On April 25 the “Day of Freedom” is celebrated in Portugal. On April 25 1974, after more than 40 years, the nonviolent Carnation Revolution ended the authoritarian “Estado Novo” regime. In Ferragudo the picturesque shopping street “Rua 25 de Abril” is in memory of this day. Ferragudo also has a square “Largo Palma Inácio”, which bears the name of a resistance hero born in Ferragudo in 1922. For freedom and democracy, he hijacked a plane and robbed a bank.
Flying is his passion. At the age of 18, Hermínio da Palma Inácio becomes a mechanic at a military air base and also obtains his pilot’s license. Rebellious as he is, he takes fuel from other planes to make long flying hours. After another illegal flight that ends in a crash, he is fired. In Lisbon, where he works for Dutch KLM after the Second World War, he comes into contact with revolutionaries who are preparing for a coup. A coup attempt in 1947, in which Hermínio disables 35 military aircraft, fails. After going into hiding, he is arrested and transferred to the notorious Aljube prison in Lisbon, now the museum “Resistência e Liberdade”. A year later he jumps through the window at an unguarded moment, with sheets tied together, and manages to escape. Finally, in 1951, he arrives via Morocco as a crew member of a freighter in the United States and becomes a flight instructor there. When they discover who he is after a few years, he is expelled from the country and ends up in Brazil where more opponents of “Estado Novo” regime reside.
In Rio de Janeiro, they hatch a plan to infiltrate Portugal and prepare for a coup. The new leaders are to be dropped in Portugal with an airplane to be hijacked by Hermínio in Morocco. However, the revolutionaries are unable to involve the Portuguese . However, the plan to hijack an airplane is being pursued as a stunt to intimidate authoritarianism. As a result, on Friday morning, November 10, 1961, six rebels led by Hermínio in Casablanca bring suitcases and hundreds of pamphlets on board a TAP plane. Above Portugal the pilot is made clear what the nonviolent plans are: low above Lisbon pamphlets are thrown out through the emergency doors and on the way back to Morocco this is also done in Beja and Faro. Passengers are treated to champagne and, as planned, the pamphlets float down the sun-drenched Avenida da Liberdade. Flying low over land and sea they manage to escape and in the early afternoon they land in Tangier. The hijackers thank crew and passengers and flee in cars which are prepared for this. After wandering for some time, they return to Brazil where new plans are made.
But all plans cost money. They think that money should come from the authoritarian regime itself. At the end of the afternoon on Wednesday 17 May 1967, Hermínio and three soul mates rob Banco de Portugal in Figueira da Foz, between Lisbon and Porto. A few days earlier, the pope visited Fatima, fifty years after the apparition of Mary. And that means that security is on the back burner. An ideal time to rob a bank. To their amazement they find 29 million escudos in the safe, which represents the enormous value of about one and a half million dollars. With a ready car and a plane, with Hermínio as the pilot, they manage to escape to Vale do Bispo in the Algarve, then they drive a car to Spain and finally France. Unfortunately, a large part of the banknotes turns out to be unusable because they are new and have never been put into circulation. The crooks are severely convicted in absentia and Hermínio as leader of the gang is sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Hermínio continues to fight unyieldingly for freedom and democracy in Portugal. He is arrested a year later, but manages to escape from Porto prison again by sawing through the prison bars. In 1973 he is arrested again and only released as one of the last political prisoners after the Carnation Revolution in 1974. The discussion then runs high whether he is an ordinary criminal or a hero of the resistance. In 2000, 25 years after the revolution, he receives the “Grã-Cruz da Ordem da Liberdade” from the President. In 2007, two years before his death, the square in Quinta dos Poços in Ferragudo is named after him. A lasting memory of this special child of Ferragudo.