Timeline of the Suez Crisis

In July 1956, Anthony Eden ordered his Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Gerald Templer, to begin planning for an invasion of Egypt.

[1] In early August, the Contingency Plan was modified by including a strategic bombing campaign that was intended to destroy Egypt's economy, and thereby hopefully bring about Nasser's overthrow.

[16] One French officer recalled that Stockwell was Extremely excitable, gesticulating, keeping no part of him still, his hands, his feet, and even his head and shoulders perpetually on the go, he starts off by sweeping objects off the table with a swish of his swagger cane or in his room by using it to make golf-strokes with the flower vases and ash-trays.

[16]By contrast, the majority of the officers of the Task Force, both French and British, admired André Beaufre as an elegant yet tough general with a sharp analytical mind who always kept his cool.

[17] An additional problem was Eden, who constantly interfered with the planning and was so obsessed with secrecy that he refused to tell Keightley what his political objectives were in attacking Egypt: namely, whether he wanted to retake the Suez Canal or topple Nasser, or both.

[18] In late August 1956, the French Admiral Pierre Barjot suggested that Port Said once again be made the main target, which lessened the number of troops needed and thus reduced the interval between sending forces to the eastern Mediterranean and the invasion.

[19] Britain's First Sea Lord, Admiral Louis Mountbatten strongly advised his old friend Prime Minister Anthony Eden against the Conservative plans to seize the Suez canal.

[19] Both Stockwell and Beaufre were opposed to Revise as an open-ended plan with no clear goal beyond seizing the canal zone, but was embraced by Eden and Mollet as offering greater political flexibility and the prospect of lesser Egyptian civilian casualties.

Egyptian forces blockaded the Tiran Straits (based at Sharm el-Sheikh) since 1953, and by capturing the town, Israel would regain access to the Red Sea and trade benefits of secure passage to the Indian Ocean.

The capture of these four objectives were hoped to be the means by which the entire Egyptian Army would rout and fall back into Egypt proper, which British and French forces would then be able to push up against an Israeli advance, and crush in a decisive encounter.

[2] The American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was taking high-altitude photos of the allied activities, and more details came from human sources in London, Paris, and Tel Aviv.

Dayan planned for the Battalion 890 of the Paratroop Brigade, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Rafael Eitan, a veteran of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and future head of the IDF, to drop at Parker's Memorial, near one of the defiles of the pass, Jebel Heitan.

With the attack by the British and French air forces and navies, President Nasser ordered his pilots to disengage and fly their planes to bases in southern Egypt.

[39][40][41][42][43][44] On 30 October, the Egyptian Navy dispatched Ibrahim el Awal, an ex-British Hunt-class destroyer, to Haifa with the aim of shelling that city's coastal oil installations.

[33] On 30 October, a probing attack by Israeli armour under Major Izhak Ben-Ari turned into an assault on the Umm Qataf ridge that ended in failure.

[56] However, the ferocity of the IDF assault combined with rapidly dwindling stocks of water and ammunition caused Colonel Mutawally to order a general retreat from the "Hedgehog" on the evening of 1 November.

[60] With Rafah more or less cut off and Israeli forces controlling the northern and eastern roads leading into the city, Dayan ordered the AMX-13s of the 27th Armored Brigade to strike west and take al-Arish.

[60] Hearing of the order to withdraw, General al-Abd and his men left Rafah on the morning of 1 November through a gap in the Israeli lines, and headed back towards the canal zone.

[63] Although the city itself fell without a fight after its defenders retreated, Bar-Lev's troops did occasionally come under fire from Egyptian stragglers as they crossed into the Sinai, and Moshe Dayan's radio operator was killed in one such incident.

[68] Food and medicine distribution for refugees in need of assistance was complicated when some Palestinians ransacked the warehouses belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

[71] The Egyptian forces at Sharm el-Sheikh had the advantage of holding one of the most strongly fortified positions in the entire Sinai, but had been subjected to heavy Israeli air attacks from the beginning of the war.

[78] Amer also advised Nasser to send more troops into the Sinai to inflict his promised defeat on Israel, even though the risk of their being cut off if the canal zone were seized by Anglo-French forces was enormous.

[78] Not until late on 31 October did Nasser disregard Amer's rosy assessment and ordered his forces to disengage in the Sinai and to retreat back to the canal zone to face the expected Anglo-French invasion.

[79] Fearful of the backlash that might result if American civilians were killed in a British bombing attack, Eden sent the Valiant bombers back to Malta while the Canberras were ordered to hit Almaza airbase outside of Cairo.

On 2 November 1956 the First Sea Lord Admiral Mountbatten sent a letter to Eden telling him to stop the invasion before troops landed in the canal zone as the operation had already proved to be too costly politically.

[88]In the early morning of 5 November, an advance element of the 3rd Battalion of the British Parachute Regiment dropped on El Gamil Airfield, a narrow strip of land, led by Brigadier M.A.H.

[93] The paratroopers swiftly secured the western bridge at the cost of two soldiers, putting Egyptian positions out of action with bazookas and mortars, and F4U Corsairs of the Aéronavale 14.F and 15.F flew a series of close-air-support missions, destroying several SU-100s.

[104] British leaders, especially Eden and the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Louis Mountbatten were afraid of being labelled "murderers and baby killers", and sincerely attempted to limit Egyptian civilian deaths.

[107] After securing Port Fuad, the French continued to face sporadic sniper fire and fought a pitched battle for an Egyptian police post a mile to the east of the town, losing two soldiers while killing or capturing all of its 72 defenders.

[117] When Stockwell learned of the ceasefire to come into effect in five hours' time at 9:00 pm, he ordered Colonel Gibbon and his Centurions to race down and take al-Qantarah with all speed to improve the Allied bargaining position.