Cold War DOCUMENTARY

it. Today we will cover one of these turning point moments in history for both the British

and French Empires, which declined in the wake of World War II. In the aftermath, the

global balance of power permanently shifted, and events that happened in 1956 finally showed

how much. Welcome to our video on the Suez Crisis of 1956. If you are interested in the

history of this era, don’t forget to check out our second channel – The Cold War – the

link is in the top right corner.

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Ever since its completion in 1869, the Suez Canal was considered strategically crucial

to the British Empire, who relied on it to link their home islands with India. To keep

control of the canal, Britain took control of Egypt in 1882, and the country remained

dominated by foreign will in various forms until after World War II. With the weakening

of British influence over their colonies and the breakaway of India, the importance of

the Suez Canal increased because of its status as an oil artery, as Britain shipped the majority

of its oil through it. A military coup in July 1952 deposed the Egyptian

monarchy and brought the Revolutionary Command Council to power, and in 1954 Gamal Abdel

Nasser secured power as the President. The pan-Arab nationalism favoured by this faction

was suspicious to both Britain’s new Prime Minister Antony Eden, who saw Nasser as a

threat to his nation’s oil interests, and Israel, whose government believed a weak,

divided Arab world would be less of a threat to its existence. A number of diplomatic maneuvers

on both sides and re-intensification of the Israeli-Arab conflict began to ramp up the

crisis to a fever pitch. In this atmosphere, Arab ‘fedayeen’, or

partisans, launched raids into Israeli territory from Gaza, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. IDF commandos

responded in kind, while the Egyptian navy blockaded the Straits of Tiran and prevented

Israel’s access to the Red Sea. Seeking high-quality Soviet equipment, Nasser conducted

an arms deal with the Communist satellite Czechoslovakia, but in the Cold War climate

this led the United States to retract funding from Egypt’s Aswan dam project. It was this

final straw that led Nasser to nationalise the Suez Canal in July 1956, convincing Britain

and France that the Egyptian leader had to go.

After extensive military planning, the allies decided to enact a revised Operation Musketeer,

which General Charles Keighley outlined as such: Stage one was for Britain and France

to gain air superiority, and then a ten-day ‘aero-psychological’ campaign to overthrow

Nasser would begin through strikes on transportation and communication infrastructure, along with

economic centres. The third part of the plan was an Anglo-French airborne and naval assault

aimed at occupying the canal zone. Initially not connected to these allied preparations,

Israel had already been preparing to invade Sinai for months, and this was made easier

when Nasser began to concentrate his forces near the Nile Delta and Suez Canal, where

his intelligence told him the allies offensives would arrive. IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan

drew up Operation Kadesh to exploit the situation, and assigned four army groups to accomplish

its objectives. A northern line of advance, attacking towards al-Arish, would be taken

by three brigades - two infantry and one armoured, under Brigadier General Haim Lascov. Along

the central axis - stretching across Sinai from Ketziot to al-Ismailiyah - was Colonel

Yenudah Wallach’s slightly larger detachment, comprising 2 infantry and 2 armoured brigades,

while the lightly defended southern zone from the Mitla Pass to Suez was assigned only the

202nd Paratrooper Regiment. The fourth element near Aqaba was assaulted by only one reserve

infantry brigade. By October 29th 1956 the IDF troops had taken

their places at staging points in the Negev region, and it was at 3PM the same day that

Operation Kadesh began with an aerial assault by IAF Mustangs on Egypt’s Sinai communication

network. As this was happening, the 9th Infantry Brigade in the far south captured the staging

point of Ras an-Naqb without any casualties by midnight on October 30th, bypassing Egyptian

positions and attacking from unexpected angles. Slightly further north, Ariel Sharon’s 202nd

Parachutist Brigade began its militarily negligible but politically crucial drop deep into Sinai4

an hour after Kadesh began. It was a raid which would trigger the so-called ‘Sevres

Protocol’, giving Britain and France the excuse, they needed to enter the war, nominally

to expel both Egypt and Israel from the canal zone. This force advanced towards a heavily-garrisoned

Themed and struck at dawn, when the sun was blinding Egypt’s defenders. Israeli armour

quickly overwhelmed opponents at the gap and then took the area.

Despite subsequently suffering aerial attack by some Egyptian aircraft, Sharon then managed

to take Nakla by breaking Egyptian morale with artillery barrages. A masterful tactician

but a dreadful strategist, Sharon then disregarded the overall aims of his mission and entered

the Heitan defile on bad intelligence, attacking a well-defended gorge and a feature known

as the ‘saucer’. After a day of heavy combat which cost 38 Israeli lives, night

favoured the IDF commandos and they secured the area. The real fighting however, was in

the centre and north, where Colonel Josef Harpaz’s 4th Infantry Brigade moved to storm

al-Qusaymah at night. Moving through difficult terrain, and using a pincer maneuver to encircle

the city, they collapsed the Egyptian forces, and the city was captured just after 3am.

Israel was now free to march towards the indefensible city of Abu Uwayluh - a vital transportation

hub with nearby roads leading out into the entirety of Sinai, which if captured could

lead to the fall of the entire peninsula. What was defensible were the series of ridges

east of the city - Ruafa, Umm Shihan and Umm Qataf - known collectively as the ‘hedgehog’.

For three days, 3,000 entrenched Egyptian defenders held off around 12,000 Israelis,

beating off attack after attack. Eventually the IDF managed to encircle the hedgehog with

the 7th Armoured Division after al-Qusaymah fell, but resistance still proved difficult

to crack. Along the northern Rafah salient, Colonel

Benjamin Givli’s 1st Infantry and Colonel Haim Barvel’s 27th Armoured Brigades were

faced by Brigadier General Jafaar al-Abd and his reinforced 5th Infantry Brigade, along

with a reserve at Rafah itself. It was a formidable defensive zone, with dunes protecting the

south while 18 small hills in the north and centre provided high ground and ambush positions

from which Egyptian troops, dug in with bunkers, barbed wire, fences and mines protecting them,

could attack. Moshe Dayan planned to use three similarly powerful spearheads in order to

get through this position, with each instructed not to spend time reducing enemy positions,

and to instead concentrate on making a breakthrough somewhere, before converging at a place called

the ‘Crossroads’, 3 miles west of the salient.

While fighting in the remainder of the Sinai continued, Dayan waited to launch his three-pronged

assault in the north until the Egyptians were distracted by other military considerations.

At 8PM on October 31st - thirteen hours after Egypt had rejected the allies’ ultimatum

to withdraw from the canal zone - ordinance dropped from RAF Canberra bombers started

hammering airfields and bases - eight in the canal zone and four in the Nile Delta5 - at

night. With the bombardment of Egypt underway, Dayan’s

northern attack began without much success due to still-intact enemy defences. However,

after infantry cleared several hills with rockets, the 27rd Armoured Brigade’s Super

Shermans and AMX-13s managed to smash through the northern flank after a costly 3 hour fight.

Before the pincers around Rafah could close, Egyptian commander Al-Abd complied with Nasser’s

second directive to withdraw, pulling what remained of the Egyptian 5th Infantry out

of danger and leaving the Israeli success incomplete. As the infantry mopped up, flying

columns of the 27th pushed quickly west towards al-Arish. After being stalled for a few hours

at the narrow Jeradi Pass, Bar Lev’s troops managed to break through, but Egyptian artillery

fire forced them to halt at twilight on the 1st of November.

By this time, Nasser’s armies were withdrawing wholesale from the Sinai Peninsula. Those

pulling back from Rafah were joined by units from the ‘hedgehog’, whose defenders had

to flee through the desert and fell victim to the environment in their retreat. Israeli

success in the north severed Gaza from Egypt, and Moshe Dayan, who considered the strip

to be a ‘bridgehead’ for Egyptian assaults on his state, commanded the 11th Infantry

and 37th Armoured to first secure Gaza City, and then Khan Yunus. After a 58 hour campaign,

Gaza was conquered. Far to the south, Israel’s main priority

in Operation Kadesh was to reopen the Straits of Tiran by securing dominance on the Gulf

of Aqaba coast and capturing Sharm el Sheikh. Since the beginning of the operation, the

9th Infantry Brigade had been ordered to remain at Ras al-Naqab, as Moshe Dayan feared Egyptian

air attacks would obliterate them in the open. Sharon’s 202nd pivoted south along the Gulf

of Suez to open a second front, while the 9th Infantry advanced in tandem. After retreating

all the way to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egyptian commander Zaki was hit by ground forces behind a withering

screen of airstrikes and surrendered at 9:30am on November 5th. Operation Kadesh had finished,

but Musketeer had barely even begun.

West from the land theatre in Sinai, the allies were intensifying their bombardment campaign

in hopes of destroying the Egyptian air force, in order to gain aerial supremacy before a

land invasion began. As the sun appeared over the horizon on the morning of November 1st,

carrier-based Seahawks, Sea Venoms, and Corsairs joined Cyprus-based F-87F Thunderstreaks in

strafing and bombing Egyptian planes which had not already been evacuated elsewhere.

By the end of the day, 200 of Nasser’s aircraft had been destroyed.

With aerial supremacy secured, the allies wanted to destroy enemy morale by attacking

refineries and petroleum installations, but worries about retribution against British

oil interests in Iraq made this a non-starter. Instead, a watered-down ‘aero-psychological’

campaign began with the bombing of Radio Cairo’s headquarters and the destruction of its transmitter,

while elsewhere aircrew balked at having to drop propaganda leaflets over Egyptian cities.

When push came to shove, limitations and fear of civilian casualties rendered these morale

attacks a useless sideshow compared to larger military concerns.

At the same time, preparations for phase III began, with multi-purpose fighters switching

to tactical and operational targets, such as armour and trucks capable of reinforcing

the canal zone, infrastructure on which they could travel, and vehicle concentrations in

the area. With the coast fully clear, boots were now

ready to set foot on Egyptian soil in the form of Anglo-French parachutists, who were

given the objective of securing valuable points in the canal zone before UN talks, resuming

on the 5th, could call a halt to operations. After taking off from Nicosia at 4:15AM on

that day, the 3rd Parachute Battalion Group began their airdrop over a designated area

5 miles west of Port Said. Within an hour of landing they had captured Gamil, before

beginning their advance on Port Said itself. 10 miles southeast, minimal Egyptian resistance

allowed focused French parachutists to easily seize Raswa, which contained crucial waterworks

for the port. Allied air superiority allowed French commanders to circle about the battlefield

in an airborne command post, allowing effective integration of air support. Subsequent offensives

also managed to eliminate all Egyptian resistance in Port Fuad by late afternoon on the 5th

of November. At about the same time, the commander of Port

Said - Brigadier Salaheddin Moguy, requested negotiations after repelling an attack by

parachutists. But after around four hours - at about 9:30PM - he rejected all terms,

by which time the allied armada was offshore and ready to initiate landings. Before dawn

on the 6th, attack aircraft strafed Port Said and allied destroyers shelled it, forcing

Egyptian soldiers to abandon their defensive positions and flee inland.

When 7AM came, men of 40 and 42 commando made landfall and began to immediately use blitzkrieg

tactics to thrust straight for strategic objectives inland. After gaining this beachhead, the

amphibious assault troops were continuously reinforced, for the first time in history

by helicopters operating from carriers Ocean and Theseus. Egyptian resistance was fierce,

but the disembarkation of Centurion tanks gradually rooted them out of bases in such

buildings as the Customs House and Navy House. While resistance in Port Said still slowed

down operations, a column a paratroopers reinforced by Centurion tanks began a swift advance inland

advance towards Al-Qantarah; they had been informed of the upcoming ceasefire and wanted

to get as far as they could. However, the darkness of night, a cratered road, and confusion

between various mixed units executing the unplanned operation, prevented much progress.

Instead, by 2AM on the 7th they were entrenching in darkness near al-Cap, a canal station four

miles north of al-Qantarah. Once the Egyptian forces in the city realised

that the British were so close, they set up their own blocking positions half a mile away

from the enemy’s front line. For five days after, the British troops suffered small-arms

fire and the threat of a full-scale attack during the ceasefire.

On the 5th of November the United Nations Emergency Force, or UNEF, was created in order

to provide a neutral peacekeeping unit to replace the occupying forces. Danish, Norwegian

and Colombian troops would replace the entrenched Anglo-French throughout the ceasefire. The

war was effectively over - US and Soviet pressure had forced an Anglo-French withdrawal from

Egypt, and an Israeli retreat from the Sinai Peninsula.

We are planning to cover more modern conflicts both on Kings and Generals and our second

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