to Ponta Delgada, after rescuing 119 survivors of the US merchant ships City of Fint and Julia Ward Howe sunk by German U-boats, the destroyer Lima, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Sarmento Rodrigues, suffered a failure of her engines for 45 minutes. In a middle of a heavy storm, without engines and suffering the strong impact of the huge waves of the North Atlantic, the ship tilted 67°, the highest slope of a ship without sinking ever registered in the history of navigation. In January 1945, aircraft from the carrier USS Enterprise bombarded the Macau Naval Air Station, destroying its facilities and aircraft. This never well explained attack was done, allegedly, because United States forces were mistakenly thinking that Macau had been occupied by the Japanese. After the cession of hostilities in 1945, the Portuguese Navy organized an expedition to Timor to reoccupy the territory and to restore Portuguese sovereignty. The naval component of the expedition included the avisos Bartolomeu Dias, Gonçalves Zarco and Afonso de Albuquerque and the transport ships Angola, Sofala and Quanza, carrying supplies and about 2,000 troops. Early Cold War After World War II, Portugal was one of the founding nations of NATO. In the scope of the Cold War, the Portuguese fleet participated in the defense of the North Atlantic against the Soviet naval threat. Inside NATO, the Portuguese Navy stands out by the development of a high proficiency in the mine and anti-submarine warfares. Besides the already existing ships that suffer modernization programs, the Portuguese Navy starts to receive a series of new ships from the late 1940s, including nine frigates, three submarines, 14 patrol ships and 15 mine warfare ships. The Naval Aviation also receives new aircraft, including 24 Curtiss SB2C Helldiver dive bombers that form an anti-submarine squadron, considered a case study of efficiency among NATO, initially based at the Aveiro Naval Air Station and then transferred to the new Montijo Naval Air Base. The roles of Minister of National Defence and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces are created in 1950, uniting the Navy and the Army under a joint command and marking the creation of the Portuguese Armed Forces as an integrated force. After an intense debate and the fierce opposition from the naval aviators, in 1952, the Government takes the controversial decision to place the Naval Aviation under the control of the then created independent Portuguese