed., The Paths of Heaven: The Evolution of Airpower Theory (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1997), chapters 1, 2, 3, and 6; and Carl H. Builder, The Icarus Syndrome: The Role of Air Power Theory in the Evolution and Fate of the U.S. Air Force (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003), 49-80.

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list—initially baffled the governments on the receiving end of insurgency. Each of those governments thus reacted instinctively at first, with the most familiar tool at its disposal: firepower, including its air-delivered incarnation.

Air-Delivered Firepower as a Counter-Insurgency Tool

In this instinctual response those government forces were not totally incorrect, for aerial firepower can offer considerable utility to a counter-insurgency campaign.

Properly employed, the offensive use of air power can strike directly at some of the central tenets of classic guerrilla warfare theory, especially as propounded by the likes of such iconic figures as Mao Zedong and Ernesto ―Che‖ Guevara. For example, both of those guerrilla leaders recognized the critical nature of insurgent base areas in purported

―liberated zones,‖ which by definition tended to be fixed areas in geographic space.267

Che spoke of the base area as ―an inaccessible place,‖ where ―a settled life is initiated, and the first small industries begin to be established,‖268 but the inaccessibility he spoke of referred to approaches by land, not air. Che even went so far as to advocate the establishment of static defensive works to protect camps intended for prolonged occupation, facilities which he explicitly recognized as prime targets for air attack.269

267 Mao Zedong, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1961), 96; Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 78.

268 Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 78.

269 Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 23, 58.

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However, the loss or dispersal of insurgent infrastructure alone would not result in the defeat of the insurgents themselves. Such losses could be recovered. What could not be recovered, both Mao and Che asserted, was strategic momentum. Both men valued guerrilla warfare, but not for its own sake; they saw it as a means to an end, and that end ultimately required ―regular‖ or ―conventional‖ forces. Therefore, failure to retain momentum—that is, failure to progress from the guerrilla stage of resistance to a war fought between regular forces—would ultimately ensure defeat. For his part Mao, writing in the context of the Sino-Japanese War but presaging later developments in his fight against the Guomindang, contended that ―there can be no doubt that our regular forces are of primary importance, because it is they who are alone capable of producing the decision.‖ In this context, he further noted that ―it is sometimes desirable to concentrate in order to destroy an enemy.‖270 Che similarly described the climactic battle of a stereotypical insurgent campaign as one in which ―the [guerrilla] columns join, they offer a compact fighting front, and a war of positions is reached, a war carried on by regular armies.‖271

Both men were referring to the so-called ―third phase‖ of classic insurgency, the phase of strategic offensive through which the insurgent forces hope to finally overthrow the constituted authority.272 That evolution, however, has presented classical

270 Mao, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 56, 98.

271 Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 18.

272 The previous two phases in the classic Mao/Che/Giap construction are ―strategic defensive,‖ during which insurgent forces build their political base and begin the formation of a military capability; and ―stalemate,‖ during which neither side can hold the strategic initiative, although the guerrillas continue to augment their military arm. See, for example, Mao Zedong, ―On Protracted Warfare,‖ in Selected Military

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insurgencies with a conundrum, for ―as soon as insurgents change to a conventional army, they become vulnerable to detection and destruction‖ by air power.273 Air power has historically proven most effective against just that sort of massed regular formation and supporting infrastructure, as demonstrated by repeated insurgent failures in this regard. Even Mao Zedong, who in 1937 insisted ―Comrades! cannot decide a battle,‖ discovered in 1946 that they could when concerted air attack forced the surrender of 20,000 People‘s Liberation Army soldiers.274 In 1949, Greek communist rebels attempted a conventional campaign of their own in the Granmos Mountains, only to meet with disaster as government aircraft savaged their formations and ―broke the will of the insurgents.‖275 During their attempt to capture the town of Florina in January 1949,

Greek insurgents lost an estimated 2,000 men while the survivors were put to rout ―as the air force sprayed the struggling mob with , bullets and flame.‖276 A second attempt the following month, this time with two guerrilla divisions comprising 4,000

Writings of Mao Tse-Tung (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), 210-217; and Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 156.

273 Col. Jeffery R. Barnett, USAF, ―Defeating Insurgents with Technology‖ (Airpower Journal, Summer 1996, 68-84), 70-71.

274 Mao Zedong, ―Basic Tactics,‖ in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. VI, online, http://www/marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_28.htm, accessed 2 May 2007; Oral History Interview of Lt. Col. William R. Dunn by Maj. Guilmartin, Capt. Porter, and Capt. High, 2 November 1973. Typed transcript, USAF Collection, Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA), Maxwell AFB, AL, 63. Lt. Col. Dunn participated in the referenced engagement as U.S. Military Advisory Group member in China.

275 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars, 427-428.

276 Philip Anthony Towle, Pilots and Rebels: The Use of Aircraft in Unconventional Warfare, 1918-1988 (London: Brassey‘s UK, 1989), 80.

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fighters, resulted in a further 900 casualties—the overwhelming majority of them inflicted by aircraft of the Royal .277

Just two years later Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap prematurely tried his hand at ―mobile warfare,‖278 and his Viet Minh forces suffered a similar disaster. During the pivotal battle of Vinh Yen from 11-17 January 1951, Giap apparently underestimated the power of the French Air Force (in French, the Armée de l’Air).279 Recognizing the potential gravity of the situation, the recently-arrived commander of the French

Expeditionary Forces, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, ordered all available aircraft into action against the attacking Viet Minh formations. Even transport aircraft able to drop canisters were drafted into the effort, which developed into ―the most massive aerial of the Indochina war.‖280 The intensity of the air counter-offensive was such that some Viet Minh soldiers thought the French had begun employing atomic weapons against them.281 Given such an application of firepower, the butcher‘s bill was unsurprisingly steep: 6,000 to 9,000 Viet Minh dead, 500 taken prisoner, and another

6,000 wounded. Granted, the stubborn resistance offered by French and Colonial troops on the ground was indispensible to the outcome, but in the end French air support proved

277 Concepts Division, Aerospace Studies Institute, ―The Employment of Airpower in the Greek Guerrilla War, 1947-1949,‖ Project No. AU-411-62-ASI (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University, ), 47- 48.

278 As described in Giap, People’s War People’s Army, 49.

279 Phillip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War: The History 1946-1975 (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1988), 112.

280 Bernard Fall, Street Without Joy (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994), 37.

281 Brig. Peter Macdonald, Giap: The Victor in Vietnam (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1993), 100-101.

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to be the decisive element.282 Giap would have to wait nearly three years before he could win the conventional victory he so deeply craved, at Dien Bien Phu. His example, like those of the Chinese and Greeks, was hardly unique; indeed, the history of 20th century insurgency is replete with examples of ill-timed and ill-advised insurgent attempts to initiate a conventional war of maneuver, only to be roundly and rapidly defeated by counter-insurgents competent in the application of air power.

“Hit „em in the Mind!” The Psychological Impact of Air Power283

Yet counter-insurgency involves much more than simple destruction, as the

Western powers have learned—and have repeatedly had to re-learn—since the 1940s.284

For the likes of Mao and Che, the emphasis rested soundly on the psychological dimension of warfare. As the former observed,

Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things, that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale [emphasis added].285

282 Phillip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War, 112.

283 ―Hit ‗em in the mind‖ was a favorite saying of my high school‘s football coach, Frank Creneti (West Springfield High School, VA, 1985) and one I‘ve often used when discussing guerrilla warfare with students during my tenure as an instructor at the Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Academic Year 2005-2006 (AY 05-06).

284 This learning did not take place uniformly. As late as 1960, a U.S. Air Force four-star general and future Vice Chief of Staff wrote an essay describing the utility of tactical nuclear weapons in counter- insurgent campaigns. ―It is highly probable,‖ he contended, ―that without the use of such weapons our chances of wining in many areas are slim indeed.‖ See Gen. Frederic H. Smith, Jr., ―Nuclear Weapons and ‖ (Air University Quarterly Review, Spring 1960, 3-27), 4.

285 Mao, ―On Protracted Warfare,‖ 217. For Che‘s opinions on the moral qualities required of a guerrilla fighter, see Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 41-46.

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The insurgent ―mind‖—a guerrilla‘s morale and will to fight—consequently offers another choice target for the offensive use of air power, albeit one that is difficult to quantify or assess. Caution is therefore in order, for though it may represent a

Clausewitzean center of gravity, no ―target set‖ is more difficult to identify and analyze than the inner workings of an enemy‘s mind; the architects of ill-advised wars have learned this to their detriment since at least the time of Thucydides. ―There is no tougher task than assessing your enemy‘s will to fight before he is actually forced to fight,‖ one uniformed analyst recently commented. As a corollary, it must be acknowledged that

―The psychological effects of air power cannot be assessed by satellite or [forward- looking infra-red] imagery.‖286

Nonetheless, the effect is a real one that insurgents and counter-insurgents have repeatedly acknowledged. T.E. Lawrence commented on the psychological impact of unopposed—or unopposable—air power on irregular forces as early as 1918, when he described how ―the Turks‘ beginning of bombing had been enough to disquiet the irregulars who were our eyes and ears. Soon they would break up and go home, and our usefulness be ended.‖ Lawrence complained bitterly and repeatedly about the

―helplessness‖ of his forces in the face of enemy air power, even concluding at one point that ―everything was being wrecked by air-impotence.‖287 During the following decade,

Sir John Bagot Glubb observed that air attacks against Arab insurgents produced

286 Maj. John Huss, USAF, ―Exploiting the Psychological Effects of Airpower‖ (Aerospace Power Journal, Winter 1999, 23-32), 30. ―Forward-looking infra-red,‖ or FLIR, refers to a device used on some combat aircraft to detect and engage surface targets.

287 Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 612-615.

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―tremendous moral effect‖ owing to ―the demoralization engendered in the tribesman by his feeling of helplessness and his inability to reply effectively to the attack.‖288 A

British guerrilla warfare instructor summed up the psychological impact of air power on irregular forces when he observed, in 1939, ―Aeroplanes are most effective against morale. They frighten; they exhaust; they break nerves. They do not usually, in fact, kill many men.‖289

Fear and helplessness have subsequently been identified by American and British analysts as two of the most important psychological effects of air power against relatively low-technology foes. Those effects stem from ―a belief that the enemy‘s weapons are superior and one has no defense. This leads to feelings of impotence and lack of control‖ which, in turn, ―often lead to panic.‖290 Fear of one‘s own imminent death, and the perceived helplessness to do anything about it—combined with other air power-related stressors such as noise, isolation, and fatigue—have in the past rendered ill-equipped enemy forces ―mentally unable or just plain unwilling to perform their duties effectively.‖291

288 J.B. Glubb, ―Air and Ground Forces in Punitive Expeditions‖ (Journal of the Royal United Services Institute 71, no. 483[August 1926], 777-784), 782.

289 Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin, —The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower (South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword Books, 2001), available online in full text at http://www.sovietdefeatinafghanistan.com/beartrap/English/15.htm.

290 Huss, ―Exploiting the Psychological Effects of Airpower,‖ 25. Much of Huss‘ thesis, as well as his identification of the stressors caused by airpower, derived from . A. P. N. Lambert, RAF, The Psychology of Air Power (London: Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, 1994). Perhaps the most comprehensive account of air power‘s psychological effects, however, can be found in a case study of three conventional wars, Stephen T. Hosmer‘s Psychological Effects of US Air Operations in Four Wars, 1941-1991: Lessons for US Commanders (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1996).

291 Huss, ―Exploiting the Psychological Effects of Airpower,‖ 25.

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The RAF continued to apply these lessons during British counter-insurgency campaigns in Malaya and , further illustrating the psychological effects air power can exert on guerrillas. One Malayan guerrilla captured in 1950, for example, recalled an air strike against his unit. ―Immediately after the bombing we bolted for our lives,‖ he confessed. ―I was terribly frightened.‖292 Similar results accrued from the RAF‘s employment of Lincoln heavy bombers against Mau Mau rebels in Kenya from 1953 to

1954.293 A captured Mau Mau said that during one such raid ―Some thought that the had crashed down upon us, others thought that this was the atomic bomb they had heard of…fear and the airplane‘s speed did not give us time to think.‖ Following a similar raid seven other Mau Mau guerrillas left their unit, ―swearing that they would never again enter the forest and wishing to die in the reserve exchanging gunfire with the enemy rather than to endure the unassailable Lincoln bombers.‖ So terrible were the impact of these bombers that Mau Mau commander ―General China‖ called them ―the most feared of government weapons.‖294

The United States would exploit its own firepower advantage in Vietnam during the following decade, in the process causing considerable psychological distress among

Viet Cong guerrillas and their North Vietnamese allies. Truong Nhu Tang provided a dramatic illustration of this effect in his Viet Cong Memoir:

292 Quoted in Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 86.

293 The Lincoln was a British four-engined of late Second World War vintage, roughly equivalent to the U.S. B-17 in terms of speed, altitude, and bomb load.

294 Quoted in Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 103.

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The first few times I experienced a B-52 attack it seemed, as I strained to press myself into the floor, that I had been caught in the Apocalypse. The terror was complete. One lost control of bodily functions as the mind screamed incomprehensible orders to get out. On one occasion a Soviet delegation was visiting our ministry when a particularly short-notice warning came through. When it was over, no one had been hurt, but the entire delegation had sustained considerable damage to its dignity—uncontrollable trembling and wet pants the all-too-obvious outward signs of inner convulsions. The visitors could have spared themselves their feelings of embarrassment; each of their hosts was a veteran of the same symptoms.295

―Nothing the guerrillas had to endure compared with the stark terrorization of the B-52 ,‖ another Viet Cong leader recalled. ―It was as if an enormous scythe has swept through the jungle…there would simply be nothing there, just an unrecognizable landscape gouged by immense craters.‖296

The B-52 raids, described as the ―chain of thunders‖ by one Viet Cong soldier- poet,297 necessitated frequent movement, which one captured People‘s Army of Vietnam

(PAVN) cadre described as ―the greatest hardship‖ encountered after 1968‘s Tet offensive—ahead of actual combat and food shortages.298 Another Viet Cong leader voiced his trepidations regarding air power when he recounted how, as early as 1965,

―there was an unspoken feeling that we couldn‘t win now that the Americans were there.

295 Truong Nhu Tang, A Viet Cong Memoir (New York: Vintage Books, 1986), 168-170. Among its members, the ―Viet Cong‖ was more formally known as the ―National Liberation Front for South Vietnam,‖ or more simply the ―National Liberation Front.‖

296 Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 166. For more Viet Cong perspectives of B-52 raids, see Michael Lee Lanning and Dan Cragg, Inside the VC and the NVA (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1992), 167.

297 Robert M. Kipp, ―Counterinsurgency from 30,000 Feet: The B-52 in Vietnam‖ (Air University Review, January-February 1968, 10-18), 15.

298 Konrad Kellen, ―Conversations with NVA and VC Soldiers: A Study of Enemy Motivation and Morale,‖ Document No. 18967-ISA, Project No. 9905 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 13 June 1969), 24.

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They were just too strong—, jets, B-52s. How could you beat them?‖299 That he limited his list of worries to types of aircraft rather than American tanks, artillery, or infantry weapons suggests the degree of anxiety wrought by air power as opposed to other manifestations of military might.

Figure 3.1. U.S. leaflet dropped to Viet Cong forces to exploit the psychological effects of air power. The main caption reads "Did you hear about the heavy bombing?" (Image reproduced from Lt. Col. Eldon L. Stevens, USAF, ―Project CHECO Southeast Asia Report, Psychological Operations: Air Support in SEA, June 1968 – May 1971,‖ 18; in the public domain).

Often the ordnance employed, rather than the type of aircraft, proved most responsible for rupturing insurgent morale. This has been particularly true of weapons

299 Richard P. Hallion, ―Air Power in Peripheral Conflict: The Cases of Korea and Vietnam,‖ undated address, https://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/EARS/Hallionpapers/airpowerinperip.htm.

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that invoke humankind‘s innate horror at the idea of being burned alive. This near- universal terror helps explain the revulsion directed at the United States‘ widespread use of during the Vietnam War, the more recent condemnation of ‘s phosphorous use in the Occupied Territories, and lingering moral qualms over ―fire- bombing‖ raids over Germany and during the Second World War. On the battlefield, such fears have long predated the advent of air power; as the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes wrote, the Empire‘s Muslim foes ―shivered in terror‖ at Greek

Fire, ―recognizing how strong the liquid fire was.‖300 A much later anecdote, from a Viet

Minh officer‘s diary, tells of similar reactions to its more modern incarnation:

The planes dived on us without firing their guns. However, all of a sudden, hell opens in front of my eyes. Hell comes in the form of large, egg-shaped containers, dropping from the first plane, followed by other eggs from the second and third plane. Immense sheets of flames, extending over hundreds of meters, it seems, strike terror in the hearts of my soldiers. This is napalm, the fire which falls from the skies…The men are now fleeing in all directions and I cannot hold them back. There is no way of holding out under this torrent of fire which flows in all directions and burns everything on its passage.301

Although the moral debate over the use of incendiary weapons is likely to continue, especially as new variants are fielded,302 they have clearly proven damaging to guerrillas‘ morale as well as their continued existence—a fact indicated by the frequent condemnation of their use by insurgents throughout the postwar era.

300 Quoted in Alfred W. Crosby, Throwing Fire: Projectile Technology Through History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 90.

301 Fall, Street Without Joy, 39.

302 Such as the U.S.‘ Mark 77 incendiary bomb, which uses a different fuel mixture than napalm but reportedly produces similar effects.

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People may fear many things besides fire, however. RAF Group Captain A.P.N.

Lambert, in his study The Psychology of Air Power, identifies fourteen stressors of combat, most of which can derive from the fact or threat of air attack as readily as from close-quarter ground combat.303 The incessant fear of imminent death, arriving unseen and unheard, compounded by the sight of killed or maimed comrades, sleep deprivation, isolation, and ignorance of the overall situation can all combine to sap an ill-prepared insurgent‘s morale and willingness to continue fighting. Unlike the campaigns against Germany and Japan, however, the results have usually been more inferred than apparent. As reported by General George Erskine, the British commander in Kenya from June 1953, ―In circumstances of this kind you have to be satisfied with indirect results such as an increase in surrenders, a drop in Mau Mau morale, prisoner reports and similar evidence. It is seldom that you can expect actual casualties after an air attack.‖304 Somewhat surprisingly, no less prominent an advocate of strategic bombing than General Curtis Lemay recognized this by 1962, when he remarked ―In this type of war you cannot—you must not—measure the effectiveness of the effort by the number of bridges destroyed, buildings damaged, vehicles burned, or any of the other standards that have been used for regular warfare.‖305 All too often in such contexts,

303 The specific stressors are claustrophobia (―the fear of being shut in, of being confined to a dug-out, or of being pinned down‖), impersonality (along with ―expendability‖), isolation, risk, the enemy and his weapons (the ―ten foot tall‖ syndrome), fatigue, climate, terrain, personal factors (such as hygiene or self- perception), idleness, helplessness, ignorance, casualties, and defeats. Lambert, The Psychology of Air Power, 36-39.

304 Quoted in Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 103.

305 Gen. Curtis E. Lemay, ―Counterinsurgency and the Challenge Imposed‖ (The , July 1956, 2), 2. Gen. Lemay was the architect of the raids against Japan in 1945, and served as the

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observable physical results so craved by those conducting ―bomb damage assessment‖

(BDA) analyses are simply absent, particularly when guerrillas wisely avoid relying on man-made infrastructure, mechanical transport, and large force concentrations.

This reality suggests that, despite the many tactical and psychological successes of air-delivered firepower, non-combat ―support‖ functions are even more critical than bombing or in a counter-insurgency context.306 . This acknowledgement becomes even more important once commanders recognize and accept the well-supported tenet successful that counter-insurgency has typically depended far more upon the outcome of surface operations than on the effects of air power. Firepower is important, even critical, but historically it has not made air power‘s most important contributions to that ground battle. An air force‘s less-glamorous, often tedious support functions have generally performed that role.307

A “Second Fiddle” of Primary Importance: Non-Combat Support

Within the general category of ―support‖ air forces typically include such functions as transport, reconnaissance, and .308 In particular, air

Commander of from 1948 to 1960. From 1960 to 1964, he was the U.S. Air Force‘s Chief of Staff.

306 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars, 427.

307 Concepts Division, Aerospace Studies Institute, ―Guerrilla Warfare and Airpower in Algeria, 1954- 1960,‖ Project No. AU-411-62-ASI (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University, ), vi-vii.

308 In this context, ―psychological warfare‖ refers to operations to persuade, such as leaflet drops and loudspeaker broadcasts, rather then the psychological effects of physical attack.

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power‘s various transport roles have proven decisive in several counter-insurgency campaigns, even if negative political developments later trumped military achievements in the field.309 A 1964 study conducted by a group of U.S. Air Force officers concluded that transport comprised ―the major contribution of Air Power to counter-insurgency operations,‖ an assessment shared by a RAND study of that same year.310

For example, the introduction of helicopters in the Philippines, Malaya and

Algeria during the 1950s rectified a number of counter-insurgent shortfalls in prosecuting their respective campaigns. Helicopters made their counter-insurgency debut during the

Hukbalahap rebellion in the Philippines, during which even early models acquitted themselves well during operations against guerrillas in mountainous terrain.311 The UK‘s use of rotary-wing aircraft to deploy and resupply its forces—particularly long-duration patrols deep in the jungle—has been described as ―the most effective counter-insurgency use of air power in Malaya.‖ The helicopter‘s responsiveness, range, and adaptability to a variety of different roles soon put and kept the Malayan insurgents on the defensive and

―almost revolutionized the jungle war,‖ in the opinion of one senior British officer.312

Likewise, helicopters both increased the French army‘s responsiveness to Algerian ―hit

309 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars, 427.

310 J, 9608th Air Reserve Squadron, ―Psychological Effects of Airpower in Counterinsurgency Operations‖ (Ellington AFB, TX: 8511th Air Force Reserve Recovery Group, ), 40-41; A.H. Peterson, G.C. Reinhardt, and E.E. Conger, Symposium on the Role of Airpower in Counterinsurgency and Unconventional Warfare: A Brief Summary of Viewpoints, RAND Memorandum RM-3867-PR (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, ), 3.

311 Flight J, 9608th Air Reserve Squadron, ―Psychological Effects of Airpower in Counterinsurgency Operations,‖ 36.

312 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars, 195.

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and run‖ tactics and lessened the impact of rough terrain and distance on resupply operations. So integral were helicopter operations to the overall French effort, in fact, that ―no outpost was established that did not prepare a helipad as the first order of business.313 In short, as Professor Philip Anthony Towle later observed, ―The helicopter transformed the war to the delight of the army and air force alike. The helicopter enabled the French to become more mobile than the guerrillas whose main means of transport was on foot,‖ thus correcting a serious shortcoming that had crimped France‘s initial operations in Algeria.314 ―One thing is clear,‖ French Army Major Hilaire Bethourt wrote in a 1962 compendium of counter-insurgency lessons, ―Helicopters used by a keen commander in an appropriate situation are a determining factor in the achievement of a mission.‖315 Unsurprisingly, helicopters have served as the ―workhorses‖ of virtually every counter-insurgency air effort since the 1950s.

Among helicopters‘ more influential roles has been their use as medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) platforms. The first helicopter MEDEVAC unit was established in Malaya in May 1950 with three Dragonfly helicopters, based on the

313 Concepts Division, Aerospace Studies Institute, ―Guerrilla Warfare and Airpower in Algeria, 1954- 1960,‖ 39, 55-58. The same report cites an April 1960 article in the Armée de l‘Air journal, which proclaimed that ―The heavy helicopter, in a mountainous region, multiplies the Army‘s possibilities by saving the Army time and fatigue….How can advantage be assured to the troops, even the most highly trained, when they must proceed on foot for 8 or 10 hours before they can arrive at the sites held by the adversary? is a harassing one, alternately up and down, over terrain of unimaginable difficulty, waylaid from the moment of departure by several lines of ‗watchers‘ who provoke the disappearance of the enemy, or his organization, in a surrounding known intimately to him. Ten minutes by helicopter saves, whenever possible, a test such as this.‖ Concepts Division, Aerospace Studies Institute, ―Guerrilla Warfare and Airpower in Algeria, 1954-1960,‖ 106.

314 Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 123.

315 Major Hilaire Bethouart, French Army, ―Combat Helicopter in Algeria,‖ in T.N. Greene, ed., The Guerrilla—and How to Fight Him (New York: Praeger, 1962, 260 -269), 269.

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American Sikorsky S-51; by 1954, these aircraft had airlifted 675 wounded or sick men from the jungle.316 It was in Algeria, however, that this air power mission truly came to prominence, and it soon became ―the greatest single morale factor in the conflict‖ for

French troops in Algeria.317 In 1959 alone, French Armée de l‘Air helicopters delivered some 7,500 medical cases from forward positions to medical facilities.318 Conversely, the lack of adequate MEDEVAC platforms negatively impacted Portuguese morale in

Mozambique during the 1960s and early 1970s. Wounded Portuguese soldiers in that turbulent colony would typically have to be moved, by land, to an airstrip to await fixed- wing transport. That wait could last a day, and such delays resulted in the loss of many

Portuguese servicemen who might otherwise have been saved.319 While the assurance of rapid transport to sanctuary and surgery provided a significant morale boost to wounded troops or those preparing to risk injury in imminent combat, the reverse also held true when such assurances could not be made.320

Another of air power‘s critical support functions was its contribution to intelligence collection, particularly in its reconnaissance role.321 Thorough and consistent

316 Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 92.

317 The use of helicopters in the MEDEVAC role also resulted in the near-elimination of French fatalities due to abdominal wounds. Concepts Division, Aerospace Studies Institute, ―Guerrilla Warfare and Airpower in Algeria, 1954-1960,‖ 58.

318 Concepts Division, Aerospace Studies Institute, ―Guerrilla Warfare and Airpower in Algeria, 1954- 1960,‖ 59.

319 Al J. Venter, The Chopper Boys: Helicopter Warfare in Africa (London: Greenhill Books, 1994), 73.

320 Flight J, 9608th Air Reserve Squadron, ―Psychological Effects of Airpower in Counterinsurgency Operations,‖ 43.

321 Peterson, Reinhardt, and Conger, Symposium on the Role of Airpower in Counterinsurgency and Unconventional Warfare: A Brief Summary of Viewpoints, 3.

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observation of a given area over time, from a ―God‘s-eye view‖ perspective, has represented a critical if unexciting element of counter-insurgency operations in the postwar era. Pilots of light in Malaya trolled the skies observing guerrilla-occupied regions, searching for evidence of movement and scouting for garden plots which would then be sprayed with herbicides shortly before the anticipated harvest.

Similar operations in the Philippines ―provided substantial information concerning the

Huk force status.‖322 The degree of persistence, familiarity, and attention to detail required can be illustrated by an account related by a French veteran of Algeria, who recalled that

For many weeks these aircraft scanned the Great Erg without result. One day an observer reported an unusual bush at the summit of a . [Colonel Marcel] Bigeard [Commander of the 3e Colonial ] quickly dropped five companies of paratroops around the suspected rebel hide-out and attacked….The enemy was liquidated within two hours.323

One can only imagine how maddening this episode, and others like it, must have been to the Algerian FLN as the constant reconnaissance patrols alerted colonial forces to subtle indications of insurgent activity. So thorough was the French reconnaissance effort, and the pilots‘ familiarity with their assigned areas of operation, that the presence of newcomers in a given or the cessation of normal agricultural activity on a given plot often provided an operationally significant tip-off.324 Before the advent of

322 Peterson, Reinhardt, and Conger, Symposium on the Role of Airpower in Counterinsurgency and Unconventional Warfare: A Brief Summary of Viewpoints, 8.

323 A.H. Peterson, G.C. Reinhardt, and E.E. Conger, eds., ―Symposium on the Role of Airpower in Counterinsurgency and Unconventional Warfare: The ,‖ RAND Memorandum RM-3653-PR (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, July 1963), 55.

324 Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 122.

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reconnaissance such indications could only be observed through the patient, painstakingly detailed observations of reconnaissance aircrew.

Overdoing It

Despite the French Air Force‘s many tactical successes in Algeria, France itself lost the war following a series of irrecoverable political setbacks—some of them resulting from the misapplication of French air power, proving that a counter-insurgency air campaign can sometimes go too far, with damaging or even disastrous results to the effort as a whole. The French learned this lesson in the course of an ill-advised air raid against

Sakiet, , on 8 February 1958. Sakiet was a well-known haven for Algerian militants, as well as a marshalling area for repeated raids into Algeria. French commanders concluded that the only way to deal with the insurgency inside Algeria was to strike it at the source: its sanctuaries, its depots, its training camps, and its staging areas, which were often located outside Algeria‘s borders. A squadron of French B-26 bombers consequently ―flattened‖ Sakiet—on a market day—hitting a school and a hospital in the process and killing some eighty people. The raid, and its results, precipitated strategic and political consequences that far eclipsed any immediate military gain: the French government reeled from the volume of international condemnation directed against the attack, and the raid ―internationalized‖ the conflict to a degree far greater than any of the insurgents‘ political and publicity campaigns to date. According to , the raid ―set in motion the chain of events that led directly to the final

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disintegration of the Fourth Republic‖— a development clearly unforeseen, though only presumably undesired, by the raid‘s planners.325

British counter-insurgents suffered a similar if less catastrophic setback as a result of an analogous episode six years later, during the Aden campaign. Frustrated by repeated Yemeni air and surface attacks against villages and military facilities in the

Aden territory, eight RAF Hunter fighter-bombers attacked and destroyed the fort of

Harib in Yemeni territory. As a result of the subsequent international outcry, elements of the ruling Labour party as well as the British press roundly criticized the raid. The negative publicity and political consequences increased to the point that Denis Healey, then the United Kingdom‘s Secretary of State for Defence, decried the operation as ―the greatest mistake the authorities made‖ during Britain‘s war in Aden.326

Additionally, counter-insurgents have repeatedly learned that the ―morale sword‖ can cut both ways: excessive or indiscriminate air attack has often hardened guerrilla morale or brought new recruits to the insurgent cause, particularly when unintended civilian casualties resulted.327 One Viet Minh guerrilla during the First Indochina War, for example, emerged from an to find his best friend dying on the ground, horribly burned by napalm. Later wounded himself in a French air attack, this particular insurgent spent the two months of his convalescence obsessing about ―killing the

325 Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (New York: New York Review Books, 2006), 249-250, 266-267.

326 Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 150.

327 James Elliot Cross, Conflict in the Shadows (New York: Doubleday, 1963), 77.

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French.‖328 This episode was repeated many times during the subsequent ―American

War‖ in Vietnam;329 in one case a North Vietnamese soldier volunteered for duty in the

South after his fiancé had been killed in a bombing raid on Haiphong. ―Immediately afterward I decided that I had to go south to fight,‖ the soldier recalled. ―If I didn‘t join up straight away I‘d miss my chance for revenge.‖ Such testimony does not suggest an effective method of ―winning hearts and minds.‖ The random nature of unintended deaths resulting from bombing, and more recently the perceived ―cowardice‖ of pilots who deploy their weapons with apparent impunity from unreachable altitudes and distances, has instead stoked resentment and indignation among the affected populations.

This, in turn, has often become an insurgent organization‘s most effective recruiting tool.

It follows that a key task of counter-insurgent forces is to apply firepower in appropriate doses against the right targets, and only the right targets. General Creighton

Abrams, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam during the latter years of the war, understood this well. ―The question should be whether artillery, , tac air, and all that kind of stuff, whether it ought to be used at all,‖ he mused, complaining that ―Out here to try to get four guerrillas [requires] three air strikes, and 155s and 105s, and two helicopter runs.‖ His dismay over the excessive use of force led General Lucius

Clay, commander of the in South Vietnam, to remark ―General

Abrams is really uncomfortable that we are doing more harm than good.‖ 330 The U.S.,

328 Quoted in Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 114-115.

329 As described by Gaip and other senior North Vietnamese leaders.

330 Lewis Sorley, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam (San Diego: Harvest Books, 1999), 219-220.

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and its air arms, found themselves compelled to learn the lessons of excessive force in

Vietnam; the has had to learn and repeatedly re-learn them since, most recently during the course of the Al-Aqsa Intifada from 2000-2005.331 American air forces have also had to re-learn those same lessons themselves, as a result of the far-too- frequent civilian deaths resulting from air strikes against Iraqi and Afghan insurgents.

The significance of the preceding accounts can be summarized by two strikingly similar conclusions reached by representatives of the Air University at Maxwell Air

Force Base, Alabama. One notes that ―If utilized with full knowledge of and adaptation to the peculiar characteristics of a given insurgency, air power can play an important, possibly vital, role in counter-insurgency action.‖332 The other contends that ―When airmen apply air power in the right way and in the right context, it can contribute significantly to achieving counter-insurgency campaign objectives.‖333 The interesting bit about the two reports in question is that they were written four decades apart, the latter in 2004. This, in turn, indicates the enduring nature of air power‘s value to the counter- insurgent. Air power is something counter-insurgent forces generally feel they must have—and with good reason, as many of the above examples demonstrate. That said, even if used correctly air power is at best a necessary component of counter-insurgency; it has never proven sufficient by itself. Air power alone has never won a war, and its

331 The ―‖ of HAMAS‘ Gaza commander, Saleh Shehadeh, in July 2002 drew particular condemnation, both domestically and internationally. The F-16 strike that killed Shehadeh also killed 14 Palestinian civilians, including nine children, in the same apartment building.

332 Concepts Division, Aerospace Studies Institute, ―Guerrilla Warfare and Airpower in Algeria, 1954- 1960,‖ 93.

333 Col. Anthony C. Cain, ―Perspective: Airpower in Counterinsurgency Operations,‖ Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education (CADRE) Quick-Look 04-5, Maxwell AFB, AL, 2005.

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misapplication has at times contributed to a nation‘s ultimate defeat—particularly when that nation‘s armed forces have used air power not as a tool, but as a crutch.334

The FAP, like the other Portuguese services, was well-schooled in the lessons learned by counter-insurgent forces in the years between 1945 and 1963. The FAP‘s initial opportunity to apply these lessons to practice arose in Angola in 1961, and scarcely two years later Portuguese airmen found themselves at war in the skies of Guinea as well.

These conflicts would offer the FAP its first opportunities for combat since the First

World War,335 and in Guinea particularly Portuguese airmen and aircraft soon became the most important element in Portugal‘s offensive arsenal. The FAP‘s effectiveness permitted Portugal to remain in the territory as long as it did; conversely, the diminution of that effectiveness later compelled Portugal‘s exit from Guinea.

334 The author acknowledges claims made in support of air power‘s unilaterally ―decisive‖ role in the wake of NATO‘s 1999 campaign, including President Clinton‘s comment that ―a sustained air campaign, under the right conditions, can stop an army on the ground.‖ However, he prefers the more sophisticated analysis put forward by two RAND analysts who observed that ―In the Kosovo crisis, Serbian concerns over regime instability, NATO's threat of a ground invasion, and an inability to inflict costs on NATO (particularly an inability to gain Moscow's backing) probably played the largest role in motivating Milosevic's concessions. Air power played a critical role in all three of these, but in none of them did air power truly operate in isolation from other coercive instruments or pressures.‖ Daniel L. Byman and Matthew C. Waxman, ―Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate‖ (International Security 24, no. 4 [Spring, 2000], 5-38), 7; President Clinton‘s comments were quoted in Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo, 221.

335 During the First World War, Portuguese airmen of the Serviço de Aeronáutica Militar flew missions from Mozambique in support of combined Portuguese-British operations against German forces in , 1917-1918. Also, Portugal deployed a Serviço de Aviação do Corpo Expedicionário Português to France in 1917-1918, comprised of more than sixty pilots and aerial observers; although thirteen pilots saw combat with French units, the Corpo Expedicionário was recalled in mid-1918 without ever having fought as a national unit. Although 14 Portuguese volunteers later flew as combat pilots in Franco‘s air force, they served outside the command structure of the Portuguese Arma de Aeronáutica Militar—although they presumably went with their service‘s permission. Colonel Edgar Pereira da Costa Cardoso, Portuguese Air Force, História da Força Aérea Portuguesa (Lisbon: Cromocolor, 1980), 226-227, 241-242, 247-248; Colonel Edgar Pereira da Costa Cardoso, Portuguese Air Force, História da Força Aérea Portuguesa, 3o Volume (Lisbon: Cromocolor, 1984), 61-63; William Green, ―Portugal‘s Air Power‖ (Flying Review 25, No. 7 [April 1970], 50-55), 51, 55; Riccardo Niccoli, ―Atlantic Sentinels: The Portuguese Air Force since 1912‖ (Air Enthusiast 73 [January-February 1998], 20-35), 20.

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Chapter 4 – The Portuguese Air Force Prepares for War

Organizational and Infrastructural Development

Portugal‘s military aviation legacy in Africa stretches back to 1917, when a detachment of three Farman F.40 was sent to Mozambique for joint Anglo-

Portuguese operations against German forces in East Africa. A second unit formed the following year in Angola, but both were disbanded shortly after the war‘s end. Their deactivation led to a forty-year absence of Portuguese based permanently in Africa, although military and commercial transport aircraft made regular visits.336

Consequently the meager Portuguese forces present in Guinea in 1961—two infantry companies and one artillery battery—had no air support to call upon should the need arise.337 The state of Guinea‘s aviation infrastructure proved similarly wanting: the limited number of airfields could best be described as ―rudimentary,‖ lacking navigational aids or suitable facilities for military use, or even adequate stocks of maps

336 William Green, ―Portugal‘s Air Power‖ (Flying Review 25, no. 7 [April 1970], 50-55), 51; Duncan Curtis, North American F-86 Sabre (Marlborough, UK; The Crowood Press, 2000), 173; Luís Alves de Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África: Angola, Guiné e Moçambique 1961-1975 (Lisbon: Prefácio, 2004), 15-16. For information regarding the First World War on the continent, see Byron Farwell, The Great War in Africa (1914-1918) (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1986.

337 Bacelar, A Guerra em África, 98.

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for air operations.338 These inadequacies reflected those of the FAP as a whole, which was at the time small, limited in its capabilities, and characterized as an ―air ‗hobbling‘ force…For the most part it could not reach the critical mass to accomplish anything significant or, if so, it couldn‘t do it consistently.‖339

To rectify matters, the Portuguese Under-secretary of State for ,

Kaúlza da Arriaga, initiated a program of African expansion. In 1958 Arriaga dispatched the Deputy Chief of the Air Force, General Venâncio Deslandas, at the head of a FAP delegation to visit Portugal‘s African territories and study potential airfield locations, infrastructure requirements, and feasible solutions.340 The following year Arriaga presided over a ―show of force‖ exercise in Angola involving some 15 bombers and . The display, codenamed ―Himba,‖ was staged to augment local morale and to dissuade potential insurgents both in Angola and in Portugal‘s other African territories.341

Meanwhile, Deslandas‘ study and recommendations began to yield results: before

338 Miranda, ―El Empleo del Arma Aérea en la Lucha Antiguerrilla,‖ 594.

339 Gen. José Lemos Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ in José Freire Antunes, A guerra de África (1961-1974), vol. 2 (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996), 584.

340 Gen. Tomás George Conceição Silva, ―The Portuguese Air Force in the African Wars of 1961-1974,‖ in John P. Cann, ed., Memories of Portugal’s African Wars: Proceedings of a Conference, King’s College London, 10 June 1997 (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Foundation, 1998), 111; Cardoso, História da Força Aérea Portuguese, 3o Volume, 225; Repeated attempts to locate an extant copy of the ―Deslandas Report‖ have failed. According to Cor. Ismael Alves, the director of the Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, the FAP archives do not maintain a copy of the report. Dr. John Cann, author of Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portuguese Way of War, has also searched extensively for this document, with no results. According to José Matos, a Portuguese aviation enthusiast who has published extensively on the African wars, the Deslandas Report is most likely ―lost forever.‖ Personal communications with the author, 22 March 2009, 26 March 2009, 1 April 2009, 7 April 2009.

341 Mario Canongia Lopes, ―Latin Harpoons: The Lockheed PV-2 in Brazilian and Portuguese Service‖ (Air Enthusiast 40 [September-December 1989], 31-42), 35. The ―bombers‖ in question were modified PV-2 Harpoons, a Second World War anti- patrol aircraft used as a land-based bomber by the FAP.

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hostilities in Guinea began, and during the first few years of fighting, Portugal constructed 21 airfields throughout the territory (although, admittedly, many of these featured improvised, unpaved surfaces suitable only for helicopters and light aircraft with a short-field capability). 342 The main airfield at Bissalanca, near Bissau, was extensively modified and enlarged, earning it the designation AB2 (Aérodromo Base 2) on 25 May 1961. Continued expansion in the following years resulted in its re- designation as a main base, BA12 (Base Aérea 12), in 1965.343

Bissalanca became the headquarters of the Cape Verde and Guinea Air Zone

(Zona Aérea de Cabo Verde e Guiné, or ZACVG), part of the 1st Air Region (1a Região

Aérea) headquartered in Lisbon.344 The ZACVG oversaw continued construction of airfields and infrastructure within Guinea, and by 1970 major paved runways at Nova

Lamego, Cufar, and Aldeia Formosa had been completed. These new airfields increased coverage of southern and eastern Guinea, and Nova —like Bissalanca—was capable of hosting the FAP‘s most advanced jet aircraft.345

The ZACVG also controlled, maintained, and tasked all aircraft based in Guinea and Cape Verde. The bulk of these assets would ultimately reside at Bissalanca airfield and comprise Grupo Operacional 1201 (Operational Group 1201), the parent unit for the

342 Gen. Pedro Cardoso, ―A Better Guiné,‖ in John P. Cann, ed., Memories of Portugal’s African Wars, 1961-1974: Proceedings of a Conference, King’s College London, 10 June 1997 (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Foundation, 1998), 95.

343 William Green, ―Portugal‘s Air Power‖ part II (Flying Review 25, no. 9 [June 1970], 50-55), 53. Cardoso, História da Força Aérea Portuguese, 3o Volume, 225.

344 Bacelar, A Guerra em África, 78; Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 102; Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 308.

345 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 308.

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FAP‘s three flying squadrons stationed in Guinea. Fighter-bombers and helicopters would each have a squadron of their own (Esquadra No. 121 and Esquadra No. 122, respectively), while transport, reconnaissance, and liaison aircraft were grouped together into a third unit, Esquadra No. 123.346

Figure 4.1. Major FAP airfields in Guinea: 1). Bissalanca, 2). Nova Lamego, 3). Aldeia Formosa, 4). , and 5). Boe (graphic based on United Nations Map 4063, Revision 3, June 2004; used with permission).

346 The attack squadron was actually called the Esquadra de Intervenção Fogo (―Fire Support Squadron,‖) while the helicopters were grouped into the Esquadra de Transporte e Assalto (―Transport and Assault Squadron‖). Comando da Zona Aerea de Cabo Verde e Guiné, Base Aérea No. 12, ―Organogramos,‖ October 1968, 1a Região Aérea, 3a Divisão EMFA, Commando da Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 2-3.

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; Bacelar, 196 ;

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rganization of the FAP and ZACVG (Comando da Zona (Comando Aere da and Zona ofZACVG FAP rganization the

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Cabo Verde Cabo e ―Organogramos,‖ 12, Aérea No. Guiné, Base Figure 4.

117

.

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-

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perational elements perational

Cabo Verde e Guiné, Base Aérea No. 12, ―Organogramos,‖ 2 Verde Cabo e ―Organogramos,‖ 12, Aérea No. Guiné, Base

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Since the FAP acknowledged that surface force support comprised its primary mission, several additional organizational schemes soon became necessary. Air-ground coordination was initially ad hoc to an unacceptable degree and based on the individual services‘ counter-insurgency doctrines, which were not always consistent. To resolve this unsatisfactory situation Colonel José Duarte Krus Abecasis, ZACVG commander from to January 1966, effected sweeping changes to reconcile misconceptions and ensure effective inter-service coordination.347 His program included the formation of a Centro Conjunto de Apoio Aérea (―Joint Air Support Center,‖ abbreviated CCAA) at

Bissalanca, as well as a corresponding Section (Secção Conjunta de Apoio Aérea, or

SCAP) at Nova Lamego. These organizations provided the first permanent, standardized means of communication and coordination between the Army, the Navy, and the Air

Force. They served as ―clearing houses‖ for FAP fire support operations, prioritized requests, directed approved missions, and resolved long-standing communications problems between individual aircraft and surface forces in contact with the enemy.348

Portuguese Aircraft and Personnel in Guinea

Any such organizational scheme, of course, would be pointless without aircraft and the personnel to maintain and operate them. The FAP began deploying those forces

347 Barbeitos de , ―Esquema da Palestra, ‗A F.A. na Guiné, 1963-1965,‖ 1.

348 Maj. Gen. José Duarte Krus Abecasis, ―Duas ‗Praxis‘ de Comando‖ (Revista Militar, 17 April 2009). http://www.revistamilitar.pt/modules/articles/article.php?id=360; Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 106-107.

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to Guinea soon after Bissalanca‘s inauguration as a military airfield, although the service‘s inventory was critically limited in terms of both quantity and quality. ―The Air

Force was compelled employ obsolete equipment relatively unsuited to the characteristics of the guerrilla conflict,‖ a former ZACVG commander lamented. ―Since no one was giving us military aircraft, we acquired civilian aircraft and subsequently conducted operational modifications. One can imagine how much time was wasted!‖349 This did not cause the FAP to waste time in dispatching such aircraft as it could to Guinea, however, and the first to arrive were eight U.S.-made F-86 ―Sabre‖ fighters. The Sabres, best known for their performance in the Korean War, touched down at Bissalanca on 9

August 1961 after a six-day ferry flight from Monte Real air base in Portugal. The deployment, codenamed ―Atlas,‖ had been intended as a week-long ―show of force‖ to dissuade insurgent tendencies in the territory. However, the eruption of violence in

Figure 4.4. North American F-86F Sabre (data compiled from Leonard Bridgman, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1957-58, 341. Image reproduced courtesy of the Força Aérea Portuguesa Museu do Ar; used with permission).

349 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 309.

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Angola and stirrings of discontent within Guinea prolonged the deployment by over three years, during which they saw significant combat.350 This development, once revealed, provoked a strong response from the United States, which had supplied F-86 fighters to

Portugal on the explicit condition that they be used only in the ―NATO area,‖ as strictly interpreted.351 This forbade Lisbon‘s deployment of the aircraft to its African territories, as the U.S. affirmed before the United Nations in 1961 and 1962. Public disclosure of

Portuguese F-86 operations in Guinea consequently caused considerable embarrassment for the U.S., which in turn resulted in mounting diplomatic pressure on Lisbon to return the aircraft to Portugal. The latter relented in October 1964, removing the F-86s and thereby leaving Portuguese forces in Guinea without a jet-powered platform for either ground attack or air defense.352 Advanced attack aircraft of a different make and origin would arrive beginning in 1966, but the FAP contingent in Guinea would lack a credible air-to-air combat capability for the remainder of the war—a fact that would later cause considerable worry among the FAP‘s commanders.353

350Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 587; U.S. Ambassador United Nations, telegram to Secretary of State, 26 July 1963, 4; Curtis, North American F-86 Sabre, 173. Interestingly, Ferreira claimed the deployment took place ―in the context of NATO,‖ reflecting Portugal‘s liberal interpretation of the collective and self- defense provisions of the North Atlantic Treaty.

351 The NATO area is defined in Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty as ―the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or , on the Algerian Departments of France, on the territory of or on the islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.‖ North Atlantic Treaty Organization, ―The North Atlantic Treaty,‖ 4 April 1949,‖ North Atlantic Treaty Organization On-Line Library, http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm.

352 U.S. Department of State, telegram to the US Mission to the United Nations, 3 , 1; Curtis, North American F-86 Sabre, 173. Oddly, the U.S. did not protest the use of American-made Republic F-84 ―Thunderjet‖ attack fighters in Angola; for a review of these operations, see Mario Canongia Lopes, ―Portugal‘s Fighting Thunderjets‖ (Air Enthusiast 31 [July-November 1986], 43-54), 50-54.

353 For information regarding the perceived air threat to Guinea from 1969 to 1974, refer to Chapter 7.

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By this time, however, several other types of aircraft were available for

Portuguese use in Guinea, without the restrictions accompanying U.S.-supplied equipment. These included armed derivatives of the North American T-6 ―Texan‖ trainer, including its dedicated attack version, the AT-6. Although the FAP did receive

56 of these aircraft through the from the U.S. through the Mutual Defense Assistance

Program, over 200 others were delivered from surplus French, German, South African, and British stocks.354 This Second World War-vintage aircraft, armed with machineguns, bombs, 37mm , served as a workhorse for FAP ground attack operations until

1973.355 It was not well-loved by Portuguese pilots, however, for the T-6 showed itself

a genuine encumbrance to operations. Slow, the noise of its motor betrayed its presence far away. Since it carried bombs or rockets near stall speed, it caused many accidents, in the majority fatal. Very vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire, it needed to be replaced by jet aircraft, which besides reducing the reaction time by 60 to 75 percent, would have reduced stress for the pilots and the heavy losses.356

The slow, lumbering, unarmored trainers could carry bombs no larger than 50 kg, which rendered them less than ideal for area attacks against PAIGC base areas or suspected guerrilla concentrations in concealed positions. Even with its meager load the T-6 required two to three minutes to complete a strafing pass, and nearly twice that for a bomb run—all the while exposed to hostile ground fire. As a result, T-6s suffered more battle damage per sortie, on average, than any other FAP aircraft.357

354 João Vidal, ―Factos & Números: T-6 / SNJ / Harvard,‖ Aviões Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon; Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 586-587.

355 Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 586-587.

356 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 310.

357 Barbeitos de Sousa, ―Esquema da Palestra, ‗A F.A. na Guiné, 1963-1965,‖ 3-4, Annex F, Annex G; Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 587.

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Figure 4.5. North American T-6 Texan (data compiled from Leonard Bridgman, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1945-46, 295c. Image reproduced courtesy of the Força Aérea Portuguesa Museu do Ar; used with permission).

A developing partnership with the Federal Republic of Germany resulted in the

FAP‘s acquisition of nearly 300 additional aircraft throughout the 1960s. In addition to some 70 secondhand T-6s, Bonn also provided 146 Dornier Do-27 light observation aircraft—most of them transferred from ex- stocks—beginning in 1963.358 The

Do-27 soon became the FAP‘s ―catch-all‖ type, performing reconnaissance, liaison, resupply, airborne command-and-control, and medical evacuation missions in Guinea.359

358 Although the sales agreement stipulated that ―the aircraft delivered to the Portuguese Ministry of Defense will remain in Portugal,‖ the Portuguese government continued to maintain that its overseas provinces were, in fact, an integral part of Portugal. This argument was reportedly met by ―a half-smile of agreement‖ from the German delegation negotiating the sale; and the aircraft were subsequently delivered along with enough spare parts to cover two years of operations. Ana Mónica Fonseca, ―Dez Anos de Relações Luso-Alemãs‖ (Relacões Internacionais 11 [2006], 47-60), 53-54, 57; Mario Canongia Lopes, ―High-Winged Workhorses,‖ 42-44.

359 Mario Canongia Lopes, ―High-Winged Workhorses: Broussards and Dorniers in Portuguese Service‖ (Air Enthusiast 73 [May-June 1998], 41-45), 42-44; Riccardo Niccoli, ―Portuguese Numerology: Serial Systems Used by the Aeronautica Militar and the Força Aérea Portuguesa‖ (Air Enthusiast 75 [May-June 1998], 34-39), 38.

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―They flew at very slow speeds and carried a small load (250 to 359 kilograms), with the disconcerting characteristic of being single-engined,‖ a Portuguese pilot and African veteran later recalled. However, the Do-27 also possessed ―excellent STOL [short take- off and landing] characteristics [and used] very short runways, which justified its use….Despite their marked deficiencies, they performed excellent service.‖360

Figure 4.6. Dornier Do-27 (data compiled from Charles W.R. Taylor, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1966-67, 69. Image reproduced courtesy of the Força Aérea Portuguesa Museu do Ar; used with permission).

Bonn made its greatest contribution to the FAP‘s inventory in 1965, when it agreed to the sale of 40 Fiat G.91 jet fighter-bombers produced under license in

Germany. The G.91, an Italian design once intended to become a ―standard‖ NATO tactical ,361 represented a tremendous improvement in the FAP‘s capability,

360 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 310.

361 An effort torpedoed by France, whose own contending design was not selected. In fact, the French contender—the Breguet Taon—had been considered the superior model, and rumors circulated that the U.S. had influenced the competition to bolster the Italian economy as a means to forestall a possible Communist electoral victory in Italy. Mario Canongia Lopes, ―Portugal‘s Ginas‖ (Air Enthusiast 36 [May- August 1988], 61-72), 64; Giorgio Apostolo, The Fiat G.91 (Surrey, UK: Profile Publications, 1966), 3, 7.

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particularly where Guinean air operations were concerned. These aircraft began arriving in Portugal in December 1965, and by June 1966 the first of them had made their way to

Bissalanca airfield in Guinea.362 Organized as a ―heavy attack‖ esquadrilha (or flight) within Esquadra 121, the ―Tigres,‖ the initial wartime compliment of eight G.91s grew to twelve in 1969. All told the FAP took delivery of 74 G.91s, including 11 two-seat training versions. Called the porquinho (or ―piggy‖) by Portuguese pilots because of the snout-like camera fairing in its nose, the type remained the core of Portugal‘s offensive air capability until well into the 1980s.363 G.91 pilots particularly appreciated its engine thrust, acceleration, and maneuverability at low altitudes.364 Given its superior performance relative to other FAP aircraft in Guinea, the G.91 ―constituted the mainstay of independent air operations and support of the surface forces,‖ according to a former pilot and veteran of the war in Guinea.365 Another pilot appreciated of the G.91‘s endurance and striking power: ―In most cases the G.91 did not need to use external fuel tanks,‖ Colonel Miguel Pessoa recalled. ―The endurance of 50 minutes under these conditions was sufficient for most missions, so we could use maximum loads in our missions.‖366

362 Mario Canongia Lopes, ―Portugal‘s Ginas,‖ 66; Riccardo Niccoli, ―Fiat G.91: NATO‘s Lightweight Striker‖ (International Air Power Review 7 [Winter 2002], 166-181), 174; Fonseca, ―Dez Anos de Relações Luso-Alemãs,‖ 55.

363 Mario Canongia Lopes, ―Portugal‘s Ginas,‖ 66-67; Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 122; Portuguese Air Force Museum, ―Fiat G91 R3,‖ http://www.emfa.pt/www/po/musar/index.php; Colonel Miguel Pessoa, personal communication with the author, 16 April 2009.

364 Maj. Alberto Cruz, e-mail message to the author, 27 July 2009.

365 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 311.

366 Col. Miguel Pessoa, e-mail message to the author, 16 April 2009.

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Figure 4.7. Fiat G.91 (data compiled from Charles W.R. Taylor, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1966-67, 93. Image reproduced courtesy of the Força Aérea Portuguesa Museu do Ar; used with permission).

Although jet fighters certainly have their place in any air campaign, the FAP and its subordinate ZACVG recognized that ―the helicopter was going to be an essential element in that type of guerrilla war.‖ This thinking encouraged the purchase of 142 Sud

Aviation SA-316 ―Alouette III‖ helicopters from France beginning in 1965.367 The first examples of the type began arriving at Bissalanca that same year, ultimately leading to a peak deployment of 21 aircraft in Guinea by 1970.368 Like the Do-27, the Alouette III proved to be a superlatively versatile machine; it performed transport, evacuation, and reconnaissance operations, as well as armed escort missions following Portuguese modifications.369 The Alouette III‘s versatility led to its extensive use throughout

Portuguese Africa, for it was ―the one vehicle that could provide the proper mobility in difficult terrain, and illustratively, a one-minute flight in a helicopter equaled about an

367 Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 586; Gomes and Afonso, Os Anos da Guerra Colonial 4, 89.

368 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 102, 105; Mario Canongia Lopes, ―Portugal‘s Ginas,‖ 65.

369 Gomes and Afonso, Os Anos da Guerra Colonial 4, 89.

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hour on foot in the jungle.‖ Its use has consequently been described as ―the biggest difference in military capability between that of Portuguese forces and of the enemy.‖370

Figure 4.8. Alouette III helicopter on operations in Guinea (data compiled from Charles W.R. Taylor, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1966-67, 62. Photo by Idálio Reis; used with permission).

For all the praise this aircraft justly deserved, however, the Alouette III did have its limitations. Like most helicopters it was relatively slow, and given the nature of its tasks it often operated in close proximity to enemy forces. Together, these deficiencies rendered the Alouette III ―extremely vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire,‖ and several were lost as a consequence of enemy action.371

The Alouette III‘s vulnerability was decreased, and its effectiveness improved, by the addition of door-mounted French MG-151 20 mm , a Portuguese

370 Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 130, 134.

371 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 313. Only three losses to enemy fire in Guinea have been reliably reported, but a further nine were shot down in Angola and three destroyed over Mozambique. Across all three theaters, a further 21 Alouette III helicopters were also lost in accidents. ―História do Aloutte III na Guerra Colonial,‖ Saltimbancos (Portuguese helicopter veterans‘ association). 6 October 2007, http://www.saltimbancos.net/downloads/Historia_Alouette_ III.pdf.

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modification that resulted in the creation of the helicanhão (―helicannon‖). These platforms proved exceptionally lethal and extraordinarily effectivene in armed reconnaissance and air support operations, and were highly respected by Portuguese and

PAIGC forces alike.372 In fact, he PAIGC so respected—and dreaded—FAP helicopters in general that Amílcar Cabral felt compelled to draft a tactics primer instructing his forces how to engage rotary-wing aircraft. Even so, as his half-brother Luís Cabral acknowledged, ―We never got our men to face the helicopters, even after they had anti- aircraft [weapons]. The helicopter was frightening, it had a terrible impact.‖373

Figure 4.9. The ―helicanhão‖ (photo by Paulo Raposo; used with permission).

372 Miranda, ―El Empleo del Arma Aérea en la Lucha Antiguerrilla,‖ 597; Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 314; Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 116; Bacelar, A Guerra em África, 149.

373 Luís Cabral, ―Prender Spínola,‖ in José Freire Antunes, A Guerra de África (1961-1974), vol. 1 (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996), 539. The document referred to was entitled ―Instruções sobre a actuação contra helicópteros,‖ and will be discussed in a later chapter.

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Fixed-wing transport duties initially devolved to two U.S. aircraft dating from the

Second World War, the Douglas C-47 ―Dakota‖ and the Douglas C-54 ―Skymaster.‖

Although the former may be best known for its role during the 1944 Normandy invasion, and the latter for its service during the Berlin Airlift, they fulfilled a critical logistical role in Africa and continued to fly in FAP colors until 1976. Portugal had acquired 29 C-47s and 18 C-54s in the 1940s and 1950s, and they handled both intra- and inter-theater airlift until the arrival of more modern aircraft in the early 1960s.374 Up to four C-47s were permanently assigned to BA12 in Guinea, where they were occasionally used as makeshift night bombers, while the C-54s continued to ply the long routes from Portugal to its far-flung African possessions. Comparatively few in number, these aircraft were consistently in high demand despite their limited availability.375

Figure 4.10. Douglas C-47 Dakota/Skytrain (data compiled from Leonard Bridgman, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1945-46, 240c, 242c. Image reproduced courtesy of the Força Aérea Portuguesa Museu do Ar; used with permission).

374 Niccoli, ―Portuguese Numerology,‖ 38.

375 Of the three to four FAP C-47s based in Guinea, at most two were operational at any given time. Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 108; Silva, ―The Portuguese Air Force in the African Wars of 1961- 1974,‖ 119.

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Figure 4.11. Douglas C-54 Skymaster (data compiled from Leonard Bridgman, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1949-50, 219c. Image reproduced courtesy of the Força Aérea Portuguesa Museu do Ar; used with permission).

The FAP‘s airlift limitations were alleviated somewhat by the acquisition of 30

Nord ―Noratlas‖ transports from France beginning in 1960, and by the purchase of 10

DC-6 civil transports from the U.S. in 1961. The Noratlas had earlier served as

―probably the most important transport aircraft‖ supporting French forces during their war in Algeria, and had also seen service during the 1956 Suez campaign.376 During the war for Guinea, a small number of Noratlases flew from Bissalanca on a permanent basis

(two of them in 1972 and 1973), grouped together with the other assorted fixed-wing transports and miscellaneous types within Esquadra No. 123.377 For its part the DC-6 played a crucial role in alleviating the FAP‘s trans-continental airlift shortfalls, and consequently saw considerable service throughout the conflict.378

376 Chris Bishop, ed., The Aerospace Encyclopedia of Air Warfare, Volume Two: 1945 to the Present (London: Aerospace Publishing Ltd., 1997), 151, 162, 210.

377 Lt. Col. José Fernando de Almeida Brito, untitled status report for Grupo Operacional 1201, 1973, Amílcar Cabral Collection, Fundação Mário Soares Arquivo e Biblioteca, Lisbon, 4; Niccoli, ―Portuguese Numerology,‖ 38.

378 Venter, ―Portugal‘s Forgotten War,‖ 74.

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Figure 4.12. Nord 2501 Noratlas (data compiled from Leonard Bridgman, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1957-58, 161. Image reproduced courtesy of the Força Aérea Portuguesa Museu do Ar; used with permission).

Although not based in Guinea, one additional aircraft deserves mention for its role during that conflict. The FAP maintained a rotational detachment of Lockheed P2V-5

―Neptune‖ the island of Sel in Cape Verde, and these aircraft flew as night bombers over Guinea, particularly during the early years of the war.379

They also boasted the heaviest armament of any FAP aircraft in service over Guinea, including an ordance carrying capacity more than five times that of the G.91. Yet the

P2V series had been specifically designed by the U.S. as an anti-submarine platform during the Second World War, and anti-submarine operations proved quite unnecessary during counter-insurgency operations over Guinea. The Neptune‘s adaptation for air-to- ground operations thus served as another example of FAP flexibility and its determination to make the most of every airframe within its inventory.

379 Silva, ―The Portuguese Air Force in the African Wars of 1961-1974,‖ 119; Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 105.

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Figure 4.13. Lockheed P2V-5 Neptune (data compiled from Leonard Bridgman, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1957-58, 327-328. Image reproduced courtesy of the Força Aérea Portuguesa Museu do Ar; used with permission).

A handful of other types saw sporadic service with the FAP in Guinea, including small detachments of British-made ―Auster‖ light aircraft and French-produced ―Alouette

II‖ helicopters.380 These were withdrawn from the territory by the end of 1965, however, having been replaced by the Do-27 and Alouette III, respectively. All told, the FAP maintained a fleet of between 45 and 80 total aircraft in Guinea from 1965 until the war‘s end in 1974—roughly the equivalent of two to three U.S. Air Force squadrons deployed overseas during the same period.381

380 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 105.

381 Throughout the Cold War, U.S. Air Force fighter and fighter-bomber squadrons typically maintained a ―primary aircraft assigned‖ (PAA) count of 24 aircraft. A single fighter wing of three squadrons would correspondingly control a total of 72 aircraft. ―Heavy‖ aircraft squadrons, employing bomber, transport, or specialized aircraft types, varied in their authorized PAA, as indeed have all types of squadrons since the post-Cold War drawdown.

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A Guerra Estava Militarmente Perdida? A Situação Político Estava Militarmente A Perdida? Guerra A

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Despite the trickle of aircraft coming from American sources, French and German contributions dominated the FAP‘s inventory during the African wars. The reason had less to do with the U.S. embargo than a quid pro quo between Lisbon and Bonn on the one hand, and with Paris on the other. In the latter case, France eagerly sought to construct a tracking station for its fledgling space and missile programs on the island of Flores. The timing of the Flores agreement between Portugal and France and the subsequent deliveries of Alouette III helicopters and ex-French T-6s point persuasively to a deal between the two.382 The evidence supporting Luso-German collusion is even more convincing, however. Beginning in 1960, Germany sought a logistical base for war reserve material and a flight training facility far in NATO‘s

European ―rear.‖ The Portuguese airfield at Beja suited their needs perfectly. Not only did the final agreement grant Germany the use of those facilities, it led directly to the provision of newly-manufactured G.91 jet fighter-bombers and ex-Luftwaffe T-6s, Do-

27, and Noratlases at deeply discounted .383 Although these acquisition deals included stipulations that the aircraft ―will remain in Portugal and will be used in defense of NATO interests,‖ Lisbon was left free to determine what constituted ―Portugal,‖ and whether or not the purported defense of Africa from encroaching communism served

―NATO interests.‖ In the end Portugal interpreted these clauses to the advantage of its

382 Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 588. These aircraft, particularly the helicopters, dramatically increased Portugal‘s ability to prosecute counter-insurgency operations in all three African theaters, leading to something of an irony: namely, that the results Portugal‘s initial explorative impulses in the 15th century contributed to Lisbon‘s ability to maintain its residual imperial holdings in the 20th.

383 Fonseca, ―Dez Anos de Relações Luso-Alemãs,‖ 49; Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 588.

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imperial venture and deployed such aircraft as it deemed necessary to Africa, including many of the recent German contributions.384

The U.S. weapons embargo, first levied against Portugal in 1961 and revised two years later, proved more difficult to circumvent.385 Lisbon tried in 1966, when the U.S. refused to fulfill the FAP‘s request for 29 Second World War-vintage B-26 bombers.

Portugal then turned to a firm in Tucson, Arizona, to arrange the clandestine purchase of 20 of the bombers. Seven were in fact delivered before the lone ferry pilot was arrested by U.S. authorities, and those aircraft saw extensive service in Angola.386

Despite American enforcement efforts, some operationally significant acquisitions did manage to bypass shifting American interpretations of its legal commitments. A

1970 Presidential directive, for example, granted blanket approval for Portuguese purchase of ―non-lethal dual-use items‖ primarily intended for civilian use.387 The new guidelines permitted the long-debated sale of two airliners to Portugal in

1972; unsurprisingly, these aircraft immediately found themselves shuttling troops and military equipment between Portugal and its combat theaters in Africa.388

384 Fonseca, ―Dez Anos de Relações Luso-Alemãs,‖ 54.

385 U.S. Ambassador United Nations, Telegram to Secretary of State, 1; U.S. Department of State, Telegram to U.S. Mission to the United Nations, 1.

386 Riccardo Niccoli, ―Atlantic Sentinels: The Portuguese Air Force since 1912‖ (Air Enthusiast 73 [January-February 1998], 20-35), 31; William Green, ―Portugal‘s Air Power‖ part II, 54.

387 National Security Council, ―National Security Council Memorandum 81: Implementation of Arms Embargo on South Africa and Portuguese African Territories,‖ 17 August 1970, 1.

388 Cardoso, História da Força Aérea Portuguesa¸ 3o Volume, 270.

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Additional Challenges…and Few Solutions

Any number of aircraft, of any quality, would be reduced to irrelevance without enough trained personnel to maintain and operate them. Sadly for Portugal, the FAP found itself consistently wanting for such personnel. The numbers of both pilots and support personnel within the ZACVG were habitually rated as ―insufficient.‖389 Pilots were, perhaps, in shortest supply. ―There was a disproportion in the disposition of land forces: nearly 40,000 men, between local , local forces and the metropolitan force,‖ a former FAP general recounted. ―And for a territory the size of [the Portuguese province of] Alentro, 40,000 is a lot of people. On the other side, the air part, in terms of active operators there were 50 to 60 pilots…70 pilots at most.‖ This disparity led the general to describe the FAP‘s pilots as ―the stick for the whole spoon.‖390 By 1972, the

FAP in Guinea could call upon only half the number of pilots it needed,391 and as a result

Portuguese pilots in the territory flew an extraordinarily high number of hours in an unusually diverse repertoire of aircraft.

By way of example, FAP personnel records of the time show that, of the 41 pilots based at Bissalanca in , 16 flew at least three types of aircraft during that month‘s operations. These were not merely different models the same class of aircraft,

389 Comando da Zona Aerea de Cabo Verde e Guiné, ―Envio de Relatórios Mensais (Março de 69),‖ 25 , 1a Região Aérea, Commando da Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné—Relatórios Mensais do Comando, Anos 1968-1969 Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 1.

390 Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 583, 590.

391 Afonso and Gomes, ―Guiné: Maio de 1973—O Inferno,‖ 1.

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but rather a mix of substantially different types such as propeller-driven aircraft and jets, or fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. Two of those pilots flew four different types during that month alone. Of the 41, only two helicopter pilots and four fixed fixed-wing pilots flew a single type of aircraft.392 A similar situation prevailed in March 1973: of the 50 FAP pilots then assigned to Bissalanca, only fifteen flew a single type of aircraft for the month. As of that same month, the average accumulated flight time for company grade pilot officers ( and captains) in Guinea was an astonishing 2,731 hours—as much as most U.S. Air Force and today. Pilots in the field grade ranks (major through colonel) averaged over twice that with 5,600 accumulated flying hours each.393 Even enlisted conscript pilots routinely tallied flight hours approaching the 1,000 mark, in one case even doubling that number.394

Similar shortages plagued the FAP‘s fleet of operational aircraft in Guinea.

Regardless of the total number assigned, only those aircraft ready to fly can contribute to the war effort. Given the antiquated state of many FAP planes, however, and the chronic shortage of maintenance personnel, aircraft ―ready rates‖ averaged on the order of a

392 Comando da Zona Aerea de Cabo Verde e Guiné, Base Aérea No. 12, ―Mapa de Qualificação de Pilotos e Navegadores,‖ January 1970, 1a Região Aérea, Commando da Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné— Relatórios Mensais do Comando, Anos 1968-1969 Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 2-4.

393 Comando da Zona Aerea de Cabo Verde e Guiné, Base Aérea No. 12, ―Qualificação e Experiència de Pilotos e Navegadores,‖ March 1973, 3a Divisão–EMFA, 1a Região Aérea, Relatórios do Comando 1972- 1974 Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 1-2.

394 Comando da Zona Aerea de Cabo Verde e Guiné, Base Aérea No. 12, ―Mapa de Qualificação de Pilotos e Navegadores,‖ 4; Comando da Zona Aerea de Cabo Verde e Guiné, Base Aérea No. 12, ―Qualificação e Experiència de Pilotos e Navegadores,‖ 3-4.

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marginal 50%.395 Although the archival record is incomplete, particularly for the years

1963-1964 and 1971-1972, extant data shows that, on average, the Fiat G.91 fleet had

72% of its number operational. The Do-27 fleet, on the other hand, could muster an average 31% of its number for duty. Other FAP types in Guinea ranked somewhere in between.396 In other words, of the 50 to 80 FAP aircraft present in Guinea at any given time, perhaps half of that number was ready for action—a fact that both exacerbated the initial paucity of available airframes and magnified the impact of any loss.

Maintenance problems also plagued those aircraft servicing Guinea but assigned elsewhere. For example, one in five flights of the FAP‘s DC-6 transports suffered an engine failure while flying from Portugal to Africa—a disconcerting development on a transoceanic flight, even for a four-engined aircraft.397 Yet the FAP continued to fly them for lack of any feasible alternative, and also managed to keep the bare majority of the rest of its inventory flyable at any given time. Given the venerable state of much of its fleet—not to mention the austere operating conditions, high operations tempo, extended supply lines, and limited budget—even the FAP‘s marginal operational rates represented a technical achievement of considerable significance.

395 Although the FAP‘s records repeatedly reported an ―insufficient‖ number of maintenance personnel, the author could find no rosters of those personnel in the FAP archives.

396 Average operational rates between 1965 and 1970 for the principal aircraft were as follows: Alouette III - 52%; C-47 - 41%; Do-27 - 31%; T-6 - 52%; and G.91 - 72%. Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 123.

397 Venter, ―Portugal‘s Forgotten War,‖ 74.

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Figure 4.16. FAP aircraft operability rates in Guinea; no data is available for the periods 1963-1964 and 1971-1972 (Fraga, 122; Brito, 4. Grapic by Faith Anne Hurley; used with permission).

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The availability of ordnance and ammunition, however, proved another obstacle to FAP operations, and one that maintenance heroics could not ameliorate. ―Armaments were one of our major problems,‖ FAP General Diogo Neto recalled dejectedly. ―Low quantities of arms and ammunition were a constant condition….12.7 mm ammunition, being the oldest, was in the worst shape, failing continuously.‖398 Given the intensity of

Portugal‘s war in Guinea relative to those in its other colonies, the situation could only deteriorate; indeed, at the war‘s peak, the ZACVG found itself consuming more ordnance than other FAP commands were using in Angola and Mozambique combined.399

However scarce the ZACVG‘s supply of aircraft, armament, and personnel, its impact proved sufficient to attract considerable attention, and Portugal‘s use of air power drew intense condemnation from the PAIGC and its sympathizers around the world. So did the sources of that air power, particularly Portugal‘s NATO allies. ―Everyone knows that Portugal does not make any aircraft, not even as toys for children,‖ Amílcar Cabral once observed. ―Our situation—this Portuguese aggression against our people—also involves the allies of Portugal, including Great Britain and the United States.‖400 His half-brother Luís agreed, observing ―Obviously, if [the Portuguese] were not given the means to bomb our towns, they couldn‘t do it. The bombs used against us belong to the

398 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 314.

399 Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 592.

400 Chicago Committee for the Liberation of Angola, Mozambique, and Guine, Sun of Our Freedom: The Independence of Guinea Bissau (Chicago: Salsedo Press, 1974), 14. Cabral had made the same point about ―toy planes‖ during a 1969 interview to a French periodical; see ―PAIGC Leader Amílcar Cabral Upbraids Portuguese Colonialism‖ (France Nouvelle, 19 November 1969, 10-11, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 860,‖ JPRS 49761, 5 February 1970), 10.

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North American army.‖401 The brothers were correct, to a certain extent, that Portugal‘s equipment came primarily from its NATO allies: Portugal‘s agreements with France and

Germany regarding the use of Flores and Beja, respectively, helped ensure two avenues for aircraft and equipment remained open during the most critical period. Lisbon would later exert pressure against the U.S. over the latter‘s continued use of critical logistics and anti-submarine facilities in the Azores, albeit with only minimal and belated success. Yet despite the embargoes, the accusations, the recriminations, and the occasional episode of diplomatic embarrassment, Portugal had established its air force in Guinea. For all its limitations, that air force would continue to grow throughout the 1960s, and its operations would correspondingly prove progressively more damaging to the PAIGC.

401 Luís Cabral, ―Portuguese Guinea Called ‗United Front against Imperialism‘‖ (Tricontinental, November-December 1969, 141-146, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 867,‖ JPRS 49903, 20 February 1970), 145.

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Chapter 5 – The Air War for Guinea

“The Wings of the Cross of Christ”

Despite the many challenges confronting the FAP, several factors argued forcefully for a rigorous air effort in Guinea. As previously mentioned, the FAP was well familiar with past counter-insurgent practice, which both highlighted the utility of air power in earlier conflicts and suggested similar benefits would accrue to a Portuguese air campaign in the territory. Initially at least, the FAP could conduct such a campaign with the limited equipment at its disposal, given the absence of a credible PAIGC air defense capability.402 In addition, the dispersed nature of Portuguese Army deployments, coupled with an accelerating guerrilla campaign of mine laying and convoy ambushes, mandated an aviation-intensive transportation scheme.403 Such a scheme was certainly feasible, given that Guinea‘s small size put any point in the territory within 45 minutes‘ flying time of the FAP‘s main base at Bissalanca.404 Finally, and despite restrictions, embargos, supply problems, and personnel limitations, Portugal had successfully assembled an air

402 Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 584.

403 Chaliland, ―Independence of Guinea Bissau, a New Step in the War of Liberation,‖ 14.

404 Venter, ―Portugal‘s Forgotten War,‖ 60; Chaliland, ―Independence of Guinea Bissau, a New Step in the War of Liberation,‖ 14.

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force in Guinea. ―The Air Force *is* in Guinea,‖ an official Portuguese government publication proclaimed in 1966. ―The wings of the Cross of Christ will not cease crossing the skies of Guinea…[they] will fly in any place and all circumstances that affect the defense of Portugal.‖405 The ―wings of the Cross of Christ‖ would eventually peak at approximately 80 aircraft in Guinea, in addition to long-range bombers and

Figure 5.1. "The wings of the Cross of Christ:" a flight of T-6s displaying the distinctive FAP , based on the cross of the Order of the Knights of Christ (image reproduced courtesy of the Força Aérea Portuguesa Museu do Ar; used with permission).

405 Martinho Simões, Três Frentes Durante Três Meses (Lisbon: Empresa Nacional de Publicidade, 1966), 229.

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transports on call in Cape Verde or the metropole.406 Given all of these factors, and the lack of any suitable alternatives, Portugal‘s military campaign in Guinea grew progressively more reliant on air operations.407

Portuguese Air Force Roles, Missions, and Functions408

In Guinea as elsewhere, the FAP had two basic roles: first, defense of Portuguese airspace, whether over European Portugal or its overseas territories; and second, support for land and maritime forces conducting surface operations.409 Such broadly-defined roles apply to the performance of virtually any type of mission, from peacetime search- and-rescue, to air transport across the spectrum of conflict, to actual air combat.

However, the FAP‘s planners and commanders recognized Portugal‘s lack of experience in counter-insurgency, so the air force—like its surface counterparts—worked to develop a doctrinal and operational foundation appropriate to the task.

406 This number included 78 aircraft accounted for in FAP documentation, plus a small detachment of perhaps two or three Noratlas transports. Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 123; Brito, untitled status report for Grupo Operacional 1201, 4.

407 Chabal, Birmingham, Forrest, Newitt, Seibert, and Andrade, A History of Postcolonial Lusophone Africa, 13.

408 Within the U.S. Defense community, ―roles‖ have perhaps best been defined as ―The broad and enduring purposes for which a Service was established.‖ On the other hand, ―missions‖ are those tasks assigned to a combatant commander (in the case of Guinea, the Governor-General such as General Spínola) by the appropriate governmental authorities. These missions may be joint, or may in some cases devolve to a single service component in an operational theater. For their part, ―functions‖ are those tasks which directly contribute to the fulfillment of a service‘s roles; close air support, for example, is a function that satisfies the broader role of supporting the surface forces, which may be necessary as part of the mission of protecting Country X from external aggression. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Memorandum to the Secretary of Defense, ―Report on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces‖ (28 September 1989), Appendix C.

409 Cardoso, História da Força Aérea Portuguese, 3o Volume, 222.

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That each service formulated its own counter-insurgency doctrine represented one fault inherent in Portugal‘s conduct of its African campaigns. Each of the service- specific doctrines was developed autonomously, without an over-arching doctrinal construct to guide subsequent planning or operations. The Portuguese Army‘s manual O

Exercito na Guerra Subversiva, for example, may have been ―the Bible by which Army soldiers were guided during the war,‖ but neither the navy nor the air force were obligated to study it, much less implement its tenets in operational practice.410

The FAP‘s own ―bible‖ for counter-insurgency ultimately found its final expression in a document entitled Manual do Apoio Aéreo na Contra-Guerrilha

(―Manual of Counter-Guerrilla Air Support‖). Developed and refined throughout the course of Portugal‘s African wars, the Manual reflected the FAP‘s perceptions regarding the nature of insurgency and the appropriate ways to employ air power against it.411 In general, the Manual observed, the armed forces fulfilled a secondary role in such campaigns, primarily through ―presence, support to civil authorities, and psychological and social activities.‖ Indeed, the Manual directed that all military operations—even direct combat action—should be designed and executed to ―enable the exercise of legal authority.‖412

410 Gomes and Afonso, Os Anos da Guerra Colonial 4, 29-30.

411 At the beginning of the document, the Manual defines ―subversive war‖ as a conflict ―conducted in the interior of a territory by a segment of its population, possibly assisted and reinforced from the exterior, against the established political authority, with the objective of seizing this territory or control of the territory. The fight against subversion,‖ on the other hand, ―has the fundamental objective of regaining control for that same authority, or controlling all the territory and its population.‖ Serviço de Instrução da Força Aerea, ―Manual do Apoio Aéreo na Contra-Guerrilha,‖ 17 February 1972, 2a Região Aérea Manuais Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 1.

412 Serviço de Instrução da Força Aerea, ―Manual do Apoio Aéreo na Contra-Guerrilha,‖ 1.

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When working to enable such authority, the employment of an air force rarely springs to mind. As the Manual observed, ―the Air Force‘s characteristics and its minimal contact with the population render it inappropriate for the conduct of police operations and the maintenance of order in immediate support of civilian authorities.‖

Nonetheless, the document also correctly noted that ―The fact of the Air Force‘s presence is always salient,‖ even if only as a potent symbol of government authority and power.

More directly, the document contended, an air force can perform independent combat missions, such as bombing raids against guerrilla base camps, if circumstances permit.413

Perhaps most importantly, though, the Manual observed that air power can overcome deficiencies related to mobility and responsiveness: in areas where difficult terrain and poor transportation networks hamper the surface forces‘ ability to concentrate, reinforce, or resupply, ―Only the employment of air assets permits us to reduce these delays.‖414

The Manual also recognized that the FAP could not simply unloose its fleet against enemy territory or sanctuaries; the potential political and diplomatic repercussions had proven too great in earlier anti-guerrilla campaigns. Consequently, the Manual declared the FAP‘s central counter-insurgency task to be cooperation with its sister services. ―The Air Force should orient itself to facilitate the operations of the surface force, especially the ground forces,‖ the doctrine proclaimed, ―participating in joint operations, in the classic roles of fire support, information support, and transport.‖415

413 Serviço de Instrução da Força Aerea, ―Manual do Apoio Aéreo na Contra-Guerrilha,‖ 4.

414 Serviço de Instrução da Força Aerea, ―Manual do Apoio Aéreo na Contra-Guerrilha,‖ 5.

415 Serviço de Instrução da Força Aerea, ―Manual do Apoio Aéreo na Contra-Guerrilha,‖ 4-5.

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With these general categories thus delineated, the Manual then described the various functions the FAP could be expected to perform in the context of counter- insurgency operations. Briefly summarized, these functions were grouped into the categories ―fire support,‖ ―reconnaissance support,‖ ―transport support,‖ and ―diverse‖

(or miscellaneous) air operations. Each of these was further broken down into sub- categories, depending on the nature and purpose of the operations themselves. For example, ―Directed Independent Attack‖ (ATIP, analogous to classic strategic bombing) differed from ―Proximate Support Attack‖ (ATAP, or close air support) in the expected proximity of friendly forces, the weapons used, and the degree of coordination required.

Likewise, cargo transport flights were placed in a different sub-category than helicopter assault sorties, though both fell within the ―transport support‖ rubric.416

As the functions above suggest, support to the surface forces—especially the

Army—comprised the FAP‘s principle role in Guinea. ―The support of aviation to the surface forces was a determinant factor,‖ a FAP General later recalled:

Aerial reconnaissance, tactical transport and logistics, as well as [casualty] evacuation were areas of cooperation that provided great benefits. Aerial mobility was a force multiplier, and it provided the surface forces with access to any terrain or area.417

These comments did not denigrate the importance of air-delivered firepower; both

General Miranda and Prime Minister Caetano praised the FAP‘s constant efforts to destroy PAIGC positions and provide fire support to Portuguese surface forces.418 The

416 Serviço de Instrução da Força Aerea, ―Manual do Apoio Aéreo na Contra-Guerrilha,‖ 21-23.

417 Miranda, ―El Empleo del Arma Aérea en la Lucha Antiguerrilla,‖ 596.

418 Miranda, ―El Empleo del Arma Aérea en la Lucha Antiguerrilla,‖ 599.

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determinant factor in assessing air operations over Guinea, however, remained the degree of benefit accorded to the surface forces, whatever the type of mission performed.

Despite the FAP‘s generally consistent adherence to that tenet, some friction did exist between the Air Force and its ground counterparts. Portuguese airmen preferred the flexibility and freedom of independent air attacks over PAIGC-dominated territory, for example, while the Army wanted a greater share of resources devoted to supporting units facing the possibility of contact with the enemy.419 The FAP also enjoyed the surprise afforded by armed reconnaissance missions, which excluded other forces‘ involvement but also raised the specter of fratricidal engagements.420 Furthermore, the Army resented the fact that the FAP, which controlled all air reconnaissance and air transport assets as well as all paratroopers, could execute air-ground operations independently. ―The Air

Force with paratroops and helicopters did not need the Army,‖ one senior pilot who flew in all three theaters recalled. ―This situation did not please the Army‘s commanders.‖421

Despite the FAP‘s preferences and lingering Army resentment, both services understood the nature of counter-insurgency well enough that doctrine and operations generally conformed to the pattern established by effective air forces in earlier counter- insurgency operations. Specifically, the FAP recognized ―the general primacy of intelligence activities (and to follow, transport) over the Air Force‘s combat activities, [as well as] parsimony in the use of air support,‖ echoing lessons learned by the British and

419 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 107.

420 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 316.

421 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 318.

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French in earlier counter-insurgency campaigns.422 A firm doctrinal foundation had thus been set, even if the FAP routinely strayed into the surrounding swamp by relying heavily—and sometimes inappropriately—on those purportedly subordinate ―combat activities.‖

Portuguese Air Force Combat Operations

PAIGC communiqués first reported FAP air attacks immediately after the initiation of guerrilla operations in January 1963, and the appearance of the ―metal birds in the sky‖ soon became a regular feature of life in areas of significant PAIGC activity.423

These early FAP operations relied heavily on F-86 jet fighters for more demanding attack missions, which numbered some 430 between August 1963 and October 1964.424 The propeller-driven T-6s, on the other hand, were typically used during missions in support of the surface forces.425 To facilitate those surface support missions, and to reduce the risk of friendly fire directed against Portuguese troops, the ZACVG in 1963 began establishing Zonas de Livre Intervenção da Força Aérea (―Air Force Free Intervention

422 Lt. Col. Barbeitos de Sousa, ―Esquema da Palestra, ‗A F.A. na Guiné, 1963-1965,‖ 1a Região Aérea Guiné—Militares Portugueses em Serviço na Guiné Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 3.

423 Qualques Crimes Perpetres par les Colonialistes Portugais contre Nosse Peuple en 1963 (Conakry, Guinea: PAIGC, 1964), 1. The phrase ―metal birds in the sky‖ was attributed to a Guinean Balanta villager describing Portuguese aircraft. Dhada, Warriors at Work, 30.

424 Curtis, North American F-86 Sabre, 173.

425 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 105-106.

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Zones,‖ or ZLIFA) to ―scrub‖ suspected guerrilla sanctuaries and concentrations prior to the introduction of ground forces.426

According to the PAIGC, however, the FAP‘s efforts focused on the destruction of villages in newly ―liberated‖ regions rather than militarily significant targets.427 These accusations were repeatedly corroborated by independent press reports and seemingly confirmed by Sergeant Antonio Lobato, a FAP pilot who had been shot down and captured on 22 May 1963.428 In a statement released in his name the following week,

Lobato allegedly declared that ―the instructions given by the Portuguese headquarters were to systematically raze all the villages in areas controlled by the nationalists with bombs and napalm.‖429 Such ―testimony‖ is naturally suspect, particularly when derived from a prisoner; however, one should recall that the PAIGC—like guerrillas the world over—often operated among the people, which regrettably placed ―the people‖ at greater risk. Although FAP documents indicate an intent to attack only military targets, significant numbers of civilian casualties likely resulted from this guerrilla practice as well as from the limitations of available weaponry and targeting technology, not to

426 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 316-317; Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 106. For a description of one such raid, against the PAIGC‘s main base at Morés in October 1973, see Luís Cabral, Crónica da Libertação, 267.

427 Qualques Crimes Perpetres par les Colonialistes Portugais contre Nosse Peuple en 1963 (Conakry, Guinea: PAIGC, 1964), 1. Luís Cabral, however, did acknowledge that one such attack severely wounded three senior PAIGC cadres. Luís Cabral, Crónica da Libertação, 267.

428 According to FAP records, between roughly a third and nearly half of FAP pilots in Guinea were enlisted. Comando da Zona Aerea de Cabo Verde e Guiné, Base Aérea No. 12, ―Mapa de Qualificação de Pilotos e Navegadores,‖ 2-4; Comando da Zona Aerea de Cabo Verde e Guiné, Base Aérea No. 12, ―Qualificação e Experiència de Pilotos e Navegadores,‖ 1-4.

429 Comité de Souten a l‘Angola et aux Peuples des Colonies Portugaises, ―Guinée ‗Portugaise‘ et Iles du Cap-Vert: Bilan d‘Une Année de Lutte, Janvier-Décembre 1963,‖ , Thomas H. Henriksen Collection, The Hoover Institution, , California, 4.

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mention intelligence failures, pilot error, and misidentification. Additionally, the FAP‘s frequent recourse to ―free-fire zones‖430 no doubt rendered any personnel in those areas liable to being targeted. The line between ―combatant‖ and ―supporter‖ on the one hand, and between ―supporter‖ and ―innocent bystander‖ on the other, would naturally appear blurred, perhaps even indistinguishable, to a pilot in flight.

In any case, a raid against a suspected PAIGC command post or arms cache in a forest village would inevitably cause civilian casualties and damage to other structures.

The FAP might well claim—and even believe—that it bombed a ―guerrilla‖ facility, but the PAIGC could claim with equal justification that the village itself was the target of the attack. Thus FAP mission reports would indicate only military targeting, while PAIGC photos of bombed-out villages and maimed children suggested otherwise: the ―truth‖ depended on the audience‘s perspective.431 Therefore, although the existing archival record gives no indication that the FAP deliberately targeted civilians per se, PAIGC accusations of deliberate civilian targeting—often well-supported or corroborated— would continue to plague the FAP‘s air campaign for the rest of the war.

Such accusations mounted as the air war intensified. During his tenure as

Governor-General from 1965 to 1968, Brigadier General Arnaldo Schulz employed the

FAP much more aggressively, if inconsistently. In 1966, for example, Schulz and his

430 The ―ZLIFAs‖ referred to in the previous chapter.

431 For examples of photos published by the PAIGC to demonstrate the results of FAP attacks, see PAIGC , ―Cet Acte Criminel des Colonialistes Portugais a Ete Reundu Possible par l‘Allie du Portugal Qui Lui a Fourni les Avions Fiat G-91 qui Ont Surpris les Enfants de l‘Ecole de Iador au Moment de la Recration (PAIGC Actualities no. 14 [February 1970], 8), 8, and Chicago Committee for the Liberation of Angola, Mozambique, and Guine, 13.

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staff had gathered sufficient information from reconnaissance teams and informants to locate the PAIGC‘s major bases. Armed with this information, Schulz ordered the FAP on the attack. The resulting bombing campaign not only destroyed several of those bases, it also severely weakened the PAIGC‘s position in northern Guinea and sent over sixty thousand Guinean refugees fleeing the ―liberated areas‖ for Senegal. The cumulative effects of the bombing wrested the military initiative from the guerrillas and forced them, temporarily, back onto the strategic defensive. As a result, PAIGC commanders were compelled to dismantle their painstakingly-developed base areas and replace them with smaller, semi-permanent facilities.432 ―We reduced the bases, dividing them into twos or threes,‖ PAIGC leader Amílcar Cabral later recounted, thus eliminating ―the famous guerrilla bases just in time.‖433

Having recovered by 1967, the PAIGC and its military wing soon faced a renewed bombing effort. By this time air power had emerged as the centerpiece of

Schulz‘ overall strategy in the territory,434 and the FAP now found itself directed to locate and destroy the PAIGC‘s logistics infrastructure—particularly its food supplies—in an attempt to starve the guerrillas into submission or drive them to . The raids took place throughout PAIGC-dominated territory, although some areas received more aerial attention than others. The Quitafine Peninsula, for example—a key center for PAIGC rice production—suffered some two thousand air attacks during 1967 alone, according to

432 Dhada, ―The Liberation War in Guinea-Bissau Reconsidered,‖ 580.

433 Dhada, ―The Liberation War in Guinea-Bissau Reconsidered,‖ 580.

434 Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 92.

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PAIGC sources.435 The aerial blitz ―nearly paralyzed‖ the PAIGC and its armed wing: villagers continued to flee PAIGC-dominated areas, many of them preferring refugee status in neighboring states rather than the prospect of further air attack. Those villagers abandoned their crops in the process, forcing some guerrillas to forage for food or face starvation. Worse, some PAIGC militants began to openly question the war effort, while more committed cadres faced the grim prospect of trying to persuade terrified villagers to remain in the ―liberated zones‖ despite the risk of continued aerial bombardment.436

All told, ―Schulz played [the air power] card to great effect,‖437 if not to decisive effectiveness. FAP statistics illustrated the Governor-General‘s emphasis on air power: bombing and attack sorties increased nine-fold from 1965 to 1966, from 218 missions to

1,957. In 1967 that number rose to 3,115, the highest tally of attack and bombing sorties during the entire period for which data is available.438 By the end of Schulz‘ tour in

1968, Portuguese air power was seen as ―the decisive military factor‖ in the war for

Guinea. The FAP‘s efforts had effectively prevented the PAIGC from exploiting its territorial gains, and it was observed that ―as long as the Portuguese can bomb them at will the insurgents probably will not try to hold fixed positions like towns.‖439

435 Dhada, ―The Liberation War in Guinea-Bissau Reconsidered,‖ 582.

436 Dhada, ―The Liberation War in Guinea-Bissau Reconsidered,‖ 582-583.

437 Dhada, Warriors at Work, 33.

438 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 123. The author‘s March 2009 visit to the Portuguese Air Force archives confirmed that no sortie data is available for the years 1963-1964 and 1971-1974.

439 Central Intelligence Agency, Weekly Review Special Report: The Guerrilla War in Portuguese Guinea, 20 December 1968, 11.

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The ultimate defect in Schultz‘ strategy, however, lay in its exclusive reliance on a military solution to the problem of insurgency. By way of contrast, his successor

Brigadier General Spínola recognized the importance of civic action programs and political reforms intended to recover the population‘s allegiance. Air attacks did not cease, for like Schulz before him, Spínola still relied on the FAP to deliver the main offensive thrust of Portugal‘s continuing military effort in Guinea. Although the pace of

FAP attacks did decrease during Spínola‘s tenure as Governor-General,440 he surpassed his predecessor in his ability to integrate air power as one element of a holistic strategy.

Unlike Schulz, Spínola employed air power ―not sporadically, not as a show of brutal force, not as an instrument of tactical advantage in a given situation, not without an underlying strategy…but relentlessly, with precision, and always to exact maximum political damage.‖441 That damage, Spínola hoped, would compel the PAIGC to begin negotiations which would lead to membership in a Portuguese ―‖ of nations.442

Spínola initiated his air agenda in 1969 when he virtually abandoned large areas of Guinea where the PAIGC was especially active, thus establishing FAP ―free-fire zones‖ in those regions.443 By 1970, he had unleashed the FAP in a campaign of

―relentless attacks‖ against PAIGC infrastructure, aiming to drive the guerrillas out of

440 Chaliland, ―Independence of Guinea Bissau, a New Step in the War of Liberation,‖ 14. Luís Cabral noted that ―The biggest Portuguese effort of the war took place after the arrival of General Spínola and was principally supported by aviation. Aviation was, in fact, superior to all other forces there.‖ Luís Cabral, ―Prender Spínola,‖ 539.

441 Dhada, ―The Liberation War in Guinea-Bissau Reconsidered,‖ 588.

442 Maxwell, The Making of Portuguese Democracy, 31.

443 American Embassy Lisbon, Portuguese Guinea and Its Governor, U.S. Department of State Airgram, October 19, 1971, 2.

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their preferred areas of operation.444 The following year he directed the FAP against

PAIGC forces on each of its three military fronts, which were bombed ―with relentless regularity, day after day.‖445 In doing so, the FAP was able to drive the PAIGC to the point of ―asphyxiation‖ and evict the party from some of the territory it had previously dominated. The situation was sufficiently dire that the PAIGC leadership began to explore the possibility of negotiations—Spínola‘s ultimate aim throughout his tour.446

Air operations against the insurgents had by this time assumed a consistent, and effective, pattern: FAP aircraft would begin by bombing known or suspected PAIGC facilities and concentrations, sometimes for days at a time. These raids would be followed by a heliborne assault employing Army commandos or FAP paratroops against the targeted area, escorted by fixed-wing aircraft and armed helicopters (the ―heli- cannons‖). After disembarkation, the helicopters would remain available for medical evacuation and withdrawal upon completion of the mission.447 According to PAIGC logistics chief Pedro Ramos, the bombing and helicopter assault sequence became ―an everyday affair‖ by 1971.448 In large part due to his repeated application of such tactics,

444 Alfredo Margarido, ―Diplomacy and Helicopters‖ (Revue Françoise de Etudes Politiques Africaines, May 1970, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 913,‖ JPRS 50831, June 16, 1970), 71.

445 Dhada, ―The Liberation War in Guinea-Bissau Reconsidered,‖ 587.

446 Margarido, 71; Dhada, ―The Liberation War in Guinea-Bissau Reconsidered,‖ 589.

447 ―Intensification of Armed Struggle‖ (Info Tchad, April 9, 1973, 11, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1304,‖ JPRS 58903 May 2, 1974), 11.

448 R. Casals, ―Two PAIGC Officials Interviewed in Havana‖ (Granma, 15 August 1971, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1067,‖ JPRS 54030, 10 September 1971), 6.

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by 1972 Spínola had effectively stabilized a previously deteriorating situation in Guinea, leading one visiting observer to comment ―Though far from winning the war, his army and air force are no longer losing it.‖449

Portuguese Air Force Non-Combat Support Operations

In most successful counter-insurgency campaigns, however, combat operations have historically taken a subordinate place to an air force‘s support activities. For example, an air force could not strike an enemy it failed to locate, which has historically elevated reconnaissance to the status of a prerequisite to combat operations. During counter-insurgency operations in general, effective intelligence-gathering has typically required far more patience and attention to detail than a high-speed pass over an armor column or a single satellite image of an enemy airfield, to cite two examples common during more conventional campaigns. Aerial observers trying to find small groups of guerrillas ―in the bush‖ have typically required an extraordinary level of familiarity with their assigned patrol areas, the better to detect small but telling changes that betray the occurrence of insurgent activity. Portuguese aircrew in Africa acquired such familiarity during the course of hours-long reconnaissance sorties, primarily in Do-27 observation aircraft, at slow speeds and altitudes as low as 200 meters.450 Any suspicious changes

449 Venter, ―Portugal‘s Forgotten War,‖ 60.

450 Evidence of possible guerrilla activity might include, for example, a new footbridge, a new trail, new and heavy use of an old trail, boats concealed alongside a stream, shelters built at the edge of the forest rather than in the open, and a lack of crops or domestic animals around huts.‖ Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 116.

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noted, or any suspected guerrilla activity observed, was reported to the surface forces immediately and continuously as part of an information-sharing system established in part for just that purpose.451

The importance—and the tedious nature—of airborne reconnaissance over Guinea can be inferred from the fact that, of FAP aircraft flown over the territory from 1965-

1972, Do-27s logged more hours than any other type. T-6s and Alouette IIIs alternated for second place, which may be accounted for by the fact that both platforms were also used extensively for reconnaissance.452 Perhaps the most poignant testimony to the effectiveness of FAP reconnaissance operations in Guinea was offered, albeit indirectly, by the PAIGC itself. A party directive sent to FARP elements in the field, a copy of which fell into Portuguese hands, forbade guerrilla units from occupying the same location for more than two days. If they did so, they would face consequences from the

PAIGC high command as well as the FAP; delinquent guerrilla detachments ―would be punished by both,‖ a clear acknowledgement of the FAP‘s persistence and effectiveness in the reconnaissance role.453

As many hours as reconnaissance pilots logged, however, their tally paled in comparison to FAP transport crews. Bissalanca lay 3,400 km from Lisbon, with Angola a further 4,000 km to the south and Mozambique another 3,000 km to the southeast.

451 Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 116, Abecasis, ―Duas ‗Praxis‘ de Comando,‖ http://www.revistamilitar.pt/modules/articles/article.php?id=360; Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 106-107.

452 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 123.

453 Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 120; Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 52.

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Such distances resulted in ―a hard several days‘ work for both aircrew and machine.‖454

For example, a C-47 flying from Lisbon to Bissalanca would spend at least eleven hours aloft, with a required refueling stop en route; a C-54 making the same trip required a minimum of nine hours in flight.455 The flight from the metropole to Mozambique routinely took 96 hours round trip, including refueling and maintenance stops. FAP DC-

6 pilots often logged 125 flying hours in a single month, which if maintained year-round would equate to 1,500 annually.456 Put another way, those pilots faced the prospect of spending more than two full months of the year in the air. A ten-year flying career at such an operations tempo would result in a staggering 15,000 flying hours.457 By way of comparison, most U.S. Air Force career pilots accumulate between 3,000 and 4,000 hours; the current commander of Air Mobility Command, General Arthur J. Lichte, has logged slightly more than 5,000 flight hours in 28 years of service.458

The most significant factor behind the efforts demanded of individual men and machines was the limited availability of both. According to General Tomás George

Conceição Silva, who served as a transport pilot in the African wars from 1964-1973,

454 Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 2.

455 Leonard Bridgman, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1945-46 (London: Samspon Low, Marston & Company, Ltd., 1946), 240c, 242c; Leonard Bridgman, ed., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1949-50 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949), 219c.

456 Silva, ―The Portuguese Air Force in the African Wars of 1961-1974,‖ 111-112.

457 Colonel Krus Abecasis, a transport pilot and a former commander of BA12, had logged a career total of 9,500 flying hours by 1965—nine years before the end of the war. He continued serving in the FAP through at least 1973, though his final tally of flight hours is unknown. Simões, Nas Três Frentes Durante Três Meses, 226.

458 U.S. Air Force, ―Biographies: General Arthur J. Lichte,‖ ttp://www.af.mil/information/bios/bio.asp? bioID=6196.

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―The strategic air transport was limited at that time to a flight of two C-54s, some C-47s, and an additional four SC-54s that were aircraft stationed in the

Azores. It was only in 1961 that ten DC-6s were acquired.‖459 Consequently, air transport was regarded as ―one of the biggest problems facing the Portuguese High

Command in Lisbon and Bissau.‖460 This dearth of resources also impacted intra-theater transport. Operations within Guinea could only rely on a handful of aircraft dedicated to

ZACVG use, and many of those were often seconded for duties other than transport missions.461 Despite that scarcity, however, Portuguese forces in Guinea still grew excessively reliant on air mobility, chiefly out of necessity given the increasing difficulties of ground and riverine transport.462

Another factor behind the Portuguese Army‘s reliance on air transport related to the maintenance of its soldiers‘ morale. General Silva further noted that ―The Air Force had a predominant role…in the preservation of the morale of the ground forces with its close support, evacuation of the dead from the bush, medevac, fresh food delivery, and most important of all, timely delivery of mail.‖463 General Silva highlighted this last, and

459 Silva, ―The Portuguese Air Force in the African Wars of 1961-1974,‖ 112.

460 Al J. Venter, ―Portugal‘s Forgotten War,‖ 62.

461 These aircraft include the C-47, Noratlas, Do-27, and Alouette III aircraft stationed at Bissalanca. The C-47 was sometimes used as a , while the Do-27 and Alouette III performed a variety of different missions as discussed in Chapter 4.

462 Chaliland, ―Independence of Guinea Bissau, a New Step in the War of Liberation,‖ 14; Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 583. This assessment regarding excessive reliance on air transport is General Ferreira‘s; he served as commander of BA-12 (Bissalanca) from 1971-1974, and later as FAP Chief of Staff and the Portuguese Armed Forces Chief of Staff.

463 Silva, ―The Portuguese Air Force in the African Wars of 1961-1974,‖ 122.

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apparently critical, mission when he recounted the story of a G.91 pilot making an emergency landing at a forward airstrip of dubious suitability:

With its brakes red and its chute dragging behind, the aircraft overran the end of the strip into the grass and stopped in a cloud of dust. The pilot climbed from the cockpit and was walking away feeling lucky to be alive, when a local garrison soldier met him and, looking inquisitively into the pilot‘s still shuddering eyes, asked, ―Lieutenant, sir, did you bring the mail?‖464

Equally crucial to preserving Portuguese morale was the medical evacuation

(MEDEVAC) mission. MEDEVAC sorties became ―a regular feature of the day;‖465 during one representative month (November 1969), FAP helicopters and Do-27 aircraft conducted 170 medical evacuation missions, airlifting 202 servicemen, 79 civilians, and 3 prisoners from the battlefield or isolated garrisons.466 Four years earlier, from January to

November 1965, the FAP had ferried 1,160 wounded servicemen and 446 injured civilians to surgery or succor.467 Alouette III helicopters carried out most of these missions, with the result that ―Many servicemen owe their lives to this guardian angel, whose characteristic noise meant a near certainty of getting to a hospital in time.‖468

Such certainty exerted an incalculable but positive force on troop morale. ―The

Portuguese soldier knew,‖ Professor Cann related, ―that while his diet in the bush might be meager, the tropical conditions oppressive, and danger lurking in his next step, his

464 Silva, ―The Portuguese Air Force in the African Wars of 1961-1974,‖ 122.

465 Al J. Venter, ―Portugal‘s Forgotten War,‖ Air Enthusiast 2 (February 1972), 62.

466 Comando da Zona Aerea de Cabo Verde e Guiné, ―Mês de Novembro de 1969,‖ December 1969, 1a Região Aérea, Commando da Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné—Relatórios Mensais do Comando, Anos 1968-1969 Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 1.

467 Simões, Nas Três Frentes Durante Três Meses, 229.

468 Gomes and Afonso, Os Anos da Guerra Colonial 4, 90.

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Army would go to great lengths to speed him to a hospital should he be wounded.‖469 To aid in this effort, and explicitly intended to improve the morale of male patients, the FAP shipped a total of 48 airborne-trained female nurses—nicknamed the ―Marias‖—to serve in all three combat theaters.470

Air power also played an important, though subordinate, role in Spínola‘s ―Better

Guinea‖ campaign. Although data regarding the intensity of the effort is not available,

FAP aircraft conducted numerous leaflet drops and loudspeaker broadcasts over PAIGC- dominated territory in an attempt to induce guerrillas to surrender or to persuade villagers to relocate to Portuguese-sponsored aldeamentos (analogous to the ―New Model

Villages‖ erected during the ). The FAP also extended its medical evacuation services to Guinea‘s African population, ferrying sick and wounded civilians to advanced medical care in the absence of adequate facilities near their place of residence.471 No less significant were the frequent ―presence‖ flights conducted under

Spínola‘s command, many of which ferried the Governor-General himself to points throughout Guinea. During one particularly significant episode, on the insurgents‘ self- proclaimed "PAIGC Day‖ in 1971, Spínola made several helicopter flights to areas long claimed as ―liberated‖ in order to demonstrate Lisbon‘s continued authority.472

469 Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 180.

470 Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 181. The paranurses received their collective nickname at the very inception of the program. The first six paranurse trainees, culled from Catholic nursing schools to ensure their morality, all happened to be named Maria.

471 Silva, ―The Portuguese Air Force in the African Wars of 1961-1974,‖ 122.

472 American Embassy Lisbon, Portuguese Guinea and Its Governor, 8.

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Despite limited numbers of aircraft and personnel, the impact of the FAP‘s varied support roles proved critical to the continuation of Portugal‘s war effort in Guinea.

Airborne reconnaissance, transport operations, and medical evacuation directly facilitated improved Air Force-Army cooperation; air transport provided the most effective—and sometimes the only—means of resupplying remote Portuguese Army installations; helicopter transport gave the Army access to any point in the territory; and the impact of virtually guaranteed medical transport on soldiers‘ willingness to engage the enemy must not be underestimated.473 So appreciated were the FAP‘s efforts that, as early as 1965,

Portuguese soldiers in Guinea marked ―St. Airplane‘s Day‖ with a celebration to recognize the Air Force‘s contributions to their welfare and effectiveness.474 While it is true that soldiers on any front in any war have always taken advantage of the opportunity to raise a glass (or ten), it is equally true that Portuguese soldiers‘ morale and effectiveness would likely have collapsed much sooner if not for the benefits accorded them by their FAP counterparts.

Guerrilla Perceptions of Portuguese Air Power

In any conflict situation, an asset‘s value to one of the warring sides generally reflects that same asset‘s detriment to the other. The PAIGC‘s perceptions of FAP activities certainly upheld this axiom, as the party‘s communiqués and declarations

473 Miranda, ―El Empleo del Arma Aérea en la Lucha Antiguerrilla,‖ 596.

474 Simões, Nas Três Frentes Durante Três Meses, 228.

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consistently denounced Portuguese air power in the most strident tones. Such vehement condemnation did represent an indirect compliment of sorts, since it revealed the degree of harm the FAP inflicted on the guerrillas and their infrastructure.

In some respects the guerrilla‘s attitudes reflected those of the civilians under their purported care and control, for Portuguese air power exerted a terrifying impact on guerrillas and civilians alike. The FAP‘s strikes against Como Island shortly after its capture by the PAIGC in 1963 illustrated this trend. When Portuguese aircraft first appeared to herald the upcoming counter-offensive,

The villagers ran out of the homes into the open…They had never seen planes so close before and stared up at the sky, smiling at each other and exclaiming, some even waving at the metal birds. Then the planes proceeded to disgorge their bombs on the upturned faces. One after another. They bombed nonstop for a few days. It was the beginning of daily raids that were to last over a period of four or five months.475

Such scenes were repeated throughout Guinea in the first months of the war. Even if the

FAP did not specifically target civilians, civilians certainly suffered the effects of increasingly intense air attacks. Initially, however, the power of the ―metal birds‖ apparently struck less fear into a rural Guinean‘s heart than other mystical forces, much to the PAIGC‘s chagrin. As one of the party‘s cadres recalled,

It was a long time before the people were willing to leave their destroyed villages. They rebuilt on the very same sites. They refused to take refuge in the forest. You have to reckon with the fact that people in this country are afraid of the forest. A considerable change has taken place since, however….Little by little, following our advice and explanations, the peasants of the entire northern zone

475 Stephanie Urdang, Fighting Two : Women in Guinea-Bissau (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979), 223.

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started leaving their destroyed villages and coming to live in the immense Oïo forest. This occurred toward the end of 1963 and the beginning of 1964.476

The fact that aircraft and air-delivered ordance ultimately trumped a long-standing cultural convention suggests volumes about the impact of air power in rural Guinea; since many of the PAIGC‘s fighters hailed from that same cultural background, their attitudes assumed a similar mix of dread, defiance, and deference, albeit in different measures.

For example, in 1971 PAIGC military commander João Bernardo (―Nino‖)

Vieira477 acknowledged that ―the enemy‘s most powerful weapon is aircraft,‖ and that ―It is also the weapon that frightens the inhabitants the most.‖478 Viera, however, attributed this fact to cowardice and incompetence: the average Portuguese soldier ―does not want to fight,‖ he claimed. ―They demand immediate air support when in trouble although they usually far outnumber us.‖479 Luís Cabral, later the first president of the independent Republic of Guinea-Bissau, conceded ―aviation remained the only means by which they could cause us problems‖ until the PAIGC‘s receipt of adequate air defense weaponry in 1973.480 Another anonymous PAIGC fighter acknowledged simply ―Their planes can hurt us.‖481 That ―hurt‖ took a more poignant form in the words of José

476 Quoted in Chaliland, Armed Struggle in Africa, 84.

477 Later the President of Guinea-Bissau, assassinated in 2008.

478 Pedro Machado, ―Liberation Movement Discussed by Guerrilla Leader,‖ Etumba (, Congo), , 1971, 6, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1081,‖ JPRS 54466 (, 1971), 62.

479 Barbara Cornwall, The Bush Rebels: A Personal Account of Black Revolt in Africa (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972), 170.

480 Luis Cabral, Crónica da Libertação, 433.

481 Cornwall, The Bush Rebels, 185, 235.

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Carlos Schwartz, the ―bard of popular mobilization‖ in Guinea, whose poem ―Quê qui minino na tchora?‖ (―Why is the Boy Crying?‖) featured the verse:

Pastro Garandi bim The large bird came Cu si obus di fugo With its eggs of fire Pastro Garandi bim The large bird came Cu si obus di matança. With its eggs of death.482

Even PAIGC schoolbooks joined the chorus of protest and caution: a 2nd-grade reading primer, for example, featured a reading exercise concerning the bombing of Como Island, while another about a fisherman named ―Aliu‖ warned of the twin riverine dangers of crocodiles and Portuguese bombers.483

The reason for such concern throughout the PAIGC‘s military and social organs stemmed from a general perception that FAP aircraft were invincible, lethal, and could come out of nowhere with precious little warning, if any. PAIGC guerrillas had learned how to choose their ground targets with care, how to avoid superior Portuguese Army forces, and how to disengage if they found themselves in a losing fight. Experience had taught, however, that FAP aircraft would not grant them the opportunity to shun disadvantageous combat. In the air-to-ground fight the aircraft generally held the initiative, at least for the war‘s first decade. Unlike the guerrilla war on the ground, in the air war the FAP‘s pilots chose the targets and the optimum moment to initiate combat.

The alleged nature of those targets, and the weapons employed against them, consequently drew the majority of subsequent PAIGC condemnation. A party

482 James H. Kennedy, ―José Carlos Schwartz: Bard of Popular Mobilization in Guinea-Bissau,‖ Présence Africaine no. 137-138 (1986), 99.

483 ―Morés‖ and ―Aliu, o pescador,‖ in O Nosso Livro: 2a Classe (Regiões Libertades da Guiné: Serviços de Instrução do PAIGC, 1970), 28, 53.

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retrospective of 1971, for example, explicitly decried the FAP‘s actions in ―destroying villages, burning crops, and killing cattle.‖484 The following year the PAIGC reported that Portuguese airmen had ―intensified during November their bombing attacks and use of napalm, particularly in the south,‖ resulting in the deaths of 25 women and children and the rape of five girls by FAP paratroops.485 These releases represent only two among a continuous stream of PAIGC complaints against allegedly ―criminal‖ and ―barbaric‖

FAP operations—including the bombing (often, it was claimed, with napalm) of civilian villages, hospitals, schools, and farm fields in ―liberated areas.‖486 In fact, during testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa in February

1970, Cabral frequently—and to the exclusion of all other military methods—complained about the use and effects of Portuguese air power.487 The PAIGC‘s charges were echoed by a UN delegation that visited Guinea‘s ―liberated zones‖ in 1972, whose subsequent report condemned ―the devastation and misery caused by Portugal‘s actions, particularly

484 Amílcar Cabral, Aucune Manoeuvre ou Crime des Colonialists Portugais Ne Sera a Meme d’Eviter la Victoire Ineluctable de Notre People Africaine: Rapport Bref sur la Lutte in 1971 (Conakry, Guinea: PAIGC, January 1972), 13.

485 ―War Communiqué,‖ PAIGC Actualités Quarterly English Edition nos. 45-48 (1972), 12.

486 See, for example, PAIGC, ――Qualques Crimes Perpetres par les Colonialistes Portuguais contra Notre Peuple en 1963;‖ PAIGC, ―Communiqué,‖ 24 July 1963; PAIGC, ―Communiqué, 9 December 1963; PAIGC, ―Communiqué,‖ 26 July 1966, 1; PAIGC, ―Cet Acte Criminel des Colonialistes Portugais a Ete Rendu Possible par l‘Allie do Portugal qui Lui a Fourni les Avions Fiat G-91 qui Ont Supris les Enfants de l‘Ecole de Iador au Moment de la Recreation,‖ 8; PAIGC, ―War Communiqué,‖ September-December 1972, 12; PAIGC, ―Aucune Manouvre ou Crime des Colonialistes Portugais ne Sera a Meme d‘Evitar la Victoire Ineluctable de Notre Peuple Africain,‖ 13-14; Amílcar Cabral, Unity and Struggle, 190, 194‘ and PAIGC, ―Actions by Our Armed Forces, 9. This list is but a sampling of the literally hundreds of press accounts and official PAIGC pronouncements condemning napalm, helicopter assaults, and air raids against villages/schools/hospitals/farmers‘ fields—the stock PAIGC illustrations of FAP ―barbarity‖ and ―criminality.‖

487 See Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Report on Portuguese Guinea and the Liberation Movement, passim..

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the widespread and indiscriminate bombing of villages and the use of napalm to destroy crops.‖488 As previously discussed, the existing archival evidence reveals no indication that the Portuguese ever embarked on a deliberate campaign of terror or civilian slaughter; that very accusation, on the other hand, has been leveled against air power practitioners from operations over Afghanistan in 1919 to operations over Afghanistan in

2009. Yet the chorus of complaint serves to illustrate the deleterious effects of air power on Guinean insurgents. While schoolchildren in the guerrilla zones may have sung ―We have the land, the Portuguese have only the sky,‖489 that sky—and Portugal‘s domination of it—posed a continuing existential threat to the PAIGC and its program.

Assessing Portuguese Air Power in Guinea

The PAIGC‘s tendency to lambast Portuguese air power at every conceivable turn clearly betrays their respect for the air weapon, which in turn highlights the FAP‘s effectiveness in prosecuting the air war over Guinea despite institutional and intra-theater limitations. Although some bravado-laden PAIGC assessments claimed that Portugal‘s reliance on air power was necessary ―to avoid total annihilation,‖490 the record

488 Quoted in Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 212. The FAP did, in fact, employ napalm in Guinea. As FAP General Manuel Diogo Neto recalled, ―In war nothing is good. There are no bad bombs or good bombs and napalm did not have any worse effects than the mines the enemy placed on roads, which caused most of the attrition in our forces and among the population. We avoided employing this type of weapon against civilians, but when they mingled with the militants they suffered the consequences of the [napalm] attacks.‖ Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 314.

489 Houser, No One Can Stop the Rain, 207.

490 PAIGC, ―Action de nos Forces Armees Revolutionnaires du Peuple (F.A.R.P.) contre l‘Armee Expeditionnaire Portugais du 20 Janvier – Date du Lâche Assassinat du Camarade Amílcar Cabral,

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summarized here demonstrates that air power did occupy the center of Portugal‘s strategy because it worked well when used appropriately in favorable circumstances.491 As

Portuguese Prime Minister Marcello Caetano recalled after the war,

As for the Air Force, its role in anti-subversive operations was of the greatest relevance: carrying troops, regularly supplying garrisons, evacuating wounded, conducting reconnaissance, supporting surface operations, bombing the enemy‘s fortified positions….the Portuguese Air Force worked prodigiously, giving security and morale to the surface forces and maintaining the enemy‘s respect. Usually, its excellent officers only rarely showed signs of faint-heartedness in the performance of their duties, even though they had reason to be exhausted.492

That said, over-reliance on any one service or class of weapons has seldom served armed forces well for long. As FAP General Ferreira noted, ―Bad habits were formed in the armed forces. It was thought that it was possible to accomplish everything with air cover.

But the new situation [in 1973] made everyone realize that there were some restrictions.‖493 Those restrictions came about because Portugal‘s guerrilla adversaries were living, thinking entities capable of rational assessment and adaptation. Guerrillas throughout the 20th century had recognized the dangers that unopposed air power held for their cause and their continued existence; the obvious solution to that dilemma, then, was to find some effective means of opposing the ―metal birds in the sky.‖

fondateur et Secrétaire Général de Notre Parti – au 8 Avril 1973,‖ Thomas H. Henriksen Collection, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, California, 18.

491 Both of these qualifications, of course, are very big ―ifs‖ in the history of air power.

492 Caetano, Depoimento, 179.

493 Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 592.

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Chapter 6 – Guerrilla Air Defense: Its Origins, Raison d‟être, and Development

Early Experiments, Enduring Lessons

Insurgents have long recognized the menace posed by government airpower, and they have correspondingly appreciated the need for some form of defense against it. This need has traditionally derived, in part, from the practical desire to preserve material assets and personnel—valuable resources to any belligerent in any conflict, which few capable commanders would willingly squander needlessly. There has also been a strong psychological impetus to fielding an effective air defense capability, however. ―If fear is what makes a victim run for his life,‖ Group Captain A.P.N. Lambert observed in The

Psychology of Air Power, ―then impotence fills him with foreboding. Part of coping is an ability to fight back.‖494 It follows that the lack of such an ability would undermine any likelihood of coping—a potentially fatal blow to insurgent motivation and morale.

Again, one can reach as far back as T. E. Lawrence for an early account of guerrilla attempts to cope with enemy air power, as well as the impact of air defense on counter-insurgent air operations. Writing of an incident that took place in 1918,

Lawrence recalled a Turkish air raid against his Arab irregulars, during which

494 Lambert, The Psychology of Air Power, 82.

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Nuri put his Hotchkiss gunners in the rock cracks, and rattled back at them. Pisani cocked up his four mountain guns, and let fly some optimistic shrapnel. This disturbed the enemy, who circled off, and came back much higher. Their aim became uncertain.495

The above passage is revealing, and enduring, on several counts. First, Lawrence acknowledged that when under air attack, some return fire is better than none—even if only the odd shot of ―optimistic shrapnel.‖ Second, even if defensive fire failed to down an aircraft, it could still attain a positive military effect by ―disturbing‖ the airborne foe and forcing a change in his tactics. Finally, while such tactical changes might have enhanced aircrew safety, they generally did so at the expense of operational effectiveness.

Yet the Turkish air attack recounted above continued despite the Arab opposition, and

Lawrence‘s forces were compelled to disperse as ―our only hope of safety.‖ Lawrence desperately desired a more effective means of air defense, and traveled to to personally lobby General Allenby for RAF air cover.496

In Lawrence‘s day, intervention by a formally constituted air force offered the only viable option to the insurgent air defender, even though it entailed accepting a degree of dependence on powers outside his control. Later insurgents would employ other means, with varying degrees of success. Vo Nguyen Giap‘s Viet Minh relied heavily on anti-aircraft weaponry proven in World War II, including 20 mm and

0.50 caliber machineguns, which ―[made] life miserable for low flying aircraft.‖497 By

1954 and the of Dien Bien Phu, they had also acquired Soviet-made 37 mm guns.

495 Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 595.

496 Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 595, 615.

497 Fall, Street Without Joy, 266.

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These weapons played havoc with aerial resupply operations during the battle, first forcing transport aircraft to rely exclusively on dropping supplies by parachute (as opposed to landing), and then compelling them to deliver their loads from increasingly greater altitudes. The higher drops degraded accuracy, which resulted in an increasing proportion of arms, ammunition, and medical supplies falling into Viet Minh hands.498

Giap‘s flak continued to take its toll despite French counter-tactics, however, ultimately destroying 48 aircraft while seriously damaging another 167 during five months of operations over Dien Bien Phu—crippling losses for an air force that never had more than 175 aircraft available for operations there. Losses were so steep that American contract pilots refused to continue flying missions to Dien Bien Phu, a decision that had

―disastrous‖ results for the besieged French garrison.499 That decision by civilian

American aircrew, while understandable given the terms of their contractual obligations, represented one of the first cases of a ―pilots‘ mutiny‖ in the face of unexpectedly intense insurgent air defenses.500

While Giap‘s forces had access to—and the means to employ—relatively unwieldy, complex, and manpower-intensive weapons such as 37 mm anti-aircraft

498 Bernard B. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002), 185, 224, 253-254, 265, 333, 347, 356, 367.

499 Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 327-328.

500 Other ―pilot‘s ‖ due to intense—and unanswered—air defenses reportedly occurred among Afghani and El Salvadoran pilots during the 1980s. See Tommy Sue Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador: From Civil Strife to Civil Peace (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 222; David Isby, ―Soviet Surface-to-Air Missile Countermeasures: Lessons from Afghanistan‖ (Jane’s Soviet Intelligence Review, January 1989, 42-44), 44; and Edward B. Westermann, ―The Limits of Soviet Airpower: The Failure of Military Coercion in Afghanistan, 1979-1989‖ (Journal of Conflict Studies, Fall 1999, http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/JCS/fall99/WESTERMA.htm).

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artillery (AAA), most guerrilla movements could claim no such fortune. In fact, most insurgent responses to airpower from the 1940s through the 1960s were limited to those that could be transported on an individual insurgent‘s back. In some cases, guerrillas were able to carry the fight directly to their airborne enemy by staging attacks against airfields. In Algeria, for example, militants routinely mined unpaved airstrips at night in a largely ineffective effort to hinder French air operations.501 Greek Cypriot guerrillas were more successful during their campaign for independence from the British: from

November 1955 to November 1958 EOKA502 and saboteurs successfully staged at least nine attacks against RAF airfields at and Akroitiri. Four of these raids directly targeted aircraft, resulting in seven destroyed and another damaged, while the other raids targeted Akroitiri‘s runway, radio facilities at Nicosia, and RAF personnel.503

However, the Viet Cong proved themselves the undisputed masters in attacking government aircraft on the ground. From 1964 to 1973 Vietnamese guerrillas staged 316 attacks against aircraft at U.S. and Republic of Vietnam (RVN) airfields, destroying 393 aircraft and damaging a further 1,185. While all but 29 of these attacks relied exclusively on standoff weapons such as mortars or rockets, those 29 included some spectacularly successful operations.504 On 7 February 1965, for example, Viet Cong sappers and

501 Peterson, Reinhardt, and Conger, eds., ―Symposium on the Role of Airpower in Counterinsurgency and Unconventional Warfare: The Algerian War,‖ 42; Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 124.

502 The Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston, translated as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters.

503 George Grivas, The Memoirs of General Grivas (London: Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd., 1964), 68, 72, 97, 125, 127, 133, 172, 180; Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 135.

504 Alan Vick, Snakes in the Eagle’s Nest: A History of Ground Attacks on Air Bases (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1995), 16.

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crews infiltrated Pleiku Air Base and the nearby helicopter field at Camp

Holloway, damaging or destroying 22 aircraft. This attack, and the attendant U.S. casualties, has been characterized as the ―spark‖ that ignited the full-scale conflict between the U.S. and its enemies in Southeast Asia.505 Less than five months later, on 1

July 1965, Viet Cong sappers struck Da Nang Air Base, arguably the most important U.S. air base in Vietnam. Seven aircraft were destroyed in the attack, while a further 25 were damaged by satchel charges and hand .506

More ubiquitous, if also more mundane, were guerrilla efforts at concealment and camouflage. Given France‘s aerial supremacy for most of the First Indochina War, the

Viet Minh ―made a veritable fetish out of camouflage.‖ The availability of dense jungle terrain, impenetrable to aerial observation, considerably aided their efforts in this regard: as one French reconnaissance pilot remarked in frustration, ―I just know the little bastards are somewhere around here…But go and find them in that mess.‖507 During the subsequent ―American war‖ the Viet Cong and their PAVN allies employed a variety of methods to elude aerial detection, including the utilization of extensive underground facilities. As a result, while the Vietnamese guerrillas knew full well the location of their adversaries, extensive American and RVN efforts to locate their enemies frequently proved fruitless despite their virtual monopoly of advanced detection technologies.508

505 Phillip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War, 333, 335-336.

506 Chris Hobson, Vietnam Air Losses: United States Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973 (Hinckley, UK: Midland Press, 2001), 24.

507 Fall, Street Without Joy, 65.

508 Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 165.

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―No one has ever demonstrated more ability to hide his installations than did the Viet

Cong,‖ General William Westmoreland later lamented. ―They were human moles.‖509

The constant threat of air attack also drove techniques used by Viet Cong forces on the move, another classic ―passive‖ air defense measure. Logistical operations on the

Ho Chi Minh trail, for example, were conducted almost exclusively at night to elude the threat of air attack. Truck drivers took advantage of high moon illumination to drive without headlights, and exploited periods of low cloud cover to avoid detection in a

―hostile air environment.‖510 Viet Cong combat units also moved frequently—perhaps excessively, according to some veterans—as another means of evading American or

South Vietnamese aircraft. Utilizing an extensive network of village bivouacs and isolated jungle campsites, Viet Cong forces maintained a brisk schedule of movement: in

1965 one such unit, the 263rd Main Force , relocated 63 times in five months.511

In for the “Kill”

For all the defensive advantages derived from these methods, however, there has always been an enduring and compelling appeal surrounding the act of destroying an enemy aircraft in flight. That climactic event—the ―kill‖—has fascinated and fixated

509 Quoted in Lanning and Cragg, Inside the VC and the NVA, 135. General Westmoreland was the Commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command-Vietnam (MACV) from 1964-1968.

510 Herman L. Gilster, The Air War in Southeast Asia: Case Studies of Selected Campaigns (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1993), 16-18.

511 Lanning and Cragg, Inside the VC and the NVA, 136.

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combatants since the dawn of air warfare, especially fighter pilots. Manfred von

Richthofen, for example—the ―Red Baron‖ of First World War fame—was notorious for his preoccupation with battle and the destruction of enemy aircraft. In his diary entry concerning an air battle on 17 , he confessed that ―I was animated by a single thought: ‗The man in front of me must come down, whatever happens‘.‖512

During later air wars over Korea and Vietnam, U.S. pilots in particular demonstrated

―real aggressive spirit, sometimes to the point of foolhardiness.‖513 The attitude was perhaps best summarized by U.S. Navy pilot John Nichols, who recalled executing a high-risk maneuver during a dogfight against a North Vietnamese MiG. ―All of this

[was] a no-no,‖ he conceded, ―but boy, when you got a guy in front of you the fangs kind of come out, and you just want to kill him.‖514 Even in more recent conflicts such as First

Gulf War or NATO‘s 1999 Kosovo campaign, enemy aircraft ―kills‖ were automatically lionized and celebrated within the victor‘s unit and armed service,515 while the personal attitudes of many fighter pilots continued to reflect the same lust for combat that characterized their predecessors. As one U.S. Air Force fighter pilot recalled of his

512 , The Red Air Fighter (London: Greenhill Books, 1990), 93.

513 Sq. Ldr. W. Harbison, ―The F-86 v. the MiG-15‖ (West Raynham, UK: Royal Air Force Central Fighter Establishment, 1952), 19. Perhaps the best illustration of ―kill fixation‖ during the Korean War was the novel , written by —a pseudonym—based on his own experiences as a fighter pilot in Korea.

514 Quoted in John Darrell Sherwood, Fast Movers: Jet Pilots and the Vietnam Experience (New York: The Free Press, 1999), 172.

515 Evidence of this trend can be seen is U.S. Air Force news releases covering the relevant periods. Although no longer available on official U.S. Air Force web sites, the author maintains a collection of relevant news releases, particularly regarding the Kosovo campaign. Ironically, during that conflict the ―unofficial‖ view of ―MiG-killing‖—even among some fighter pilots—was that it was the only for which someone could be awarded a medal after shooting a victim in the back unawares, and then running away.

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thoughts while preparing to engage a Yugoslav MiG-29, ―I saw the con[trail]s/smoke coming from his jet and thought, ‗Sonofabitch! I gotta get me some!‘‖516

The same attitude has traditionally prevailed among ground-based air defense

(GBAD) crewman fighting against enemy aircraft with AAA or surface-to-air missiles

(SAMs). The destruction of fifteen B-52s during 1972‘s Linebacker II offensive over

Hanoi and Haiphong, for example, has since been mythologized in Vietnam as the ―Dien

Bien Phu of the Air.‖517 The successful destruction of an enemy aircraft in flight has typically boosted a defender‘s morale, particularly as aircraft have generally been seen as symbols of a ―First World‖ adversary‘s wealth, technological superiority, and invulnerability.518 Consequently, in Vietnam the destruction of U.S. aircraft has been memorialized in monuments, museum exhibits, propaganda posters—even postage stamps. The same fascination grips insurgent forces as well as more conventional armies.

As Barbara Cornwall remarked, ―The downing of an enemy aircraft was a considerable morale booster in guerrilla and civilian eyes…It also represented a visible victory over a force far more technically advanced than the guerrillas could ever hope to be.‖519

While nation-states such as North Vietnam may have enjoyed the availability of advanced fighter aircraft and complex SAM systems, however, insurgent forces have generally found themselves forced to rely on nothing more substantial than small arms or

516 ―First Person—Singular‖ (Journal of Electronic Defense 23, no. 1 [January 2000], 74-78), 75.

517 Marshall L. Michel III, The Eleven Days of Christmas: America’s Last Vietnam Battle (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002), 180.

518 Lambert, The Psychology of Air Power, 49.

519 Cornwall, The Bush Rebels, 151.

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Figure 6.1. A 1963 Viet Cong stamp commemorating the destruction of a U.S. Army helicopter during the battle of Ap Bac (image reproduced from the Vietnam Stamps Company website, http://vietnamstamp.com.vn; in the public domain).

machine-gun fire to engage enemy aircraft in flight. Realistically speaking, only these or similar weapons met the typical guerrilla criteria for mobility, ruggedness, simplicity of use, and availability. But whatever the means employed, air defense has represented a critical task for any insurgent facing an enemy air force. Che Guevara, for example, considered air defense ―one of the most important courses‖ in the Cuban rebels‘ training school. The task‘s significance is further demonstrated by the fact that Che listed

―meeting attack from the air‖ no later than second in his discussion of skills to be taught to new recruits, immediately after basic firearms use.520

Training alone, however, could not keep pace with Western developments in aircraft and weapons design. A homemade shotgun or a Second World War-vintage machinegun offered little hope of victory in a duel against a modern fighter-bomber, even

520 Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 109-110.

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given the rudimentary stage of jet aircraft development in the 1950s. More powerful weapons better suited to the requirements of guerrilla warfare were needed, and the guerrillas would not have long to wait. By 1960 the answer to their unarticulated dreams was already under development in the United States, and similar efforts would occupy

Soviet engineers and designers for much of the decade as well.

Shoulder-Fired SAM Development in the U.S. and USSR

By 1946 the U.S. Army had realized that its standard battlefield air defense weapons—machineguns in the 0.30 and 0.50 caliber class—faced imminent obsolescence given developments in tactical aircraft capabilities. Specifically, the older weapons lacked the range, muzzle velocity, and angular tracking rates to effectively engage the high-speed jet aircraft expected over future battlefields at low and medium altitudes.

Work correspondingly progressed on the development of radar-aimed AAA systems, but the Army ceased work on these projects as aircraft performance continued to outstrip projected air defense capabilities.521

At the time, some kind of missile armament seemed appropriate. Indeed, both the

U.S. Army and Air Force appreciated the scope and promise of missile developments in

Germany during the Second World War. These included pioneering SAM designs such as the Wasserfall (or ―Waterfall‖), which had undergone an extensive development

521 Mary T. Cagle, History of the Redeye Weapons System (Army Missile Command historical monograph, project number AMC 78M, 23 May 1974), 1-5; John Batchelor and Ian Hogg, Artillery (New York: Ballentine Books, 1972), 75-76.

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program in the closing years of the war. Yet the Wasserfall, like other German SAMs then in development, had been designed for the defense of static area targets against slow, non-maneuvering strategic bombers at medium and high altitudes.522 The Wasserfall was also large, fantastically complex, and manpower-intensive. American SAM designs of the late 1940s, such as the Army‘s Nike-Ajax and the Air Force‘s proposed MX-605

Ground-to-Air-Pilotless-Aircraft (GAPA), remained true to this heritage.523

Consequently, these systems could offer little succor to ground forces under air attack on future battlefields. Even the HAWK (―Homing All-the-Way Killer‖) missile, developed specifically for the Army beginning in 1951, eventually ―acquired technical characteristics that made it suitable for the division and Corps areas only.‖524

The , and companies, on the other hand, were left with their hopelessly inadequate machineguns to contend with any aircraft—most likely jet- powered and supersonic, perhaps even nuclear-armed—that would inevitably slip through the higher-echelon air defense net. The U.S. Army wanted something else, something capable of not only bringing down a jet fighter-bomber, but sufficiently light and compact to be fielded at the lowest tactical echelons; something simple to operate and maintain, free of the extensive manpower requirements of SAM systems then in

522 Capt. Michel A.G. Robinson, ―Air-to-Air and Surface-to-Air Guided Missiles‖ (lecture, Air Tactical School, Tyndall AFB, FL, 5 January 1948), USAF Collection, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL; Kenneth P. Werrell, Archie, Flak, AAA and SAM: A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air Defense (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1988), 39-40.

523 Headquarters, Air Defense Command, to Commanding Generals, First, Second, Fourth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Fourteenth Air Forces, ―Status of Development of New Weapons,‖ memorandum, 4 September 1947, USAF Collection, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL, 1.

524 Cagle, History of the Redeye Weapons System, 3.

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development; and something rugged enough to withstand combat conditions in the field.

As early as May 1946, the War Department Equipment Board challenged American industry to meet these requirements.525

Nearly ten years later, American industry—namely, the Convair division of

General Dynamics—responded with a radical new concept: a missile small enough to be carried and operated by a single soldier, and guided by the infrared emissions of its target. In other words, the proposed weapon would be a ―heat-seeker,‖ a weapon designed specifically to home in on the exhaust of an aircraft‘s engine. Convair began feasibility studies of the concept in 1955, and presented the results of its 11-month design study to the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in November 1956. The Army in particular liked what it saw and awarded its first contract related to the developmental system, known as ―Redeye‖ for its infrared seeker, in April 1958.526

Another nine years would pass before the U.S. Army accepted the first Redeye missiles into service, but by the late 1950s the word was out. Soviet intelligence learned of the project as early as 1958, and saw its information confirmed when photos and unclassified details of the Redeye system appeared in a 1959 issue of Missiles & Rocket magazine.527 The American project immediately caught the attention of Soviet military authorities, for they too grappled with the problem of battlefield air defense in the jet age.

525 Cagle, History of the Redeye Weapons System, 1.

526 Cagle, History of the Redeye Weapons System, 5-8, 17.

527 Michal Fiszer and Jerzy Gruszczynski, ―On Arrows and Needles: Russia‘s Strela and Igla Portable Killers‖ (The Journal of Electronic Defense, December 2002, 46-52), 46; Steven J. Zaloga, Soviet Air Defence Missiles: Design, Development and Tactics (Surrey, UK: Jane‘s Information Group, 1989), 222.

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Figure 6.2. The FIM-43 "Redeye" shoulder-fired missile (image by the Redstone Army Arsenal History Office; in the public domain).

The Soviets faced the problem of air defense with far greater alacrity than the

Americans, whose ground forces had enjoyed air superiority during most of the Second

World War. The Red Army, on the other hand, had suffered grievously at the hands of the Luftwaffe, particularly in the first weeks of the 1941 Nazi invasion. A critical shortage of large-caliber AAA and haphazard organization ―told negatively on the conduct of air defense,‖ according to a typically understated Soviet-era assessment.528

528 of Aviation A. Koldunov, ―World War II: Goals, Problem of Air Defense Described‖ (Voenno- istoricheskii zhurnal, April 1984, 12-19, translated and reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Service,

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Consequently, ―the Ground Forces were poorly covered against air strikes.‖529 The trauma of the Red Army‘s initial encounters with the Luftwaffe outlasted the war, and engendered a ―great appreciation‖ for battlefield air defense. By the 1950s the Soviets had correspondingly elevated battlefield air defense to a separate branch within the army, equal in status to armor or artillery.530 They also began seeking their own solutions to the problem of defending against jet-powered aircraft, recognizing that in a future European war NATO would likely rely heavily on tactical airpower to counter the Red Army‘s offensive superiority on the ground.531

Word of the U.S. ―Redeye‖ missile spurred the Soviets to action in a new direction, for the concept of a -like system suggested a novel means of filling a critical gap in their low-altitude air defenses. Development of an analogous Soviet system began in 1960 at the CKB GKOT design bureau (later renamed KBM Kolomna).

Leningrad‘s OKB-357 bureau, which had previous experience in the development of infrared-guided air-to-air missiles, undertook corresponding work on the infrared seeker head. Flight tests of unguided prototypes began as early as 1962, with guided test

―USSR Report—Military Affairs: Military History Journal No. 4, April 1984,‖ JPRS-UMA-84-048, 11 July 1984), 6.

529 Colonel General Yu. Boshnyak, ―The Development o Air Defense Theory in the Prewar Years‖ (Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, May 1984, 43-50, translated and reprinted in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, ―USSR Report—Military Affairs: Military History Journal No. 5, May 1984,‖ JPRS-UMA-84- 051, 30 July 1984), 52. On the first page of the article, General Boshnyak gives the standard nod to the fount of all Soviet military knowledge: ―The basic provisions on the organization of air defense for the young Soviet states were put down and developed by V. I. Lenin...‖

530 Edward J. Bavaro, ―Soviet Air Defense‖ (US Digest, April 1989, 10-17), 10.

531 Michael Gress, ―The Organization of Tactical Air Defense‖ (Red Thrust Star, October 1994), http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/Red-Star/issues /OCT94/OCT94.html; Zaloga, Soviet Air Defence Missiles, 166-169.

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launches commencing in 1965. However, problems with the infrared seeker delayed the system‘s operational introduction until January 1968, when the Red Army accepted it under the designation PZRK 9K32 Strela-2 (―Arrow-2‖). An improved variant called

Strela-2M soon followed, entering Soviet service in 1970.532 NATO gave the Strela-2 and Strela-2M the reporting designations SA-7 GRAIL and SA-7B GRAIL 1, respectively, but most Western military establishments refer to either variant as simply

―SA-7‖ or ―SAM-7.‖

The Strela-2M could target aircraft between 800 meters and 4.2 km away, at altitudes between 30 and 2,300 meters. However, the Strela-2M had to be launched between 30 and 60 degrees of elevation. Below that envelope, the missile might be attracted by heat emanating from treetops; above it, the rocket exhaust would burn the operator. All models of the Strela-2 also featured a small (1.17 kg) warhead, which limited its chances for a successful engagement against armored or especially rugged aircraft. Additionally, once activated the mercury launch power pack had only enough for thirty seconds of operation, after which the system would not fire—and thirty seconds is not a long time to acquire,track, and engage an airborne target.533

Nevertheless, the system represented a quantum improvement in capability over air defense systems then available to the Red Army‘s tactical formations, and would soon see combat on two of the Cold War‘s most hotly contested battlefields.

532 James C. O‘Halloran, ed., Jane’s Land-Based Air Defense 2005-2006 (Surrey, UK: Jane‘s Information Group, 2005), 28-29; Fiszer and Gruszczynski, ―On Arrows and Needles,‖ 47-48.

533 Tony Cullen and Christopher F. Foss, eds., Jane’s Land-Based Air Defence, 2001-2002 (Surrey, UK: Jane‘s Information Group, 2001), 29; Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 113.

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Figure 6.3. The Strela-2M shoulder-fired missile (image by the Defense Visual Information Service, www.defenseimagery.mil; in the public domain).

Shoulder-Fired SAMs as a Conventional Weapon

One should recall that both the U.S. and USSR developed their shoulder-fired

SAMs—the Redeye and Strela-2—to fulfill a conventional role in conventional warfare.

That, in fact, was how the Strela-2 first cut its figurative teeth. Soviet sources have claimed the Strela-2 made its combat debut during the Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition, when Soviet air defense ―advisors‖ allegedly downed six F-4 Phantoms with the new

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missiles in December 1969. More recently, Russian sources have claimed an additional two Israeli aircraft destroyed by Strela-2s the following June.534 These claims must be regarded with suspicion, however. Even the Russian author responsible for publishing the 1969 claims, Valeri A. Yaremenko, later conceded that ―our commanders reported falsely…there were cases when they sought promotion, [or] a Hero [of the Soviet

Union]‘s decoration.‖ Yaremenko concluded that such misreporting ―was a game that did a bad job for statistics, because now it‘s very hard to prove [the actual numbers].‖535

One can, however, accept that the Strela-2 did first see combat service in during this period, for in 1971 an Israeli pilot returned to base with an example of the type stuck in his aircraft‘s tailpipe. Fortunately for the pilot—and for Israeli personnel, who recovered and inspected the missile—the warhead‘s fuse had failed.536

It was in 1972, however, that the Strela-2 made its definitive debut. On 30 March

125,000 PAVN soldiers invaded South Vietnam on three fronts, bringing with them hundreds of tanks, massive artillery support, mobile anti-aircraft guns—and the Strela-2, newly introduced into the North Vietnamese inventory.537 Soon after pilots first reported

534 V. I. Tkachev, ―Pochemu Israil Prekpatil Voennie Deistviia na Egipetskom Fronte‖ (Voenno- Istoricheskii Zhurnal, June 2005, 43-48), 44.; Yevgenii Klimovich, ―Razyashchie Streli‖ (Aerokosmichekoe Obozrenie, March 2004, 118-119), 119; Isabella Ginor, ―‗Under the Yellow Arab Helmet Gleamed Blue Russian Eyes:‘ Operation Kavkaz and the War of Attrition, 1969-70 (Cold War History 3, no. 1 {October 2002}, 127-156), 140; Dima P. Adamsky, ―‗Zero-Hour for the Bears‘: Inquiring into the Soviet Decision to Intervene in the Egyptian–Israeli War of Attrition, 1969–70‖ (Cold War History 6, no. 1 [February 2006], 113-136), 124, 127.

535 Ginor, ―‗Under the Yellow Arab Helmet Gleamed Blue Russian Eyes‘,‖ 140.

536 Zaloga, Soviet Air Defence Missiles, 238.

537 ―Enemy View of Air: The Air Defense Buildup – Introduction of the SA-7‖ (briefing slides, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces, Hickham Air Force Base, HI, 26 May 1972), USAF Collection, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL; Donald J. Mrozek, Air Power and the Ground War in Vietnam (McLean, VA: Pergamom-Brassey‘s, 1989), 92; Phillip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War, 605.

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seeing these ―funny little black missiles,‖ the Strela-2 was recognized as ―a serious threat to all aircraft, especially to helicopters and other slow-flying aircraft.‖538 This ―entirely new‖ system initially shocked and surprised American airmen, and provided the first credible challenge to U.S. and South Vietnamese air superiority in the south.539 Several

American airmen have commented on their surprise when first encountering the Strela-2, even though U.S. intelligence had been aware of the system‘s development since at least

1960.540 ―The SA-7 appeared and nobody knew what the heck that was,‖ one pilot recalled when discussing the Strela-2‘s Vietnam debut.541 An AC-130 gunship crewman agreed, noting that ―What little knowledge we had [about the Strela-2] wasn‘t very much.

We more or less learned by actually taking a hit.‖542 Yet word quickly spread, and by

June the French colonial forces‘ ―Street Without Joy‖—that stretch of Route 1 between

Quang Tri and Hue—became known to American airmen as ―SAM-7 Alley.‖543

538 Maj. A. J. C. Lavalle, USAF, ed., Airpower and the 1972 Spring Invasion (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1985), 43-44.

539 Charles A. Nicholson, ―Project CHECO Southeast Asia Report – The USAF Response to the Spring 1972 NVN Offensive: Situation and Deployment‖ (Saigon: Headquarters Seventh Air Force, 1972), 22; Mrozek, Air Power and the Ground War in Vietnam, 92-93.

540 George W. Stickle, William B. Wells, and Victor M. Harkavy, ―Redeye Effectiveness vs. Low Level Penetration Speed‖ (working paper, Headquarters , Langley AFB, VA, 3 ), 1, 8. This report notes that ―Intelligence Estimates indicate that the Russian equivalent of the REDEYE missile will be in the hands of Russian ground troops in the 1965-1970 time period.‖

541 Oral History Interview of Robert Eaton by Stephen Maxner, 18 December 2001, the Texas Tech University Vietnam Archive Oral History Project, http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/star/ images/oh/oh0201/ OH0201-2.pdf, 6.

542 Oral History Interview of MSgt Arthur W. Humphrey by Lt. Col. Robert G. Zimmerman, 15 , USAF Collection, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL, 17.

543 John T. Correll, ―Impossible Odds in SAM-7 Alley‖ (Air Force Magazine¸ December 2004, 52-57), 54. ―Street Without Joy‖ was also the title of Bernard Fall‘s book about the First Indochina War.

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Although the aggregate effectiveness of the Strela-2 appeared slight on paper (of

528 reported launches against U.S. planes and helicopters by January 1973, only 45 resulted in the loss of an aircraft) the novel new missiles soon became one of the most respected air defense threats in Vietnam.544 Until U.S. aircraft started using countermeasures such as decoy and infrared suppression devices, Strela-2 missiles downed aircraft at a rate eight times higher than the venerable S-75 Dvina (NATO SA-2

GUIDELINE) missiles used in North Vietnam since 1965.545 As a result, use of the shoulder-fired missiles imposed severe limitations on American tactics in the south.546

As the Commander of Pacific Air Forces, General John Vogt, acknowledged in

November 1973, ―I wouldn‘t say that we‘ve developed an effective countermeasure [to the Strela-2] yet, but we‘ve come up with tactics that limit the impact of the weapon system. We know the altitude limitations on the weapon and we fly outside the parameters of the missile.‖547

In other words, command policy henceforth dictated that aircraft fly above the

Strela-2‘s maximum engagement envelope. Depending on the aircraft involved and the surrounding terrain, the mandated ―floor‖ for U.S. airman ranged from 9,500 to 14,500

544 Zaloga, Soviet Air Defense Missiles, 239; Lavelle, 87. At least 16 of these losses were confirmed fixed- wing aircraft, while another three may have fallen victim to the Strela. See Hobson, Vietnam Air Losses, 223-231.

545 United States Military Assistance Command-Vietnam, Command History, January 1972-March 1973, Volume II (Saigon: United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, 1973), 38.

546 ―New N. Viet Missile Causes Changes in U.S. Pilots‘ Tactics,‖ A12; Werrell, 116.

547 Oral History Interview of General John W. Vogt, Jr., by Claude G. Morita, Seventh Air Force Historian, 29 November 1973, entitled ―Implications of Modern Air Power in a Limited War,‖ USAF Collection, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL, 24.

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feet. This policy hamstrung aircraft whose missions required low altitude flight profiles to ensure accurate identification of targets and precise delivery of ordnance or material.548

The new altitude restrictions also rendered gunships‘ machineguns and 20 mm cannon

―ineffective‖ and ―almost useless,‖ respectively.549 Helicopters of all types also suffered from the same vulnerabilities to shoulder-fired SAMs, but could not attain the altitudes necessary to ―overfly‖ these systems. Instead, when the Strela-2 threat appeared too intense U.S. helicopters were forbidden from operating in areas of high enemy activity— precisely the areas where those helicopters were most urgently needed.550

In at least one case, the U.S. Air Force acknowledged retiring an aircraft from service due to the Strela-2‘s effectiveness against it. Since the early 1960s, the venerable

A-1 Skyraider had served as the U.S. Air Force‘s ―workhorse‖ for close air support, rescue, and counter-insurgency attack missions. However, ―Every time they shot an SA-

7 at the A-1, we suffered a catastrophic loss,‖ General Vogt conceded. ―It‘s a slow moving airplane and there‘s damn little you can do to shield the heat source. So the answer was that we had to get out of the A-1 business.‖551 In other words, the enemy‘s use of a specific air defense system directly precipitated the retirement of a proven,

548 Earl H. Tilford, Jr., Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1993), 145; Oral History Interview of Lt. Col. Stephen J. Opitz by Lt. Col. Robert G. Zimmerman, 18 July 1975, USAF Collection, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL, 46.

549 Lavalle, ed., Airpower and the 1972 Spring Invasion, 53, 97.

550 Capt. John R. Parker III and CW2 Ronald L. , U.S. Army, ―History of F Battery, 79th Artillery, 1 February 1972-31 July 1972,‖ Headquarters, Division Artillery, 1st Division (Airmobile), 1972, 6, 25; ―New N. Viet Missile Causes Changes in U.S. Pilots‘ Tactics,‖ A12; Werrell, Archie to SAM, 116; Mrozek, Air Power and the Ground War in Vietnam, 93.

551 Vogt interview, 24.

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highly-regarded combat aircraft—an occurrence without apparent precedent during the

Vietnam War.

Ultimately, U.S. forces would develop and field effective countermeasures against the Strela-2; however, Soviet shoulder-fired SAM development did not end with that system. In the 1970s the USSR introduced the Strela-3 (NATO SA-14 GREMLIN), which could engage targets at longer ranges and twice the altitude of its predecessor. The

Strela-3 also featured a ―cooled‖ infrared seeker less susceptible to countermeasures such as flares. The improved seeker also enabled the Strela-3 to engage aircraft from any angle, whereas the Strela-2 and Strela-2M were limited to rear-aspect (―tail-chasing‖) engagements.552 By the early 1980s the Soviets would field and export the Igla series of shoulder-fired SAMs (NATO SA-16 GIMLET and SA-18 GROUSE), comparable to the successful American ―Stinger‖ missile. Since their introduction, these and other systems have consistently plagued airpower operations throughout the world. For example, of the approximately 50 American and allied fixed-wing combat aircraft lost to direct enemy action in the Middle East and the Balkans since 1991, at least a third fell to shoulder-fired

SAMs—more than were lost to any other category of air defense weapon.553

552 Fiszer and Gruzczynski, ―On Arrows and Needles,‖ 49-50.

553 For losses during the 1991 War, see Pawloski, ―Gulf War Chronology‖ and Haulman, ―USAF Combat Losses 1990-2002;‖ for losses during operations over Bosnia-Herzegovina, see Luca Poggiali, ―Interview: Col Mustafa Hajrulohvic‖ (Jane’s Defence Review, 16 January 1993, 32), 32; ―Frontline Gorazde Threatens Talks‖ (Jane’s Defence Review, 23 April 1994, 3), 3; ―French Mirage Loss Highlights Threat‖ (Aviation Week & Space Technology, 4 September 1995, 22-23), 22; for losses during the Kosovo campaign, see Haulman ―USAF Combat Losses 1990-2002,‖ passim; and for losses during the 2003 invasion of , see Bradley Graham and Vernon Loeb, ―An Air War of Might, Coordination and Risks‖ (Washington Post, 27 April 2003, A01), A01.

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Not surprisingly, the shoulder-fired SAM threat has led to continued restrictions on Western air operations. As in Vietnam, more recent air campaign plans have included an altitude ―floor‖ below which combat aircrew require special authorization to fly—

15,000 feet during NATO‘s 1999 air war over Yugoslavia, and 16,000 feet in the case of

U.S. and U.K. operations over Afghanistan in 2001.554 ―Honor the threat‖ has always been a cardinal rule for combat aircrew, but these restrictions were imposed by higher authority in the interests of minimizing—or even avoiding—losses, and as in Vietnam they often had deleterious effects on mission effectiveness. A telling example emerged from the Yugoslav campaign:

From the 15,000-ft altitude floor above which NATO aircrews typically operated, the cloud cover over Kosovo was greater than 50 percent for more than 78 percent of the air war‘s duration. That allowed unimpeded strike operations on only 24 of the war‘s 78 days….In all, 3,766 planned sorties, including 1,029 designated close air support sorties, had to be cancelled because of weather.555

Additionally, such altitude limitations hampered NATO aircrews‘ ability to identify small targets such as tanks or other armored vehicles, and correspondingly made them more susceptible to spoofing by decoys and derelict equipment. Some observers have even suggested that the minimum-altitude restrictions led to some of the bloodiest targeting errors of the campaign, such as the attack against a convoy of Kosovar refugees misidentified as a Yugoslav Army column. Therefore, while these restrictions did not degrade weapon accuracy per se—in fact, 15,000 to 20,000 feet was considered the

554 Benjamin S. Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational Assessment (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001), 21-22; Lambeth, Air Power Against Terror: America’s Conduct of Operation Enduring Freedom (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2005), 127.

555 Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo, 125.

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optimal altitude for laser-guided bomb delivery—they did limit aircrew ability to positively identify and effectively engage targets. More to the point, the restrictions resulted from a political decision informed, in part, by the perceived shoulder-fired SAM threat.556 As one recent commentator concluded, ―The ginger tactics used by the United

States and its allies over Yugoslavia and Iraq speak volumes. If the enemy has [shoulder- fired SAMs] then it isn‘t safe to fly low enough to use many weapons effectively.‖557

Shoulder-Fired SAMs as a Guerrilla Weapon

The recent air campaigns over Yugoslavia and Iraq, however, were conducted against uniformed opponents who had received formal training in the use of their weapons. These opponents also operated in the context of an integrated air defense system (IADS) combining fighter aircraft, strategic SAMs, battlefield SAMs (including shoulder-fired SAMs), and AAA in overlapping, complementary fields of defensive fire.

And while neither Iraq nor Yugoslavia could fill defense coffers as extravagant as those of the United States—or even the —their armed forces at least had the formal and financial backing of an established government.558

556 Nick Cook, ―War of Extremes‖ (Jane’s Defence Weekly, 7 July 1999, 20-23), 21; Tim Ripley, ―Kosovo: a Bomb Damage Assessment‖ (Jane’s Intelligence Review, September 1999, 10-13), 12; Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo, 126, 140.

557 Michael Puttre, ―Facing the Shoulder-Fired Threat: The Air-Superiority Myth Hits the MANPADS Mountain‖ (The Journal of Electronic Defense 24, no. 4 [April 2001], 38-45), 40.

558 Defense budget figures provided by The CIA World Factbook 2003, downloadable online edition, https://www.cia.gov/download2003.htm.

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Guerrillas have none of these things, except in some cases the uniform. Rather, a hallmark of guerrilla activity has always been their capacity for ―making do.‖ As Mao remarked, ―The equipment of guerrillas cannot be based on what the guerrillas want, or even what they need, but must be based on what is available for their use.‖559 While recognizing the advantages of external support and supply, Mao, Giap, and Che all advocated the systematic scavenging of defeated enemy units to provide arms and ammunition.560 These guerrilla commanders could not, however, hope to capture an enemy fighter aircraft and have any hope of employing it effectively (or keeping it for very long). And should a friendly foreign government deliver an S-75 Dvina or Nike-

Ajax battery, the guerrillas of the 1950s would have found themselves hard-pressed to conjure the infrastructure and technical savvy required to even store the missiles, let alone use them.561

Unlike modern aircraft or strategic air defense systems, however, shoulder-fired

SAMs seemed tailor-made to suit the requirements of guerrilla warfare. Che unintentionally delivered a ringing endorsement of shoulder-fired SAMs in 1961, long before the introduction of the first examples, when he spoke approvingly of the ―easy portability‖ of ―bazooka‖ anti-tank rocket launchers. At the time, he could not have

559 Mao, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 82.

560 Mao, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 83; Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 28-31; Giap, People’s War People’s Army, 30.

561 There have, however, been isolated cases of insurgent movements fielding radar-guided tactical SAMs. A notable case is that of POLISARIO in the Western , which received radar-guided SAMs of Soviet manufacture (SA-6 and SA-8) from and Algeria for use against Moroccan aircraft. See Victor Flintham, Air Wars and Aircraft: A Detailed Record of Air Combat, 1945 to the Present (New York: Facts on File, 1990), 86.

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anticipated that the Strela-2 would closely match the weight and dimensions of prominent such as the U.S.-made M1A1 and M9A1. Portability has always been critical to guerrilla operations; portability permits mobility, which Che characterized as ―the fundamental characteristic of a guerrilla band.‖562 Mao concurred when delivering his proscription for ―tactical speed‖ and ―constant activity and movement,‖ noting that ―the movements of guerrilla troops must be secret and of supernatural ability.‖563 Giap likewise extolled the ―strictly secret‖ nature of Viet Minh attacks against French forces,

―carried out with rapidity. Their movements had to be phantom-like.‖564

The chief enemies of ―phantom-like‖ mobility are weight and bulk, which slow an individual bearer and often necessitate vehicular transport. For example, the ZPU-1 14.5 mm anti-aircraft gun—the simplest, lightest AAA piece of Soviet design—weighs some

413 kilograms, while a single S-75 Dvina missile weighs 2,300 kg at launch. However, a

Strela-2 system with all essential operational elements—tube, gripstock, and missile— weighs only 14.5 kg.565 Its light weight and small size mean that ―as long as mules and men have backs and automobiles have trunks, these weapons can be transported to a firing position.‖566

562 Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 18, 32-33.

563 Mao, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 52, 96-97.

564 Giap, People’s War People’s Army, 79.

565 O‘Halloran, ed., Jane’s Land-Based Air Defense 2005-2006, 29, 255, 318.

566 Maj. Michael A. O‘Halloran, USMC, ―A Kill Is a Kill: Asymmetrically Attacking U.S. Airpower‖ (Maxwell AFB, AL: School of Advanced Airpower Studies, June 1999), 50.

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Perhaps more importantly, shoulder-fired SAMs shed a great deal of their weight after launch, permitting the immediate post-engagement withdrawal prescribed by the likes of Mao and Che.567 Weapons ideally suited to guerrilla use, Mao notes, ―must be drastically reduced in weight‖ as compared to those in conventional vogue.568 In the case of the Strela-2, the operator could discard the launch tube and expended battery after launch, leaving only a gripstock and trigger assembly which weigh on the order of a mere four kilograms—less than that of a loaded AK-47 assault , and at less than half the

AK-47‘s length. As the Strela-2 relies on passive infrared guidance, like most shoulder- fired SAMs, it also gives insurgents a true ―launch and leave‖ or ―fire and forget‖ capability. As soon as the missile has exited the tube, the operator may exit the launch area; he need not linger to see the results of his attack. In a guerrilla context, it might be better for the operator that he does not.569

Manpower requirements represent another important consideration, particularly given the risks insurgents incur when attempting to operate in groups larger than squad size. A key element of guerrilla strategy, after all, is to ―negate superior government firepower by eliminating lucrative targets.‖570 As Che Guevara cautioned when defining the composition of a guerrilla squad, ―Eight to ten men are the maximum that can act as a

567 Mao, for example, advocated attacks that are ―sudden, sharp, vicious, and of short duration,‖ while Che notes that any guerilla combat should ―last a few minutes, and be followed by an immediate withdrawal.‖ Mao, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 23; Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 30.

568 Mao, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 31.

569 Jame‘s C. O‘Halloran, ed., Jane’s Land-Based Air Defense 2005-2006, 28-29; Fiszer and Gruszczynski, ―On Arrows and Needles,‖ 47.

570 Dennis M. Drew, ―U.S. Airpower Theory and the Insurgent Challenge: A Short Journey to Confusion‖ (The Journal of Military History, October 1998, 809-832), 811.

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unit and fight in these conditions.‖ His contemporary George Grivas, leader of the

Cypriot rebel organization EOKA, similarly warned against guerrillas operating in numbers greater that what he termed the ―saturation point:‖ ―I myself, when I joined the andartes [rebels] in the mountains, always felt uneasy if there were more than half a dozen of us together.‖571 These considerations placed severe limits on the manpower devoted to any single task, including air defense or aerial ambush.

Once more, shoulder-fired SAMs offered an attractive solution. Practically speaking, a launcher and missile could be transported and operated by a single individual, imposing minimal manpower requirements on units even as small as those that Che and

Grivas advocated. Even in Cold War-era Red Army doctrine, a conventional Strela-2 team incorporated only three soldiers, including two carrying replacement missiles and batteries to permit continuous air defense for a regular-force company or battalion.572 In comparison, the ZPU-1 anti-aircraft gun required a crew of four, while a single S-75

Dvina SAM firing site was manned in battalion strength.573

Relying on passive guidance, shoulder-fired SAMs also lend themselves to the surprise ambush tactics traditionally favored by guerrillas. As is the case with conventional air-to-air combat, taking the first shot against an unprepared enemy ―is one of the basic requirements of guerrilla warfare,‖ as Che contended, and again the advent of shoulder-fired SAMs presented insurgents with the opportunity to apply theory to

571 Grivas, The Memoirs of General Grivas, 55.

572 Fiszer and Gruszczynski, ―On Arrows and Needles,‖ 47-48;

573 James C. O‘Halloran, ed., Jane’s Land-Based Air Defense 2005-2006, 256, 318.

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practice in a counter-air context.574 A man-portable missile fired from a pilot‘s ―blind spot‖ could deny that pilot any indication of hostile targeting until missile impact. The shoulder-fired SAM, then, represented a weapon well suited to ambush tactics, particularly against the lower-flying, slower aircraft traditionally favored for counter- insurgency tasks.575

Shoulder-fired missiles have also proven to be comparatively rugged and durable, given their design requirements for ―rough handling by soldiers in the field.‖576 This, in turn, translates well to the spartan physical conditions of guerrilla campaigning.

Additionally, these systems boast a long shelf life—sometimes over two decades—in proper storage conditions, thus lending themselves to the temporal rigors of ―protracted warfare.‖ Given the hermetically-sealed nature of the missile tubes, the conditions of

―proper storage‖ are defined primarily in terms of temperature and moisture, which an insurgent can satisfy in the same caves and underground caches used to store powder- fired ammunition.577 Once removed from storage, the insurgent has typically found that shoulder-fired SAMs—particularly early models such as the Strela-2—did not necessitate extensive training prior to use, and could be operated independently of fixed infrastructure.578

574 Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 69.

575 Puttre, ―Facing the Shoulder-Fired Threat,‖ 41.

576 Thomas B. Hunter, ―The Proliferation of MANPADS‖ (Jane’s Intelligence Review, September 2001, 42-45), 42.

577 Hunter, ―The Proliferation of MANPADS,‖ 42.

578 Basil Davidson, The People’s Cause, 192.

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Finally, shoulder-fired SAMs have become, relatively speaking, cheap. A complete system might cost as low as $15,000, while individual Strela-2 missiles reportedly sell for as little as $200 in some regions.579 In the heyday of their use during the Cold War, and in some regions today—notably the Middle East—superpower and regional sponsorship have made these systems cheaper still for many insurgent organizations.

Yet guerrilla warfare has traditionally placed a premium on psychological effects, and here another benefit of shoulder-fired SAMs becomes apparent. As much as guerrillas have dreaded enemy aircraft, they have also recognized the moral gains derived from destroying them. As aforementioned, air power has traditionally been perceived as a tool employed by vastly more powerful foes, at least from the insurgent‘s perspective; modern combat aircraft have generally been viewed as representative of the technological and economic might of the enemy. To bring one down has thus represented something, too, particularly when a minimally-trained insurgent accomplishes the feat with a few switch settings and the pull of a single trigger.

This psychological advantage derives from two complementary effects. On the one hand, destroying enemy aircraft shakes the enemy‘s belief in his own superiority, and in guerrilla warfare ―The mind of the enemy…is a target of far more importance than the

579 Lt. Col. Erich von Tersch, ―Unconventional Challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean: Strategic Engagement in a New Era‖ (address, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Eastern Mediterranean Security Conference, 27 October 2004), http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm? fuseaction=events.event&event_id=114707&doc_id=114713.

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bodies of his troops.‖580 On the other, the conventional enemy‘s loss is, in a very practical sense, the guerrilla‘s gain. There is a reason why Chechen militants and Iraqi insurgents have recently devoted so much effort to the production and propagation of videos showing shoulder-fired SAM attacks against enemy aircraft. They have done so to explode the myth of the enemy‘s technological invincibility, thereby to disprove any belief in his inevitable victory.

If one phrase could encapsulate the moral boost accrued to insurgents by a single, successful anti-air engagement, it might be ―Oba dva! Oba su pala!‖ (―Both of them!

Both fell!‖), the jubilant cry of a Croat militiaman after a pair of Strela-2 missiles appeared to destroy two attacking Yugoslav aircraft in quick succession during the secessionist fighting of 1991. It later turned out that only one of the two was actually downed, but televised footage of the event ―electrified‖ a breakaway nation that previously thought itself helpless against the air force of an oppressive regime. ―Oba dva, oba su pala!‖ became a rallying cry for the separatists, and as recently as January

2007 the Croatian press recalled the phrase as ―the legendary call.‖ As for the federal

Yugoslav air force, the event ―jolt[ed] an air force unused to resistance.‖581

580 Brig. Gen. Samuel B. Griffith, USMC (ret.), ―Introduction,‖ in Mao, Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, 23.

581 Ante Talijas, ―Mesic Odilkovoa 113. Sibensku Brigada‖ (, 31 January 2007), http://www.slobodnadalmacija.hr/2070131/sibenik01.asp; Alan Cowell, ― and : Seeing War in Different Prisms‖ (, 24 September 1991, A10), A10. The ―113. sibensku brigada‖ (113th Sibenik ) was the Croatian unit involved in the engagement. As of August 2009, video of the engagement could be viewed at http://youtube.com, through the search term ―oba su pala.‖

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Figure 6.4. ―Both of them! Both Fell!‖ Croatia, 17 September 1991 (cameraman unknown; image originally aired on Hrvatska Radiotelevizija, 21 September 1991).

The incident and its aftermath demonstrated the psychological boost attained by small and ill-equipped insurgent forces when they score a victory over an allegedly

―superior‖ enemy. Precisely those same results had been achieved by earlier guerrillas, in earlier campaigns, using the same weapon system employed in the skies of Croatia in

1991. That weapon system—the Strela-2 missile—has since the early 1970s seen combat and claimed aircraft on every permanently inhabited continent except Australia. The first guerrillas to smell its exhaust, however, did so in a most unlikely theater of Cold War confrontation—the tiny province of ―Portuguese‖ Guinea, hardly recognized as a hotbed of East-West competition, except perhaps by the belligerents themselves.

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Chapter 7 – Guarding Guinea‟s Skies582

Development of Insurgent Air Defenses in Guinea

Although the Portuguese armed forces had studied the lessons of previous guerrilla wars, the Portuguese Air Force (FAP) entered the war in Guinea confident that it would be operating in a relatively benign environment. The prevailing belief in the early- to mid-1960s held that ―operations could be conducted with relatively modest means, because there was no proper air opposition.‖583 The FAP could perhaps be forgiven for such shortsightedness, however, as such attitudes generally permeated Western thinking about insurgency despite the weight of historical evidence to the contrary. One American analyst naively observed in 1963 that ―Rebels are not equipped with ack-ack or interception capability, so that air superiority is practically assured.‖584 The following year a group of U.S. Air Force officers similarly contended that ―In a counterinsurgency operation there has been no need to gain air superiority because the enemy has no air

582 This chapter, and its title, concerns the air defense efforts of both belligerents, insurgent and government alike.

583 Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 584.

584 Claude Witze, ―USAF Polishes Its New COIN,‖ Air Force and Space Digest, June 1962, 49; cited in Fall, Street Without Joy, 266.

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power, nor anti-aircraft capability other than small arms fire.‖585 Another U.S. Air Force officer blithely commented in 1965 that government aircraft ―need have only a minimum capability for dealing with the enemy‘s counter-air threat‖ when combating insurgents.586

Even French Major David Galula, widely lauded as one of the most influential counter- insurgency theorists of the postwar era, contended that ―the insurgent cannot challenge‖ an established government‘s air supremacy.587 Given this chorus of optimism, it is hardly surprising that the Portuguese felt confident in basing their strategy on complete air superiority.588

Initially, the Portuguese were correct in their assessment of PAIGC weakness in the air defense arena—a condition the insurgents themselves understood all too well. As

Luís Cabral remarked, the guerrilla‘s initial dread of Portuguese air power rested in part on ―the certainty of knowing that we could not counter the bombings with comparable blows.‖589 This certainty weakened the population‘s willingness to support the PAIGC cause, as well. ―The white man has guns and airplanes,‖ villagers frequently observed, according to one of the party‘s political cadres. ―How are we ever going to make him leave our country?‖590

585 Flight J, 9608th Air Reserve Squadron, ―Psychological Effects of Airpower in Counterinsurgency Operations,‖ 34.

586 Maj. John S. Pustay, Counter-Insurgency Warfare (New York: The Free Press, 1965), 118.

587 Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, 21.

588 Houser, No One Can Stop the Rain, 207.

589 Luís Cabral, Crónica da Libertação, 354.

590 Quoted in Chaliland, Armed Struggle in Africa, 77.

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On the other hand, the party‘s leadership recognized that aircraft were not inherently invincible or omnipotent. A PAIGC tactics and training manual noted that air operations could be hindered by a variety of natural and artificial impediments, such as weather, camouflage, concealment, dispersal, and direct action. ―If the weakness and functions of airplanes are known we can avoid their strengths and exploit their weaknesses,‖ the manual asserted before concluding, ―Airplanes are not omnipotent or frightful. Revolutionary experience proves that, though the enemy is strong, his equipment excellent, and his weapons powerful, we can develop many effective ways to defeat enemy airplanes.‖591 By 1971 the PAIGC had also developed a similar manual specifically addressing anti-helicopter operations, drawn largely from ―the great experience of the heroic people of Vietnam in the struggle against helicopters.‖592

Among the simplest methods of air defense were the varied passive defense measures implemented by the PAIGC. Like their Vietnamese contemporaries, the

Guinean guerrillas and friendly civilians in the ―liberated zones‖ used natural foliage, camouflage, frequent movement, and the cover of darkness to shield themselves from

591 Information Department, Headquarters Guinea Independent Territorial Command, ―Supplementary Supintrep No. 32: Instrução, Táctica e Logística,‖ June 1971, 48. This citation refers to a digitized transcription of the original document in the Museu Militar do Porto in Portugal, in the volume entitled ―Ordem de Batalha do PAIGC.‖ The transcription was provided to the author via e-mail by Col. A. Marques Lopes on 9 March 2009.

592 Comando da Zona Aerea de Cabo Verde e Guiné, ―Instruções de Helicopteros Aprendidas ao IN,‖ in Nota No 467, ―Instruções de helicopteros aprendidas ao IN,‖ Processo 521372, June 1971, Arquivo Histórico de Força Aérea, Lisbon, 1. This document notes that an original copy of the manual was ―Taken from the enemy on 17 November during the course of Operation BARRACUDA…in the area of Ga Formoso.‖ The PAIGC manual itself focused on helicopter strengths and weaknesses, landing zone ambush tactics, and methods of downing helicopters in flight.

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Portuguese aircraft.593 Open areas were generally avoided whenever possible; when it was necessary to traverse them, ingenious measures were taken to ensure adequate concealment from aerial observation.594 Farmers, for example, constructed tree branch

―umbrellas‖ to hide under when they heard aircraft approaching the relatively open rice fields.595 Towns and villages in PAIGC-dominated areas also featured protective trenches to protect villagers and militants during air raids.596 Additionally, frequent movement of PAIGC facilities soon became a fact of guerrilla life: as one PAIGC militant recalled, ―Every time that we settle down somewhere we prepare another place at the same time in expectation of an imminent move. That is one of the rules of war.

Never give the enemy the opportunity to locate your installations.‖597 To further minimize the chances of detection and destruction, farming activities largely took place at night; rice crops were often sown and harvested entirely in darkness, especially in regions frequented by FAP bombers and reconnaissance aircraft.598

593 Rene Lefort, ―Africa—With the Portuguese Guinea Nationalists‖ (Le Monde, 19 September 1970, 5-7, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 947,‖ JPRS 51473 (30 September 1970), 5-7.

594 Mam Les Dia, ―With the Guerrillas of Portuguese Guinea,‖ part 1 (Le Soleil , 14 September 1970, 4, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 951,‖ JPRS 51527, 7 October 1974), 4.

595 Luís Cabral, ―Prender Spínola,‖ 539.

596 R. ter Beek, ―Report of a Visit to the Republic of Guinea-Bissau,‖ October 1973, Thomas H. Henriksen Collection, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University, California, 3.

597 Mam Les Dia, ―With the Guerrillas of Portuguese Guinea,‖ part 2 (Le Soleil , 15 September 1970, 4, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 951,‖ JPRS 51527, 7 October 1974), 4.

598 Cornwall, The Bush Rebels, 211.

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The PAIGC‘s armed units also preferred to operate at night to prevent interference by Portuguese aircraft, and like their Viet Cong contemporaries the Guinean militants established a network of forest encampments in order to complicate FAP reconnaissance and targeting.599 When engaged against Portuguese troops, PAIGC guerrillas also employed a tactic known as ―hugging the enemy,‖ fighting from quarters as close as possible so that ―the tugas600 cannot drop their bombs with certainty.‖601 On at least one occasion the tactic proved so successful that, according to PAIGC commander ―Nino‖ Vieira, ―we were so close to the enemy lines that the colonialist air force bombed its own forces by mistake.‖602

Amílcar Cabral attributed a great deal of success to some of the PAIGC‘s passive air defense measures. In 1968 he credited civil defense techniques with ―successively prevent[ing] excessive loss of life among our peoples,‖ despite intensifying Portuguese air attacks during the preceding two years.603 He found his guerrillas‘ practice of passive air defense to be wanting, however, observing in 1969 that

There were comrades who died, for example, during bombing raids, due to insufficient attention with respect to the aircraft, and a failure to follow the Party‘s

599 Lefort, ―With the Portuguese Guinea Nationalists,‖ 5.

600 A PAIGC slang term for ―Portuguese,‖ apparently derived from ―Portugal.‖

601 PAIGC, ―Instruções para a Operação em Kitafina,‖ 1972, Amílcar Cabral Collection, Fundação Mário Soares Arquivo e Biblioteca, Lisbon 2.

602 Pedro Machado, ―Liberation Movement Discussed by Guerrilla Leader‖ (Etumba, 11 September 1971, 6, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1081,‖ JPRS 54466, 11 November 1971), 6. The incident reportedly took place in 1968, during fighting in the Balana- Ganderber region.

603 Amílcar Cabral, Revolution in Guinea: An African People’s Struggle. London: Stage 1, 1969), 92. He repeated this claim in 1971; see Amílcar Cabral, Our People Are our Mountains, 33.

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rules—to construct shelters, to evacuate the bases. In war people die, it is normal that people die in war, and whoever goes to war knows that he might live or die, but it is possible to have more or fewer deaths based on the mistakes that occur.604

However, Cabral never relied exclusively on a single method; his characteristic flexibility and versatility resulted in an extensive range of options for all PAIGC activities, including air defense.

Sapper attacks against airfields comprised one of these additional options.

Reportedly the most successful such attack occurred on 28 February 1968, following two years of increasing FAP activity against PAIGC guerrillas and ―liberated zones.‖ At

2330 hours a team of thirteen PAIGC militants infiltrated and attacked BA12 at

Bissalanca, the FAP‘s premier air base in the territory. The guerrillas reportedly destroyed two aircraft and damaged ―several‖ others, in the process shattering Portuguese perceptions of rear-area security.605 Follow-up raids targeted Portuguese airfields at

Cabedú, Catió, and again Bissalanca.606 All told, PAIGC sappers and saboteurs claimed to have conducted 58 forays against FAP bases from 1965-1971, although the supporting evidence for these claims is derived exclusively from guerrilla sources.607

The PAIGC‘s possession and use of anti-aircraft weapons, on the other hand, is beyond dispute. In the first days of the war, the guerrillas‘ anti-aircraft arsenal had been

604 Amílcar Cabral, ―Analise de Alguns Tipos de Resistencia,‖ 2nd ed. (Lisbon: Seara Nova, 1975), 126.

605 Basil Davidson, No Fist Is Big Enough to Hide the Sky: The Liberation of Guine and Cape Verde (London: Zed Press, 1981), 108; Dhada, ―The Liberation War in Guinea-Bissau Reconsidered,‖ 583.

606 Dhada, ―The Liberation War in Guinea-Bissau Reconsidered,‖ 588.

607 Dhada, Warriors at Work, 171;

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largely limited to small arms, including automatic rifles.608 Larger-caliber weapons were initially rare, but by the end of 1963 the PAIGC could call upon Soviet-designed,

Chinese-provided 12.7 mm and 14.5 mm heavy anti-air machineguns (the DShK 1938 and ZPU-1, respectively) to shoulder the air defense burden.609 Additional anti-aircraft weaponry soon began flowing from other Communist bloc nations, notably East

Germany, and beginning in November 1965 the FAP began encountering more dangerous

20 mm and 37 mm anti-aircraft fire in the guerrillas‘ southern strongholds.610 Those latter weapons posed a serious threat to Portuguese aircraft, with the T-6—at the time, the

FAP‘s only dedicated ground attack aircraft—at particular risk.611

PAIGC Air Defenses in Action

The actual effectiveness of these weapons remains the subject of a debate that may never be fully resolved. On the one hand, the Portuguese were ―cagey about aircraft losses‖ throughout the conflict.612 On the other, assessing insurgent claims regarding destroyed aircraft is notoriously difficult. Generally speaking, the burden of proof typically falls to the ostensibly superior force, which is usually expected to demonstrate it

608 Barbeitos de Sousa, ―Esquema da Palestra, ‗A F.A. na Guiné, 1963-1965,‖ 1.

609 Venter, ―Portugal‘s Forgotten War,‖ 61; Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 109.

610 John Biggs-Davison, ―Portuguese Guinea: A Lesser Vietnam‖ (NATO’s Fifteen Nations, October- November 1968, 20-25), 24; Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 109; Dhada, Warriors at Work, 186; Neto 321.

611 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 109.

612 Al J. Venter, ―Portugal‘s Forgotten War,‖ Air Enthusiast 2 (February 1972), 61.

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Figure 7.1. DShK 1938 12.7 mm Anti-Aircraft Machinegun (photo by the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force; in the public domain).

Figure 7.2. ZPU-1 14.5 mm Anti-Aircraft Machinegun (photo by the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force; in the public domain).

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has not lost more aircraft than it has acknowledged. The allegedly weaker side—or the more media-savvy side, such as the PAIGC—need only claim losses; they have rarely been required to provide proof for their claims to be widely believed.613

In the context of insurgencies, this fact partly derives from the fact that insurgents enjoy the luxury of making immediate claims, thereby telling their side of the story first.

Many air forces, particularly in the West, tend to await the results of a thorough investigation before publicly announcing the cause of any aircraft loss. Additionally, multiple claims for a single downed aircraft are as common in ground-based air defense engagements as they are in air-to-air combat, especially when different units fire at the same target. Furthermore, observed hits—even if only resulting in damage—frequently result in claims of a ―kill,‖ while during missile engagements the simple fact of a successful launch is often taken as sufficient evidence of a victorious engagement. By way of example, the PAIGC claimed to have shot down 25 Fiat G.91 fighter-bombers between 22 March 1973 and 12 January 1974—a figure more than double the number of

G.91s in Guinea at any given time, but one widely believed by foreign academics and journalists.614

613 During NATO‘s 1999 bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, for example, Yugoslav forces officially claimed over 80 NATO aircraft shot down, claims which were widely accepted around the world. Even some reputable Western defense analysts fell victim to these claims; for an example, see, Gregory Copley, ―The New Rome and the New Religious Wars‖ (Defense and Foreign Affairs 27, no. 3 [29 April 1999], 3- 19), which parroted Yugoslav claims of 38 NATO aircraft downed by 20 April 1999. However, the number of losses acknowledged by NATO matched precisely the number for which Yugoslavia was able to provide any sort of proof—two.

614 ―NCNA Reports Victories of Guinea-Bissau Patriots,‖ Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1421,‖ JPRS 61041 (January 22, 1974), 51. Among the authors who ―drank the PAIGC kool-aid‖ in this regard are Basil Davidson and Mustafah Dhada, who repeatedly—and uncritically—published clearly-inflated PAIGC claims regarding FAP aircraft losses.

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With those limitations understood, the following may be acknowledged with reasonable certainty. The PAIGC claimed its first blood in the air defense war on 21

February 1963, less than a month after initiating its guerrilla campaign, allegedly downing five FAP aircraft with unspecified weapons in the Cubisseco region

(approximately 8 kilometers from the territorial capital, Bissau). The guerrillas claimed another two aircraft the following day, and by years‘ end the PAIGC reported it had shot down a total of 17 FAP aircraft.615 Interestingly, the PAIGC claimed only three aircraft in 1964, all of them in January-February, despite the FAP‘s intensification of operations against guerrilla bases and operating areas beginning in March.616

Acknowledged FAP losses during this period number somewhat lower, of course. The first admitted loss occurred on 22 May 1963, when a T-6 piloted by Sergeant

Ricou Casals collided with another aircraft after sustaining anti-aircraft damage. Both aircraft subsequently crashed, and the pilot of the second aircraft—Sergeant Antonio

Lobato—spent seven and a half years as a prisoner of the PAIGC.617 Nine days later, the

FAP suffered its first acknowledged jet loss when an F-86 piloted by Captain Barros

615 PAIGC, ―Communiqué,‖ 11 March 1963, Ronald H. Chilcote Collection, University of California- Riverside Library, 1; Comité de Souten a l‘Angola et aux Peuples des Colonies Portugaises, ―Guinée ‗Portugaise‘ et Iles du Cap-Vert: Bilan d‘Une Année de Lutte, Janvier-Décembre 1963,‖ January 1964, Ronald H. Chilcote Collection. University of California-Riverside Library, 3-4, 7-8.

616 Comité de Souten a l‘Angola et aux Peuples des Colonies Portugaises, ―Guinée ‗Portugaise‘ et Iles du Cap-Vert: l‘An Deux de la Guerre de Guinée, Janvier-Décembre 1964,‖ , Ronald H. Chilcote Collection. University of California-Riverside Library, 3-5.

617 Basil Davidson, The Liberation of Guiné: Aspects of an African Revolution (New York: Penguin Books, 1969), 99; PAIGC, ―Communiqué,‖ 1 June 1963, Ronald H. Chilcote Collection, University of California- Riverside Library, 1; Fraga 104, 118-119. For a full account of Lobato‘s capture, see Licínio Azevedo and Maria da Paz Rodrigues, Diário da Libertação (a Guiné-Bissau da Nova África) (São Paolo, Brazil: Versus, 1977), 103-109.

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Valla was shot down. Valla ejected from his stricken craft and made his way back to friendly lines on a bicycle he purchased from a Guinean villager.618 The FAP further admitted to the loss of an Alouette-II helicopter the following February.619 According to an official FAP report, three pilots lost their lives due to enemy action during the war‘s first two years, suggesting at least one additional combat loss. Of note, those deaths represented ten percent of the Portuguese pilots stationed in Guinea at the time, and to compound the loss another three pilots died as a result of accidents during the same period.620

Data for the following three years is sketchy at best, but the PAIGC continued to make sporadic claims of air defense victories.621 The next acknowledged FAP loss, however, would not occur until 28 July 1968, when 12.7mm anti-aircraft fire downed a

Fiat G.91 patrolling the border with Guinea-Conakry. The pilot, Lieutenant Colonel

Francisco da Costa Gomes, ejected safely and was rescued by Portuguese forces.622

During the next few years, the PAIGC also published photos of propeller-driven aircraft

618 Curtis, North American F-86 Sabre, 173; Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 104. Between August 1963 and October 1964, seven of the eight F-86Fs stationed at Bissalanca were damaged (or in the one case, destroyed) by ground fire.

619 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 117. The Alouette II was the immediate predecessor to the more capable Alouette III, and served in Guinea in very small numbers until 1965.

620 Barbeitos de Sousa, ―Esquema da Palestra, ‗A F.A. na Guiné, 1963-1965,‖ Annex I.

621 See, for example, PAIGC, ―Communiqué,‖ 26 July 1966, Ronald H. Chilcote Collection. University of California-Riverside Library, 1.

622 Arnaldo Sousa, ―Força Aérea Porguguesa: Seis Fiat G.91 abatitos pelo PAIGC entre 1968 e 1974,‖ Luís Graça & Camaradas da Guiné, 22 June 2007, http://blogueforanadaevaotres.blogspot.com/2007_06_17_ archive.html; Mario Canongia Lopes, 67. At the time, Lt. Col. Sousa was the of Grupo Operacional 1201 at Bissalanca, which controlled all aircraft based in Guinea. His successor, Lt. Col. Almeida Brito, was not so fortunate when his G.91 was shot down in 1973; Brito died in that engagement, which will be discussed fully in the following chapter.

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lost due to unknown causes on 7 March 1969 and 2 December 1971, although one was erroneously identified as a Fiat G.91 jet fighter-bomber.623 From 1970 to the end of

1972, the PAIGC claimed a total of ten aircraft and twelve helicopters destroyed by guerrilla air defense action,624 but again, these claims remain somewhat suspect: a review of FAP Alouette III serial numbers and their ultimate disposition, for example, reveals that only three helicopters were shot down by the PAIGC, and only during the years 1966, 1969 and 1970. An additional machine was destroyed in an accident.625

Cabral indirectly acknowledged the generally lackluster performance of PAIGC air defenses in December 1968 when he lamented ―the weakness of our means of anti- aircraft defense and our forces‘ lack of experience in this field.‖626 He reiterated his disappointment the following year, criticizing his militants for their

lack of courage to engage aircraft, despite knowing well that the more we fire on aircraft, the more they fear our actions and the pilots act hesitantly. Though we know that [some of] our comrades were able to fight against the tuga aircraft with extraordinary courage, others have still not followed this example.627

623 PAIGC, ―Action Intense au Front Est, ou la Situation Devient Critique Pour Plusieurs Garnisons Colonialistes (PAIGC Actualités nos. 37-38 [January-February 1972], 8), 8; PAIGC, ―Le 23 Mars, à la Sortie de , Ancienne Capitale, Sutuée dans l‘Ile du Même Nom, Deux Camions de l‘Armée Coloniale Sautent sur des Mines Placées par un Commanddo Spécial de Notre Armée Régulière‖ (PAIGC Actualités no. 3 [March 1969], 8), 8.

624 Amílcar Cabral, Aucune Manoeuvre ou Crime des Colonialists Portugais Ne Sera a Meme d’Eviter la Victoire Ineluctable de Notre People Africaine: Rapport Bref sur la Lutte in 1971 (Conakry, Guinea: Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, January 1972), 17; Amílcar Cabral, Unity and Struggle, 216; Amílcar Cabral, Our People Are our Mountains, 39.

625 ―História dos Alouette III na Guerra Colonial,‖ http://www.saltimbancos.net/downloads/Historia_ Alouette_III.pdf. Thirty-two additional Alouette IIIs were lost to all causes in Angola and Mozambique.

626 Amílcar Cabral, Revolution in Guinea: An African People’s Struggle, 92.

627 Amílcar Cabral, A Acção Armado e os Métodos Militares (Bissau, Guinea-Bissau: Departamento de Informação, Propaganda e Cultura do CC do PAIGC, 1988), 4.

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However, and despite Cabral‘s repeated exhortations to bravery, PAIGC air defense gunners had long enjoyed the respect of their FAP enemies. Colonel Krus Abecasis,

ZACVG commander in the mid-1960s, personally acknowledged the courage of the

PAIGC‘s anti-aircraft gunners, particularly their determination to remain at their posts and engage FAP aircraft ―indifferent to the risks they incurred.‖ His experiences and observations prompted Abecasis to remark, ―I wondered if we might find such courage among Portuguese servicemen.‖628 General Manuel Diogo Neto also admitted ―we must recognize their courage, since they stood firm grasping their weapons‖ despite opposition from the air.629 Such tenacity, and even the handful of losses caused by PAIGC air defenses, mandated a Portuguese response.

Portuguese Countermeasures and Suppression Efforts

The FAP employed a variety of methods to contend with the PAIGC‘s growing anti-aircraft capability, the simplest of them entailing modified mission profiles to minimize exposure to ground-based threats. For example, the FAP recognized early in the war that altitudes between 200 and 1,500 feet posed the greatest risk of damage from small arms fire, while operations above or below that envelope were deemed relatively safe. Consequently, most reconnaissance flights were conducted between 1,500 and

2,000 feet, or down to 1000 feet at a minimum, to balance pilot safety and visual

628 Quoted in Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 111.

629 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 321.

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acuity.630 The FAP also developed tactics for suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) missions concurrent with bombing attacks, a function that fell increasingly to Fiat G.91 fighter-bombers after 1965. PAIGC air defense gunners unwisely emplaced their weapons in fixed positions protected by parapets in open terrain, which significantly aided FAP pilots in locating and destroying the offending guns.631

When the PAIGC threat appeared significant enough to warrant more than mere suppression, however, the FAP would mount major operations specifically designed to neutralize that threat permanently. Three such operations against PAIGC anti-aircraft positions took place during the 1960s, all of them in southern Guinea where anti-aircraft activity was most intense. The first, Operation Resgate (―Deliverance‖), took place on the nights of 17 and 19 December 1965 in response to the guerrillas‘ introduction of 20 mm anti-aircraft cannons in the Cantanhez region. On both nights the FAP began its attacks by flying C-47s as ―bait‖ over suspected anti-aircraft positions, which obligingly opened fire in the direction of the aircraft‘s noise. The muzzle flashes gave away their positions, and two P2V-5 Neptune bombers—as well as the C-47, which had been modified to carry bombs—unloaded their ordnance on the PAIGC positions. During the second night, a pair of two T-6s also joined in the attack, which reportedly silenced anti- aircraft activities in the area for several months.632

630 Barbeitos de Sousa, ―Esquema da Palestra, A F.A. na Guiné, 1963-1965,‖ 2-3.

631 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 321.

632 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 109.

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The following August, the FAP swung into action again during Operation Estoque

(―Stock‖), a response to increased anti-aircraft activity on the Quitafine peninsula. This area differed from Cantanhez in that it was home to a relatively dense civilian population, and the FAP recognized that ―to bomb it indiscriminately was to condemn the population to certain death and, worse, would give survivors a compelling reason to support the guerrillas.‖633 As a result, the operation began with leaflet drops advising civilians to evacuate the area. On 9 August, the FAP returned—this time dropping ordnance, not leaflets, as a modified C-47 attacked known anti-aircraft positions in the area. Although poor weather suspended operations on 10 August, they resumed the following day when

G.91s attacked four of the remaining anti-aircraft sites. Throughout the operation, the

FAP expended a total of 6,800 kg of bombs and air-delivered grenades against the gun emplacements.634

The third such effort, Operation Vulcano (―Volcano‖) took place in March 1969, although planning for the mission began the previous December when 14.5 mm ZPU-4 anti-aircraft guns were first sighted in the Cassebeche region. Unlike the previous two operations, Vulcano would culminate in a helicopter assault by 120 paratroopers, backed by seven G.91s and an unspecified number of helicanhões (cannon-armed helicopters).

By the time the mission was finally underway, however, the PAIGC‘s anti-aircraft guns in the area had multiplied ―like mushrooms.‖ Although the FAP destroyed two emplacements during its initial attack runs, an additional five remained in operation and

633 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 110.

634 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 110-111.

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damaged two G.91s, which subsequently limped back to Bissalanca. Worse for the paratroops, the helicanhões supporting the mission could not provide effective support given the continuing anti-aircraft fire; some guns were also leveled at the assault forces, who lacked comparable heavy weaponry with which to respond. Facing a potential rout, the paratroops withdrew far short of achieving their objectives. The operation still attained some measure of success, however: the PAIGC reportedly suffered some 19 killed and 32 wounded during the engagement, and subsequently withdrew its anti- aircraft weapons from the area. The ―disaster of Cassebeche‖ prompted Cabral to seek more powerful anti-aircraft weapons for his forces, ultimately leading to the PAIGC‘s acquisition of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles in 1973.635

The Curious Case of the “MiG Threat”

The FAP faced other potential threats than those on the surface, however.

Although Portugal initially assumed that ―the FAP would not have to fight to obtain air superiority,‖ many in the upper echelons of command began to question that assumption by 1969.636 On 19 March that year, the FAP Chief of Staff ordered the ZACVG command to conduct ―an urgent study of protective measures for aircraft stationed at

635 Silva, ―The Portuguese Air Force in the African Wars of 1961-1974,‖ 119-120.

636 Miranda, ―El Empleo del Arma Aérea en la Lucha Antiguerrilla,‖ 596.

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BA12 [Bissalanca] against eventual air attacks from the exterior.‖637 The instruments of these feared attacks would presumably be the handful of MiG-15 and MiG-17 fighters stationed in Guinea-Conakry and .638 Although the threat would likely be mitigated by pilot inexperience and abysmal operational rates, ―the possibility of an attack by a single aircraft, flying low, did exist, and it necessitated some precautions.‖639

However, the Portuguese in Guinea lacked suitable air detection and tracking capabilities, while the FAP‘s own anti-aircraft capability was ―practically nil.‖ What little AAA

Figure 7.3. MiG-17 (NATO reporting name FRESCO) fighter in Vietnamese markings (photo by the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force; in the public domain).

637 Estado-Maior da Força Aérea—3a Repartição, ―Informação No. 169: Medidas para Protecção de Aeronaves da BA12,‖ 1a Divisão Aérea/3a Divisão EMFA/Comando Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon 1.

638 In 1974, Guinea-Conkry‘s air order of battle included a total of eight MiG-17s, provided as a ―status‖ air force by the USSR. Barry C. Wheeler, ―World Air Forces‖ (Flight International 106, no. 3414 [15 August 1974], 167-190), 175.

639 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 323.

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capability the Portuguese had in theater was antiquated, critically short-manned, and entirely limited to the main Portuguese air base at Bissalanca.640

Subsequent studies proffered a number of different recommendations, including the acquisition of additional AAA for Bissalanca, the purchase of modern long-range to detect and locate airborne targets, procurement of U.S. ―Redeye‖ surface-to-air missiles, and modification of G.91 fighter-bombers to allow them to carry ―Sidewinder‖ air-to-air missiles.641 At one point the FAP even considered returning F-86 fighters to

Guinea as interceptors, and by the beginning of 1971 two of these aircraft had reportedly been disassembled and crated for transport to Bissalanca.642 Each of these proposals required additional funding, however, which proved difficult to come by while Portugal expended half of its national budget fighting three wars in Africa.643

Of all these proposals, the deployment of U.S.-manufactured AIM-9B

―Sidewinder‖ missiles on the FAP‘s G.91 fighter-bombers proved especially problematic.

640 Secretariado-Geral da Defesa Nacional—1a Repartição, ―Defesa Aérea da Guiné—Possibilidades de Actuação Aérea do PAIGC,‖ 09 December 1969, 1a Divisão Aérea/3a Divisão EMFA/Comando Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 5, 10.

641 Estado-Maior da Força Aérea—3a Repartição, ―Informação No. 169,‖ 5. Estado-Maior da Força Aérea—3a Repartição, ―Informação No. 104: Defesa Aérea da Guiné,‖ 28 April 1970, 1a Divisão Aérea/3a Divisão EMFA/Comando Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 2.

642 Maj. Alberto Cruz, e-mail message to the author, 29 July 2009. Cruz also notes that the deployment was cancelled abruptly, presumably due to political pressure from the United States.

643 Estado-Maior da Força Aérea—3a Repartição, ―Informação No. 104: Defesa Aérea da Guiné,‖ 2; George E. Carl, ―Review: Portugal e o Futuro, análise da conjuntura nacional by António de Spínola‖ (Journal of Southern African Studies, October 1974, 120-122), 121; Joseph C. Miller, ―The Politics of Decolonization in Portuguese Africa‖ (African Affairs, April 1975, 135-147), 136; Sidaway and Power, ―‗The Tears of Portugal‘,‖ 532; Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 12, 44; Fields, The Portuguese Revolution and the Armed Forces Movement, 226.

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Based on a subsequent operational evaluation, the FAP concluded that the scheme would

―not lead to satisfactory results‖ because ―the missile‘s operating characteristics are clearly at a disadvantage compared to the performance of its probable adversaries.‖644

The FAP then experimented with employing the G.91 as an air-defense fighter using the machineguns already mounted in the aircraft, but this solution too proved less than optimal. Then-Lieutenant Miguel Pessoa recalled that ―we started to train [for] air-to-air combat at the end of our missions; I don‘t have good memories of those flights because, absorbed in the training, I found myself several times, at the end, flying at unsafe altitudes in potentially hostile areas.‖645 His colleague Major Alberto Cruz, who had flown both F-86 fighters and G.91 fighter-bombers, was rather more adamant in his assessment. ―The Fiat never could have been used as a fighter aircraft with machineguns,‖ he asserted. ―In the Fiat, air-to-air combat was impossible‖ [emphasis in original], not least of all because it lacked a gunsight suitable for air combat.646

Indications of a potential air threat to Guinea continued to mount, however, demanding some kind of solution. A ZACVG assessment reported that ―The of

Bissau was overflown by two jet aircraft that presumably came from the Republic of

Guinea‖ in March 1971, an episode allegedly repeated on 2 and 3 March 1973.647

644 Estado-Maior da Força Aérea—3a Repartição, ―Informação No. 104: Defesa Aérea da Guiné,‖ 11.

645 Pessoa, 16 April 2009.

646 Cruz, 27 July 2009. The G.91 featured an optical gunsight optimized for air-to-ground strafing, rather than a radar-aimed gunsight that could more effectively track maneuvering targets and compensate for wind and ballistic arc.

647 Comando Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné, ―Potencial Aéreo dos Países Limítrofes,‖ 1973, 1a Região Aérea Guiné—Militares Portugueses em Serviço na Guiné Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 1-2.

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Although some FAP personnel discounted these reports, their headquarters in Lisbon and

Bissau continued to fret over the possibility of air attack.648 Of particular concern was the reported, and widely believed, deployment of Nigerian MiG-17 fighter bombers to

Guinea-Conakry in 1971.649 Subsequent publications have claimed that Nigerian aircraft conducted ―regular reconnaissance flights‖ over Guinea, presumably in preparation for air attacks against Portuguese positions.650 These reports have never been corroborated, and subsequent research has in fact produced first-hand testimony that the aircraft in question belonged to the Guinea-Conakry air force and were piloted by Cubans.651

The true air threat to the Portuguese lay much closer to home, so to speak: the reported formation of a PAIGC air force. In 1973 the PAIGC reportedly sent 40

648 Alberto Cruz, for example, informed the author that ―There is no certainty that the MiGs based in Guinea-Conakry‘s territory overflew ours. There existed a certain distrust in our commands that this occurred.‖ He also noted that ―The story of MiGs in Guinea was always the butt of jokes between our pilots. It was a threat from our Headquarters.‖ He suggested that reports of MiG sightings by ground troops may have been mis-identifications of FAP G.91s, which bear a superficial similarity to MiG-15s and MiG-17s from certain angles. Cruz, 27 July 2009; Cruz, 29 July 2009.

In addition, and despite numerous published accounts to the contrary (such as Tom Cooper, African MiGs: MiGs and Sukhois in Service in Sub-Saharan Africa [Vienna: SHI Publications, 2007], 77, 81), the author has found no substantiated reports of MiG attacks against Portuguese forces in Guinea, or air-to-air battles between FAP aircraft and those from any other African nation.

649 Comando Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné, ―Potencial Aéreo dos Países Limítrofes,‖ 1.

650 Flintham, Air Wars and Aircraft, 98. For additional accounts of purported ―Nigerian MiG‖ activity over Guinea, see Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 29; Bishop, ed., The Aerospace Encyclopedia of Air Warfare, Volume Two, 216; and Cooper, African MiGs, 78.

651 Gleijeses, The First Ambassadors, 78 ff. There had been a few minor incidents involving ―enemy‖ aircraft during the conflict, however. During the Biafran War (1967-1970) a single Gloster jet, illegally smuggled out of Britain and intended for the Biafran secessionists, was forced to land at Bissalanca due to mechanical trouble. In 1971, a Republic of Guinea Air Force An-14 light transport, apparently delivering weapons to the PAIGC, landed at Bissalanca by mistake. Helicopters were reportedly also used to supply guerrillas in Guinea, and at least one was intercepted by FAP G.91s and forced to land at Bissalanca. See Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 42-43, 81, 121; and Flintham, Air Wars and Aircraft, 98.

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personnel to the USSR for pilot training, with an expected completion date between

February and April 1974.652 Luís Cabral later confirmed at least part of the story when he admitted ―We already had [in April 1974] a group of militants who were being trained as pilots in the Soviet Union. They went there while Amílcar was still alive….They were the basis for the air force of independent Guinea.‖653 Such a development would have represented a ―devastating blow to Portuguese forces,‖ according to a U.S. diplomatic assessment, while senior Portuguese officers contended that the PAIGC‘s use of aircraft would prove ―fatal‖ to the Portuguese war effort.654 ―The day that they had aviation would be a serious problem for us, because we had all of our facilities in the open,‖

Spínola conceded in a 1986 interview. ―Guinea was full of targets for PAIGC aviation, while we did not have theirs, since they were in the bush.‖655

The prospect appeared sufficiently grave that, by October 1973, the Portuguese again petitioned the United States for permission to purchase additional military hardware for use in Guinea. Specifically, the Portuguese insisted on ―Redeye‖ SAMs, going so far as to threaten American use of military facilities in the Azores if their request

652 Gen. , ―General Paradoxo,‖ in José Freire Antunes, ed., A Guerra de África (1961-1974), vol. 1 (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996); 121; American Embassy Lisbon, teletype message, 080945Z AUG 73, to Secretary of State, 8 August 1973, 1.

653 Luís Cabral, ―Prender Spínola,‖ 546. This despite Amílcar‘s assertion in 1970 that ―if [the Soviets] give us planes, we would not be a liberation movement. The liberation movement must be poor with no heavy weapons, trying to do the best by themselves.‖ Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Report on Portuguese Guinea and the Liberation Movement, 13.

654 American Embassy Lisbon, message to Secretary of State, 8 August 1973, 2; Francisco da Costa Gomes, ―General Paradoxo,‖ 121.

655 Quoted in Josep Sanchez Cervelló, ―La Inviabilidad de Victoria Portuguesa en la Guerra Colonial: El Caso de Guinea-Bissau‖ (, September-December 1989, 1017-1044), 1041.

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were denied.656 The U.S. appeared to acquiesce, at least privately, after Portugal permitted American use of the Azores in support of its resupply airlift to Israeli during the October 1973 War.657 At one point Secretary of State Kissinger adamantly promised

Foreign Minister Ruis Patricio that Portugal would receive the air defense missiles it needed, ―even if I have to shoot a few of my colleagues in the State Department.‖658 In the end, however, no American air defense missiles of any type made their way to

Portugal, let alone to Portuguese forces in Guinea. Then again, the PAIGC‘s nascent air force never had the chance to join the fight before the Portuguese coup of 1974.

In the meantime, the FAP also continued to petition for the purchase of other air defense equipment, including the U.S.-manufactured AN/APR-41 radar system.659 Once again, however, fiscal limitations plagued the issue: the proposed radar purchase would cost 54 million Escudos, more than a quarter of the armed forces‘ budget in Guinea.660

Thus the bureaucratic debate over how best to meet the potential air threat continued until

656 American Embassy Lisbon, teletype message, 130755Z OCT 73, to Secretary of State, 13 October 1973, 1, 3; U.S. Department of State. ―Secretary‘s Staff Meeting November 26, 1973,‖ 27 November 1973, 2, 4.

657 As Secretary of State Kissinger informed his staff on 29 October 1973, ―We are not going to do anything against Portugal, after what they have done.‖ U.S. Department of State, ―Secretary‘s Staff Meeting October 29, 1973,‖ 31 October 1973, 13.

658 U.S. Delegation Riyadh, teletype message, 150752Z DEC 1973, to Secretary of State, 15 December 1973, 6.

659 Secretariado-Geral da Defesa Nacional, 3a Repartição, ―Defesa Aérea da Guiné,‖ 6 March 1974, 1a Divisão Aérea/3a Divisão EMFA/Comando Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 2.

660 Estado-Maior da Força Aérea, 3a Repartição, ―Instalação de Equipamentos IFF nas Aeronaves dos T.O. Ultramarinos,‖ 24 January 1974, 1a Divisão Aérea/3a Divisão EMFA/Comando Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 2; ―Defense Expenditures‖ (Lourenco Marques Radio, 15 February 1973), translated and transcribed in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1268,‖ JPRS 58296, 22 February 1973.

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just six weeks before the military coup of 25 April 1974, when the General Secretariat for

National Defense at long last approved many of the recommendations proposed as early as 1969, as well as the purchase of two French-made surface-to-air missile batteries. France actually delivered the first of those batteries to Portugal in early 1974, but following the 25 April coup the system was resold to a third party.661

While the various Portuguese headquarters grappled with the problem of establishing a viable air defense, the PAIGC continued to develop its own anti-air capability. Even though no ―guerrilla MiG‖ appeared in the skies over Guinea during the latter half of the conflict, an equally novel threat did make its debut during the war‘s final thirteen months. The PAIGC‘s use of this new system would soon shake the Portuguese

Air Force to its foundation, initiating a cascade of effects that ultimately brought down the entire imperial structure. That story begins in March 1973, the month that inaugurated ―The Year of the Missiles.‖662 When that year was over, so was the war,

Portugal‘s centuries-long colonial enterprise, and the Estado Novo regime itself.

661 Secretariado-Geral da Defesa Nacional, ―Defesa Aérea da Guiné,‖ 10 March 1974, 1a Divisão Aérea/3a Divisão EMFA/Comando Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné Collection. Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 1-4, 8; Estado-Maior da Força Aérea—3a Repartição, ―Instalação de Equipamentos IFF nas Aeronaves dos T.O. Ultramarinos,‖ 2; Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 323.

662 Manuel Catarino, As Grandes Operações da Guerra Colonial, 1961-1974, XIV: O Terror does Mísseis—Guiné, 1973 (Lisbon: Correio da Manhã, 2009), 18.

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Chapter 8 – The Unholy GRAIL663

A “Precious Weapon”

In the early 1970s the PAIGC leadership felt increasing pressure to find an effective riposte to Portuguese air power, particularly if the insurgency was to progress to the planned ―decisive‖ phase of conventional offensives.664 As planning for that transition gathered pace, PAIGC leaders took stock of both their advantages and weaknesses relative to the Portuguese. As reported by Luís Cabral, the party elite quickly recognized that

The anti-aircraft weapons we used did not constitute a serious danger for aviation, much less for the ‗Fiats‘ of the colonial air force. We managed to knock down some aircraft and helicopters, but we were not in a position to challenge the enemy‘s aviation as a whole…. the introduction of more modern anti-aircraft weapons would allow us to take the war into its final phase, since the plans of the colonial headquarters were based exclusively on the basis of their superiority in aviation compared to our capabilities.665

Any such anti-aircraft weapons had to meet certain specific criteria. They had to be capable enough to threaten Portuguese air superiority, particularly its most advanced

663 Mario Canongia Lopes, ―Portugal‘s Ginas,‖ 68. GRAIL is the NATO reporting name for the Strela-2.

664 The initial offensive, planned in detail by Amílcar Cabral prior to his assassination in January 1973, was originally to be called ―Operation Kitafina.‖ Following the PAIGC leader‘s death, the campaign was re- christened ―Operation Amílcar Cabral.‖

665 Luis Cabral, Crónica da Libertação, 433.

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aircraft—the Fiat G.91. They also needed to be sufficiently light and compact to transport, in whole or dismantled, by foot over trails and through the bush, for all PAIGC equipment was delivered this way to prevent their detection and destruction by

Portuguese aircraft.666

Just such a system received a great deal of publicity in mid-1972, thanks to its successful use during North Vietnam‘s ―Easter Offensive‖ against the South. It seems highly unlikely that the PAIGC leadership, so media-savvy in so many other respects, would have remained oblivious to the flurry of press reports regarding Strela-2 use during that campaign.667 To cite Luís Cabral‘s recollections of this period once again,

We learned about the existence of a lightweight and highly efficient Soviet weapon for anti-aircraft defense. Amílcar did not hesitate to make a special visit to Moscow, to explain the situation to Soviet authorities and ask for the delivery of this precious weapon. The advantages to our struggle were obvious, and the prestige and confidence gained by our action was sufficient to give us hope that our request would be granted.668

Clearly both brothers had high hopes regarding the missile‘s availability and its potential effect on the Guinean battlefield. On 9 July 1972 Amílcar Cabral wrote a letter to Pedro

Pires, at the time a regional PAIGC military commander and Chairman of the PAIGC

National Commission for Cape Verde, in which he reported ―I leave today for the USSR, where I will see if I can convince our friends to give us the Strela which could

666 ―The War the Portuguese Are Losing,‖ , April 27, 1968, 21.

667 See, for example, William Beecher, ―Sixth Carrier in War Zone‖ (The New York Times, 5 May 1972, 1, 21; ―Report Reds Use Rocket Fired from Shoulder‖ (Chicago Tribune, 9 May 1972, 5); and ―New N. Viet Missile Causes Changes in U.S. Pilots‘ Tactics‖ (-Times Herald, 15 July 1972, A12). Luís Cabral, however, hinted that the PAIGC leadership received its initial notification of the Strela-2s characteristics and capabilities directly from a Soviet official. Luís Cabral, ―Prender Spínola,‖ 539.

668 Luis Cabral, Crónica da Libertação, 433.

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qualitatively change the struggle. I will return within the week. I hope to encounter good news.‖669 As was his habit when traveling abroad, Cabral flew from Conakry (which also hosted the PAIGC‘s headquarters) to his ultimate destination.670

During his July 1972 visit to Moscow, Cabral met with senior Soviet officials to discuss the missile‘s delivery to the PAIGC.671 Apparently a second visit was necessary, however, because Cabral returned to to Moscow that December under the pretext of participating in celebrations marking the USSR‘s 50th anniversary.672 This second visit evidently sealed the deal, for Cabral‘s 1973 New Year‘s message—his last public address before his death—contained a tantalizing hint of what was to come:

We must acknowledge that the enemy, possessing more planes and helicopters provided by its NATO allies, has significantly increased its bombing…we could and should have done more and better. This is what we must do and certainly will do in 1973, especially as we are going to use more powerful arms and other weapons of war on all fronts [emphasis added].673

Any remaining doubts among the PAIGC leadership were doubtless dispelled at Cabral‘s funeral, when members of the Soviet delegation reported that the request for Strela-2 missiles had been approved.674 The delegates also directed the new PAIGC leaders to

669 Amílcar Cabral, Letter to Pedro Pires, 9 July 1972, Amílcar Cabral Collection. Fundação Mário Soares Arquivo e Biblioteca, Lisbon, 1

670 In all, Cabral made 89 foreign visits between 1960 and late 1972. Dhada, Warriors at Work, 173.

671 Dhada, Warriors at Work, 179.

672 During this visit, Cabral also ―met with the leaders of the host country who assured him of the continued and unconditional support of the USSR for the struggle of our people.‖ Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, ―Our Party in Africa and in the World‖ (PAIGC Actualités Quarterly English Edition, nos. 49-50 [January-February 1973], 4), 4.

673 Amílcar Cabral, ―A Sua Última Mensagem ao Povo da Guiné e Cabo Verde (Janeiro de 1973),‖ January 1973, Ronald H. Chilcote Collection, University of California-Riverside Library, 4-5.

674 Luís Cabral, ―Prender Spínola,‖ 539.

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ready an initial group of trainees to send to the USSR for instruction. Manuel dos Santos, a senior guerrilla with the nom de guerre ―Manacas,‖ led the first contingent and later commanded the PAIGC‘s Strela-2 detachments.675 ―We were all instructed in the Soviet

Union,‖ Manacas recalled.676 Meanwhile, the first Strela-2s intended for the PAIGC arrived in Conakry during mid-March 1973. They were immediately rushed to the battlefronts of Guinea, where they would see action within a week.677

While the PAIGC‘s motivations for acquiring the Strela-2 were both obvious and well-documented, very little serious study has been devoted to Soviet decision-making regarding this episode. Some observers have suggested that the end of U.S. involvement in Vietnam freed up large stocks of the missiles that had been intended for PAVN use.678

However, this conclusion ignores the fact that the PAVN continued to employ the missiles at an accelerating clip after the Vietnamese ―cease-fire‖ of January 1973.

Indeed, the increasing number of Strela-2s launched against South Vietnamese aircraft

―indicate[d] multiple weapon teams, better coordination, and more available weapons‖

[emphasis added], according to a 1975 U.S. Air Force study.679 At least one author has

675 Catarino, As Grandes Operações da Guerra Colonial, 1961-1974, XIV, 12; Luís Cabral, ―Prender Spínola,‖ 539.

676 Santos, ―Disparar os ‗Strela‘,‖ 727.

677 Dhada, Warriors at Work, 50. Although the precise delivery method remains unclear, most military and other aid for the PAIGC arrived in Conakry by ship. Gleijeses, The First Ambassadors, 51.

678 Dhada, Warriors at Work, 186; Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 58; Silva, ―The Portuguese Air Force in the African Wars of 1961-1974,‖ 120.

679 Maj. Robert S. Delligatti and Capt. John F. Milner, ―DAO VNAF Combat Loss Analysis, 28 January 1973 – 26 ,‖ Defense Attaché Office Air Force Division, U.S. Embassy Saigon, 1975, in USAF Collection, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL, 10, 12.

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suggested that the USSR delivered the missiles to Guinea ―partly to offset setbacks in

Egypt,‖ presumably referring to the poor performance of the Strela-2 during the 1969-

1970 War of Attrition.680 However, as noted in a previous chapter, the Soviets publicly inflated their claims during that conflict to such an extent that a later move to ―offset the setbacks‖ would actually amount to admitting those setbacks.

Although most Russian archives regarding Soviet involvement in Africa remain sealed,681 a reasonably complete understanding of the USSR‘s motivations can be pieced together from information currently available. First, the USSR saw a measure of theoretical justification in undertaking such an endeavor, given a growing sense of ideological affinity with African liberation movements. General Secretary Leonid

Brezhnev suggested as much at Communist Party congress in February 1971, when he declared ―The struggle for national liberation in many countries has in practical terms begun to grow into a struggle against exploitative relations, both feudal and capitalist,‖ indicating the potential utility of such movements in the global struggle between communism and its ideological opponents.682 That same year, Soviet ideologues developed the concept of ―revolutionary democracy‖ and held up the PAIGC as one exemplar. Their struggle was consequently seen to represent ―the shattering of outdated social relations and the construction of a new and more progressive society‖—actions

680 Maxwell, ―The United States and the Portuguese Decolonization,‖ 6. The October 1973 War occurred some nine to ten months after the Soviets decided to provide the Strela-2 to the PAIGC, and the system was not available for the 1967 Six-Day War. The War of Attrition represents the only other possible option.

681 Vladimir Shubin, ―Unsung Heroes: The Soviet Military and the Liberation of ‖ (Cold War History 7, no. 2 [May 2007], 251-262), 252.

682 A. Kiva, ―Africa: The National-Liberation Movement Today‖ (Soviet Military Review, February 1973, 50-51), 50.

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perceived as necessary steps towards the construction of true , and hence to the creation of regimes friendly to the USSR.683

However, Soviet ideologues had been burned in Africa before, particularly in the early 1960s when , Ghana, and defected from the ―socialist‖ fold. The USSR subsequently pursued a more pragmatic approach in which ―a sober assessment of the geopolitical value of individual countries‖ determined Soviet policy in Africa.684 These assessments included an understanding of sub-Saharan Africa‘s strategic importance to the West, particularly as regarded maritime trade and transit routes from the Southern

Hemisphere, the Persian Gulf, and the .685 The USSR also evinced a desire to appease its greatest Western success story, Cuba, while frustrating Chinese designs in the region. As subsequent events in Angola would more fully demonstrate, Havana could on occasion exert considerable influence over Moscow‘s foreign policy decisions, and the main object of Cuban attention in Africa during the early 1970s was Guinea.686

683 V.G. Solodovnikov, A.B. Letnev, and P.I. Manchkha, ed., Politicheskiye Partii Afriki (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Political Parties of Africa,‖ JPRS 52950, 23 April 1971), 69-70.

684 Maxim Matusevich, ed., Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2007), 310.

685 Gavriel D. Ra‘anan, The Evolution of the Soviet Use of Surrogates in Military Relations with the Third World, with Particular Emphasis on Cuban Participation in Africa (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, December 1979), 46.

686 Odd Arne Westad, ―Moscow and the Angolan Crisis, 1974-1976: A New Pattern of Intervention‖ (Cold War International History Project Bulletin 8, no. 9 [Winter 1996], 21-32), 21; Piero Gleijeses, ―Havana‘s Policy in Africa, 1959-76: New Evidence from Cuban Archives‖ (Cold War International History Project Bulletin, 8-9 [Winter 1996/1997], 5-18), 6. In the same essay (12) Gleijeses also notes that ―Havana firmly believed that it had a duty to help those who were struggling for their freedom….As a PAIGC leader said, ‗The Cubans understood better than anyone that they had the duty to help their brothers become free‘.‖

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Regarding China, the deepening Sino-Soviet rift dominated the two states‘ relations with African nations and liberation movements during the 1960s and 1970s.687

The USSR ultimately won that particular contest, at least in Guinea: despite considerable early assistance from China, including guerrilla training in the People‘s Republic, by

1967 the PAIGC relied most heavily on Soviet equpment and Cuban advisors.688

By the early 1970s, then, ideology and began to converge in a

―somewhat more bullish‖ Soviet policy towards Africa. Encouraged in part by leftist coups in Libya, , and , the Soviet leadership adopted a more activist

African strategy in 1970.689 As Odd Arne Westad noted, ―The Portuguese colonies—

Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and Cape Verde—were particularly interesting from a Soviet point of view both for political and strategic reasons.‖690 The latter included a desire to use port facilities and airfields in Guinea and Cape Verde to facilitate

Soviet activities in the South Atlantic. Although this desire was ultimately thwarted, in 1972-1973 the prospect must have seemed enticing enough to warrant the delivery of a few dozen missiles and a handful of launchers.691

687 Tareq Y. Ismael, ―The People‘s Republic of China and Africa‖ (The Journal of Modern African Studies 9, no. 4 [December 1971], 507-529), 510.

688 Henriksen, ―People‘s War in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau,‖ 390; Ismael, ―The People‘s Republic of China and Africa,‖ 518.

689 U.S. Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research, ―USSR-Africa: Soviets Increasing Aid to African Liberation Fronts,‖ 11 August 1970, 2.

690 Westad, ―Moscow and the Angolan Crisis,‖ 22.

691 Robert D. , ―The Soviet Presence in Africa: An Analysis of Goals‖ (The Journal of Modern African Studies 22, no. 3 [September 1984], 511-527), 513; Ra‘anan, The Evolution of the Soviet Use of Surrogates in Military Relations with the Third World, 46-47. Of course, the USSR also provided other heavy weapons, most notably 122 mm rocket launchers, which the PAIGC employed to great effect against Portuguese fortifications.

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One other element must have figured into Soviet decision-making, however, and in retrospect it may have been a decisive one: Amílcar Cabral‘s personality and force of persuasion. Almost universally respected, Cabral was possessed of ―a personality exuding forcefulness and authority, blended with an undeniable old world charm,‖ according to a South African journalist who interviewed him.692 Even senior American officials, such as the U.S. Ambassadors to Senegal and Guinea-Conakry, described themselves as ―very favorably impressed‖ with the PAIGC‘s charismatic leader.693

According to his brother, however, Cabral took special care to turn on the charm when dealing with Soviet representatives. ―Amílcar, with his personal rapport, always managed to personally interest Soviet officials in our struggle,‖ Luís Cabral recalled:

For example, he knew that one of them collected stamps and, when touring other African countries, he always arranged stamps for this official. Another liked African statuettes, and Amílcar did not forget. This motivated people. It was so when one of these friends told us about the Strela and that we might acquire them. Amílcar then went to Moscow and negotiated its delivery.694

For the price of a persuasive argument, and perhaps a few stamps or statuettes, Amílcar

Cabral thus managed to acquire a ―precious weapon‖ so desperately needed to escalate— and ultimately, to win—the struggle for Guinean independence. It seems ironic that he did not live to see the results, having died two months before the first Strela-2 engagements against Portuguese aircraft in the territory, but the missile ultimately attracted a wider audience than even the Cabral brothers could have anticipated.

692 Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 112.

693 Gleijeses, ―The First Ambassadors,‖ 58; Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 185, 194.

694 Luís Cabral, ―Prender Spínola,‖ 539.

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“The Year of the Missiles,” March 1973 – April 1974695

Although the Portuguese security service, the Direcção Geral de Segurança

("General Security Directorate,‖ abbreviated DGS),696 first received word of the possibility in 1972, the introduction of the Strela-2 in Guinea came as a complete surprise to the pilots who would have to contend with it.697 The PAIGC launched its first Strela missiles on 20 March 1973 against a pair of G.91s piloted by Lt. Col. Almeida Brito, the commander of the 1201st Operational Group, and then-Lt. Miguel Pessoa. The missile passed between the two, so close to Brito‘s aircraft that he felt it shake. Two days later the PAIGC salvoed another missile against a Do-27; it also missed, but the pilot subsequently called for additional aircraft to strike the suspected launch site. Two G.91s responded, which were in turn targeted by two additional missiles. A fourth missile for the day was fired against yet another G.91 dispatched to the scene, passing so close that the pilot of the targeted aircraft, Capt. Pinto Ferreira, reported that he felt the missile‘s shockwave.698

695 Catarino, As Grandes Operações da Guerra Colonial, 1961-1974, XIV, 18.

696 Formerly the Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (―International and State Defense Police,‖ or PIDE), the organization was renamed in 1969.

697 Pessoa, ―Um ‗Fiat‘ Abatido,‖ 987.

698 Catarino, As Grandes Operações da Guerra Colonial, 1961-1974, XIV, 13-14; Pessoa, ―Um ‗Fiat‘ Abatido,‖ 987; José Pinto Ferreira and Miguel Pessoa, ―A Introdução do Míssil Russo SAM-7 Strela no CTIG,‖ Luis Graça & Camaradas da Guiné, 9 February 2009, http://blogueforanadaevaotres.blogspot.com/ 2009/02/guine-6374-p3859-fap-6-introducao-do.html.

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The PAIGC‘s missile crews would not actually down an aircraft until 25 March

1973, when Miguel Pessoa‘s G.91 absorbed the full impact of a Strela-2. Flying at 300 meters in support of the Portuguese garrison at Guiledje, Pessoa‘s aircraft was hit in the rear quadrant. ―At that altitude, sincerely, I did not even see the Strela,‖ Pessoa later recalled. ―I was completely dumbfounded.‖ He subsequently lost both engine power and flight controls, and ―felt the airplane sink quickly. I decided that was enough and I ejected.‖ Breaking his leg in the low-altitude ejection, Pessoa spent the next twenty hours in the forest until a team of 25 paratroopers and 14 commandos rescued him. He was fortunate in one respect: the PAIGC team that shot him down ―did not look for me for two reasons: first, they did not see me ejecting because everything happened at a very low altitude; also, they were so satisfied by having hit an air target for the first time that it was time to celebrate and they left me alone.‖699

For its part, the PAIGC claimed four Portuguese aircraft destroyed between 23

March and 25 March.700 In fact they had downed a single aircraft for six reported launches, but most of the FAP‘s pilots in Guinea suspected something new and superlatively dangerous was afoot. Their commander, however, refused to acknowledge the possibility; for his part Lt. Col. Brito insisted that the offending weapons must have

699 Pessoa, ―Um ‗Fiat‘ Abatido,‖ 987-989; Pessoa, http://www.correiodamanha.pt/noticia.aspx?channelid= 00000009-0000-0000-0000-000000000009&contentid=00245439-3333-3333-3333-000000245439#. Pessoa later married the para-nurse who tended to him, Giselda Antunes, who survived a Strela-2 attack herself on 6 April 1973.

700 PAIGC, ―Action de nos Forces Armees Revolutionnaires du Peuple (F.A.R.P.) contre l‘Armee Expeditionnaire Portugais du 20 Janvier – Date du Lâche Assassinat du Camarade Amílcar Cabral, fondateur et Secrétaire Général de Notre Parti – au 8 Avril 1973,‖ May 1973, Thomas H. Henriksen Collection, the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, California, 20-21.

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Figure 8.1. Lt. Pessoa‘s rescue (photo courtesy of Miguel Pessoa; used with permission).

Figure 8.2. Lt. Pessoa‘s return to BA12 – Bissalanca; note the champagne bottle (Photo courtesy of Miguel Pessoa; used with permission).

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been rocket-propelled grenades, long a fixture in the PAIGC‘s arsenal.701 Ironically,

Brito himself would become the Strela-2‘s next victim, losing his aircraft—and his life— on 28 March 1973.702 While on a bombing raid against a suspected meeting of PAIGC notables at Madina do Boé, Brito‘s G.91 was shot down by a Strela-2 operator identified only as ―Fode.‖ Brito perished in the engagement, and according to a regional press account his body was ―devoured the following night by the hyenas.‖703 The PAIGC duly claimed Brito‘s aircraft on 28 March, as well as an additional five on 6 April.704

Figure 8.3. Lt. Col. Brito‘s name on the memorial wall, Monumento ãos Combatentes do Ultramar, Belem, Portugal. The abbreviations on the right indicate the casualty‘s rank (photo by the author).

701 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 112.

702 Pessoa, ―Um ‗Fiat‘ Abatido,‖ 989.

703 Halim Mokdad, ―Portuguese Said To Be on Defensive‖ (El Moudjahid, 4 September 1973, 1, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1382,‖ JPRS 60293, October 16, 1973), 1; Ferreira and Pinto, ―A Introdução do Míssil Russo SAM-7 Strela no CTIG,‖ http://blogueforanadaevaotres.blogspot.com/2009/2/guine-6374-p3859-fap-6-introducao-do.html. Ferreira was Brito‘s wingman on 28 March 1973, when the latter was shot down and killed.

704 PAIGC, ―Action de nos Forces Armees Revolutionnaires du Peuple (F.A.R.P.) contre l‘Armee Expeditionnaire Portugais du 20 Janvier – Date du Lâche Assassinat du Camarade Amílcar Cabral, fondateur et Secrétaire Général de Notre Parti – au 8 Avril 1973,‖ 22, 25; American Embassy Conakry, teletype message, 121230Z APR 73, to Secretary of State, 12 April 1973, 1.

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In reality, the FAP lost three aircraft on 6 April, two Do-27s and a T-6. The first

Do-7 lost had been on a MEDEVAC mission when it ―disappeared;‖ the second Do-27 and the T-6 were shot down while participating in a search and rescue mission for the missing Do-27. That same day, a Strela missile passed so close to a third Do-27 that it damaged the aircraft‘s controls, forcing the pilot to return to Bissalanca.705 The FAP lost more aircraft and personnel on 6 April 1973 than on any other day of the war: three aircraft, three pilots, a medical lieutenant, and a para-nurse, as well as an Army battalion commander and a patient of undetermined service affiliation.706 As General Ferreira noted of the FAP‘s costliest day of the war, ―When a force has a nucleus of sixty or seventy people, and loses five percent of its capacity in just one afternoon, in two or three hours, things become very complicated. An infantry soldier could be trained in a month and a half, but training a pilot takes much longer.‖707

The FAP would suffer only one other confirmed loss to PAIGC Strela-2s. On 31

January 1974, while attempting to support the besieged Portuguese garrison at Copa, a

G.91 suffered a missile hit and crashed over the border in Senegal. The pilot ejected successfully, and after making contact with local inhabitants found his way back to friendly forces.708 One other incident remains a subject of speculation, however: on

705 Pessoa, ―Um ‗Fiat‘ Abatido, 989; Ferreira and Pinto, ―A Introdução do Míssil Russo SAM-7 Strela no CTIG,‖ http://blogueforanadaevaotres.blogspot.com/2009/02/guine-6374-p3859-fap-6-introducao-do.html. The third targeted Do-27 was the aircraft carrying Giselda Antunes, Mighel Pessoa‘s future wife.

706 Pessoa, ―Um ‗Fiat‘ Abatido,‖ 989; Abreu, Diário da Guiné, 92.

707 Ferreira, ―No Ceú da Guiné,‖ 591-592.

708 American Embassy Lisbon, Portuguese Aircraft Shot Down in Guinea, message to U.S. Secretary of State, February 27, 1974, 1; ―Military Activity in Second Half of January Reported‖ (O Seculo, 10

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Figure 8.4. Confirmed Strela-2 launches in Guinea: 1) 20 March 1973, 2). 22 March 1973, 3). 25 March 1973, 4). 28 March 1973, 5). 6 April 1973, 6). 31 January 1974 (graphic based on United Nations Map 4063, Revision 3, June 2004; used with permission).

4 October 1973, a G.91 piloted by Captain Alberto Cruz crashed while on a strafing run against PAIGC forces. The official FAP conclusion was that a machinegun access port accidentally opened in flight, causing serious damage to the aircraft, though at least one other source contends the PAIGC shot the aircraft down with anti-aircraft machinegun

February 1974, 8, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1447,‖ JPRS 61501 (March 18, 1974), 8.

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fire.709 The pilot, however, has related persuasive evidence that his aircraft took a Strela-

2 hit, including the nature of the ―impact,‖ his flight parameters at the time, cockpit warning indications (―almost total illumination of the warning lights‖), and information later acquired from PAIGC militants operating in the area.710 Nonetheless, since the incident was not acknowledged as a Strela-2 kill, it did not figure into the missile‘s subsequent impact on Portuguese forces and the Portuguese war effort.

At most, then, the FAP suffered seven aircraft losses to PAIGC Strela-2 missiles, along with four pilots. PAIGC claims continued to mount, however, ultimately rising to ridiculous heights. By August 1973, the guerrillas claimed to have shot down 18 aircraft in just over four months, including 12 Fiat G.91s—the maximum that the FAP ever stationed in Guinea at any one time.711 By April 1974 that purported tally had more than doubled to 41 aircraft, including at least 25 G.91s; these numbers equated to 82% of the

FAP‘s fleet in Guinea and more than twice the maximum inventory of G.91s ever assigned to the territory.712 By way of contrast, a declassified ZACVG assessment notes a total of eight losses for the period January 1973 to June 1974—six to the Strela-2 and

709 Cruz, 27 July 2009; Arnaldo Sousa, ―Força Aérea Porguguesa: Seis Fiat G.91 abatitos pelo PAIGC entre 1968 e 1974,‖ Luís Graça & Camaradas da Guiné, 22 June 2007, http://blogueforanadaevaotres. blogspot.com/2007_06_17_archive.html

710 Cruz, 27 July 2009.

711 PAIGC, ―War Communique‖ (PAIGC Actualités Quarterly English Edition, No. 51 [March and Special Edition: April-August 1973], 9), 9.

712 Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, ―Communiqué,‖ 7 September 1973, 1; Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, ―Communiqué,‖ 15 October 1973, 1; ―NCNA Reports Victories of Guinea-Bissau Patriots‖ (New China News Agency, 12 January 1974, translated and transcribed in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1421,‖ JPRS 61041, 22 January 1974); ―PAIGC Claims Portuguese Plane Shot Down 10 April‖ (Agence France Presse, 25 April 1974, translated and transcribed in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1472,‖ JPRS 62007, 16 May 1974); Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 84.

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two to anti-aircraft fire—in the course of 94 reported surface-to-air engagements.713 The last incident involving a Strela-2 missile occurred in April 1974, when the PAIGC targeted and missed a civilian airliner belonging to Transportes Aéreos da Guiné

Portuguesa.714 That same month, a military coup toppled the Estado Novo regime and determined the fate of both Portugal and Guinea. The relationship between the diminutive air defense missile and the destiny of those two nations is the subject of the following chapter.

713 Comando Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné, ―Atingimentos/Alvejamentos/Flegelaçoes,‖ June 1974, 1a Região Aérea Guiné—Militares Portugueses em Serviço na Guiné Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 1-14; Mario Canongia Lopes, ―Portuguese Ginas,‖ 68.

714 Brandão, Cronologia da Guerra Colonial, 437.

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Chapter 9 – Ripples to Riptide

Considerable caution is warranted when assessing the effects and impact of any wartime development. Before making any such attempt, one must first acknowledge that

―tracking and weighing causal flow in military history is inevitably imprecise, and the attributing of effect is often deductive and subjective, if not impressionistic.‖715 This holds especially true when attempting to determine ―higher order‖ effects well beyond an event‘s immediate impact. Clearly, many other variables factored into the Guinean war‘s ultimate resolution, including economic, political, and social trends that may have been more important to a long-term view of the outcome.

However, as the following pages will endeavor to demonstrate, the PAIGC‘s

Strela-2 use did more to determine the timing and the precise form of that resolution than any other factor. Furthermore, the historical record shows that participants at the time— both guerrilla and Portuguese—perceived the PAIGC‘s new air defense capability as the war‘s pivot. As one Portuguese veteran remarked to the author, for example, ―There were two different periods: before the missiles, and after.‖716 This chapter consequently discusses the progression of the missiles‘ effects from their immediate impact on the FAP to their ultimate influence on both belligerents, the war itself, and Portugal‘s future.

715 Roger Beaumont, War, Chaos and History (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), 47.

716 Cruz, 27 July 2009.

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The Impact: First- and Second-Order Effects

Portuguese Air Force losses directly attributed to the Strela-2 represent the most immediate, or ―first-order,‖ impact of the missile‘s use in Guinea. In fact, the Strela-2 arguably enjoyed its finest hour in Guinea, downing six to seven aircraft for 45 to 48 reported missile launches. This translates to a ―probability of kill‖ (or ―Pk‖ in U.S. military shorthand) between 12 and 16 per cent, considerably higher than the 8.5% achieved in Vietnam between April 1972 and January 1973, and two orders of magnitude

717 greater than the Strela-2‘s Pk during the October 1973 War (0.03% to 0.13%). The six to seven destroyed aircraft and four lost pilots translated to at least eleven per cent of the

FAP‘s aircraft inventory in Guinea at the time and eight per cent of its available pilot manpower.718 More significantly, the four confirmed Fiat G.91s downed by SAMs accounted for a full third of the FAP‘s most potent aircraft in Guinea; considering that a total of six G.91s were lost to all causes during this period, the FAP‘s inventory of the type was in fact halved. The impact of these losses was further magnified by the near impossibility of acquiring newer and more capable aircraft, or even more of the types then in use.719

717 Zaloga, Soviet Air Defense Missiles, 239-240. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Egyptian and Syrian forces fired between 4500 and 6825 missiles against Israeli aircraft, scoring two confirmed kills and four additional possible victories. .

718 Brito, untitled status report for Grupo Operacional 1201, 4; Comando da Zona Aerea de Cabo Verde e Guiné, Base Aérea No. 12, ―Qualificação e Experiència de Pilotos e Navegadores,‖ 1-2.

719 João de Melo, Os Anos da Guerra, 1961-1975: Os Portugueses em África; Crónica, Ficção e História (Lisbon: Publicações Dom Quixote, 1988), 118.

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Replacement pilots were in similarly short supply, as were officers generally:

Portuguese applications saw a precipitous decline during the 1960s, and only 33 entrants were accepted in 1969, compared to the decade‘s high of 266 in 1962.

Given the dwindling accessions of ―regular‖ officers entering the Army and Air Force while the armed forces continued their wartime expansion, the government was compelled to rely increasingly on conscript officers, or ―milicianos,‖ who dominated the lower officer ranks by 1973 and 1974.720 This affected the FAP as much as it did the

Army; by 1971 at the latest, most of the Portuguese pilots stationed at Bissalanca were conscripts.721 Experienced professional officers and combat pilots such as Lt. Col. Brito were consequently rare, and becoming more so.722

Yet the impact of Strela-2 use extended much further than the mere fact of lost equipment and personnel. In several respects the PAIGC‘s employment of these air defense missiles directly affected the FAP as a whole, and those developments represent the second-order impact of the missile‘s employment in Guinea. Simply put, ―The Air

Force‘s reaction was terrible,‖ according to one of its generals.723 That reaction degraded the FAP‘s flexibility, operational efficacy, and morale.

720 Maxwell, The Making of Portuguese Democracy, 37; Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 72. Although a separate Naval academy existed during this period, a separate Portuguese air force academy (Academia de Força Aérea) was not established until 1978.

721 Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 166-167. Maj. Alberto Cruz also related the presence of numerous conscript pilots in Guinea during his tenure from 1973-1974; Cruz, 27 July 2009.

722 Brito had accumulated nearly 6,000 flying hours and was qualified on four aircraft when he was shot down. Base Aérea 12, Grupo Operacional, 1.

723 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 321.

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Although the FAP had confirmed PAIGC Strela-2 use by 2 April 1973, it remained unprepared for the carnage that occurred four days later, on 6 April.724

According to the ZACVG‘s parent command, the 1st Air Region, the loss of three aircraft on that single day resulted in a stand-down of all operations in Guinea on 7 and 8 April, followed by a ―very emphatic reduction of all air activity‖ over the next four days.

Afterwards some aircraft, notably the FAP‘s C-47s and T-6s, continued to maintain a

―much reduced‖ rate of operations.725 The operational effect of a total stand-down during wartime cannot be overemphasized. During the opening days of the October 1973 War, for example, Israeli Air Force commander General Benjamin Peled was compelled to order a two hour stand-down in the face of murderous losses to Syrian and Egyptian

SAMs, and Israel nearly lost the as a result.726 Even in a less intense, much more prolonged conflict such as the Guinean campaign, a two-day hiatus must have seemed interminable to Army forces under fire or wounded soldiers awaiting evacuation, particularly as PAIGC attacks had begun to increase and intensify in preparation for

―Operation Amílcar Cabral.‖727

724 Comando Serviço de Informações Militares, 3a Região Aérea, ―Relatório de Informacões No. 05.73, Armas Antiaéreas Inimigas,‖ 2 April 1973, 1a Região Aérea Guiné—Militares Portugueses em Serviço na Guiné Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 1.

725 Comando 1a Divisão Aérea, ―Resumo da Actividade Aérea na ZACVG – Período 7 de Abril / 8 de Maio,‖ 11 May 1973, 1a Divisão Aérea/3a Divisão EMFA/Comando Zona Aérea Cabo Verde e Guiné Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 1-2.

726 Maj Clarence E. Olschner, ―The Air Superiority Battle in the Middle East, 1967-1973‖ (Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Command and General Staff College, 1978), 49; Richard P. Hallion, Storm over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 60.

727 To illustrate the scale of PAIGC‘s operational acceleration, consider the total number of attacks reported by the party: compared to 498 guerrilla operations carried out in the territory in 1972, the PAIGC conducted 1077 armed actions in 1973—the highest number of operations for any single calendar year of the war. Dhada, Warriors at Work, 171.

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By 2 May the FAP had developed some valid information regarding counter- measures and counter-tactics, particularly those American methods that had ―proved to be practical‖ in Vietnam. These included abrupt evasive maneuvers (or ―a rapid descent, as if simulating auto-rotation‖ in the case of helicopters), the use of infrared decoys such as flares, and technical modifications such as thermal shielding.728 The installation of dispensers or heat shields would be some time in coming, however: the decision to procure the former was not made until 18 April 1974—one week before the coup—and no such action was ever taken in the case of the latter.729 This left maneuvering. The

FAP‘s G.91 pilots soon learned that a 3 to 4 g turn was enough to evade a Strela-2 in flight, assuming the pilot saw it in time. Older, slower piston-engined aircraft could not execute such maneuvers, however, and as a result Do-27 use was severely curtailed, and the T-6 was retired from combat operations altogether.730

On 29 May 1973 General Spínola issued Directive 20/73, which imposed additional restrictions on air operations. These included a requirement that all aircraft operate in pairs at a minimum, a general prohibition against flight operations between

200 and 6,000 feet, and compulsory maneuvering if aircraft did fly within those altitudes.

In addition, the directive mandated spiral take-offs and descents for all aircraft and forbade repeated use of the same flight routes, ―at least not within short periods of time.‖

728 Estado-Maior da Força Aérea, ―Míssil Strela,‖ 2 May 1973, 1a Região Aérea Guiné—Militares Portugueses em Serviço na Guiné Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 5-6.

729 Secretária do Estado da Aeronautica, Gabinete do Secretário de Estado, ―Equipamento Antimíssil STRELA (TRACOR),‖ 18 April 1974, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 1. The FAP was specifically interested in the U.S.-made Tracor TBC-72 and flare dispenser.

730 Ferreira and Pinto, ―A Introdução do Míssil Russo SAM-7 Strela no CTIG,‖ http://blogueforanadaevaotres.blogspot.com/2009/2/guine-6374-p3859-fap-6-introducao-do.html.

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The directive further prohibited cargo drops by parachute from transport aircraft, cancelled all flights to several remote fields serving Army garrisons, significantly reduced the number of recovery and MEDEVAC missions (as well as the locations where they could be conducted), and placed limitations on sortie durations.731

The restrictions mandated by Directive 20/73 had a number of deleterious effects on the FAP‘s operations. The order to vary flight routes, for example, significantly compromised reconnaissance missions that depended on the ability to spot changes in a given area.732 Additionally, the mandatory spiral take-offs and descents caused significant wing and stress in many types of aircraft, such as the Do-27, the T-6, and the Noratlas, which further limited their employment.733 Furthermore, restrictions on where transports and helicopters could operate significantly degraded the FAP‘s ability to supply and otherwise support its surface counterparts. As one FAP bluntly reported, ―Transport aircraft could not fly anymore because they were a very easy target.‖734 In general, all FAP operations were reduced in certain locations, particularly border areas—those same areas where the PAIGC conducted most of its infiltration and supply activities, and where the Portuguese Army maintained some of its most critical garrisons.735

731 Nuno Rubim, ―Dos Strellas à Op Amílcar Cabral‖ (presentation, Simpósio International de Guiledje, Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, 5 March 2008); Vaz, Guiné 1968 e 1973, 62-63.

732 Vaz, Guiné 1968 e 1973, 63; Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 116.

733 Cruz, 27 July 2009.

734 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 321.

735 American Embassy Lisbon, teletype message, 271453Z FEB 74, to Secretary of State, 27 February 1974, 2.

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The most ―mission-ineffective‖ of the directive‘s mandates, however, involved the altitude restrictions. Tactical aircraft simply could not bomb below 200 feet and hope to escape their ordnance‘s blast pattern, so they were forced to bomb from much higher altitudes than was previously the norm—typically, from 8,000 feet.736 Target acquisition difficulties and poor bombing accuracy naturally resulted, given the unguided weapons used by the FAP in Guinea.737 One observer who witnessed fourteen G.91 raids during this period noted that their flight profiles were ―too high to be effective in bombing.‖

Granted, the altitude restrictions removed much of the risk now inherent in bombing operations, but the consequent inability to accurately hit targets also removed the bombers‘ very raison d‘être.738

All indications suggest Directive 20/73 was intended as a temporary measure until more permanent solutions to the Strela-2 threat could be implemented. One proposed solution entailed a complete recapitalization of the FAP‘s fleet in Guinea, featuring more modern and capable aircraft better able to withstand a missile hit. At a meeting of

Portuguese commanders in Guinea on 15 May 1973, the attendees finalized a list of

―requirements‖ to be sent to Lisbon, detailing the material they needed if they were to successfully prosecute the war. The FAP‘s surreally optimistic request included eight

Shorts ―Skyvan‖ transports, five helicopter gunships in the U.S. AH-1 ―Cobra‖ class, and

736 Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, ―High Altitude Bombings Destroy Several Villages in the South‖ (PAIGC Actualités Quarterly English Edition, nos. 56-57 [December 1973-January 1974], 3), 3; Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 321.

737 Melo, Os Anos da Guerra, 118.

738 American Embassy , teletype message, 100930Z APR 74, to Secretary of State, 10 April 1974, 2.

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twelve Dassault Mirage fighters.739 None of these aircraft were acquired, nevermind deployed to Guinea, prior to the end of the war.740

The Portuguese also sought a lasting solution to the Strela problem from the

U.S.—technical counter-measures, detailed counter-tactics information, or preferably both. In particular, the FAP knew that tactics and equipment developed for use in

Vietnam would be ―of much greater value for the security of our pilots as well as our aircraft.‖741 Portugal pursued their requirements through a variety of military and inter- governmental avenues, including a personal request from the FAP‘s deputy chief of staff in May 1973.742 The Portuguese Ministry of Defense also loaned recovered missile fragments to the U.S. for analysis, clearly in the hopes that the move would result in the provision of effective counter-measures or, at least, information on Strela-2 counter- tactics.743 In mid-May, the U.S. did agree to release some information regarding Strela-2 performance to Portugal, but only through ―normal NATO channels.‖744

739 Rubim, ―Dos Strellas à Op Amílcar Cabral,‖ 5 March 2008.

740 The effort to procure Mirage V fighters from France did, however, gain considerable traction during the Estado Novo‘s final years. Between 1971 and 1972, the Secretary of State for Aeronautics and the Minister of Defense proposed the purchase of 64 of the French aircraft. The Chief of the Air Force revised this number to 32 in 1972, with a proposed cost of 1,920,000,000 escudos (approximately $70 million in 1972). The Mirage V featured the advantages of multi-role capability (air-to-air and air-to-ground), relatively long range, Mach 2 speed, and simplicity of maintenance. Other contending aircraft to fulfill the FAP‘s fighter requirement were the U.S.-made Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter and the McDonnel F-4 Phantom II—the FAP‘s number two and three choices, respectively (José Matos, ―O Caso dos Mirages,‖ working paper awaiting future publication, 4 August 2009, 4-5.

741 Comando Serviço de Informações Militares, 3a Região Aérea, ―Armas Antiaéreas Inimigas,‖ 10.

742 American Embassy Lisbon, teletype message, 151410Z MAY 73, to Secretary of State, 15 May 1973, 1.

743 American Embassy Lisbon, teletype message, 081615Z MAY 73, to Secretary of State, 8 May 1973, 1.

744 U.S. Secretary of State, teletype message, 172111Z MAY 73 to American Embassy Lisbon, 17 May 1973, 1.

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Portugal‘s entreaties continued, particularly at the higher levels of inter- governmental interaction. Portugal‘s ambassador to the U.S., João Hall Themido, was specifically instructed by his Foreign Minister to alert American officials that the

Portuguese were ―very concerned over [the] recent loss of five planes in Portuguese

Guinea‖ and to complain that, while the PAIGC‘s sponsors dispatched sophisticated equipment to the guerrillas, ―Portugal receives nothing from its friends.‖ The Portuguese

Foreign Minister, Ruis Patricio, also relayed Lisbon‘s concerns directly to his U.S. counterparts.745 The Portuguese even tried to indirectly blackmail the U.S. into fulfilling their requests by linking their withdrawal of illegally-acquired, US-manufactured B-26 bombers from Angola to the provision of counter-measures and counter-tactics.746

All of these requests were denied. ―Despite insistent requests by the commands that had to face this threat,‖ FAP General Manuel Diogo Neto later recalled, the acquisition of suitable counter-measures and counter-tactics ―never occurred.‖747 Instead,

FAP aircrews had to settle for a new paint job. The Portuguese fleet, originally painted light gray to reduce the heat absorbed during prolonged exposure to tropical sunlight, now received a dark green finish that would presumably curtail the amount of heat an aircraft reflected, thereby reducing its thermal signature. The new scheme was applied to all FAP aircraft in Guinea, as well as in Mozambique and Angola, but the solution proved somewhat less than satisfactory as the paint soon peeled and faded, resulting in a shabby,

745 U.S. Secretary of State, teletype message, 020025Z MAY 73, to American Consulate Lourenco Marques, 2 May 1973, 2.

746 American Embassy Lisbon, teletype message, 031208Z MAY 73, to Secretary of State, 3 May 1973, 1.

747 Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 321.

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worn appearance.748 The new colors also failed to prevent the loss of another G.91 on 31

January 1974, for the Strela-2 homed on an aircraft‘s engine exclusively—the only surface hot enough to attract its seeker. That the FAP was willing to consider and try anything to reduce the risk demonstrated a fair degree of institutional creativity and resourcefulness, but also hinted at a sense of desperation.

Indeed, the initial spate of losses to the Strela-2 shocked, saddened, and worried the FAP‘s pilots, who had been used to operating in a relatively benign environment before the spring of 1973.749 Particularly after the losses of 6 April, ―an unsettled climate developed among the pilots. Nobody refused to fly, but mistrust appeared, mainly among those who operated aircraft with limited performance.‖750 Portuguese paratroop

Lieutenant António Graça de Abreu chronicled one example of aircrew apprehension in his diary entry of 29 March 1973, after meeting with a friend and FAP pilot. ―He seemed worried to me, scared,‖ Abreu wrote. ―We had lunch together, but he hardly touched his food, he fixed his eyes on nothing. We drank some vintage whiskey he brought to my room, and I livened him up as much I was able.‖ Ironically, the pilot in question,

Sergeant Baltazar da Silva, died in a Strela-2 engagement one week later.751

The sudden sapping of morale due to military calamity was hardly unique to the

FAP in 1973; the same fate had befallen armies throughout the history of warfare. The

748 Miranda, ―El Empleo del Arma Aérea en la Lucha Antiguerrilla,‖ 598; Mario Canongia Lopes, ―Portugal‘s Ginas,‖ 68.

749 Cervelló, ―La Inviabilidad de una Victoria Portuguesa en la Guerra Colonial,‖ 1039.

750 Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 112.

751 Abreu, Diário da Guiné, 91.

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importance of the ―moral domain,‖ as described by J.F.C. Fuller,752 has consequently drawn the attention of military theorists and commentators as diverse as Clausewitz and

Mao Zedong. As the former remarked,

The moral elements are among the most important in war. They constitute the spirit that permeates war as a whole, and at an early stage they establish a close affinity with the will that moves and leads the whole mass of force, practically merging with it, since the will itself is a moral quantity.

While Clausewitz acknowledged that moral factors ―cannot be classified or counted,‖ he correctly observed that this in no way denigrated their reality and impact.753

Many concerns can degrade these moral factors, but the risk of death and the loss of comrades have been identified as two of the most prevalent wartime stressors for any combatant, including an aircrew member. Effective enemy anti-aircraft weaponry can correspondingly exert an adverse impact on aircrew psychology, particularly among those most at risk from such weapons.754 Indeed, ground-based air defenses generated more fear among Allied bomber crews during the Second World War than any other category of weapon. Even though opposing fighter aircraft were responsible for more deaths and aircraft losses, ―many Allied veterans preferred to face almost anything rather

752 See Maj. Gen. J.F.C. Fuller, The Foundation of the Science of War (London: Hutchinson & Co., Ltd., 1925), for his development of this concept. Briefly, Fuller‘s ―moral domain‖ of war (as opposed to the physical and cognitive domains) incorporates such elements as will, motivation, and courage; though difficult to bound or quantify, the moral domain is both critically important and as vulnerable to enemy action as a force‘s physical assets.

753 Clausewitz, Carl von, , trans. Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 184.

754 Catherine Joseph, ―An Overview of Psychological Factors and Interventions in Air Combat Operations‖ (Indian Journal of Aerospace Medicine, Winter 2007, 1-16), 2, 6. For recent examples involving the U.S. Air Force, see Phillip T. Hamilton, ―Fear and Loathing in the Air: Combat Fear and Stress in the Air Force (Maxwell AFB, AL: School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, June 2005).

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than the threat of anti-aircraft guns over their targets.‖755 This development derived from the psychological impact of flak: the first indication of its use was generally an explosion near, against, or within an aircraft. Unlike an attacking fighter plane, the anti-aircraft weapons theselves remained unseen and anonymous to bomber crews, and ―Men are sometimes less afraid of what they can see.‖756 Additionally, bombers could do precious little against offending AAA sites, although they carried guns to ward off enemy fighters.

The FAP could, and often did, take action against PAIGC anti-aircraft gun emplacements, but in 1973 and 1974 the Strela-2 inherited many of the attributes that made flak so terrifying during the Second World War. Operated by small teams or a single individual, usually launched from concealed positions, the Strela-2 reclaimed anonymity and invisibility for ground-based air defenses. The FAP‘s pilots consequently found themselves denied the opportunity to strike back at their tormentors, and as was the case thirty years earlier, ―If there was an identifiable tendency, it was to fear things more that one felt helpless against.‖757

These results, and the actions that led to them, were certainly not unique to the

FAP. Other air forces have lost far more aircraft in a comparable period of time and persevered, ultimately to prevail.758 Furthermore, air forces have often suffered seemingly intolerable losses due to the introduction of new defensive weapons, only to

755 Mark K. Wells, Courage and Air Warfare: The Allied Aircrew Experience in the Second World War (London: Frank Cass, 1997), 43.

756 Wells, Courage and Air Warfare, 44, 63.

757 Wells, Courage and Air Warfare, 67.

758 Perhaps the most prominent historical example was the U.S. Army Air Force‘s bomber offensive in Europe during the Second World War.

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adjust their tactics and press on.759 The FAP did exactly that, and their efforts, for the most part, proved successful. What made the case of Guinea unusual, however—if not unique—was the higher-order impact the employment of air defense weapons exerted on the overall conduct and outcome of the war.

Strela-2 Impact: Third-Order Effects

The Portuguese Air Force managed to recover somewhat from the unanticipated loss of five aircraft in March and April 1973. New operational restrictions limited, but did not completely negate, the FAP‘s combat effectiveness; new defensive tactics returned losses to earlier norms, with only one confirmed missile ―kill‖ after 6 April; and

FAP morale correspondingly rebounded.760 Much like the effects of a stone thrown into a pool, however, the Strela-2‘s impact would widen far beyond the point where rock and water actually met. Indeed, the missiles‘ ripples soon began to spread throughout

Guinea, ultimately lapping upon other—and more important—shores further afield.

If the first- and second-order impacts affected the FAP exclusively, the Strela-2‘s third-order effects can be said to have affected the subsequent course and conduct of the war in general, particularly through the medium of a reinvigorated PAIGC campaign.

759 Examples include the USAF after the introduction of SAMs in Vietnam in 1965 and the Israeli Air Force during the October 1973 War.

760 Miranda, ―El Empleo del Arma Aérea en la Lucha Antiguerrilla,‖ 598; Fraga, A Força Aérea na Guerra em África, 112-113; Caetano, Depoimento, 179. Lieutenant Abreu relates that, by December 1973, ―the pilots…walk relatively confidently, and it has been a long time since they have not been down-in-the- mouth.‖ Abreu, Diário da Guiné, 176.

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For the Portuguese, the overall situation ―completely degraded‖ after the missile‘s introduction.761 From the PAIGC‘s perspective, this development was almost certainly intended: the first salvoes of Strela-2s preceded the initiation of their largest offensive yet by a mere six weeks. Before that operation could commence, they needed to both neutralize Portuguese air power and reinvigorate their forces, whose confidence had been shaken by Amílcar Cabral‘s assassination the previous January. With the Strela-2‘s success, PAIGC morale skyrocketed and the military initiative passed to the guerrillas more or less permanently.762 The reduction in the FAP‘s offensive potential dealt a

―death blow‖ to Portugal‘s operational capability and prompted PAIGC military chief

―Nino‖ Vieria to euphorically proclaim, ―We have now won the war.‖763

The curtailment of air support forced a dramatic reduction in Portuguese Army offensive operations and compelled them to withdraw further into a defensive posture.

Portuguese units consequently pulled back to a reduced number of fortified positions, while conserving their strength in the absence of any realistic hope of reinforcement from the metropole.764 Indeed, Portuguese forces were so hamstrung by the loss of air superiority that they could mount only two offensive operations from March 1973

761 Cruz, 27 July 2009.

762 Melo, Os Anos da Guerra, 118; American Embassy Conakry, 12 April 1973, 1; U.S. Secretary of State, teletype message, 092137Z OCT 73, to U.S. Mission NATO, 9 October 1973, 2-3.

763 Vaz, Guiné 1968 e 1973, 60-61; Miranda, ―El Empleo del Arma Aérea en la Lucha Antiguerrilla,‖ 598.

764 António de Spínola, País sem Rumo: Contributo para a História de uma Revolução (Lisbon: Scire, 1978), 54; David Martelo, 1974: Cessar-Fogo em África (Mem Martins, Portugal: Publicaões Europa- América, 2001), 22.

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through the end of the war, both of which proved unsuccessful.765 These developments were duly noted by Portuguese troops on the front lines; as Lieutenant Abreu observed in his diary entry of 30 April 1973, ―The normal activity in our command has decreased very much. Without air support, without aircraft, significant operations are not mounted.

If there are dead or injured we don‘t have the helicopters to go for them in the bush.‖766

As noted by many other observers, Portuguese and PAIGC alike, by 1973 Lisbon had based its entire Guinean strategy on its heretofore unchallenged air supremacy.767 Denied that advantage, Portuguese forces suddenly realized ―they did not have a plan,‖ in Luís

Cabral‘s assessment.768 General Costa Gomes, chief of the Portuguese armed forces, was for his part forced to concede that the situation in Guinea ―inspire[d] the most justified apprehensions‖ given its ―gravity and prospective evolution.‖769

That evolution proved swift in coming as the PAIGC ratcheted up the pressure on

Portuguese ground forces. Having first neutralized Portuguese air superiority, the

PAIGC initiated long-planned attacks against several major Portuguese positions.770

―The war entered an extremely delicate phase, especially for the colonial army,‖

765 Chabal, Amílcar Cabral, 104.

766 Abreu, Diário da Guiné, 93.

767 Almeida Bruno, ―Libertar Guidage,‖ in José Freire Antunes, ed., A Guerra de África (1961-1974), vol. 2 (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996), 721; Martelo, 1974: Cessar-Fogo em África, 22; Luís Cabral, ―Prender Spínola,‖ 539-540.

768 Luís Cabral, ―Prender Spínola,‖ 539-540.

769 Spínola, Pais sem Rumo, 54.

770 PAIGC, ―The Proud Flag of Our Party Flies over the Guiledge Fort Captured by our People‘s Armed Forces‖ (PAIGC Actualités Quarterly English Edition, no. 51 and Special Edition [March-August 1973], 8), 8.

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according to Manuel dos Santos, who directed the guerrilla missile teams. ―And it was from this moment that we began to conduct operations of greater scope, by day.‖771 His adversary General Spínola also noted that the war entered a ―new phase‖ with the introduction of the missiles, since their success put the PAIGC ―in a situation of obvious superiority over our military.‖772 Although PAIGC activity increased nationwide, the party‘s focus first fell on three garrisons whose names would later evoke impressions of wartime horror and military futility in Portugal: Guidage, Guiledje, and Gadamael.

These three garrisons were central to Portugal‘s counter-infiltration effort, situated on the

PAIGC‘s primary routes to and from the neighboring states of Senegal and Guinea-

Conakry.773 Though well-armed and -provisioned, each of the garrisons was isolated by land and consequently forced to rely on air and river transport for resupply and reinforcement.774 Following the introduction of the Strela-2, as well as the acquisition of heavier artillery the previous year, the guerrillas launched a series of successive offensives against the forts in May 1973.

The first target was Guidage, on the Senegalese border in northern Guinea, which the PAIGC besieged from 8 May to 12 June. The FAP did its best to support the garrison

771 Santos, ―Disparar os ‗Strela‘,‖ 727-728. General Costa Gomes, the chief of the Portuguese armed forces at the time, also remarked that ―The appearance of the above-mentioned missiles marked, incontestably, the beginning of a new phase of the war.‖ Spínola, Pais sem Rumo, 54.

772 Spínola, País sem Rumo, 52-53 ff. Gen. Neto was more explicit in his postwar assessment: ―The final phase of Guinea ran badly,‖ he recalled in the 1990s, because ―The PAIGC greatly increased its level of operational activity.‖ Neto, ―Voo em Três Frentes,‖ 321.

773 Guiledje: na Rota da Independência da Guiné-Bissau (Bissau: Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisa, 2008), 3-4.

774 Afonso and Gomes, ―Guiné: Maio de 1973—O Inferno,‖ 10; Bruno, ―Libertar Guidage,‖ 719.

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and stem the onslaught, but tactical restrictions mandated by Strela-2 presence in the area robbed them of any operational effectiveness in the attack role, in effect ―leaving the surface forces unprotected.‖775 Guidage ultimately held, but only at the cost of some 100

Portuguese dead—many of whom succumbed to otherwise survivable battlefield injuries for lack of aerial evacuation. One of them, a Navy , suffered a particularly grim fate even after death: since his colleagues wanted to return the body to Portugal, they refused to bury him and instead opted for a ―field embalming‖ using quicklime and candle wax to preserve the corpse while they waited for the siege to end.776

A similar story applied to Gadamael in the south, which the PAIGC encircled and attacked with heavy artillery and infiltration raids from 31 May to 12 June. During the course of the battle, described as ―the true hell‖ by two veterans, the Portuguese suffered another 22 dead and 147 wounded. The situation appeared sufficiently grave that on 4

June the garrison commander asked permission to withdraw and evacuate his troops; he was refused and instead ordered to defend the position ―at all costs.‖ The position did in fact hold, but only after the entire battalion of paratroopers stationed in Guinea was committed to its relief. Except for those paratroopers, however, the FAP once again remained largely absent from the action.777

Of the three garrisons, the PAIGC achieved its greatest—and swiftest—success at

Guiledje, in southern Guinea. A force of some 650 heavily-armed militants began their

775 Melo, Os Anos da Guerra, 118-120.

776 Vasconcelos, ―O ‗Inferno‘ de Guidage,‖ 26, 29, 31.

777 Afonso and Gomes, ―Guiné: Maio de 1973—O Inferno,‖ 10-12. As previously mentioned, Portuguese paratroop units were at the time subordinate to the Air Force.

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attack on 18 May 1973, and only three days later the garrison‘s final radio message reported ―We are surrounded.‖778 According to Major Coutinho e Lima, the garrison commander, the rapidly deteriorating situation owed much to the lack of FAP support:

After the 25th of March 1973 requests for air support were limited, and flights of Do-27s bringing mail and fresh supplies were cancelled. We mounted ten [resupply] columns in two months, but without air support we could not depend on them…We asked for aerial evacuation but they could not provide it.779

Given his untenable position, Coutinho e Lima decided to evacuate the garrison and the adjoining tabanca (Guinean village). Shortly after the Portuguese troops and friendly civilians slipped out on 22 May, the PAIGC moved in, completing one of their greatest military coups of the entire conflict.780 Within the garrison‘s headquarters, they discovered messages from Coutinho e Lima requesting air strikes against the guerrillas, as well as replies from Bissau stating that FAP support was ―impossible.‖781

Throughout the course of the battle of the ―G‘s‖782 the PAIGC operated in a manner unthinkable just a few months before, given the earlier risks of exposure to air attack. Now, however, insurgent units attacked by day in formations up to battalion size, with heavy weaponry such as 122 mm rocket launchers, 130 mm cannons, and 120 mm

778 Afonso and Gomes, ―Guiné: Maio de 1973—O Inferno,‖ 10.

779 Quoted in Abecasis, ―Duas ‗Praxis‘ de Comando,‖ http://www.revistamilitar.pt/modules/articles/ article.php?id=360.

780 PAIGC, ―The Proud Flag of Our Party Flies over the Guiledge Fort Captured by our People‘s Armed Forces,‖ 8.

781 Rob Bishoff, ―José Araujo Says PAIGC Prospects Good,‖ De Waarheid (Amsterdam), February 11, 1974, 3, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Research Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1444,‖ JPRS 61450 (March 12, 1974), 28; Mokdad, 1; Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 211.

782 As called by Dr. Leopoldo Amado, a Guinean historian.

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mortars.783 These attributes have historically been more characteristic of conventional armies than guerrillas, and air power practitioners have typically enjoyed great success in attacking them. Even with the limited assets at the FAP‘s disposal, Portuguese airmen would likely have met with similar success if they could have operated with any reasonable assurance of security. That the PAIGC was able to deploy and attack with such impunity illustrates not only the Strela-2‘s impact on the FAP, but the third-order effects on the course of the ground war in Guinea.

Strela-2 Impact: Fourth-Order Effects

The shock of the Strela-2‘s initial success, the consequent restrictions on FAP operations, and the reinvigorated PAIGC campaign all combined to sap the morale of

Portuguese ground forces, the most numerous component of the armed forces in Guinea.

This degradation of morale among the surface forces represents the fourth-order impact of the PAIGC‘s missile employment, perhaps the most critical effect in light of the events that followed. In sum, the restrictions placed on Portuguese airpower in the wake of its losses caused considerable consternation among Army personnel who would have to face the direct consequences of reduced air activity. Some of the units most affected by the new limitations feared the potential results and went so far as to accuse the Air Force of

―excessive caution‖ in fulfilling its operational obligations.784 Their fear of future

783 Afonso and Gomes, ―Guiné: Maio de 1973—O Inferno,‖ passim.; Dhada, Warriors at Work, 50.

784 Afonso and Gomes, ―Guiné: Maio de 1973—O Inferno,‖ 2; Miranda, ―El Empleo del Arma Aérea en la Lucha Antiguerrilla,‖ 598.

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developments resulted mainly from the curtailment of two FAP missions that had proven so beneficial to the ground forces in the past: air support missions against PAIGC guerrillas attacking Portuguese troops, and medical evacuation of wounded soldiers.

Regarding the first category, FAP pilots themselves realized the deleterious effects of the new restrictions. As Lt. Pessoa related, ―The pilots were the first to recognize that the new flight parameters limited the accuracy of helpful support to the forces on the ground.‖785 Whereas troops in contact with the enemy could previously expect air support within five minutes of a radio call, the ―post-Strela‖ restrictions produced delays in response time and ineffectiveness in execution. In consequence, ―The missiles completely changed the situation on the battlefield,‖ according to an Army

Captain in Guinea, Jorge Golias. ―The mood changed to one of, I do not say of total panic, but of a certain fear, a deep preoccupation with imminent defeat, of encirclement, of , of immobility.‖786 Some Portuguese troops, despairing of success in any major engagement given the FAP‘s new limitations, even resorted to making ―tactical accommodations‖ with their enemy, trading beer, tobacco, and other goods to the guerrillas in exchange for de facto cease- in their locality.787 When compelled to conduct operations in the field, even elite forces such as paratroopers ―walk[ed]

785 Pessoa, 16 April 2009.

786 Quoted in Cervelló, ―La Inviabilidad de una Victoria Portuguesa en la Guerra Colonial,‖ 1039.

787 Cervelló, ―La Inviabilidad de una Victoria Portuguesa en la Guerra Colonial,‖ 1039.

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frightened,‖ knowing that ―If the PAIGC men manage to down an aircraft or helicopter, we‘re all screwed because air support is suspended again.‖788

The drastic curtailment of medical evacuation missions reverberated even more deeply among the ground forces. In effect, the ―guardian angel‖789 had had its wings clipped, with the result that wounded soldiers could no longer be assured access to appropriate medical care within the timeframe affording the greatest chance of survival— the ―Six Hour Rule‖ enshrined in Portuguese doctrine.790 That development caused

―anxiety and depression‖ among troops at risk of combat, particularly during especially intense engagements such as the battles of May and June 1973.791 Those witnessing the gruesome results of MEDEVAC restrictions, such as the ―field embalming‖ episode in

Guidage, doubtless saw in them another source of frustration, despair, and fear that a similar fate awaited them.

Strela-2 Impact: Fifth-Order Effects

Feelings of helplessness and fear of death have often affected armies without permanently crippling an overall war effort—unless and until those feelings led to an entrenched sense of inevitable defeat. This, however, is what transpired among

788 Abreu, Diário da Guiné, 96, 124.

789 As described by Gomes and Afonso, Os Anos da Guerra Colonial 4, 90.

790 Cann, Counterinsurgency in Africa, 178. The tenet was derived from a Portuguese Army document entitled ―General Rules on Hospitalization.‖

791 Afonso and Gomes, ―Guiné: Maio de 1973—O Inferno,‖ 2.

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Portuguese forces in Guinea, and this perception also derived directly from the restrictions placed on Portuguese air power. João de Melo, a Portuguese writer and veteran of the African wars, contended that ―A wave of panic [broke] over the Portuguese soldiers: without air power—essential for covering the surface forces—it [would] be impossible to resist the offensive pressure of the guerrilla war for much longer.‖792 A veteran of Guinea later wrote of his reaction when first learning of the guerrillas‘ new air defense capability: ―I remember the day an officer walked into the mess and announced that one of our planes had been shot down by a missile,‖ this conscript officer later recalled. ―It was terrible…We knew then we were headed for defeat.‖793 Two of his comrades concurred, conceding that ―Without the Air Force…the PAIGC could have won an outright military victory in 1974.‖794 Yet another officer noted of his own commander‘s flagging spirit, ―though he‘s hard and determined, he does not advocate suicide.‖795 Such was the expected outcome of engaging the PAIGC without adequate air cover, at least from the perspective of officers serving at the tactical level.

However, these perceptions permeated the higher echelons of the Portuguese armed forces as well. General Costa Gomes, the Chief of the Portuguese General Staff, realized in May 1973 that ―the war was lost‖ due to the effective neutralization of

792 Melo, Os Anos da Guerra, 118.

793 Porch, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, 58.

794 Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 84.

795 Abreu, Diário da Guiné, 93.

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Portuguese air supremacy,796 while General Spínola informed Lisbon that ―Nothing more is possible within the province, but to wait calmly for the end….Briefly, we are drawing ever closer to the contingency of military collapse.‖797 Significantly, these dire predictions came from officers at the top echelons of the Portuguese military hierarchy.

As Clausewitz noted when discussing an army‘s ―feeling of having been defeated,‖ senior commanders are usually the first to experience that dread of impending defeat.798

Yet one need not be a combat veteran or a military theorist to recognize the ease with which the morale and will of lower ranks may be infected by such negativity among their superiors. If even the commanding general sees no point in fighting on, one may ask, why should the private soldier? ―In combat nothing succeeds like success,‖ S.L.A.

Marshall wrote in Men Against Fire. ―The knowledge of victory is the beginning of a conviction of superiority.‖799 Conversely, the mere hint of defeat is sufficient to engender panic, despair, hopelessness—even rebellion.

The historical evidence produced to date points to the prospect of military defeat in Guinea as ―the single most important factor which prompted the Portuguese revolution of April 1974.‖800 Consequently, the defeatism now prevalent within Portuguese forces in Guinea—and the resultant coup—constitute the Strela-2‘s fifth-order effects. By that

796 Guerra, Memória das Guerras Coloniais, 221.

797 Quoted in Martelo, 1974: Cessar-Fogo em África, 24.

798 Clausewitz, On War, 254.

799 S.L.A. Marshall, Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1947), 122.

800 Chabal, ―National Liberation in Portuguese Guinea,‖ 99.

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time, Portugal had essentially won its war in Angola, while Mozambique had only recently presented a significant military challenge. Portuguese forces in those theaters had largely been spared the hopelessness and the sense of impending martial doom that increasingly plagued soldiers in Guinea, but the situation in that territory led officers there to gather to discuss the war, critique it, explore ways to stop it, and ultimately establish the clandestine organization—the Armed Forces Movement, or MFA—that would do so.801 Consequently, Guinea became ―the cradle of the MFA [and] a scale model of what the MFA in Portugal was later to become.‖802 The MFA in Portugal, in turn, later led the dissident elements of the armed forces against the Estado Novo regime.

While the PAIGC‘s Strela-2 missiles were in no way exclusively responsible for that outcome, their use at a critical junction in the conflict undoubtedly helped convince these officers, to a sufficient degree, that their last avenues to potential victory had been decisively and permanently shut; the time had come to end the war by any means available, regardless of Prime Minister Caetano‘s injunction to ―hold on as best you can.‖803 The destruction of a ―mere‖ six or seven aircraft triggered the sequence of events that led to this perception—and thus, the coup it encouraged—and a lightweight, simple to use, shoulder-fired SAM led to those losses.

801 MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 99, Henry Giniger, ―War in Africa Eroded Stability‖ (The New York Times, 26 April 1974, 1, 12), 1.

802 MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 99.

803 “Aguentar como se fosse possível.” This was how Col. Carlos Fabião, one of Spínola‘s top aides and later the last Portuguese commander in Guinea-Bissau, summarized the regime‘s strategy in the territory in his account, A Descolonização da Guiné-Bissau. MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa, 42.

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Conclusions – African Butterflies, Iberian Hurricanes804

From A to Ω

The sequence described in the preceding chapter might best be visualized as a expanding helix, or a spiral of effects, tighter at the bottom to reflect the narrow range of the Strela-2‘s lowest-order impact, which was limited to the FAP. As the spiral rose, the higher-order effects exerted an ever-widening reach over a greater range of individuals and organizations, and at progressively higher levels of impact, from the tactical to the strategic and, ultimately, the geo-strategic. The process was a decidedly nonlinear affair, one in which ―Small perturbations can have large consequences,‖805 albeit through intervening mechanisms and media. If the ―Butterfly Effect‖ is a manifestation of nonlinearity in meteorology, the collapse of an empire following the loss of a half-dozen aircraft is surely an example of nonlinearity in warfare studies. Two officers recently summed up this phenomenon by correctly observing ―In modern war, events at the tactical level can have immediate impact at the strategic level….Each side‘s

804 An allusion to Edward Lorenz‘ theory of the ―Butterfly Effect,‖ popularly summarized as the notion that ―a butterfly stirring the air today in Peking can transform storm systems next month in New York.‖ James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 8.

805 Thomas J. Czerwinski, ed., Coping with the Bounds: A Neo-Clausewitzean Primer (Washington, DC: Research Program Publication Series, 2008), 116.

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rational, irrational and non-rational elements interact at all three levels of war simultaneously.‖806 Hence the unforeseen—and occasionally cataclysmic—impact of the

―strategic ,‖ or in this case, the ―strategic missilier.‖807

Figure 10.1. The ―spiral of effects‖ (graphic by Faith Anne Hurley and the author).

Such unanticipated and counter-intuitive outcomes result from the fact that war itself is an inherently nonlinear phenomenon. Historian Alan Beyerchen described such nonlinear systems as

806 Brig. Justin Kelly and Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, ―Chaos Versus Predictability: A Critique of Effects- Based Operations‖ (Security Challenges 2, no. 1 [April 2006], 63-73), 66.

807 See also Steven M. Rinaldi, ―Complexity Theory and Airpower: A New Paradigm for Airpower in the 21st century,‖ in David S. Alberts and Thomas J. Czerwinski, eds., Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1997), 258, for additional discussion of the system-altering effects of even individual actions in wartime.

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those that disobey proportionality or additivity. They may exhibit erratic behavior through disproportionately large or disproportionately small outputs, or they may involve ‗synergistic‘ interactions in which the whole is not equal to the sum of the parts.808

In other words, A does not necessarily lead directly to B, and adding 1 plus 2 may lead to a cascade of factors carrying the affected actors well beyond 3. Given the fact that wars are open systems characterized by multiple feedback mechanisms, a vast array of influences—many originating outside the system, and many so miniscule as to pass unnoticed—can throw a belligerent off his intended path, while simultaneously heaping a few extra digits onto the sum of the parts.

Warfare is an open system because, put simply, it cannot be divorced from its environment or context.809 Portugal‘s war for Guinea took place within the context of two distinct, though often interrelated and complementary, geopolitical currents: the

Cold War and decolonization. The Portuguese were fully aware of the former; indeed,

Lisbon routinely justified its determination to maintain its African territories in terms of counter-communism and ―defense of the West.‖ The inexorable nature of the latter current, however, apparently escaped them. The Estado Novo‘s leaders felt they could arrest the tide of postwar decolonization, first in their own legislature, and then on the battlefield.810 Subsequent events ultimately proved them wrong, in great part due to the

808 Alan Beyerchen, ―Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War‖ (International Security, Winter 1992-1993, 59-90), 62.

809 Beyerchen, ―Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War,‖ 69.

810 The reference to Portugal‘s legislature refers to various laws enacted during the 1950s and 1960s that refined the concept, first promulgated in the 1933 constitution, that Portugal‘s overseas territories were ―states‖ and ―provinces‖ rather than ―colonies.‖ Newitt, Portugal in Africa, 47. For the original 1933 formulation, see Political Constitution of the Portuguese Republic (Lisbon: S.N.I., 1957), 36.

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war‘s permeability. In the PAIGC‘s case dissident arguments, reports of atrocities, and pleas for assistance flowed ―out‖ from the war, especially to powers likely to aid them within the contexts of the Cold War and decolonization. Diplomatic support, offers of sanctuary, and weapons subsequently flowed ―in.‖ All of these inputs exerted considerable impact on the war‘s course, arguably none so great as that of the weapons— including, from 1973, the Strela-2.

The Portuguese certainly understood some aspects of this open system. They were fully aware of the PAIGC‘s cross-border sanctuaries; indeed, on occasion they staged major raids into Senegal and Guinea-Conakry to strike them.811 The Portuguese also knew of Communist Bloc support for the guerrillas, and routinely displayed captured weaponry to illustrate just that point.812 They apparently did not grasp, however, the lengths to which the PAIGC‘s sponsors—particularly Cuba and the Soviet Union—would go to secure Guinean independence and, simultaneously, humiliate a NATO member as part of a global strategy to confound, discredit, and ultimately defeat the West in the Cold

War.813 Moscow‘s provision of Strela-2 missiles to the PAIGC represents one of the

811 Two of the most memorable cross-border operations during the war were ―Operação Mar Verde‖ (Operation Green Sea), an amphibious raid on Conakry on 22 November 1970, and ―Operação Ametista Real‖ (Operation Royal Amethyst), an incursion into Senegal on 16 May 1973. For the former operation, see Alpoim Calvão, ―Ataque a Conakry,‖ in José Frere Antunes, ed., A Guerra de África (1961-1974), vol. I (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996), 507-518, and ―Witness Discusses November ‗Invasion‘‖ (Les Opinions Africaines, 24 December 1970, 157-159, translated and reprinted in Joint Publications Information Service, ―Translations on Africa No. 1001,‖ JPRS 52522 (3 March 1971). For a discussion of the latter, see Vaz, Guiné 1968 e 1973, 75-81.

812 See, for example, Venter, Portugal’s Guerrilla War, 48, 112.

813 As Odd Arne Westad noted, ―Moscow‘s willingness to supply such weapons [the Strela-2] implied a new dedication to support African liberation movements in forms that so far had not been seen.‖ Westad, The Global Cold War, 213.

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most important influences injected into the conflict, one that decisively changed its course and helped determine its ultimate outcome.

That and a bewildering variety of other inputs clearly confounded the Portuguese, and on occasion paralyzed them. Forced to react to a series of unanticipated PAIGC initiatives in the Spring of 1973, the Portuguese found themselves caught in a series of feedback loops—another prominent feature of nonlinear systems, and another indication of war‘s inherently complex nature. Unlike Newtonian systems, warfare ―is characterized by a complex, hierarchical system of feedback loops, some designed but many unintended and unrecognized. ‖814 In the sequence of events under consideration, the PAIGC‘s SAM use triggered a cycle of successive feedback loops and accelerated others which, from a simplified ―macro‖ perspective, saw PAIGC and Portuguese actions influencing each other at progressively more intense levels of determinism. For example, while the FAP‘s initial operating principles were based mainly on considerations of combat effectiveness in general, its later guidelines were determined primarily by the mere fact of the guerrilla missile threat. This characteristic of warfare derives from the

―emergence‖ typical of complex systems: namely, that

the interactions of agents may lead to emerging global properties that are strikingly different from the behaviors of individual agents. These properties cannot be predicted from prior knowledge of the agents. The global properties in turn affect the environment that each agent ―sees,‖ influencing the agents‘ behavior.815

814 John F. Schmitt, ―Command and (out of) control: The Military Implications of Complexity Theory,‖ in Alberts and Czerwinski, eds., Complexity, Global Politics, and National Security, 231-232.

815 Rinaldi, ―Complexity Theory and Airpower,‖ 255, 258.

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This sequence created the progression of feedback loops which determined the system‘s future properties and also influenced agents‘ perceptions and actions. Those changing properties and effects on agents then influenced subsequent interactions between them; indeed, as one analyst has concluded, ―Perception and interaction are inextricably intertwined and cannot be separated.‖816 Further complicating the dynamics, external inputs continued to perturb the entire system, while system outputs influenced future inputs.

Figure 10.2. Simplified feedback loop in Guinea (graphic by the author).

816 Ralph Strauch, quoted in Beaumont, War, Chaos, and History, 70.

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The use of the word ―may‖ instead of ―will‖ in the earlier passage by Beyerchen highlights another characteristic of nonlinear systems: their outcomes cannot be reliably predicted or reproduced. The loss of six aircraft in any other air campaign may not result in the same consequences that befell Portugal; indeed, in the whole history of air warfare to date this case is unique.817 To cite one contemporaneous counter-example, the Israeli

Air Force lost 67 aircraft—more than 11% of its total strength—during the first six days of the October 1973 War;818 yet the Israelis persevered and arguably prevailed. Why not the Portuguese in Guinea? The reasons are legion, involving factors as diverse as national wealth and industrial capacity, the perceived justness of the cause, sources of reinforcement or resupply, and strategic assumptions that are often unacknowledged or even unperceived. None of the possible reasons ―why,‖ however, detracts from the validity of the ―what,‖ which is ―the gap between what is expected or hoped for and what actually happens‖ in war. Despite the development of plans, doctrine manuals, or service regulations, there remains no way to narrow that gap to irrelevance. In fact, over-reliance on doctrine or prescriptive publications may widen it.819 An armed service that clings to its allegedly holy writ, even in the face of contradictory experience during wartime, has

817 This conclusion refers to air campaigns in wartime, not ―one-off‖ losses like the U-2 shoot-down in 1960. The only possible analogue to events in Guinea—and this is a stretch—might be the impact of shoulder-fired SAMs on the El in 1990-1991; that development, however, contributed to the conclusion of a peace agreement rather than outright defeat and ―regime change.‖

818 Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume I: The Arab- Israeli Conflicts, 1973-1989 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), 16, 90; Lon Nordeen, Fighters over Israel: The Story of the Israeli Air Force from the War of Independence to the Bekaa Valley (New York: Orion Books, 1990), 146. Of the Israeli Air Force‘s 622 aircraft, a total 109 were shot down by Arab forces during the 19-day war.

819 Beaumont, War, Chaos, and History, 35, 119; or, as he terms it on page 49, ―the gap between ordered expectations and chaotic reality.‖

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staked its fate on its own perception of what ought to be. An incisive enemy will soon recognize that kind of pattern, and a skillful enemy will find a way to exploit it. For its part, the PAIGC had proven incisive and skillful almost from its inception.

The Portuguese, however, had lulled themselves into thinking they had bridged the gap between expectations and reality, at least as regarded the air war. They had their doctrine, which they based on the experiences of other counter-insurgents fighting in other theaters; they had the aircraft and ordnance, which they employed to great effect until the missiles started flying; they had all the elements of tactical and operational leadership, courage, and tenacity an armed force could hope for. What they lacked was situational awareness and foresight: they failed to understand that their enemy consciously and consistently probed for weaknesses the Portuguese had not even contemplated. The PAIGC, in other words, fought asymmetrically, shunning force-on- force engagements in favor of hitherto atypical, unanticipated methods intended to stymie an unprepared enemy.820

The shoulder-fired SAM suited this asymmetric role perfectly. It was atypical, to be sure: no guerrilla movement had ever been entrusted with such sophisticated weaponry before, on either side of the Cold War divide.821 It was certainly unanticipated as well, at least by the pilots most immediately affected. The Strela-2 also made an ideal ambush weapon befitting the highest traditions of guerrilla warfare, despite its origins as

820 Paul F. Herman, Jr., ―: Sizing the Threat‖ (Low Intensity Conflict and Law Enforcement 6, no. 1 [Spring 1997], 176-183), 176.

821 Even the Vietnamese forces using the Strela-2 missile in 1972 were regular PAVN troops rather than Viet Cong guerrillas.

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a conventional weapon.822 No wonder its employment came as such a surprise, not only to Lieutenant Pessoa during that first successful engagement, but to the Portuguese military establishment at large: they had apparently forgotten that ―One‘s opponent is not always playing by the same rules, and is often, in the effort to win, attempting to change what rules there are.‖823

By Portugal‘s rules, A should have led directly to B. In other words, Lisbon expected that its monopoly on air power in Guinea would break the PAIGC, as dominant air forces had purportedly done to their enemies in the past. Portuguese aircraft destroyed by enemy action would be lamented, and the occasional dead pilot mourned, but the regime expected that the air force itself would press on. The PAIGC, however, changed the rules by introducing not just a new weapon, but an entirely new category of threat for which the FAP was completely unprepared. By changing the rules to such an radical extent, the PAIGC also changed the metaphorical map on which the Portuguese had plotted their intended linear course. In the end, Lisbon‘s armed forces did not find themselves sitting, smugly and victoriously, at B as expected. They found themselves somewhere far beyond it—not merely at E, having totally missed C and D; they found themselves at Ω, on a totally different map annotated in a completely unfamiliar language. The diminutive engine of a bazooka-sized missile brought them there, whatever the power behind their own weapons.

822 As discussed in Chapter, 6, shoulder-fired SAMs—both U.S. and Soviet—were originally developed to defend conventional forces, particularly at the company and battalion level.

823 Beyerchen, ―Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War,‖ 75.

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A Legacy and Alarum

The novelty of shoulder-fired SAMs has long since waned, even when employed by insurgents and other non-state entities. In fact, the PAIGC enjoyed its monopoly on guerrilla-operated SAMs for only a few short weeks: as early as May 1973, Palestinian

Liberation Organization (PLO) operatives in Lebanon had reportedly begun receiving

Strela-2 missiles, which they used to down an Israeli F-4 fighter during the October 1973

War.824 That September five PLO operatives were arrested near Rome‘s Leonardo da

Vinci in possession of two Strela-2 launchers, apparently intending to destroy an

Israeli airliner. By December 1973 Strela-2 missiles had reportedly entered the arms caches of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), a gift from Libya‘s revolutionary regime.825 The acquisition of the missiles by the PLO and PIRA reportedly

―displeased‖ the Soviet government, leading to speculation regarding the unauthorized transfer of this new class of weapons.826

In 1974 Portugal would again face the same type of missile, this time in

Mozambique. Oddly, the Rhodesians lost the first aircraft to missiliers of the Frente de

Libertação de Moçambique (Mozambique Liberation Front, abbreviated FRELIMO),

824 American Embassy , teletype message, 111705Z OCT 73, to Defense Intelligence Agency, 11 October 1973, 1.

825 U.S. Secretary of State, teletype message, 050146Z DEC 73, to American Embassy London, 5 December 1973, 1.

826 U.S. Secretary of State, teletype message, 201317Z SEP 73, to American Embassy London, 20 September 1973, 1; U.S. Secretary of State, teletype message, 200244Z SEP 73, to American Embassy , 29 September 1973, 1; ―Heathrow Security Precautions‖ (Flight International 105, no. 3382 [10 January 1974], 24), 24.

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when the insurgents shot down a ―Harvard‖ light aircraft with a

Strela-2 on 16 April 1974.827 The FAP itself would lose another aircraft—its last—to the dreaded missiles nearly three weeks later, when a FRELIMO SAM forced down a

Portuguese C-47 carrying a group of foreign military attachés.828 Since then, various models of shoulder-fired SAMs have been used around the world, accounting for the destruction of an estimated 500 aircraft (including 25 civilian airliners).829

This class of weapons has become a familiar, and expected, variable in air warfare—and air forces in particular have continually sought the means to minimize their impact. Sometimes their efforts have proven successful, and sometimes less so. During

America‘s most recent conflicts, for example—the 1991 Gulf War, operations over

Yugoslavia from 1993-1999, the ongoing Afghan war, and renewed operations in Iraq beginning in 2003—shoulder-fired SAMs have accounted for more losses than any other category of weapons. Similarly, since 1991 these missiles have destroyed more aircraft flown by the U.S.‘ NATO allies and Coalition partners than any other type of weapon.830

827 Portuguese Military Attaché Office, Salisbury, teletype message to Ministry of National Defense, 2nd Bureau, 16 April 1974, 1.

828 Capt. José Luis Henriques Assunção, ―História Oral: Depoimento do Cap. Piloto José Luis Henriques Assunção (HA) sobre Vários Episódios Ocorridos Duranto a Sua Presença no Ultramar, prestado no AHFA, em 29 de Janeiro de 1996, na Presença de Gen. Grochado de Miranda (BM), Cor. Montalvão Guimarães MG), Cap. Ferrer Norte,‖ 29 January 1996, Actas 2000 Collection, Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea, Lisbon, 110-111; U.S. Secretary of State, teletype message, 152134Z MAY 74, to American Embassy Dar es Salaam, 15 May 1974, 2.

829 St. Onge and Watkins, 1-5.

830 Bureau of Political-Military Affairs and Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, ―The MANPADS Menace: Combatting the Threat to Global Aviation from Man-Portable Air Defense Systems‖ (Washington, DC: U.S. State Department, 20 September 2005), 3; Pawloski, ―Gulf War Chronology,‖ passim.; Haulman, passim.; Graham and Loeb, ―An Air War of Might, Coordination, and Risks,‖ A01; ―French Loss Highlights Threat,‖ 22; ―Frontline Gorazde Threatens Talks‖ (Jane’s Defence Review, 23

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Indeed, since 1973 half of all aircraft losses in combat have been attributed to shoulder- fired SAMs.831

The ultimate impact of those later losses paled in comparison to the consequences that befell Portugal in 1973 and 1974, however, and it appears most unlikely that similar losses in the future could conceivably result in a military coup against the U.S. government, for example. Yet the problem with chaos and complexity is that one cannot say with certainty what consequences may result from an enemy‘s actions in war. This characteristic of warfare refutes the linear trait of ―replication,‖ for nonlinear systems do not normally produce the same results when an action is repeated.832 The results vary because the initial conditions change, however slightly. Even if one erroneously assumed warfare‘s actual dynamics functioned additively or proportionally, the exact conditions in which they occurred could never be reliably reproduced. Variable national characteristics, evolving capabilities, different personnel, even changing moods and emotions among the same personnel armed with exactly the same weapons, will all affect the outcome of allegedly ―similar‖ engagements. To conclude otherwise is to succumb to the seductive simplicity of the assumption ceteris paribus, ―all other things being equal.‖

In warfare, however, all other things are never equal, from an individual soldier‘s breakfast before battle to external variables at the geo-strategic level. Furthermore, the system of warfare itself—like nonlinear systems in general—demonstrates a profound

April 1994, 3), 3; Chuck Sudetic, ―U.N. Relief Plane Reported Downed on Bosnia Mission‖ (The New York Times, 4 September 1992, A6), A6.

831 Puttre, ―Facing the Shoulder-Fired Threat,‖ 39.

832 Czerwinski, ed., Coping with the Bounds, 9.

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sensitivity to initial conditions, a characteristic demonstrated and immortalized in martial folklore as the ―want of a nail.‖833 Consequently, excessive losses to shoulder-fired

SAMs might compel a superpower to withdraw from an ill-advised military adventure— such is the conclusion often drawn from the Soviet Union‘s experience in Afghanistan.834

A single missile fired against the right aircraft might plunge a nation into , as in

1994 when a shoulder-fired SAM attack against the Rwandan president‘s plane purportedly sparked the genocide that ultimately claimed 700,000 Tutsi lives.835 Even the shoulder-fired SAM‘s poor cousin, the rocket-propelled grenade (RPG)—a fixture on the world‘s battlefields since the Second World War—may, if used ingeniously, have similarly profound effects. This apparently occurred in Somalia, when RPGs downed three American helicopters within a matter of minutes, resulting in fierce street fighting, eighteen dead U.S. servicemen, and Washington‘s subsequent decision to end its humanitarian mission in that troubled nation.836 Such is the nature of complexity in warfare: at the time, the camel does not know which straw broke its back. It only hears the snap of its spine, and then collapses.

833 Beyerchen, ―Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War,‖ 77.

834 See, for example, Anthony R. Tucker, ―The Soviet War over Afghanistan‖ (Jane’s Soviet Intelligence Review, June 1989, 268-271, and Milton Beardon, ―Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires‖ (Foreign Affairs, November/December 2001, 17-30.

835 Taisier M. Ali and Robert O. Matthews, eds., Civil Wars in Africa: Roots and Resolution (Montreal: McGill-Queen‘s University Press, 1999), 75-76; George B.N. Ayittey, Africa in Chaos (New York: St. Martin‘s Press, 1998), 56-57; Edgerton, 201-202.

836 Lt. Col. Daniel P. Bolger, Savage Peace: Americans at War in the 1990s (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1995), 317-327. This refers to the ―Blackhawk Down‖ incident of 1993.

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As of the time of this writing, insurgent missiliers continue to ply their grim trade, and the first decade of the 21st century has seen shoulder-fired SAM activity in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the former Soviet Union.837 In the latter half of 2002 alone, Chechen insurgents shot down at least six helicopters—most of them suspected victims of shoulder-fired SAMs—despite the flare dispensers, exhaust suppressors, and infrared jammers carried by Russian helicopters at the time.838 The U.S. has faced similar challenges in the Middle East, losing six to seven helicopters shot down by Iraqi insurgents during a three-week period in early 2007.839 The spike in losses suggested new insurgent tactics, new insurgent weapons, or perhaps both, and the former

Commander of U.S. , General John Abazaid, acknowledged that the air defense threat in Iraq went far beyond Strelas. ―We‘re pretty sure we‘ve seen SA-16s used. It‘s unclear to me, although it‘s possible an SA-18 has been used,‖ Abazaid conceded, referring to the Soviet/Russian Igla (in English, ―needle‖) series of advanced shoulder-fired SAMs.840

He had adequate cause to worry: the Igla series represented a quantum leap over the earlier Strela generation. Yet technical development in the field has not ended with

Soviet-era ―Needles.‖ Representatives of a new generation of shoulder-fired SAMs, designed to defeat existing or anticipated countermeasures, have since entered

837 As of 1 August 2009, the most recent reported loss to a shoulder-fired SAM was a Moldovan Mi-26 helicopter shot down over Afghanistan on 14 July 2009.

838 Fiszer and Gruszczynski, ―On Arrows and Needles,‖ 52.

839 James Glanz, ―Insurgents Stepping up Efforts to Down U.S. Helicopters in Iraq‖ (The New York Times, 12 February 2007, 12), 12.

840 David A. Fulghum, ―SAMs Threaten‖ (Aviation Week and Space Technology, 2 February 2004, 43), 43.

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production. These include China‘s QW-3, for which its manufacturers claim a maximum altitude of 5,000 meters (16,500 feet) and an eight kilometer range—both more than double those of the Strela-2. Even more worrisome, the QW-3 employs a semi-active laser guidance seeker immune to the infrared countermeasures currently fielded by most modern air forces.841 As of 2008, China had begun exporting the system to foreign customers.842 Russian SAM producers have also kept busy: the new Igla-S shoulder- fired SAM, which entered serial production in late 2004, purportedly features a maximum engagement altitude as high as 7,000 meters (23,000 feet). Of even greater interest to time-conscious guerrillas, the system requires only 18 seconds to set up and launch from a traveling configuration.843 For older systems such as the Strela, upgrades are reportedly available to convert even the earliest shoulder-fired SAMs into effective modern threats, including software modifications designed to defeat flares and other infrared counter- measures.844

Should these systems and modifications remain in their countries of origin, established air forces fighting against insurgencies would have little cause for worry.

Proliferation, however, presents a serious global challenge in this regard. Literally tens of thousands of these systems are currently outside the control of any government, and at least 27 terrorist and insurgent organizations have (or have had) these systems in their

841 Evan S. Medeiros, Roger Cliff, Keith Crane, James C. Mulvenon, A New Direction for China’s Defense Industry (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2005), 88.

842 Gordon Arthur, ―The Modernisation of ‘s Armed Forces‖ (Asian Military Review, June-July 2009, 24-28), 28.

843 Fiszer and Gruszczynski, ―On Arrows and Needles,‖ 52.

844 Puttre, ―Facing the Shoulder-Fired Threat,‖ 40.

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possession.845 The number of systems available to those groups continues to stir debate—estimates range from 5,000 to 150,000—but nearly 6,000 were captured by

Coalition forces in Afghanistan by the end of 2002, while 4-5,000 are believed to have fallen into the hands of Iraqi insurgents.846 Some of the renegade systems were purloined from military stocks: in July 2003, for example, literal thieves in the night made off with eight Strela-2 missiles from a Russian Navy warehouse.847 Whatever their source, shoulder-fired SAMs are a fixture of the international black market in weapons, including within the U.S., where two would-be arms dealers were indicted for attempting to smuggle Chinese QW-2 shoulder-fired SAMs into the country in November 2005.

Marketing information for that second-generation Chinese missile lists among its intended targets A-10 attack jets and AH-64 ―Apache‖ helicopters—two of the primary counter-insurgency platforms currently available to U.S. air arms.848

Enemy weapons and tactics are not the only issue, however, or even the most dangerous. A far more worrying and insidious threat is posed by the complacency pervading technologically-advanced air forces. Despite the growing capability and availability of shoulder-fired SAMs, Western air arms—and the U.S. Air Force in

845 Charles V. Peña, ―Flying the Unfriendly Skies: Defending against the Threat of Shoulder-Fired Missiles‖ (The Cato Institute: Policy Analysis No. 541, 19 April 2005), 4; Hunter, ―The Proliferation of MANPADS,‖ 43.

846 Christopher Bolkcom, Andrew Feickert, and Bartholomew Elias, ―Homeland Security: Protecting Airliners from Terrorist Missiles,‖ CRS Report for Congress RL31741 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 22 October 2004), 4.

847 ―Procurator Extends Investigation into Theft of Strela MANPADs from Leningrad Warehouse‖ (Moscow Military News Agency, 16 December 2003), https://www.opensource.gov.

848 Bill Gertz, ―2 Charged with Conspiracy to Import Chinese Missiles‖ (The Washington Times, 10 November 2005), A03.

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particular—appear to have ignored many of the implications of past experience, including recent events in Iraq and Afghanistan. While some middle-ranking U.S. Air Force officers recognize the continued threat posed by guerrilla air defense capabilities,849 the dominant service position seems to be one of willful ignorance, based on an unspoken assumption that any weapons a mere guerrilla might employ no longer pose a danger to aircraft and airmen in an era of stealth, night vision, and stand-off weapon technologies.

One recent article in the Air Force‘s professional journal went so far as to assert that

―high-threat‖ conditions ―do not apply to the guerrilla threat. Enemy air defenses are generally negligible‖ in that context.850

Reflecting these attitudes, the Air Force‘s new counter-insurgency doctrine (Air

Force Doctrine Document 2-3, Irregular Warfare) gives distressingly short shrift to potential insurgent threats: the sole mention in the entire document merely cautions that

―potential threats to air superiority should be considered before employing airpower‖ in a counter-insurgency context.851 The document gives no mention at all of the historical employment of SAMs by insurgents, or potential future air defense weapons that

849 See, for example, Lt. Col. David L. Robie, ―The Air Force Needs New Glasses: Sensor Requirements for Urban Operations (Air and Space Power Journal, Fall 2006, 37-39) and Maj. Ronald F. Stuewe, Jr., ―One Step Back, Two Steps Forward: An Analytical Framework for Airpower in Small Wars‖ (Air and Space Power Journal, Spring 2006, 89-96. The latter acknowledges, on page 94, that ―The most significant threat to air superiority in small wars, however, comes from the ubiquitous ground threats of relatively inexpensive small arms and shoulder-fired missiles. Defeating, or at least diminishing, the pervasiveness of these weapons remains perhaps the paramount issue for airpower. Without some relative measure of air superiority from these weapons, the remaining five distinctive capabilities of the Air Force in small wars are greatly diminished.‖

850 Dr. Thomas R. Searle, ―Making Airpower Effective against Guerrillas‖ (Air and Space Power Journal, Fall 2004, 13-23), 18.

851 Air Force Doctrine Document 2-3, Irregular Warfare (The Pentagon: Office of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, 1 August 2007), 4-5.

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insurgents may one day field. The RAF takes a marginally broader view, acknowledging that ―control of the air may…not be total, and is likely be contested,‖ but it warns of shoulder-fired SAMs, rockets, and small arms only in the context of securing an airfield‘s environs.852 Such unsupported optimism completely ignores assessments that future developments in air defense weaponry, including potential directed energy threats, will place many current aircraft at prohibitive risk in the next two decades, effectively rendering them obsolete.853

The U.S. Air Force‘s counter-insurgency doctrine is similarly lacking in its historical foundation. In its entirety, Irregular Warfare cites only eight specific historical examples—all of them either laudatory or generalized to the point of uselessness—and only twice mentions ―history‖ as justification, evidence, or something a commander might want to study in order to successfully combat insurgency. By way of contrast, the new U.S. Army and Marine Corps counter-insurgency doctrine makes fifty such references.854 In part, this reflects differing service cultures: the Air Force, the U.S.‘ newest military service, has traditionally seen itself as the most innovative and forward- thinking branch of the armed forces. Unlike its sister services, the Air Force subtly

852 AP 3000: British Air and Space Power Doctrine, Fourth Edition (RAF , UK: Air Staff, 2009), 38.

853 Col. William E. Saier, ―The Advanced Special Operations Air Mobility Platform (M-X): The Time is Now‖ (Air and Space Power Journal, Spring 2005, 26-30), 30.

854 Air Force Doctrine Document 2-3, Irregular Warfare, passim.; The U.S. Army-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), passim.

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encourages a form of institutional ahistoricity.855 For example, the surface forces have their ―great thinkers‖ and ―theorists,‖ such as Clausewitz, J.F.C. Fuller, or Alfred Thayer

Mahan; for the Air Force, however, the likes of Giulio Douhet and Billy Mitchell have earned the mystical sobriquet ―prophet.‖ That faith in prophesy, independent of historical evidence or current corroboration, dovetails nicely with the Air Force‘s traditional tendency to develop and implement unproven—and often unsupported—doctrine, whether regarding high-altitude precision daylight bombing during the Second World

War or nuclear force employment in the decades that followed. Contrary historical evidence cannot invalidate prophesy; indeed, in many respects the shortcomings of past or present performance heighten the anticipation of future fulfillment. The ultimate effect of prophetic belief is certainty in that fulfillment.

Based the resulting institutional sense of security, many in the U.S. Air Force continue to cling to the belief that low and slow (but not necessarily ―low-tech‖) aircraft offer the best chance of identifying mobile point targets and engaging them rapidly and accurately—the same belief that permeated counter-insurgency airpower thinking in the early 1960s.856 One Air University analyst recently advocated refurbished Rockwell OV-

10 ―Bronco‖ aircraft as an ideal counterinsurgency platform for Iraq, based on its range, speed, endurance, flexibility, and payload capacity.‖ However, his assessment ignored the fact that the various OV-10 models have historically proven vulnerable to shoulder-

855 The author personally experienced one manifestation of this trend in 2005, when the Dean of the Air Command and Staff College implemented a decision to expunge virtually all historical texts and lessons from the institution‘s curriculum. At the time, the author was an instructor at that institution.

856 For an example of this early 1960s view, see Peterson, Reinhardt, and Conger, ―Symposium on the Role of Airpower in Counterinsurgency and Unconventional Warfare: A Brief Summary of Viewpoints,‖ 13-14.

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fired SAMs, from their first employment in Vietnam through the late 1990s.857

Additionally, at a U.S. Air Force counter-insurgency conference in April 2007, a general officer assigned to the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command again advocated the procurement of a ―low and slow‖ counterinsurgency aircraft. Such an aircraft might be based on the new AT-6 ―Texan II‖858 propeller-driven trainer, he reasoned, modified with precision weapons and advanced sensors. ―I know, people will say it‘ll be shot down,‖ he conceded before insisting, ―They won’t be shot down. They‘ll attack at night, when the insurgents are asleep.‖859 Such a plan assumes, of course, that those insurgents will abandon their traditional affinity for darkness and persist in such atypical habits after the first round of nighttime air raids.

Yet if the history of guerrilla air defense should teach us any lesson of enduring import, it is perhaps best summed up in a remark by an aide to Mohammad Farah Aideed, the behind the Battle of in 1993: ―If you use a tactic twice,‖Ali Aden observed, ―you should not use it a third time.‖860 Any guerrilla adversary worthy of the label will adapt, and quickly—that, too, is a psalm taken directly from the insurgent

857 This includes losses during the Vietnam War, the Thai-Laotian border conflict, the Morocco- POLISARIO conflict, the 1991 Gulf War, and possibly a loss in Colombia in 1997. See Bishop, The Aerospace Encyclopedia of Air Warfare, Volume Two, 221-242 passim.; Flintham, Air Wars and Aircraft, 86, 310.

858 Not to be confused with the Second World War-vintage AT-6 used by the Portuguese in Guinea; the ―Texan II‖ is an entirely new design.

859 Keynote speaker (Address, U.S. Air Force Counterinsurgency Symposium 2007, Maxwell AFB, AL, 26 April 2007). The speaker‘s name has been withheld in deference to Air University‘s non-attribution policy.

860 Bolger, Savage Peace, 313. The ―Battle of Mogadishu,‖ sometimes known as the ―Battle of Bakara Market,‖ was the inspiration behind the book Blackhawk Down and the movie of the same name.

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canon.861 New weapons provide just one means of adapting; new tactics are another. It would not be unreasonable to expect that future insurgents will find ways to effectively field weapons that reach above a 15,000 feet ―hard deck,‖ employ exotic and unfamiliar guidance systems, pack a more powerful explosive punch, and prove as rugged, mobile, and simple to operate as did the Strela-2 in Guinea. Conversely, as aircraft become more expensive and fleets correspondingly dwindle, and as Western citizenries grow more sensitive to losses, one of the worst things an air force can do is assume their adversaries will continue to employ the same weapons and tactics they have utilized in the past. The

Portuguese made that assumption in Guinea during the 1960s and early 1970s, opening themselves up to the practical and psychological impact of an unexpectedly lethal surprise. To be effective, a military force today must ―act in uncertainty and thrive in chaos, sensing opportunity therein and not retreating into a need for more information,‖ according to U.S. Marine Corps General James Mattis.862 It cannot afford to waste half a decade staffing paperwork to validate a decision originally recommended five years earlier, as did the Portuguese defense establishment when considering improved air defenses for Guinea. It cannot stake its future effectiveness on the generosity of other agents, even nominally ―allied‖ governments, when confronted with unexpected threats.

Perhaps most importantly, however, military forces should organize, train, and equip themselves to exploit unexpected opportunities and minimize the impact of

861 See, for example, Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 20-21.

862 Gen. James N. Mattis, ―Memorandum for U.S. Joint Forces Command—Assessment of Effects Based Operations,‖ 14 August 2008, 1. General Mattis is currently the Commander of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, one of the U.S. military‘s ten ―combatant commands.‖

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unforeseen calamity. They must resist, at all costs, prescriptive warfighting constructs whose simplicity and certitude have seduced military theorists from Jomini to John

Warden,863 and which continue to hamstring Western military forces with conceptual shackles given alluring labels like ―effects-based operations.‖864 Better to rely on Sun

Tzu‘s timeless observation that ―as water has no constant form, there are in war no constant conditions.‖865 Flexibility should therefore be stressed over doctrinal rigidity; junior leaders should be given the initiative, authority, and training to exploit emerging opportunities; and unknowns—at least those that are recognized—should occupy pride of place in senior staff briefings and operations reports, rather than the purported certainties.

These recommendations, however, buck the predilection for order and hierarchical control endemic in almost any military establishment, and as such may remain unattainable. That does not change the fact that an air force, or any force, can only avoid being ―hit in the mind‖ itself by using that mind more adeptly to interpret the indications, recognize the threat, devise a solution, and react before a strategically agile and tactically adaptive opponent can land a decisive blow. For a compelling demonstration, one need only look back to the spring of 1973, and the unwelcome surprise that transformed

Miguel Pessoa from pilot to pedestrian in the space of a few seconds.

863 See Antoine Henri Jomini, (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippencott & Co., 1862) and Col. John A. Warden III, The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat (Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey‘s, 1989).

864 For one recent example, see William M. Arkin, Divining Victory: Airpower in the 2006 Israel- War (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 2007), 142-143, 154.

865 Sun Tzu, The Art of War (London: , 1963), 101.

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Appendix A – Literature Review

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The purpose of this survey is not to provide a review or description of every source available on the subject, or even all of those consulted for the present work.

Indeed, Portugal‘s colonial enterprise and the subsequent ―Ultramar Wars‖ in Africa have been the subject of considerable academic and journalistic attention since the 1960s.

Literally thousands of works are available on the overall subject, most by far in the

Portuguese language. Consequently, this section surveys the major works available, particularly those that have stood the test of time in decolonization studies or have shed new light on once-darkened corners within the field. Additionally, no manageable literature review can cover all the periodical sources relevant to this topic without producing a ―review‖ at least as long as the rest of this work. Consequently, periodical works are mentioned only when they represent a considerable contribution to the available scholarship, whether as one of a limited number of available sources or as a piece offering a groundbreaking new perspective.

Books and relevant periodical essays appear first in the following pages, followed by archival summaries and a discussion of several on-line databases. The latter, I contend, represent a growing repository of reflection and observation that may one day be recognized as a source of first-person information at least as valid as interviews and oral histories. Published sources have been grouped from the general to the more specific, with a section for works on ancillary sources.

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General Works on Decolonization in Africa

Decolonization has been a fashionable subject among historians, journalists, political scientists, and pundits since shortly after World War II. Certainly the Malayan and Kikuyu (or ―Mau Mau‖) campaigns against British rule, the French wars in

Indochina and Algeria, and the revolt in Palestine captured a great deal of public, political, and scholarly attention. Yet revolt in sub-Saharan Africa remained a

―backwater‖ subject for some time, possibly due to the relatively peaceful character of the first imperial withdrawals there.

That began to change as the 1950s drew to a close. As African nationalists took first to the streets, and then to arms, their activities began to draw increased interest—and ink. Among the first books dedicated to the subject was Thomas Hodgkin‘s Nationalism in Colonial Africa (New York: New York University Press, 1957), which examined both colonial policy and the emerging nationalist movements whose activities soon accelerated throughout the rest of the 1950s and the following decades. A slew of works detailing specific liberation movements, some of which are discussed later in this essay, appeared during the 1960s and 1970s, but in 1982 an early benchmark in the field appeared with

Prosser Gifford and Wm. Roger Louis, eds., The Transfer of Power in Africa (New

Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982). A comprehensive study of the title period from a variety of different perspectives (African, European, and regional/international), the book can still credibly claim the role of a standard text in the field today.

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David Birmingham took a more Africa-centric perspective when penning The

Decolonization of Africa (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1995). Birmingham also attempted to resolve one of the burgeoning debates within the field of African decolonization—namely, whether it derived more from the effectiveness of national liberation movements, the ennui of imperial exhaustion, or the exertion of external pressure within the context of the Cold War. Birmingham suggested the colonial collapse resulted from a mix of all three, a view now widely shared within the field.

One of the most influential works dealing with African decolonization from a macro perspective is Frederick Cooper‘s Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present

(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Cooper attempts the unenviable task of bridging the traditional division of African history into ―colonial‖ and ―post- colonial‖ periods. To do so, he persuasively claims a continuity of exploitation in which post-colonial African leaders have continued to exert strict control over resource allocation and access to the world economy—in effect perpetuating the colonial-era

―gatekeeper state.‖

General Works Regarding Portugal in Africa

Portugal‘s determination to retain possession of its African territories increased as international interest in African decolonization grew. One of the earliest books to call

Lisbon to account for its African policies was James Duffy‘s Portugal in Africa

(Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1963), a critical analysis of the Portuguese imperial

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venture in Africa, especially Portugal‘s purported ―civilizing mission‖ and its results.

Some years later, A.H. de Oliveira Marques published his History of Portugal Volume

II: From Empire to Corporate State (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), a work which neatly tied the Portuguese colonial enterprise to political developments within metropolitan Portugal, while also providing an illuminating explanation of the colonies‘ place within the Portuguese national mythology.

The ―official‖ Portuguese point of view also struggled to be heard during this period. Among the most adamant—perhaps ―pleading‖—expressions of Lisbon‘s

African policy appeared in the officially-published Portuguese Africa: An Introduction

(Lisbon: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1973). This book naturally took an opposite position to the bulk of the literature in its attempt to justify Portuguese colonialism from social, economic, legal, and political-military standpoints. Though rightfully considered a propaganda piece, this short work does offer a useful summary of the historical and legalistic gymnastics through which Portugal regularly (and vainly) sought to win support for its position. Much the same can be said for an earlier work by Adriano Moreira, then

Portugal‘s Overseas Minister, entitled Portugal‘s Stand in Africa (New York: University

Publishers, 1962).

Professor Malyn Newitt also took issue with the ―orthodox‖ view of Portuguese colonialism—that is, as an example of national villainy and naked exploitation—but for different reasons. In Portugal in Africa: The Last Hundred Years (London: C. Hurst &

Co., 1981) he argued that the imperial enterprise is best characterized as an evolving response to changes in the global market system. As the first major work dealing with

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―Portugal in Africa‖ following its demise, Newitt also devoted considerable space to the domestic and international factors that led to the coup of 1974 and the hasty course of decolonization that followed.

Two periodical essays offer additional and illuminating perspectives on

Portuguese imperial policy during the 20th century. Heriberto Cairo‘s ‗‗‗Portugal is Not a Small Country‘: Maps and Propaganda in the Salazar Regime‖ (Geopolitics 11 [2006],

367-395) details Lisbon‘s liberal—and often wildly creative—use of cartography to secure domestic support for the imperial project, while James D. Sideaway and Marcus

Powers‘ ‗‗‗The Tears of Portugal‘: Empire, Identity, ‗Race‘, and Destiny in Portuguese

Geopolitical Narratives‖ (Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 23, no. 4,

527-554) examines the role of empire in the construction of Portuguese national identity and self-glorification. Both shed much-needed light on the myriad, and at times unexpected, methods employed by the Portuguese regime to justify its colonial enterprise domestically and abroad.

General Works on Portuguese Democratization and Decolonization in Africa

The military coup of April 1974 resulted in the demise of the quasi-fascist Estado

Novo regime, Portugal‘s withdrawal from Africa, and ultimately its democratization and eventual integration into the . Given the attention focused on Portugal in

Africa during the preceding years, it was natural that these events would also attract considerable attention (and not a little gloating from some corners). Analyses began

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appearing almost immediately, including Rona M. Fields‘s book The Portuguese

Revolution and the Armed Forces Movement (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975).

This, perhaps the first scholarly work regarding the Portuguese military coup of 1974, focused on the military origins of the coup and the armed forces‘ role in Portugal‘s subsequent ―revolution,‖ decolonization, and democratization. As a practicing psychologist and sociology professor, Dr. Fields examined these issues in the context of group identity and emotional impetus, an endeavor not yet repeated to the author‘s knowledge.

Douglas Porch, in The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution (London:

Croom Helm, 1977), took a broader view of the 1974 coup, analyzing the factors leading to the regime‘s demise, the events of April 1974, and their effects on Portuguese politics and society over the following months. As one of the most prominent early analysts of the 1974 coup, Porch also wrote extensively about the event in the periodical literature during the 1970s. Within a few years, however, Portuguese politics stabilized into a more-or-less standard incarnation of Western European ; the novelty seemed to have worn, and interest correspondingly slackened among journalists and social scientists.

After some years had passed, however, historians began to retrieve the torch, beginning with Professor Patrick Chabal of London‘s King College. Chabal, along with

David Birmingham, Malyn Newitt, and other scholars, published A History of

Postcolonial Lusophone Africa (London: Hurst & Company, 2001) 27 years after the coup. A well-executed survey of the evolution of Portugal‘s five former African

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possessions since independence, the book also details the linkages between Portugal‘s exit from Africa and the turmoil that has wracked Lusophone Africa into the 21st century. Two years later, Stewart Lloyd-Jones and Antonio Costa Pinto published their edited work, The Last Empire: Thirty Years of Portuguese Decolonization (Bristol, UK:

Intellect Books, 2003), a collection of essays describing the effect of the African wars on

Portugal‘s transition to democracy, the decolonization that followed, and the subsequent evolution of Portugal‘s relations with Africa and Europe.

Portugal‟s African Wars: Compendiums of Primary Sources

One of the most useful—and arguably most significant—works regarding

Portugal‘s African wars to yet see publication is Jose Freire Antune‘s two-volume A

Guerra de Africa (1961-1964) (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1995). Drawing upon interviews and correspondence with dozens of important actors in Portugal‘s African wars, Antunes compiled as balanced, objective, and comprehensive a work as is yet available on the subject. Granted, two decades had passed between cease-fire and publication, but as much as memory may have dimmed, passions had also cooled considerably during that period. The essays span the entire spectrum of the Ultramar wars, covering topics as diverse as and individual engagements, from perspectives as varied as that of a pilot shot down to an air defense gunner who scored his own ―kill‖ a few days later. No study of Portugal‘s African wars can claim to be even close to complete without consulting these volumes.

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John P. Cann produced a similar compendium, albeit one somewhat smaller in scope. In 1997 Prof. Cann invited a number of historians and high-ranking retired

Portuguese officers to London to recall their activities during the African wars and discuss their conclusions. The conference proceedings were subsequently published as

Memories of Portugal‘s African Wars, 1961-1974: Proceedings of a Conference, King’s

College London, 10 June 1997 (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Foundation,

1998). The volume provides valuable first-hand perspectives regarding topics as diverse as intelligence, social reform, air power, and general counter-insurgency as applied to the wars in Angola, Guinea, and Mozambique.

Jose Brandao, Cronologia da Guerra Colonial: Angola-Guine-Moçambique,

1961-1974 (Lisbon: Prefacio, 2008) employs veterans‘ memoirs and archival documentation to create a chronological summary of significant events in all three of

Portugal‘s African wars. Somberly, Brandao‘s work also offers a complete listing of every Portuguese soldier, sailor, and airman who died in Africa, along with the location, date, and cause of death (combat, accident, or disease).

War in Guinea: Accounts by Portuguese and Guinean Leaders

To some extent, the story of the war in Guinea is an account of the major actors involved: Portuguese leaders such as Salazar and Caetano, senior Guinean insurgents such as Amílcar Cabral, and the Portuguese Governor-General of Guinea during the critical period 1968-1973, António Spínola. Spínola was the first to fully recognize the

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subtleties and complexities of the conflict; correspondingly, his Linha de Acção (Lisbon:

Agencia-Geral do Ultramar, 1971) discusses the political reforms, economic developments, and social programs he envisioned as an essential complement to

Portugal‘s military effort. The book not only offers the most complete account available of his ―Better Guinea‖ program, it also (and arguably more importantly) casts light on

Spínola‘s assumptions regarding the nature of the war and the most appropriate ways of fighting it.

However, Spínola‘s Portugal e o Futuro (Lisbon: Arcadia, 1974) proved to be the most influential of his works by far. Publicly arguing for a negotiated settlement in

Portugal‘s African wars, Spínola insisted that the wars were unwinnable via military means. His position emboldened dissident officers and shook the Estado Novo regime, leading some analysts to suggest that the book‘s publication represented a signal—if not a catalyst—for the military putsch of 1974. Although he briefly served as Portugal‘s president following the coup, Spínola soon fell out of favor with the more radical elements of the Armed Forces Movement and in 1975 fled to exile in Brazil, where he penned Pais sem Rumo: Contributo para a Historia de uma Revolução (Lisbon: Scire,

1978). In this final apologia, Spínola recounts the military and political events that cost

Portugal the war in Guinea and places blame squarely on the shoulders of the civilian leadership in Lisbon—not for their timidity or dovishness, but rather for their intransigence and unwillingness to compromise with their guerrilla foes.

Spínola‘s chief adversary in Guinea, PAIGC founder and Secretary-General

Amílcar Cabral, proved even more prolific as a writer. Among the published collections

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of his writings, speeches, and interviews, English examples include Revolution in

Guinea: Selected Texts by Amilcar Cabral (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969),

The Struggle in Guinea (Cambridge, MA: Africa Research Group, 1969), Our People

Are Our Mountains: Amílcar Cabral on the Guinean Revolution (London: The

Committee for Freedom in Mozambique, Angola & Guinea, 1972), Return to the Source:

Selected Speeches of Amílcar Cabral (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973), and

Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979).

Additionally, Cabral gave literally hundreds of interviews to media outlets around the world, made numerous addresses to international forums, and even presented testimony to the United Nations and the U.S. Congress between 1962 and his death in 1972. While many insurgent leaders‘ statements can be justly written off as mere propagandizing,

Cabral‘s written legacy meshes remarkably well with actual PAIGC practice during the course of its liberation struggle.

Cabral‘s half-brother, Luís, also wrote extensively on the war in Guinea. Among his most comprehensive works was Cronica da Libertação (Lisbon: O Jornal, 1984), which presents a thorough ―insider‘s account‖ of the conflict from the insurgent point of view. Luís describes the struggle in its entirety, from the PAIGC‘s initial political activities through independence and the immediate aftermath, and he discusses political, social, and diplomatic developments as well as military events. Throughout the book he also provides a comprehensive first-hand profile of his brother‘s psychology and character, the most complete portrait of its type yet to appear in print.

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War in Guinea: Accounts by Veterans

The campaign for African wars was, for some time, considered a taboo subject in

Portugal, and was consequently rarely discussed. That began to change in the mid-1990s, when books about the war began to appear at a pace that continues to accelerate. The

Portuguese public apparently has an especially keen appetite for veterans‘ memoirs, which now crowd the shelves of Lisbon‘s bookstores. Two of the most relevant to the current study are Nuno Mira Vaz, Guine 1968 e 1973: Soldados uma Vez, Sempre

Soldados (Lisbon: Tribuna, 2003) and António Graça de Abreu, Diario da Guine:

Lama, Sangue e Agua Pura (Lisbon: Guerra e Paz, 2007). Both offer detailed, often gritty accounts of the fighting as experienced by Portuguese ―grunts,‖ especially during the pivotal years of 1973 and 1974. In addition, though not exactly a collection of soldiers‘ memoirs, a sixteen-volume series entitled Os Anos da Guerra Colonial (Lisbon:

QuidNovi, 2009) is currently being released by two retired Portuguese officers, Carlos de

Matos Gomes and Aniceto Afonso. Chronologically organized, each volume discusses a different phase of the African wars from a primarily military perspective, covering the tactical, operational, and strategic aspects of the Portuguese effort.

War in Guinea: Secondary Works

Primary sources regarding the war in Guinea, however valuable, must be treated carefully. As much credibility as having ―been there and done that‖ may confer, such

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accounts are necessarily limited to a single, often narrow point of view, and one sometimes skewed by exposure to the intensity and hazards of warfare. Much the same must be said about secondary works on this topic. Indeed, most English-language works regarding this or any other ―liberation struggle‖ tend towards polemic and romanticization, heavily tilted in sentiment towards one or the other antagonist (this is particularly true of books published while the conflict continued). Truly objective and even-handed studies have proven much more difficult, but not impossible, to come by.

The bias inherent in most works, however, mandates great caution when evaluating claims of motivation, method, and effectiveness relative to the contending sides.

One such work is Portugal‘s Guerrilla War: The Campaign for Africa (Cape

Town: John Malherbe Pty Ltd, 1973), written by South African Journalist Al J. Venter.

Based in large part on his 1972 visit to then-Portuguese Guinea, the book takes an obvious pro-Portuguese slant, particularly in his assessment of the Portuguese soldier‘s skill and courage. Despite its laudatory nature, however, the work does offer several revealing vignettes describing counter-insurgency operations against ―terrorists,‖ the role of air power, and even the more mundane aspects of life in a decidedly uncomfortable and unfamiliar environment.

George M. Houser takes a different tack in No One Can Stop the Rain: Glimpses of Africa‘s Liberation Struggle (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1989). As one of the founders of the American Committee on Africa, Houser‘s sympathies clearly lie with the

―national liberation movements‖ throughout Africa during the 1960s and 1970s. That

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said, he too spent considerable time in ―the bush,‖ and has equally poignant stories to tell about wartime life—this time, from the guerrilla point of view.

Mustafah Dhada, then a professor of political science at the University of

Northem Colorado, chose a more neutral perspective for his Warriors at Work: How

Guinea Was Really Set Free (Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1993).

Although he was clearly swayed by some insurgent rhetoric—notably PAIGC claims of

Portuguese aircraft shot down—his overall narrative is relatively balanced, more impartial in tone, and exceptionally thorough from the insurgent perspective. Most significantly, Warriors at Work strikes an appropriate balance between the military and political aspects of the conflict, as well as between the author‘s evident regard for the

PAIGC and his recognition that even they could be guilty of atrocity, petty infighting, and the occasional bout of operational incompetence. His follow-up article, ―The

Liberation War in Guinea Reconsidered‖ (The Journal of Military History, July 1998,

571-593), even went so far as to suggest that Portuguese forces carne close to crippling the PAIGC at several points during the conflict, a ―heretical‖ point of view from an alleged member of the pro-PAIGC clique of scholars.

In general, criticism of Portugal‘s military performance has been the prevalent position among scholars of the war in Guinea, and this school includes some Portuguese historians who have also highlighted the failings of their armed forces. For example,

João Paulo Guerra‘s Memória das Guerras Colonias (Porto, Portugal: Edições

Afrontamento, 1994) includes several critical chapters on the war in Guinea, most notably his examination of the Portuguese military setbacks preceding the 1974 coup.

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Not so, however, with John P. Cann‘s Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portuguese

Way of War, 1961-1974 (St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer Publishing, 1998). Dr. Cann advances the conclusion that the civilian leadership, not the military establishment, lost the African wars through their insulated naïveté and strategic myopia (he does not, however, go so far as to posit a Portuguese Dolchstoßlegende). That said, Dr. Cann‘s may well be the finest English-language summary of Portuguese counter-insurgency doctrine and practice yet committed to print.

Two other notable Portuguese works merit mention. The first is

Sergio Augusto Margarido Lima Bacelar‘s A Guerra em Africa, 1961-1974: Estrategias

Adoptada pelas Forças Armadas (Porto, Portugal: Liga dos Amigos do Museu Militar do

Porto, 2000), which provides orders of battle and descriptions of the operational environment in each of Portugal‘s three African theaters, using information drawn largely from Portuguese military archives. David Martelo‘s 1974: Cessar-Fogo em Africa

(Mem Martins, Portugal: Publicayaos Europa-América, 2001) examines the events taking place during the pivotal years of 1973-1974, leading up to the Portuguese military coup of April 1974 that ousted the pseudo-fascist Estado Novo regime from power.

Finally, mention must be made of Patrick Chabal‘s Amilcar Cabral:

Revolutionary Leadership and People‘s War (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003).

In chronicling national liberation as a distinct phenomenon, no historian has succeeded to the extent Professor Chabal has. Despite his evident admiration of the PAIGC‘s founder and secretary-general, Chabal‘s study of the liberation struggle in Guinea is not only among the most comprehensive and well-researched works currently extant in the field of

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African nationalism and liberation, it is also an instructive primer in the elements of effective insurgency. Unlike the authors of ostensibly similar works, Chabal refused to limit his narrative to purely military matters; he also thoroughly examined the political, economic, social, and even cultural elements of Cabral‘s program. Furthermore, he did so lucidly and persuasively.

Briefer accounts of the war in Guinea appear in other books discussing African liberation in general, though most again clearly take the insurgent cause to heart. Three worth mentioning, based on their authors‘ first-hand exposure to African insurgency, are

Basil Davidson‘s The People‘s Cause: A History of Guerrillas in Africa (Essex, UK:

Longman House, 1981), Barbara Cornwall‘s The Bush Rebels: A Personal Account of

Black Revolt in Africa (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972), and Gerard

Chaliand‘s Armed Struggle in Africa (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969).

Air Power and Air Defense in Guinea

Here, unfortunately, is where the well begins to dry. Although many memoirs and compendiums offer revealing first-person accounts of specific air operations or their impact on the ground war, there have been few works focusing on air power itself. In fact, of nearly 5000 surveyed sources dealing with Portugal‘s colonial wars, only four books focus on air power matters, and only one memoir specifically treats the case of

Guinea—José Krus Abecasis‘ Bordo de Ataque: Memórias de uma Caderneta de Voo e um Contributo para a Histó ria (, Portugal: Coimbra Editora, 1985). The

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periodical literature fares little better; indeed, two years of research have yielded exactly two scholarly essays dealing specifically with Portugal‘s air campaign in Guinea, along with some twenty articles on the subject in various editions of Mais Alto (the FAP‘s official journal, and as such hardly an unbiased source). The vast majority of sources, in any language, treat the air campaign in Guinea with pronounced superficiality and/or bias, while no single work in English addresses air power issues exclusively. Prof. Cann is currently working on such a book, tentatively titled African Flight Plan: The

Portuguese Air Force at War, but the gap will remain for at least the next two years.

That said, the well does yield a drop or two yet. Josep Sanchez Cervelló penned an insightful analysis entitled ―La Inviabilidad de una Victoria Portuguesa en la Guerra

Colonial: El Caso de Guinea‖ (Hispania, September-December 1989, 1017-1044), which examined Portuguese air power in the context of a counter-insurgency campaign-and found it lacking. While Cervelló acknowledged the raw destructive power of air power in Guinea, he correctly noted that successful counter-insurgency is more about construction than destruction. Jose M. Brochado de Mirando, former

Chief of Staff of the Portuguese Air Force, highlighted a different disconnect in his essay

―El Empleo del Arma Aerea en la Lucha Antiguerrilla‖ (Revista de Aeronautica y

Astronautica, July-August 2002, 594-599). This brief essay discussed the key advantages of Portuguese air power in Africa, and the impact of the first use of air defense missiles in

Guinea. Most importantly, however, General Mirando observed that Portuguese air operations were never sufficiently subordinated to an overall political-

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suited to an effective counter-insurgency campaign, which ultimately led to the final political collapse of Portugal‘s campaign in Africa.

Luis Alves de Fraga‘s book A Força Aérea na Guerra em África: Angola, Guiné e Moçambique 1961-1975 (Lisbon: Prefacio, 2004), while heavily biased in favor of the

Portuguese Air Force, at least provides a wide array of independently-verifiable facts and figures regarding Portuguese air operations in Africa. Even more importantly, his is one of Portuguese works on the African wars that offers a more-or-less complete bibliography. That alone, along with the first-person accounts Fraga sprinkled throughout, made his book worth the effort of acquiring it.

International Involvement in Guinea

Throughout the course of Portugal‘s African wars, international actors attempted to influence the outcome through a variety of overt and covert means. In particular, the

Soviet Union‘s role proved critical to the PAIGC‘s ultimate success, particularly in its provision of increasingly sophisticated weaponry such as air-defense missiles.

Regrettably, the majority of the extant literature regarding Soviet policy vis-à-vis African liberation movements shows its Cold War origins, both in terms of the quality of evidence available and the obvious alarmist slant. While not useless, such sources— primarily periodical, with some declassified U.S. intelligence assessments—must be regarded cautiously.

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Since the end of the Cold War, however, scholars have begun to uncover once- classified aspects of the war in Guinea that deal directly with the topic of superpower (or client state) involvement. One such work was Piero Gleijeses‘ essay ―The First

Ambassadors: Cuba‘s Contribution to Guinea‘s War of Independence‖ (Journal of Latin

American Studies, February 1997, 45-88), which detailed the activities of Cuban

―advisors‖ in PAIGC operations, and especially their role in artillery and air defense employment. The article later appeared, in expanded form, as a chapter in Gleijeses‘ book Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (Chapel Hill,

NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002). Ana Monica Fonseca examined

Germany‘s role, and to a lesser extent France‘s, in the modernization of the Portuguese

Air Force in ―Dez Anos de Relações Luso-Aleman, 1958-1968‖ (Relaçãos

Internacionais, September 2006, 47-60). To date, these two essays represent the most important post-Cold War analyses of the competition between Portugal, the PAIGC, and their respective sponsors to secure dominance of the skies over Guinea.

Works on Ancillary Topics

Aircrew Psychology. Any study of air power‘s effectiveness-in this or any other conflict must account for aircrew reactions to the psychological stresses of combat. The benchmark work in this field remains Mark K. Wells‘ Courage and Air Warfare: The

Allied Aircrew Experience in the Second World War (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.,

1995). Wells details the various types of stressors that affected American and British

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aircrews, positing that fear of the unknown and the random nature of some defensive weapons affected aviators even more than deadlier, though better understood, threats.

Two theses by students at the Air Force‘s advanced air power theory school discussed similar topics: Major Walter Anthony Grady, Jr., USAF, ―The Moral Domain of War: A

View from the Cockpit‖ (Maxwell AFB, AL: School of Advanced Air power Studies,

May 1993) and Phillip T. Hamilton, ―Fear and Loathing in the Air: Combat Fear and

Stress in the Air Force‖ (Maxwell AFB, AL: School of Advanced Air and Space Studies,

June 2005).

Non-Linearity in Warfare. Insurgency, as well as the government response, represent asymmetric forms of war in the most literal sense: both adversaries continually attempt to achieve the greatest possible result from the least expenditure of effort.

Unfortunately for both, even the slightest efforts can yield unpredictable, and entirely disproportionate, results. Consequently, the concept of nonlinearity in warfare has gained dramatically in currency during the past few years of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The standard analysis of the topic, however, remains Alan Beyerchen‘s ―Clausewitz,

Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War‖ (International Security, Winter 1992-

1993, 59-90). Despite its Clausewitzian focus, Professor Beyerchen‘s essay thoroughly explores the uncertainties inherent in any conflict, including the war in Guinea.

Guerrilla Warfare Theory and Practice. Amílcar Cabral repeatedly acknowledged that, when developing the PAIGC‘s strategy, he repeatedly consulted the lessons of earlier guerrilla conflicts and the writings of the purported ―masters‖ in the field. Three works in particular might be said to represent the ―state of the art‖ of

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guerrilla theory in the 1960s: Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare (New York: Praeger

Publishers, 1961), Che Guevara‘s Guerrilla Warfare (Lincoln, NE: University of

Nebraska Press, 1998), and Vo Nguyen Giap‘s People‘s War, People‘s Army (Honolulu:

University Press of the Pacific, 2001). To these works one might add Robert Taber‘s

War of the Flea (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2002), which provides a succinct summary of influential guerrilla theories and campaigns through the mid-1960s. These works in particular have quite a lot to say about the qualities desired in guerrillas and their weapons.

Air Power in Counter-Insurgency. Those missiles were indeed a ―godsend‖ given the historical impact of air power upon insurgent forces throughout the 20th century.

Group Captain A.P.N. Lambert, RAF, examined the general psychological effects of air power on both conventional and guerrilla forces in The Psychology of Air Power

(London: Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, 1994), a work which has provided the basis for a number of subsequent essays regarding air power in counter- insurgency operations. An earlier work on the same subject was written by a group of

U.S. Air Force officers, entitled ―Psychological Effects of Air Power in

Counterinsurgency Operations‖ (Ellington Air Force Base, TX: 8511th Air Force

Reserve Recovery Group, June 1964).

Two general works regarding air power in counter-insurgency operations have appeared in the past two decades. The first was Philip Anthony Towle‘s Pilots and

Rebels: The Use of Aircraft in Unconventional Warfare, 1918-1988 (London: Brassey‘s

UK, 1989), followed by James S. Corum and Wray R. Johnson‘s Air Power in Small

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Wars: Fighting Insurgents and Terrorists (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas,

2003). Both books provide a general historical narrative of various counterinsurgency campaigns, with a focus on the advantages and shortcomings of air power in individual operations. Specific case studies of particular campaigns number in the dozens, including assessments of air power‘s role in various counter-insurgency operations produced by the

RAND Corporation and the U.S. Air Force‘s Aerospace Studies Institute.

Insurgents themselves have also frequently remarked on the effectiveness of air power, beginning with T.E. Lawrence in his retrospective The Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

A Triumph (New York: Anchor Books, 1991). More recently, senior insurgents such as

Truong Nhu Tang in A Viet Cong Memoir (New York: Vintage Books, 1986) and

George Grivas in The Memoirs of General Grivas (London: Longmans, Green and Co.,

Ltd., 1964) have commented extensively on the impact of helicopter operations, high- altitude bombing, and napalm strikes against their forces. Similarly, captured

Vietnamese insurgents highlighted the effects of air power in Konrad Kellen‘s

―Conversations with NVA and VC Soldiers: A Study of Enemy Motivation and Morale‖

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 13 June 1969).

Man-Portable Air Defense Missile Development and Employment. The effectiveness of air power naturally drove insurgents to seek an effective riposte, and the

PAIGC was the first insurgent party to acquire—and successfully use—an appropriate defense: the man-portable air defense missile, specifically the Soviet ―Strela‖ system.

One of the most prolific analysts of Soviet air defense missile design and employment is

Steven J. Zaloga of Jane‘s Information Group; two of his most applicable works

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regarding this subject are Soviet Air Defence Missiles: Design, Development and Tactics

(Surrey, UK: Jane‘s Information Group, 1989) and ―Russian Man-portable Surface-to-

Air Missiles‖ (Jane‘s Intelligence Review, April 1994, 147-153). A more general survey of the history of air defense weaponry can be found in Kenneth P. Werrell‘s Archie to

SAM· A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air Defense (Maxwell AFB, AL:

Air University Press, 2005).

The early development of man-portable air defense systems is chronicled in Mary

T. Cagle‘s History of the Redeye Weapons System (Army Missile Command historical monograph, project number AMC 78M, 23 May 1974), while early Soviet man-portable missile use is described in Isabella Ginor‘s ―‗Under the Yellow Arab Helmet Gleamed

Blue Russian Eyes‘: Operation Kavkaz and the War of Attrition, 1969-1970‖ (Cold War

History, October 2002, 127-156) and V.I. Tkachev‘s ―Pochemu Izrail‘ Prekratil Voennie

Deistviya na Egipetskom Fronte‖ (Voenno-istoricheskii Zhurnal, July 2006, 43-48). The latter two essays both detail the Soviet effort to employ Strela missiles—largely unsuccessfully—against Israeli aircraft during the so-called War of Attrition. Strela missiles would fare somewhat better during North Vietnam‘s 1972 invasion of the south, and considerable archival evidence detailing those engagements is available.

Archives and Libraries

The paucity of published works regarding Portuguese air power in Guinea mandated considerable archival research. By far the author‘s most productive visit was

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to the Arquivo Histórico da Força Aérea (AHFA) at Alfragide, a Lisbon suburb. The

AHFA, directed by Portuguese Air Force Colonel Ismael Alves, did exhibit some gaps in its holdings, largely due to the turmoil following the 1974 coup and the hasty withdrawal from Guinea that followed. Nonetheless, the AHFA yielded a trove of operational reports, orders of battle, counter-insurgency manuals, status reports, and other data critical to the current study. Of particular note, the staff proved exceptionally helpful and accommodating both in terms of producing requested documents and declassifying official papers on the spot.

Two manuscript collections in California proved similarly fruitful: the Thomas

H. Henriksen Collection at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, and the Ronald H. Chilcote

Collection at the University of California-Riverside. Both contained extensive holdings of PAIGC publications, communiqués, and ephemera. Together with a survey of press translations compiled by the Joint Publications Research Service and held at the Air

University Library at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, they yielded as complete a collection of PAIGC communiqués and operations summaries as may be practical. This proved especially useful given that the largest single repository of such documentation— the Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea Information Center (MAGIC) in London—ceased operations in the early 1990s.

Ideally, any research endeavor involving the war in Guinea would include a visit to the Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisa (INEP), Guinea‘s national archives.

However, the outbreak of civil war in 1998 very nearly destroyed that institution.

Situated less than a kilometer from the front lines, INEP was requisitioned as a barracks

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for intervening Senegalese troops and was repeatedly shelled. Both ―military necessity‖ and damage to the roofs exposed most of INEP‘s documentary holdings to the elements, and the great majority was destroyed.866 Further, as the United States and Guinea have not yet reopened their respective embassies in each other‘s nations, travel between the two remains problematic at best. Fortunately, the attention given the war while it continued resulted in the establishment of multiple ―satellite‖ collections, such as the

Chilcote and Henriksen collections described above.

Finally, the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell Air Force Base has proven useful in the research of air defense missile development and employment. The

AFHRA‘s Air Force Collection includes dozens of declassified intelligence reports and

Air Tactical School lectures on early German, Soviet, and American missile development, as well as analyses of man-portable missile use against U.S. aircraft in

Vietnam. The AFHRA‘s Oral History Collection yielded much additional information on the latter topic, which helped to put the PAIGC‘s use of similar weapons in its proper historical context.

Unpublished Internet Sources and Collections

The growth of the Internet has resulted in the dramatic proliferation of on-line message boards, blogs, and virtual archives regarding Portugal‘s African wars. These represent some of the most problematic sources of all, as their provenance is often

866 See Peter Mendy, ―The National Institute of Studies & Research of Guinea-Bissau Endangered by War‖ (Review of African Political Economy 25, no. 78 [December 1998], 649-650).

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impossible to establish. The author is confident, however, that he has been able to verify the bona fides of contributors to one key Internet source, ―Luís Graça e Camaradas de

Guiné‖ (http://blogueforanadaevaotres.blogspot.com/). Established and edited by

Professor Luís Graça of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, himself a veteran of the conflict, ―Camaradas de Guiné‖ serves as an electronic message board for veterans of

Guinea to post recollections and information regarding the war in Guinea. Repeated contact with Graça and other frequent contributors has established their credibility and sincerity to a satisfactory degree, at least as far as this author is concerned. As the scope and significance of the Internet community continues to grow, historians and other scholars may well be expected to make greater use of such on-line offerings in the future.

Finally, various U.S. Government online repositories for declassified documents exist, several of which have yielded insight into the problem under study. Among the largest is the Declassified Documents Reference System (http://galenet.galegroup.com. proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/servlet/DDRS?10cID=colu44332, user login required), although considerable relevant information is also available in the on-line Freedom of Information

Act reading rooms of the U.S. Department of State (http://www.state.gov/m/a/ips/), the

Central Intelligence Agency (http://www.foia.cia.gov/), and the Nixon Presidential

Library (http://nixon.archives.gov/virtuallibrary/documents/index.php). Documents acquired from these sites have proven particularly useful in their reporting of first-hand assessments of Portuguese policymakers‘ attitudes, beliefs, and requests, all of which provide valuable context to the question of why the Estado Novo regime acted as it did during the war in Guinea.

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Appendix B – Afterward

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After three years of researching and writing on this subject, the author has naturally grown to feel as if he knows some of the major personae dramatis involved. It strikes him as only just, then, to conclude with a reportage of the fates that ultimately befell some of the key players in this drama.

Marcello Caetano, the last Prime Minister of the Estado Novo regime, fled

Portugal immediately after the coup of 25 April 1974 and spent the rest of his life in exile in Brazil. He died on 26 October 1986 in Rio de Janeiro.867 His immediate successor to leadership in Lisbon, General António de Spínola, served briefly as President from April to September 1974, when he resigned due to factional infighting. In 1975, he was forced into exile in Brazil amid accusations of a plotting a countercoup; he returned to Portugal the following year, but left public life. Spínola died in Lisbon on 13 August 1996.868

Luís Cabral served as the first President of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, a post he assumed following formal independence in September 1974. Ousted in a military coup in 1980, Cabral left for exile first in Cuba, then in Portugal. He remained in

Portugal until his death on 31 May 2009, having returned to his homeland only once, for just a few days, in 1999.869

867 ―Marcello Caetano, Ex-Leader in Lisbon‖ (The New York Times, 27 October 1980, 13), 13.

868 ―Antonio de Spinola, 86, a Bridge to Democracy for the Portuguese‖ (The New York Times, 14 August 1996, 7), 7.

869 Barry Munslow, ―The 1980 Coup in Guinea Bissau‖ (Review of African Political Economy no. 21 [May – September 1981], 109-113), 109; Kate Whiteman, ―Obituary—Luis Cabral: Liberation Fighter and First President of Guinea-Bissau‖ (The Guardian, 8 June 2009, 32), 32.

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João Bernardo ―Nino‖ Viera, the PAIGC‘s operational commander, overthrew

Luís Cabral in the 1980 military coup. He served as Guinea-Bissau‘s president until

1999, when another coup ousted him. Returning from exile in 2005, he successfully ran for the presidency again, only to die at the hands dissident soldiers in March 2009.870

Since independence, Guinea-Bissau has endured a series of coups and a devestating civil war. Institutional and ethnic divisions continue to plague the country, one of the poorest in Africa, while personal rivalries perpetuate a dangerous climate of political instability.871

One of the casualties of Guinea-Bissau‘s 1998-1999 civil war was Major Caba

Fati, the PAIGC guerrilla who conducted the first successful Strela-2 operation. The

Portuguese pilot he shot down, Miguel Pessoa, is still alive and is an active contributor to online and published histories of the war in Guinea. He resides in Portugal with his wife,

Giselda, the para-nurse who helped rescue him in 1973, who was herself aboard an aircraft damaged by a Strela-2 missile two weeks later. To the author‘s knowledge, they are the only husband and wife team in the world to have shared such an experience.872

870 ―Guinea-Bissau President Shot Dead‖ (BBC News Online, 3 March 2009), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/ 7918061.stm.

871 See, for example, Joshua B. Forrest, ―Guinea-Bissau since Independence: A Decade of Domestic Power Struggles‖ (The Journal of Modern African Studies 25, no. 1 [March 1987], 95-116, and Herman Cohen, ―Portugal‘s Colonial Legacy Continues: Misery in Guinea Bissau and West Africa‘s Arc of Instability‖ (Journal of International Peace Operations 4, no. 6 [May – June 2009], 33-34.

872 Pessoa, ―Memórias de Guerra 1967/1974—Passei a Voar Sempre a Dois: Eu e o Medo,‖ http://www.correiomanha.pt/noticia.aspx?channelid=00000009-0000-0000-0000- 000000000009&contentid=00245439-3333-3333-3333-000000245439; Graça, http://blogueforanadaevaotres.blogspot.com/2009/04/guine-6374-p4258-fap-27-miguel-ja-nao.html.

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Estimates of PAIGC fatalities during the conflict range between 1,000 and 2,000, although Portugal‘s wartime claims add up to some 12-15,000.873 There does not appear to be a reliable accounting of civilian deaths during the war for ―Portuguese‖ Guinea.

In all, 61 FAP personnel died in Guinea, including paratroopers as well as pilots, observers, para-nurses, and other specialists. Their names are inscribed, along with the other 9,695 Portuguese military members who lost their lives in the African wars, on the

Monumento ãos Combatentes do Ultramar in Belem, Portugal.874

Figure B.1. Monumento ãos Combatentes do Ultramar (Photo by the author).

873 Chabal, Amilcar Cabral, 102.

874 Brandão, Cronologia da Guerra Colonial, passim., and the author‘s personal observations during his most recent visit to Portugal, March 2009.

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317

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Azevedo, Licínio and Maria da Paz Rodrigues. Diário da Libertação (a Guiné-Bissau da Nova África). São Paolo, Brazil: Versus, 1977.

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Bruno, Almeida. ―Libertar Guidage.‖ In José Freire Antunes, ed., A Guerra de África (1961-1974), vol. 2. Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996.

Cabral, Amílcar. A Acção Armado e os Métodos Militares. Bissau, Guinea-Bissau: Departamento de Informação, Propaganda e Cultura do CC do PAIGC, 1988.

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Cabral, Amílcar. ―The Facts about Portugal‘s African Colonies.‖ In Bragança, Aquino de, and Immanuel Wallerstein, eds. The African Liberation Reader, Volume 1: The Anatomy of Colonialism. London: Zed Press, 1982.

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