Page 229 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

Portogallo

*
antonio de Jesus bisPo

Doctrine, Capacities, Technology and operational
Environment on the Employment of the Air Power;
the Case of Guerrilla Warfare

he Portuguese experience on the effective employment of airpower in actual
operations, during the past century, can be resumed to the war against guer-
Trilla in which the country has been involved in Africa for thirteen years, 1961-
1974. In the two wars that ripped the world in the twentieth century, the Portu guese
Air Power had no noteworthy intervention.
In fact, participation of Portuguese aviators in the First Great War took place
with them being integrated into allied formations, due to material difficulties in ac-
quiring airplanes that could make up a single national air force unit. In the Second
World War Portugal maintain a neutral position and remained out of the centre of
the conflict, and because of this the Portuguese action was merely limited to ensure
readiness of the scarce air resources that were available then, assigning a squadron
to the Azores archipelago.
Our purpose, when describing that counter guerrilla war period, in their most
relevant aspects, is to match this description with the principles of air doctrine in
construction in Europe and America since the twenties.

The first steps of the Portuguese Air Force

Before we get into this description, we need to devote some lines on the route of
the Portuguese Air Force soon after its constitution as a Branch of the Armed Forces
in 1952.
The first effort after this legal constitution resided, essentially, in the areas of
organization and doctrine, development and implementation of training standards,
according to the model adopted by most of the Western Air Forces.
In fact, the Portuguese Air Force lived one of its golden ages in the fifties of last
century, in terms of the technological upgrading, the volume of the means that were
allocated to it and for its high level of operational readiness. It flew about 55,000
flight hours per year, one quarter of this effort being the responsibility of the two
squadrons of F-84G combat aircraft.

* Lieutenant General (Retired) Portuguese Air Force.