Suez 1956, page 23
Ignoring his opponents was no way to contain dissent. Frustration in the Foreign Office soon spread to other departments of state. In the corridors of Whitehall, the gossip was of a prime minister who had taken leave of his senses. As Richard Powell, permanent secretary at the ministry of defence at the time of Suez recalls, ‘without too much fear of exaggeration no civil servant, from Norman Brook [Cabinet Secretary] downwards, was in favour of the operation’. He goes on, ‘we felt that ministers who were keen on it had just not thought the thing through and assessed the consequences’.17
There were some critics too powerful for Eden to ignore. One of them was the First Sea Lord, Earl Mountbatten, who, of all the senior officers involved in Suez, was closest to Eden. Mountbatten was not liked by his colleagues. As a member of the royal family (he was Prince Philip’s uncle) he was inclined to behave as if the other chiefs of staff, indeed everyone short of the monarch and the prime minister, were his underlings. ‘Mountbatten was on the make,’ declared Sir Frank Cooper. ‘He was a great man but a shit. He was always out for Mountbatten . . . no one trusted him.’18 In typically earthy language Templer told Mountbatten that he was so crooked, ‘If you swallowed a nail you’d shit a corkscrew.’
But if, to his peers, Mountbatten was a monster of insensitivity, his experience as the last viceroy of India gave him the advantage of recognising the strength of nationalist ideology. He was convinced that war with Egypt would do nothing for the problems it was supposed to solve. More probably it would make them worse. Responding to Templer’s call for ‘resolute action’, Mountbatten wrote:
If we were fighting a visible enemy who was trying to dominate the Middle East by force of arms I should back you to the limit . . . But there is no such enemy . . . The Middle East conflict is about ideas, emotions, loyalties. You and I belong to a people which will not have ideas which we don’t believe in thrust down our throats by bayonets or other force. Why should we assume that this process will work with other peoples? . . .19
Mountbatten drafted a letter to Eden to try to convince him that instead of armed intervention ‘our trump card is a reasonable, constructive offer [to Nasser], backed by as many nations as we can collect and one that the Americans, as well as the countries of Asia . . . could not conceivably condemn as being “imperialistic” ’.20 The letter was never sent. Mountbatten was persuaded by his political masters, Walter Monckton, minister of defence (who was himself increasingly sceptical of Eden’s policy) and Lord Hailsham, the minister responsible for the navy, that he had no business giving unsolicited advice to the prime minister. But with the chiefs of staff, Mountbatten kept up his opposition to the use of force, much to Templer’s irritation, and it must have been plain to Eden that his First Sea Lord was a powerful source of disaffection which was liable to spread to General Keightley and his military planners beavering away under the Thames.
For the moment, however, they were more concerned with putting together a credible force. The military build-up was supposed to be secret, but a casual glance at the newspapers revealed much of what was happening. Almost immediately after the crisis began two aircraft carriers, Theseus and Bulwark, were taking on ammunition and supplies at Plymouth. In early August they were reported to be loaded with troops and sailing for ‘somewhere in the Mediterranean’. A third aircraft carrier, Ocean, left Devonport with troops from Scotland and the north of England on the day that schools were told that their army cadet camps had been cancelled because the regulars who organised them were ‘wanted for other duties’.
Other duties included the retraining of 20,000 reservists, most of whom had lately completed their two years’ national service but who were now expected to go through the whole grizzly business all over again because they happened to have the knowledge, mostly in engineering, that was thought to be handy for the invasion of Egypt.
The call-up was of dubious legality. The National Service Act of 1948 granted no specific right to the government to summon reservists without parliamentary approval. But in 1956 Parliament was not consulted. The reservists were told to get back into uniform on the authority of an Order in Council signed by the Queen. That the government was not entirely confident of its position may explain why those few reservists who refused to accept their recall papers – sending them back with an expletive scrawled across them – escaped prosecution. The other possibility is that the authorities had too much else to worry about to chase after reluctant soldiers.
Those who did answer the call were not best pleased to be summoned to duty. Ken Chambers was twenty-two when the War Office telegram was delivered to his door.
I thought it was a practical joke at first but with a War Office stamp and my army details on it (number & regiment), my world was suddenly transformed. It read, ‘Report within 48 hours to Coopers Lane Camp, CAD Bramley, Hampshire. Railway warrant attached.’ I went to the nearest pub for a stiff whisky and the landlord said, ‘Alright mate?’ I replied, ‘Look at this.’ I showed him the telegram and he said, ‘This one’s on me and good luck!’
I had to explain to my family and tried to answer questions, but the most difficult part was to tell my fiancée, Gladys, that I had been recalled to the army, as we were planning our wedding in September but because of the uncertainty over Suez, our plans had to be cancelled. This was a huge disappointment and put a lot of stress on my fiancee to cancel various appointments and other plans were quickly talked about.21
With a twenty-four-hour pass to help him on his way, the wedding took place as arranged on 29 September. Ken was back in camp by nightfall and by midweek was on his way to Cyprus.
Brian Henderson was three months married and building up his career as an architect when he received his recall papers. A lieutenant in the Engineers who had finished his national service two years earlier, he and his men, who were of the same vintage, were badly in need of retraining. Instead they were put on board the Empire Parkeston, ‘an old, rattly vessel better suited to the Woolwich Ferry than the open seas’. Having landed in Gibraltar, where Lieutenant Henderson’s men were refused access to the shooting ranges (‘Sorry, old boy, it’s the naval shoot this week’), they re-embarked, this time for Malta. By now the reluctant soldiers were thoroughly fed up with cramped conditions, poor food and a ship that rolled so vertiginously as to be reminiscent of a fairground rollercoaster. They also took a fierce dislike to their sergeant-major, who was obsessed with inspections. Brian Henderson could see that trouble was brewing. It came after the Empire Parkeston anchored at Grand Harbour and the men departed to sample the delights of Malta. When they returned dead drunk, the RSM decided to reassert discipline by ordering everyone to lie to attention in their bunks. The response was to carry him shoulder high out on to the deck with the idea of throwing him over the side. It took all of Brian Henderson’s persuasive powers to secure the release of the martinet. There was more discontent in Cyprus, their next port of call. ‘The ex-coal miner in charge of the kitchens knew next to nothing about food. I remember being served fishcakes which turned out to be a mix of anchovies, oatmeal and cochineal. When a senior officer came round to ask if there were any complaints he was greeted with a fusillade of plates zimmed across the room.’22
The dissatisfaction extended to the regular troops, even to the war-hardened French paratroops, who were beginning to arrive in Cyprus. Pierre Leulliette was among their number.
Under new tents, already discoloured by the sun, on camp-beds with no legs, level with the ground, we waited. Each of us had a pair of sheets. Oh, English comfort! But the heat woke us in the afternoon, still very drowsy. We got up and tried to find a little breathable air outside the tents. Unfortunately, everywhere the sun was relentless; the sky was grey with heat. There was no vegetation, as far as the eye could see.
We had to stay there for a fortnight, parked on a few acres of sand, and surrounded by high barbed-wire fences. All contact with the outside world was strictly prohibited. No letters, even to our parents: we were a secret. The days were torrid and the nights freezing. We shivered beneath our thin blankets from the first day, though we slept in our clothes, like beggars caught napping by winter. What was more, all our food came by special plane, so we had to endure hunger, like prisoners of war. Half a mess-tin of beans! Only half per man per meal. Little bread. Hardly any water. The prospect of living in such conditions for even a fortnight made us feel sick.23
For Brian Henderson the final indignity was the order to stay put on the island. He and his men never did reach Suez. Insubordination was so common among reservists as to raise fears of a mutiny. In the period up to the outbreak of war, incidents ranged from a mass protest meeting of the Grenadier Guards on Malta to the desertion of up to four hundred reservists who, returning from Germany for a week’s leave, failed to make a reappearance.
On board the SS Marshall, ‘a desperate old rust bucket’, Martyn Habberley and his friends soon put paid to the traditional spit-and-polish tradition of the British infantry by throwing all their cleaning kit overboard. When their commanding officer threatened to clap the offenders in irons he was told he had been reading too many Hornblower books. The voyage was a nightmare.
We ran into a storm for several days in the Bay of Biscay. While the ship was being loaded there had been a strike by the riggers so the loaded trucks in the holds were not properly fastened down. When we started rolling badly, over forty degrees in fact, the trucks started breaking loose. Every time the ship rolled there was a shuddering crash as everything in the holds went from one side to the other, and on deck the ammunition (I think 20 lb-er) was jumping out through the truck canvases and rolling around the decks, where the petrol in the jerry cans was leaking out steadily. Luckily there was plenty of seawater washing around as well. After the worst rolls there was a long wait before the ship righted herself, the crew all looked terrified and we were definitely in real danger of foundering. The Bosun went below in the early stages to attempt to lash the cargo, but broke a leg fairly quickly, so after that they decided to head into the wind and just let it roll, and we did this for three or four days.24
They did eventually get to Suez, but after the fighting was over. The abiding memory of Martyn Habberley of this last phase of an unwanted adventure was of his CO returning to the ship via a violently swinging Jacob’s ladder while his men lined the deck rail shouting, ‘Drown, you bastard, drown.’
The rebellious mood among reservists was also apparent in France, where those called up were never sure, until the last moment, whether Algeria or Suez was to be their destination. Several troop trains were derailed, a shipload of reservists broke loose in Marseilles and hid themselves in the Old Port and there were protests, often violent, in Paris and Le Havre.
For regular and reservist alike the abiding memory of the Suez build-up is of the lack of any information as to what was really going on. With hindsight, it is easy to understand if not to sympathise with the political reasons for trying to keep everything under wraps. The surprise is that Eden or anyone else in the know really believed that they could move men about as if they were markers in a war game and still command blind loyalty. Minor irritations caused by official indifference could easily turn into lasting resentment.
Petty Officer Evans serving on the aircraft carrier HMS Ocean had just started married life in an Admiralty flat in Weymouth. After a weekend of moving in he set off back to Portland, where Ocean was anchored, telling his wife Kate, ‘I’ll see you this afternoon.’
On arriving on board, there seemed to be a lot of unusual activity and it wasn’t long before I discovered I’d got the afternoon watch in the forward engine room, and that we were going to sea! It turned out that we were going to Plymouth, but I couldn’t let Kate know of course, so it would be another step in Service wives’ education. Later that day she was in Weymouth shopping . . . and met the RN Housing Officer. He asked how we liked the flat and Kate told him she was getting something for my tea. He told her not to bother and explained why, but she didn’t believe him till she went to look out towards Portland and saw that the ships had gone.25
In Plymouth the men were told all leave was cancelled. A week later Ocean and Theseus were on their way to Cyprus. Since both ships were supposed to be in the Home Fleet Training Squadron ‘it was not very popular with the lower deck – especially the married ones’.
Where there were efforts to give servicemen some relevant information, but not too much, the results could be farcical, as national serviceman Tony Thorne discovered one morning parade.
When the CO arrived, he was accompanied by the whole complement of the camp’s officers. They marched onto the parade ground and then stood rather awkwardly behind the colonel. This was serious stuff. ‘Must be war,’ muttered someone in the ranks . . .
He was right on the button. The colonel told us that that same morning another colonel, called Nasser, had helped himself to one of our canals without so much as a by your leave. The whole camp was to be put on a state of high alert and we were to be watchful for any threats of enemy action. The guard was to be doubled and sentries would be posted around the camp day and night.
We had not seen that many Egyptians when we had ventured into the ancient city of Canterbury, but this was not all.
The colonel continued by telling us that there was a distinct possibility that we (the Brits, that is) might declare war and invade Egypt to get our canal back. In this case it was possible that we might be hurled into action. He said that he had heard from the War Office that, even though we had not yet completed our basic training, we were on stand by. He then marched off the parade ground, leaving us to ponder our fate.
We were brought down to earth by the gentle Sussex voice of the sergeant major.
‘Right, you lot. You all heard what the officer said. Now get a grip. You could be lucky enough to be amongst the shock troops. I don’t know about the fockin’ Gippos, but, by God, you would shock me! And now go back to your duties and pray to the Almighty that we can get back our Panama Canal. Dismiss.’26
If the troops were in a poor state of readiness, the military hardware was in an even sorrier condition. Trucks and armoured vehicles stored away at the end of the Second World War were taken out of ‘mothballs’ only to find that most of them were scarcely roadworthy. Flat batteries could be replaced but when, as was invariably the case, wireless aerials, canopies, ammunition racks and other essential fittings were missing the chances of rehabilitation were slight. There were simply not enough spare parts to go round. There was some relief in borrowing equipment from the NATO reserve in Germany, but there was a limit to what could be done here without letting the Americans in on the Anglo-French plans.
Efforts to make do and to cover up deficiencies made matters worse. It was not unusual to see lorries being towed to embarkation to be dispatched in the sure knowledge that they were no better than scrap metal. But they were at least sand coloured. Hundreds of former national servicemen can testify to their military duties as paint sprayers. In France, so much yellow paint was used that supplies ran out. Of course, once everything in sight was converted to yellow, it was not to be too long before the order came to restore the traditional army green.
The failure of army administration showed up most obviously in preparing the armoured brigade for battle. Centurion tanks were too heavy to be transported by rail, and on roads their tracks were liable to tear up the surface. Since giant transporters were in short supply, the only solution was to call in Pickfords, a removal firm that used massive roadsters to carry heavy items of engineering. The drawback for the army was in having to submit to the rules for civilian transport.
Transporter crews, tied to trade union hours of work and restrictions never intended to cope with an emergency or the needs of the Services, took a week to do a journey which a military unit would have covered in three days, and behind each convoy trailed a fantastically disproportionate number of empty spare transporters which the regulations of the British Road Services said must always be held in reserve. Between the time that the first tank was loaded on to its transporter and the last tank was stowed in its LST [tank landing ship], there was a lapse of four weeks; valuable time, which could have been spent in hard training, had been lost.27
More seriously, there were not enough LSTs. Of a total strength of thirty-two only two were in service. Those that came out of mothballs needed extensive repairs before they could be deemed seaworthy. When the 6th Royal Tank Regiment sailed for Malta, three of its Centurions had to be left behind.
Even where the army had modernised it was not always with sufficient thought to fighting efficiency. A case in point was the replacement for the all-purpose American jeep. Four times more expensive to produce, the Champ was bigger and heavier than its agile predecessor. It was also useless for the 16th Parachute Brigade preparing for the Suez campaign at its base in Cyprus. It was too bulky to be carried in the Hastings aircraft but, slung beneath the machines, the load prevented the landing wheels from touching the ground. The search began for decommissioned jeeps.
The consequence was that officers with briefcases stuffed with money had to be despatched to accost local farmers around the Middle East Command, who were astonished and gratified to discover that their battered second world-war runabouts were worth a fortune. The vehicles so acquired were rushed to workshops where a crash programme rendered them fit for an airborne operation.28
