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Show U. S. NAVAL BASE ON TIMES Guns Landed on Islands and Fortifications Begin for Important Im-portant Station. WASHINGTON, ipril li For the protection of the Atlantic trade routes ; to southern Europe, the United States, . with the consent of Portugal, has cs-tabUshed cs-tabUshed a naval base at Funchal, on I the Azores Islands. Guns have been landed to begin! fortification of the station, which in I addition to beinn used as a naval base for American submarine, destroyers I and other small craft, also will serve as an important homing station for ' American airplanes, a number of which already have been assembled there. To Co operate With Portuguese. Negotiations are now in progress be tween the state department and the i Portuguese government to insure lull I co-operation between American naval ! fortes and the local authorities of Portugal on the islands for the adequate ade-quate defense of the station. This action ac-tion will simplify the task of protecting protect-ing the great trade routes not only to southern Europe r.nd the Mediterranean, Mediterran-ean, but also returning traffic to South America and southern pull' ports in the United States. Portugal was not only willing to enter en-ter the anangement, but was cage;- to i see it perfected so that her own lines of communication to her colonial possession pos-session would be covered. The value j of the new station as a base tor the l replenishment of supplies for American Ameri-can submarines, submarine chasers I and destroyers on the voyage to Europe already has been demonstrated. demon-strated. It is permissible to disclose these facts now because it is known to the government that they are known in Germany. on |