Francisco Regalado Rodríguez

Francisco Regalado Rodríguez (1 May 1891 – 30 December 1958) was a Spanish admiral who served as Minister of the Navy of Spain between 1945 and 1951, during the Francoist dictatorship. He supported the Nationalist faction during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), and after its victory in the war served as minister of the navy.

Biography Regalado was born in Ferrol on 1 May 1891. His family had a strong naval and military tradition: His great-grandfather was a Spanish Navy alférez de navío (ship-of-the-line ensign, the higher of the Spanish Navy's two ensign ranks), his father, Francisco Regalado Vossen, was an honorary contraalmirante (counter admiral), and his father's brother, Dimas Regalado Vossen, also was contraalmirante; and all of his siblings served as officers in either the Spanish Army or Spanish Navy. received his primary education at the Sagrado Corazón de Jesús (Sacred Heart of Jesus School) in Ferrol. In 1903, at the age of 12, he entered the Naval Preparatory School in Ferrol, where Francisco Franco Bahamonde was a fellow student. After completing the five-year course of study there, he became a guardia marina (midshipman) in 1908 and a promotion to alférez de navío (ship-of-the-line ensign) in 1911. He continued his studies at the Montefiore Institute in Liège, Belgium, training as an engineer there as well as in France, and Italy.

Regalado quickly gained professional prestige in the navy. He specialized in submarine warfare, in which he became a recognized authority in Europe. He served as an instructor at the Spanish Navy's submarine school and as an instructor ion radio telecommunications at the Naval Aeronautical School. He remained in that position until the end of the third government 19 July 1951. He believed that the foreign use of aircraft carriers during World War II demonstrated that the failure of Spain's 1939 Naval Plan — revised in 1942 and 1943 — to include them was a major shortcoming. To address this he ordered the navy to acquire the Italian heavy cruiser — which had been sunk in 1943, then refloated in 1950 — for conversion into an aircraft carrier. After Regalado left office, Spain purchased Trieste's hull in 1952, but the conversion project was cancelled due to rising costs, and the Spanish Navy did not acquire an aircraft carrier until it commissioned in 1967.