Brown waters of Africa
Subtitle: Portugese riverine warfare, 1961-1974
By: John P. Cann
Series: Helion studies in military history -- number 17; Helion studies in military history -- no. 17.
Publisher: Helion & Company Ltd
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Solihull, West Midlands
Language: eng
Number of pages: 274
ISBN-13: 9781909982574
Subjects: International relations; Naval History; Military History; Colonies; Foreign relations; History
Description: During World War II, Portugal played its cards uncommonly well as a neutral and subsequently became a member of NATO. This membership resulted in a modernizing of its navy and its integration into the Atlantic Alliance. By 1960, when other colonial powers were abandoning their empires, Portugal made the decision to cling to its possessions, as they had been Portuguese for over 400 years. Without them Portugal saw itself as only a small European country, whereas with them, it would be a great nation. Portugal ultimately would fight a 13-year debilitating war against various nationalist movements in Africa to retain its possessions. By the mid-1950s, it became apparent to the Portuguese Navy that it would fight in Africa, and it began to make preparations. Ultimately, it would perform a near wholesale conversion from the blue water or oceanic navy that supported NATO to a brown water or riverine one to fight in Africa. This is the story of that conversion and the great "battle of the rivers" in Africa. This naval reorientation was a remarkable achievement, in that Portugal not only learned to fight a new kind of war, it built a navy to accomplish this and did so while shouldering its NATO commitments. The Portuguese Navy in developing a specialized naval force clearly foresaw the paramount economic, military, and psychological importance of controlling the interior waterways of Africa, for the infrastructure there was universally primitive. While there was generally a road network radiating from the colonial capital, the primary routes used clandestinely by insurgents were chiefly the waterways. The job of the navy was to foreclose enemy use of these lines of communication, and this it did with great success.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 262-267) and index.
Table of contents: title: A New Phase of the Cold War; title: The Naval Dimension; title: Breaking New Ground; title: River that Swallows All Rivers; title: A Grim, Torrid Stretch of Swamp and Jungle; title: Beneath the Burning Tungue Sun; title: Lands at the End of the Earth; title: Operation Mar Verde, the Strike on Conakry; title: Brown Water Legacy.