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A ação da Marinha de Guerra Portuguesa no Teatro de Operações da Guiné-Bissau (1963-1974) : contexto e evolução
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O fim da 2ª Guerra Mundial trouxe consigo importantes alterações geopolíticas e um rearranjo da ordem internacional que se manifestou em dois aspetos principais. A emergência de um mundo bipolar, fraturado pela ideologia e encabeçado por duas superpotências nucleares, EUA e URSS e o fim dos impérios coloniais europeus, fruto de uma crescente consciencialização das populações dos territórios dominados, em África e na Ásia, que exigiam independência.
Portugal, primeiro país europeu a estabelecer-se em África, encarava como uma ameaça existencial a vaga descolonizadora que se foi avolumando durante os anos 50 e 60 do século XX, e tentou, na medida das suas possibilidades, contrariar os “ventos de mudança” que ameaçavam o Império.
Quando a guerra já parecia inevitável, o país começou a preparar-se para combater, completamente só e pelo tempo que fosse necessário para manter a integridade territorial, que acreditava ir do Minho a Timor.
A guerra nos três Teatros de Operações Africanos, Angola, Guiné e Moçambique assumiu características diferentes, condicionada pelas diferentes geografias e inimigos contra os quais as Forças Armadas Portuguesas tiveram que combater ao longo de treze longos anos.
Pela sua geografia e hidrografia, foi na Guiné que a Marinha de Guerra Portuguesa assumiu o papel de maior relevo, com mais meios humanos e materiais empregues, mas, também, onde sofreu mais baixas.
Numa conjuntura internacional adversa, o modo como a Marinha conseguiu, num curto intervalo de tempo concretizar as transformações organizacionais e doutrinarias necessárias, adquirir os meios, desenvolver as táticas, técnicas e procedimentos, adquirir, projetar e construir o tipo de navios adequados, praticamente a partir do zero, e atingir a proficiência operacional demonstrada em combate, assumem-se como um assinalável feito de armas que merece ser estudado.
The end of the Second World War brought with it important geopolítical changes and a rearrangement of the international order that manifested itself in two main aspects. The emergence of a bipolar world, fractured by ideology and headed by two nuclear superpowers, the USA and the USSR, and the end of the European colonial empires, the result of a growing awareness among the populations of the dominated territories in Africa and Asia, who demanded independence. Portugal, the first European country to establish colonies in Africa, saw the wave of decolonisation that was growing during the 1950s and 1960s as an existential threat and tried, as far as it could, to counteract the ‘winds of change’ that threatened the Empire. When war seemed inevitable, the country began to prepare to fight, completely alone and for as long as necessary to maintain its territorial integrity, which it believed extended from Minho to Timor. The war in the three African Theatres of Operations, Angola, Guinea and Mozambique, took on different characteristics, conditioned by the different geographies and enemies against which the Portuguese Armed Forces had to fight over thirteen long years. Due to its geography and hydrography, it was in Guinea that the Portuguese Navy played the most important role, with the most human and material resources deployed, but also where it suffered the most casualties. In an adverse international climate, the way in which the Navy managed, in a short period of time, to initiate the necessary organisational and doctrinal transformations, acquire the means, develop the tactics, techniques and procedures, acquire, design and build the right type of ships, practically from scratch, and achieve the operational proficiency demonstrated in combat, is a remarkable feat of arms that deserves to be studied.
The end of the Second World War brought with it important geopolítical changes and a rearrangement of the international order that manifested itself in two main aspects. The emergence of a bipolar world, fractured by ideology and headed by two nuclear superpowers, the USA and the USSR, and the end of the European colonial empires, the result of a growing awareness among the populations of the dominated territories in Africa and Asia, who demanded independence. Portugal, the first European country to establish colonies in Africa, saw the wave of decolonisation that was growing during the 1950s and 1960s as an existential threat and tried, as far as it could, to counteract the ‘winds of change’ that threatened the Empire. When war seemed inevitable, the country began to prepare to fight, completely alone and for as long as necessary to maintain its territorial integrity, which it believed extended from Minho to Timor. The war in the three African Theatres of Operations, Angola, Guinea and Mozambique, took on different characteristics, conditioned by the different geographies and enemies against which the Portuguese Armed Forces had to fight over thirteen long years. Due to its geography and hydrography, it was in Guinea that the Portuguese Navy played the most important role, with the most human and material resources deployed, but also where it suffered the most casualties. In an adverse international climate, the way in which the Navy managed, in a short period of time, to initiate the necessary organisational and doctrinal transformations, acquire the means, develop the tactics, techniques and procedures, acquire, design and build the right type of ships, practically from scratch, and achieve the operational proficiency demonstrated in combat, is a remarkable feat of arms that deserves to be studied.