Storming Suez: Inside Operation Musketeer’ – by George Hoad

A talk by George Hoad, a local amateur historian.

Operation Musketeer was the Anglo-French plan for the invasion of the Suez canal zone to capture the Suez Canal during the Suez Crisis in 1956 and return it to Anglo-French control and operation. Israel, which invaded the Sinai Peninsula, had the additional objectives of opening the Straits of Tiran and halting Fedayeen incursions into Israel. The Anglo-French military operation was originally planned for early September, but the necessity of coordination with Israel delayed it until early November. However, on 10 September British and French politicians and Chiefs of the General Staff agreed to adopt General Charles Keightley’s alterations to the military plans with the intention of reducing Egyptian civilian casualties. The new plan, renamed Musketeer Revise, provided the basis of the actual Suez operation.

George writes: “The Suez Crisis was one of the defining moments of the 1950s. I take us behind Operation Musketeer, the codename for the Anglo-Israeli invasion of Egypt”.