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In the early hours of 22 November 1970, six Portuguese warships
surrounded Conakry, the capital of the Republic of Guinea, on the
West African coast. Taking advantage of the darkness of the night,
a military force landed on the northern and southern coasts of the
sleeping city. At the head of these men was a young Portuguese
marine officer, Commander Alpoim Calvao, who had been appointed to
command this secret operation, codenamed Green Sea - Mar Verde in
Portuguese. The main objective of the invasion was to promote a
coup d'etat in the former French colony and overthrow the regime of
President Sekou Toure, who supported the guerrillas of the PAIGC
(African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), who
were fighting for the independence of Portuguese Guinea. The
invaders also sought to destroy the naval resources that the
guerrillas and the Guinean navy had in the port of Conakry, capture
the leader of the party, Amilcar Cabral, and rescue a group of
Portuguese soldiers held in a PAIGC prison. The incursion would not
have the expected success concerning the coup d'etat, and Portugal
would be condemned by international organizations for the invasion
of a sovereign state, but this operation would remain in the memory
of many as the most daring carried out during the colonial war in
Africa, although the Portuguese regime never recognised its
involvement.
From 1963 to 1974, Portugal and its nationalist enemies fought an
increasingly intense war for the independence of "Portuguese"
Guinea, then a colony but now the Republic of Guinea-Bissau. For
most of the conflict, Portugal enjoyed virtually unchallenged air
supremacy, and increasingly based its strategy on this advantage.
The Portuguese Air Force (Forca Aerea Portuguesa, abbreviated FAP)
consequently played a crucial role in the Guinean war. Indeed,
throughout the conflict, the FAP - despite the many challenges it
faced - proved to be the most effective and responsive military
argument against the PAIGC, which was fighting for Guinea's
independence. The air war for Guinea is unique for historians and
analysts for several reasons. It was the first conflict in which a
non-state irregular force deployed defensive missiles against an
organised air force. Moreover, the degree to which Portugal relied
on its air power was such that its effective neutralisation doomed
Lisbon's military strategy in the province. The FAP's unexpected
combat losses initiated a cascade of effects that degraded in turn
its own operational freedom and the effectiveness of the
increasingly air-dependent surface forces, which felt that the war
against the PAIGC was lost. The air war for Guinea thus represents
a compelling illustration of the value - and vulnerabilities - of
air power in a counter-insurgency context, as well as the negative
impacts of overreliance on air supremacy.
War of Intervention in Angola, Volume 4, continues the coverage of
the operational history of the Angolan Air Force and Air Defence
Force (FAPA/DAA) as told by Angolan and Cuban sources, in the
period 1985-1988. Many accounts of this conflict - better known in
the West as the 'Border War' or the 'Bush War', as named by its
South African participants - consider the operations of the
FAPA/DAA barely worth commentary. At most, they mention a few air
combats involving Mirage F.1 interceptors of the South African Air
Force (SAAF) in 1987 and 1988, and perhaps a little about the
activity of the FAPA/DAA's MiG-23s. However, a closer study of
Angolan and Cuban sources reveals an entirely different image of
the air war over Angola in the 1980s: indeed, it reveals the extent
to which the flow of the entire war was dictated by the
availability - or the lack - of air power. These issues strongly
influenced the planning and conduct of operations by the commanders
of the Angolan and Cuban forces. Based on extensive research with
the help of Angolan and Cuban sources, War of Intervention in
Angola, Volume 4, traces the Angolan and Cuban application of air
power between 1985-1988 - during which it came of age - and the
capabilities, intentions, and the combat operations of the air
forces. The volume is illustrated with 100 rarely seen photographs,
half a dozen maps and 15 colour profiles, and provides a unique
source of reference on this subject.
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