 Most were Frenchmen, half starved, without money or clothes, and Hayes writes of the decisive intervention of the Ambassador Pedro Teotónio Pereira in favour of 16,000 refugees of French military refugees who were trying in 1943 to get from Spain to North Africa in order there to join the Allied forces.In that group were also included Polish, Dutch and Belgians, most of whom were soldiers or would-be soldiers.According to Hayes the Poles in particular were destined to perform brilliant feats in the later Italian campaign.