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Alex Deane

21 Jan, 13 tweets, 3 min read

@drjones84852710

This is instalment 12 of #deanehistory. It’s the first request job: thanks @drjones84852710! We continue the Portuguese theme, and in the Second World War – but rather different.

Because not every man need wield a gun to be a hero. Sometimes a bureaucrat’s stamp will do.

Aristides de Sousa Mendes was Portuguese Consul-General in Bordeaux when France fell to the Nazis in the Second World War. Think Casablanca, last days of freedom etcetera, only in wine country.

Irrelevant side note. He was a twin, with a different birthday to his older brother, as they were born either side of midnight. Must be uncommon, & made sure each had their own “special day” in family celebrations.

The Salazar regime sought to maintain its neutrality & feared the Axis powers greatly, especially given the Spanish government’s closeness to them. It had a very tough regime for immigration, as so many sought to flee the Nazis via Portuguese neutrality.

Lisbon sent all its consuls “Circular 14” setting out “inconvenient or dangerous” refugees who shouldn’t be granted a visa without OK from Lisbon- which given the pressure, volume & speed required, effectively meant refusing them. The list included fleeing Jews.

Historians stress this was Portugal attempting to avoid danger to itself from Axis & not any sort of ideological point of view. That is right. Portugal avoided antisemitism more thoroughly than almost anywhere. But it still left thousands fleeing Nazism worse off.

Sousa Mendes disobeyed this instruction immediately, granting visas without approval from Lisbon, & soon went further, actively assisting refugees with false passports & papers. As the German tanks rolled westwards, demand increased; so did his subterfuge for those fleeing.

The day after Pétain announced the French should seek an armistice with Germany, Sousa Mendes announced to his family that he’d just issue visas to… everybody.

Bordeaux was bombed the next day. Beyonne, on the Spanish border, was packed with refugees. Sousa Mendes went there (happily dodging panicked instructions to desist) & relieved the diplomat on duty, who’d been refusing visas. Our man had other ideas.

Soon he was recalled to Lisbon. He obeyed… rather slowly. Via posts that hadn’t heard Lisbon’s orders yet, and crossings without telephones, granting visas and waving refugees over the borders wherever he went.

He was punished when home, of course. Pay docked, career effectively ended, family shunned. After the war, Salazar claimed credit for his country for all the refugees it had accepted, understandably & with some truth- but perhaps rather more recognition belonged to someone else.

Sousa Mendes today is honoured as righteous among the nations, rescuer of thousands from the Nazis.

None of this is meant to be criticism of our oldest ally- the oldest alliance anyone has had, anywhere, ever. We are lucky to have such friends. It’s just to say that sometimes unlikely people are the most wonderful heroes, civil servants included- Sousa Mendes was such a one.

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More from @ajcdeane

Alex Deane

@ajcdeane

23 Jan

This is the 14th instalment of #deanehistory. It is the story of Prince Roy, and it is true.

Roy Bates was British, to begin with. He served his first country in war, as he did his own realm later… his jaw was shattered by a German bomb, before he married a beauty queen.

Having recovered from his war injuries & married the girl of his dreams, Roy became a pirate radio host. Thus, he came to see the attraction of abandoned offshore Maunsell Sea Forts, which were awkward for the authorities to police.

In the Second World War, said forts were built, as the name implies, in the sea, to protect east coast ports & the Thames Estuary. Some might think them bleak, oil rig type affairs. But to Roy, they were the Promised Land.

Read 22 tweets

Alex Deane

@ajcdeane

22 Jan

This is instalment 13 of #deanehistory.

Gavin Ewart was a poet. He was rated highly by Philip Larkin, which I find a pretty infallible recommendation in such things. He wrote wittily & funnily & talked a lot about sex.

I concede, before the left shouts it, that he wrote, looking back at his time at Cambridge, of “A little country so proud/ of Eton and such things/ in 1935-/ muted semi-Fascist, not loud,/ just smug and half-alive,/ a bit like now.” Perhaps today he’d have #FBPE in his handle.

He served our country in the Royal Artillery in the Second World War (like my step-grandfather). Precociously published pre-war, he couldn’t write during the war or a long time after. But he eventually returned to poetry & national fame & was prolific in later years.

Read 8 tweets

Alex Deane

@ajcdeane

20 Jan

This is instalment 11 of #deanehistory. It’s one of my favourite stories from the 2nd World War, & one of the most unlikely.

Portugal’s neutrality was important to us. They permitted Allied activity from the Azores, vital in combating U-boats.

They also traded on favourable terms with Britain, with whom (then, as now) they shared the oldest continuous alliance in the world.

But there was a problem.

Portugal’s overseas possessions included Goa in India.

In 1942, SOE realised that coded messages were being sent to U-boats in the Indian Ocean with precision, allowing the sinking of huge amounts of Allied ships.

A Gestapo spy was detected in Goa.

Read 21 tweets

Alex Deane

@ajcdeane

19 Jan

This is the 10th instalment of #deanehistory. We made it to double figures!

Today we take a look at Napoleon. But not the one you’re thinking about.

Louis-Napoleon was the son of Napoleon III, who was the nephew of Napoleon actual Napoleon Napoleon. (Napoleon II was Napoleon’s son & didn’t live long). All clear?

Napoleon III was the first President of France, & the last Emperor. That way round, too, rather than the reverse, which might seem more natural. He’d been elected, then couldn’t get re-elected, so seized power.

Read 15 tweets

Alex Deane

@ajcdeane

18 Jan

This is the 9th instalment of #deanehistory. We remain in Aroostook County.

The County seat is the small town of Houlton. During the Second World War, before America had entered, the USA built an airbase at Houlton right on the border with Canada.

The USA flew planes into that base – careful not to enter Canadian airspace, as the Canadians were & are in the Commonwealth, fighting alongside us, whilst the USA was “neutral.”

Canadian farmers would then come along with their tractors & literally drag military aircraft over the border. The Canucks would close the highway, which became a temporary runway, and whoosh – off said planes went to London for the war effort.

Read 9 tweets

Alex Deane

@ajcdeane

17 Jan

Some anecdotes too short to make a proper #deanehistory instalment.

One such is LBC shortly after being sworn in as President on the plane. They land.

A green lieutenant says, “over there - that’s your helicopter, Mr President.”

LBJ: “son, they’re all my helicopters.”

@denvercunning

Another, a favourite of @denvercunning.

LBJ & team are taking names for the polls from tombstones. It’s late. They’re tired. A junior aide skips a worn headstone that’s hard to read.

LBJ stops him.

“Son, that man’s got as much of a right to vote as anyone in this graveyard.”

A third. Trigger warning, profane.

LBJ to his press guy, of an opponent: “go out and say he “f*cks pigs.”

Aide: “but sir, he doesn’t f*ck pigs!”

LBJ: “well sure, son. But I want to hear the son of a b*tch deny it.”

Read 4 tweets

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