This blog is part of a site named landinportugal.org where you can find the stories of more than one hundred planes that during WWII landed or crashed in Portugal. Here I will announce the updates and also publish stories and information related with WWII in Portugal. All the stories will be in English and there another twin blog in Portuguese... forgive if sometimes the English is not always correct...



Friday, October 15, 2010

The story from the SS Quanza

Portugal, and especially Lisbon, was during WWII one of the safe ports where tens of thousands of refugees found one open door to get to the United States and other countries. It is still difficult today to know how many refugees – most of them Jews, but not only – crossed the border to Portugal in those years.

Here is a small video that talks about the fate of some 317 of them. They Left Lisbon hoping to find a new future and suddenly – some – were faced with the possibility of having to return to Portugal after being so near the Promised Land…



This is just one of thousand stories related with refugees in Portugal in those years….

Friday, October 8, 2010

Site Update (1)

It's time to make the first update in site.

During the last month I have received some new material about aircraft tha might have crashed near Portugal. I'm still investigating and as soon as I get confirmations the material will become available in the site.

There have also arrived some pictures that I pretend to insert in the site as soon as I can.

In the last month the site has received about 1500 visits and more that 15.000 pages have been seen. I think it is a good sign. Most of the visitors are Portuguese, followed by the British and by the American's.

The update is related with one C-47 that has British and American crew, and crashed somewhere in the Portuguese coast in November 1942. The names from the 10 parachuters that hey transported are now included as is the serial number.

Here is the Link

http://www.landinportugal.org/air_pages/a01_copy(132).htm

Best regards to all...

Still in the Azores route


After the publication of the earlier articles there were some feedbacks, especially in the “twin” Portuguese Blog, that I must forward, in order to complete the story of the Azores. I know there will be always new material coming but I believe this gives a wide image of what has happened.

I will let out the material only in Portuguese, although, if someone is interested please go to the Portuguese Forum in www.aterrememportugal.blogspot.com or e-mail me. I will send the information over.

Anyway there is a Portuguese item in this post, because I believe it has great “visual” information. A couple of days ago a video was posted. It was in English and had some great pictures. I found another video with even more material. There are some pictures from the earlier British Pathé movie, but it is mush more complete.

Pass the first three minutes and you will start to see “Fortresses”, Hudsons’s, and even a Wellington in a camera movement that shows a couple of planes stationed in the airfield. There are also pictures with Portuguese people helping in building the infrastructure and so on. The images include also the arrival of the Americans and the first Hangar’s and other buildings.

At the end you can see a party offered by the local’s to the British newcomers, with a bullfight and so on. Hope you like it….



Gonçalo Mendes in the Portuguese Blog suggests also the following book and link. Both have the American point of view.


The book is “OPERATION ALACRITY - The Azores and the War in the Atlantic” from Norman Herz. He arrived in the island as a corporal with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' 928th Engineer Aviation Regiment, and latter wrote this book about the events and the importance of the island for the war effort.

There is also a site dedicated to the 801st Engineer Aviation Battalion in Word War II, that arrived in January 1944 in the Azores. It was made by the son of Robert Hawks, one of the soldiers that was part this battalion.

This is the Link: http://www.skydozer.com/index.html

 Besides that I would also leave the official site of the base in our days…

http://www.lajes.af.mil/index.asp

Best regards to all...

Sunday, October 3, 2010

First moments of the Brit's in Lagens Airfield, Azores

After a book that tells the story about the B-17 Fortress in the Azores, nothing better than see a cine-report from the “British Pathé”, made on the first days after the arrival of the Allied forces in the island. You can see the arrival of the engineers and other forces and also the landing of a B-17 (it looks made for this Forum). The film was released on 23 December 1943…

AZORES - FIRST PICTURES



To see other precious images you can click on the homepage from “British Pathé”