United States Forces Azores United States Forces Azores United States Forces Azores (USAFORAZ) is based at Lajes Field, Portugal near Lajes on Terceira Island in the Azores. In 1953, the U.S. Forces Azores Command was organized as subordinate Unified Command under the Command-in-Chief Atlantic. In peacetime, the U.S. Forces Commander (COMUSFORAZ) is assisted by a small joint staff responsible for contingency planning. Members of U.S. Forces Azores provide base and en route support for Department of Defense, allied nation and other aircraft transiting the installation. Air Force units that make up the 65th Air Base Group. In peacetime, a small joint staff composed of
History of the Azores appears on most of these same maps, with their modern names: "legname" (Ligurian for "wood", Madeira), "porto sancto" (Porto Santo), "desertas" (Desertas) and "salvazes" (Savage Island). The source of this information is a mystery. It could simply be derived from pure legend, possibly of Andalusian Arab origin e.g. al-Idrisi speaks of an Atlantic island of wild goats (the Caprera?) and another of "cormorants", a scavenger bird (the "sea crows" of Corvis Marinis?) But outside their erroneous axial tilt, the Azores do seem clustered with reasonable accuracy. From this cartographic record, there seems little doubt that both Madeira and the Azores