BBC_Suez A Very British Crisis_3of3_War
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00:00As British troops prepared for war, Prime Minister Anthony Eden was about to address
00:10the nation on the Suez Crisis.
00:14I got a call in the morning, early in the morning, to say that the Prime Minister wished
00:20to make a broadcast.
00:21And I was to go to Number 10 and direct it.
00:24We drove to Downing Street and asked Sir William Clarke, who was his PR man, and I said, what's
00:30going on?
00:31And he said, I don't know.
00:33I think the old man, I think the old man has gone mad.
00:38It was one of the most important broadcasts of Eden's political career.
00:46With the fate of his regime in the balance, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser also
00:51broadcast to his people.
01:03All of us had a gun at home, so that when they entered Cairo, we would shoot from the
01:08windows.
01:09Well, I was terrified, absolutely terrified.
01:15The next three days of bloody battle and momentous political struggle would define Britain's
01:19future on the world stage.
01:42He had been Churchill's Foreign Secretary during the Second World War, but Antony Eden
01:47did not appear to be coping well with the current crisis.
01:54He was in the bed, sitting up, but what was very alarming was that on the shelf at the
02:01back of the bed, there were whole lines of pills in bottles.
02:07And he looked dreadful.
02:08I mean, he was very ill.
02:12Do come in, David.
02:15What we did was to take police action.
02:18Obviously, his health was, from the physical strain of the whole thing, was not getting
02:26any better.
02:28But personally, I don't think it in any way affected his judgment.
02:32I certainly got the impression that it was personal between him and Nasser.
02:41Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized the Suez Canal Company, then
02:45jointly owned by Britain and France.
02:50As part of a secret deal with the British and French governments, Israeli paratroops
02:54had attacked Egypt, and now British planes were bombing Egyptian airfields.
03:01An international crisis was enveloping Downing Street.
03:07I felt as if Suez Canal was flowing through my drawing room, because the whole of Downing
03:13Street was awash with Suez, morning, noon, and night, for weeks and weeks on end.
03:20To end the fighting, and to separate the armies.
03:23The only contribution I made was in the view of all the cabinet sitting there.
03:28It was I who said, look, I do think, Prime Minister, that if you're going to give a good
03:32performance this afternoon, in a few hours' time, you really ought to rest.
03:41Very well, if you think it best.
03:43Would you all mind?
03:44Very well, he said, and we all found out.
03:53Good evening.
03:54I know that you would wish me, as Prime Minister, to talk to you tonight on the problem which
04:00is in everybody's mind.
04:03Eden's wife was aware of just how important the broadcast was.
04:08She'd looked at the picture on the monitor, and it looked very washed out.
04:14And with, like, sort of ten seconds to go, or a minute to go, before I was going to be
04:20on the air speaking to the world, she said, it's a conspiracy, nobody can see the Prime
04:26Minister's moustache.
04:28And she took out some eye mascara and darkened his moustache.
04:34And it was touching, really.
04:37She had to be perfection for him, and he was very ill.
04:41He was so determined to go on, you know, he just charged on.
04:47All my life, I've been a man of peace, working for peace, striving for peace, negotiating
04:56for peace.
04:57And I'm still the same man, with the same conviction, the same diversion to peace.
05:06I couldn't be other, even if I wished.
05:11But I'm utterly convinced that the action we have taken is right.
05:17There are times for courage, times for action.
05:23And this is one thing.
05:25Good night to you all.
05:29I remember him saying to me after the broadcast, you know, people say we should have done this
05:35earlier, but actually we couldn't, I couldn't get forces there to the canal in time.
05:47The Egyptians were preparing for an all-out Anglo-French invasion.
05:52Thousands of weapons were distributed to Egypt's civilian population.
05:59What they did is they asked us all to train, to shoot guns.
06:03We had the old Lee and Enfield guns still in those days.
06:07And they gave me one and they took me to training to shoot.
06:11I said, wait, why do you want me to shoot on what?
06:13They said, when they enter Cairo, you have to stand in your balcony and shoot on the
06:19invading troops.
06:21I said, but if I shoot at somebody, first of all, I'm unlikely to hit anyone because
06:25I'm a very bad shot.
06:27Secondly, they'd shoot back at me and destroy the whole building where we're living.
06:31I mean, what's the point?
06:32That's an idiotic thing.
06:33I'm not going to win this war.
06:42In Britain, not everyone agreed with Eden's tough stance on Suez.
06:47The day after the broadcast, the Labour Party organised a massive protest in Trafalgar
06:51Square.
06:52I remember the loudspeaker fans calling out, they went down these narrow brick streets,
06:59you know, law not war.
07:01Come to the demonstration, Trafalgar Square, law not war.
07:07I knew it would be big and it was enormous.
07:12The only speech I remember is in Ireland, Belfast.
07:15We find ourselves laughing all the time at the great Belfast speech.
07:19If Sir Anthony Eden is sincere in what he is saying, and he may be, he may be, then
07:30if he is sincere in what he is saying, then he is too stupid to be a Prime Minister.
07:40Bevan was having an anti-Suez rally in Trafalgar Square and I was just sitting in Downing Street
07:46and I thought I might go up and have a look.
07:51And walked up to Trafalgar Square and I stood on the edge of the crowd and after a bit,
07:57some of the people on the edge kind of recognised me.
08:00And of course the ones on the edge of the crowd, I suppose, were just curious and passers-by
08:05and they all came rushing round me and saying, you know, good on you and keep it up.
08:10And of course the anti-Suez people were all near Bevan in the middle, but then it got
08:16rather kind of noisy so I thought I'd better go away.
08:20It gave me the impression that, you know, most people were still really for Suez.
08:28But the opposition to Eden was more vociferous.
08:30We went down Fight Hall to try and get into Downing Street to see Anthony Eden.
08:39Then a big riot eventually began because this was a very determined, very, very angry crowd
08:47and the mounted police began to charge into the crowd.
08:51We weren't used to the idea that the police could use force, neither were we used to the
08:57spectacle of policemen on horses charging into an unarmed crowd and clubbing down women.
09:05That seemed unbelievable, we couldn't believe we were seeing this.
09:17We had a trust in government and a trust in the state and Suez marked the end of that.
09:24It marked, suddenly, the realisation that the state could be criminal, that a British
09:31government could lie, cheat and commit unforgivable aggression.
09:47In Cairo, Nasser watched pictures of the Trafalgar Square riot with satisfaction.
09:56He revealed his contempt for the British Prime Minister to a close confidant.
10:00Eden is weak.
10:01His personality is weak.
10:02His position within his party and government is weak.
10:03His position in front of his country is weak.
10:05And like many weak men, he is attracted to the idea of doing violent acts.
10:27Any further delay, even by 24 hours, will make it far more difficult to resume military
10:39operations afterwards.
10:41And if we do continue...
10:42As the demonstration raged outside, Eden now held the most crucial cabinet meeting of the
10:47crisis.
10:49The only pretext for the invasion was to intervene in the war between Israel and Egypt.
10:55But it now looked as if the Israelis were going to accept a United Nations ceasefire.
11:03The cabinet had to decide whether to go ahead with the invasion.
11:07I propose we move to vote.
11:12Eden asked the cabinet formally to indicate their views.
11:15I am for proceeding with military.
11:18Most of the cabinet were in favour of going ahead with the invasion.
11:21But two were for calling it off and four were for postponement.
11:25Among the high-profile dissenters was leader of the house and influential Tory, Rab Butler.
11:33Jane Williams, one-time secretary to Winston Churchill, is Rab Butler's niece.
11:38She was living with her uncle during the Suez Crisis.
11:41Rab was totally exasperated.
11:44He also felt that he was being excluded from the whole situation.
11:52His opinions were not asked.
11:55He was ignored.
11:58And he was very, very dubious about the wisdom of the whole operation.
12:07He felt that sending in troops was not the right thing to do.
12:13He felt that strongly and he thought it would end in disaster.
12:19With the cabinet divided, Eden reportedly adjourned the meeting to await news of the possible Israeli ceasefire.
12:26I think it best if we adjourn for a few moments to allow me to consider my position.
12:40He would say, you know, all of us were deeply worried about Antony.
12:49People do criticise him. They wonder whether he's up to the job.
12:55And it seemed to me that it was strangely unsympathetic to Eden.
13:01News from New York.
13:03The Israelis have not agreed to a ceasefire on terms acceptable to the United Nations.
13:07Bravo!
13:11May I now assume that we unanimously agree to continue with the initial phase of our operation
13:18and airborne landings tomorrow morning.
13:20With no ceasefire, momentum for invasion was unstoppable
13:23and the cabinet swung behind Eden's fateful decision.
13:30The omens looked good for the Anglo-French campaign.
13:34The Egyptian army was already suffering at the hands of Israeli troops.
13:41Despite the defeats, support for Nasser in Egypt remained strong.
13:46This was a blow for Eden, who hoped that military reverses would topple Nasser's regime.
13:53Regime change was always part of the policy but never avowed.
13:57And this, of course, is one of the extraordinary similarities with Iraq.
14:01In both cases, there was a dual objective.
14:04The second one being of regime change, but the second one was never avowed on either occasion.
14:11But in order to achieve that, a pretext was necessary for the launching of the operation in both cases.
14:21And in both cases, a certain amount of deception was practised in order to achieve the pretext.
14:31Daybreak on November 5th.
14:44668 paratroopers flew towards El Gamal airfield, west of the Suez Canal at port side.
14:59The boys in the aircraft had this miraculous capability to sleep anywhere.
15:04And half of them were straight out cold, having a few zeds.
15:13Something to do, we started singing.
15:15And we all know we were going to the Mediterranean beach.
15:19So it was appropriate that we should sing, we do like to be beside the seaside.
15:24Yes, I do like to be beside the seaside.
15:27Oh, I do like to be beside the sea.
15:31Yes, I do like to walk upon the prom, prom, prom.
15:35Where the brass band play till the om-pom-pom.
15:55As we got there, we all stood up and got ready with our equipment and moved forward to the door.
16:01I had my toe on the outside, looking down, could only see the sea below me.
16:09The red light was on and then you're all poised up ready to go.
16:16And then suddenly green on go and bang, bang, bang, we were all out.
16:21There was a moment of beauty going out of the door.
16:26Yellow buff sand, a great cloud of black smoke from the control tower buildings of this airfield we were attacking.
16:38And wonderful coloured sky, a sort of lavender blue.
16:42And all these parachutes ahead of me streaming down and opening one by one.
16:47And I just remember thinking this is a lovely moment.
16:56On the ground, the lightly trained civilian resistance mobilised as best they could to support the Egyptian army.
17:04Around 5am, just before dawn, when we heard that foreign troops were landing, we went to El Gamal airfield.
17:16We took the guns we'd trained on.
17:22We were all in the air.
17:26So when we saw them coming down in their parachutes, we started shooting at them.
17:32I'd noticed all these fireflies almost streaming across the view.
17:37And I did then realise that they must be tracer bullets.
17:40And I thought, oh, they must be the ones that were firing at us.
17:45And I thought, oh, they must be the ones that were firing at us.
17:49As soon as we saw the soldiers coming down with parachutes, we started shooting at them.
17:55It was my first time.
17:58I was happy to kill even one of them.
18:01I was happier and happier the more of them got hit.
18:05I was happy to kill even one of them.
18:08I was happier and happier the more of them got hit.
18:11I was happy to kill even one of them.
18:14I was happier and happier the more of them got hit.
18:19I got this incredible smack in the right eye.
18:23And saw nothing but white fluff on that side.
18:30Well, the first immediate feeling was disbelief.
18:33You know, I don't believe this has happened.
18:35I didn't know what it was indeed.
18:38I thought, well, the eyes obviously had it.
18:41As it hit the ground, your parachute took a slight breath.
18:45And you came down with luck, like thistledown.
18:49A lot of bullets came across the sand, sort of dotting towards me.
18:53And I thought, bugger this.
18:56You know, I seem to have been hit once, and I'm going to get hit again.
19:02The very first thing I saw when I landed, I rolled over.
19:05And I landed right next to an individual who had half his face blown away.
19:09He had half of his cheek was torn out and half of his jaw was gone.
19:13He was screaming.
19:15And he said to me, what do I look like?
19:18And I said, relax, it's all right.
19:21You're going to be okay.
19:24Meanwhile, French paratroopers were landing on the other side of the canal,
19:29east of Port Said.
19:31A British contingent landed with them.
19:38The French, with their great experience,
19:40carried their weapons through their harnesses.
19:43And we weren't allowed to, in case they got caught up in rigging lines
19:47or somebody else's rigging lines.
19:49And so we had to have ours wrapped in containers,
19:53personal equipment containers.
19:55And so I landed there with no weapons at all,
19:58other than this container.
20:02And then I couldn't undo the belly thing.
20:06Despite the build-up, most Egyptians were amazed
20:09that the invasion had actually gone ahead.
20:12I never had thought that they would do anything
20:16I never had thought that they would do anything like that.
20:20I mean, it was incredibly stupid.
20:22You must admit today that this aggression was completely idiotic.
20:27I mean, you don't just go into countries,
20:29like we see that now also, that it's completely idiotic.
20:33You don't just walk into a country and invade it.
20:36You don't do that sort of thing.
20:38For what reason? For nationalizing the Swiss Canal?
20:45The Egyptians were putting up significant resistance
20:48and British casualties began to mount.
20:51Well, suddenly, this quite big garage
20:54was half full of people who'd been brought in on stretchers.
20:59And there they were, lying down, mostly shocked.
21:05And the really impressive thing was nobody complained.
21:09These young men had just had their lives ruined, really.
21:15And nobody complained at all.
21:19Well, I thought, God, if we go on losing chaps at this rate,
21:22we're in for real trouble.
21:24We'd taken 700 people there, or 600-odd.
21:28And if we could lose 20 in a matter of half an hour or so,
21:33I thought this is going to be a real party.
21:45The British were also fighting a propaganda war.
21:48Broadcasting from Cyprus, the voice of Britain portrayed NASA
21:52as the source of all the problems befalling the Egyptian people.
21:58Well, as a sort of crazy man who has nationalized something
22:03that is of vast international importance,
22:06who has brought death, destruction, bombs and everything else
22:10upon the Egyptian people,
22:12and who should be chucked out by them.
22:15Very, very crudely put, but it was a fairly crude message.
22:35Eden's obsession with NASA is equivalent to Bush's obsession with Saddam.
22:42Personal, irrational, unhelpful.
22:49The main body of Paris now headed east,
22:52towards the town of Port Said at the mouth of the Suez Canal.
22:56En route was a cemetery, which became the scene of a fierce firefight.
23:03If anybody's ever seen any pictures of Dante's Inferno,
23:06it would give a pretty good vision of the cemetery,
23:09because certainly when we got in there, there were disinterred corpses.
23:16There were these enormous mausoleums,
23:19which there were bits and pieces of them falling down
23:22and collapsing into themselves.
23:24They'd been under fire.
23:26There were Egyptian soldiers running all over the place.
23:31British planes were bombarding the Egyptian positions in the cemetery,
23:35unearthing long-buried corpses.
23:40We were hiding in the cemetery,
23:43and the warplane was flying above us and dropping bombs.
23:47We saw graves blow up and corpses swirling around in the air.
23:51There'd be a half a body here and a half a body there,
23:54and bits and pieces, and a mausoleum falling down,
23:59and a coffin sticking up,
24:03and quite a few dead Egyptian soldiers as well,
24:07quite a few alive ones also.
24:09It was very heavy fighting in there,
24:12and it was very fast.
24:14It was kind of like house-to-house fighting in that sense,
24:17except it was grave-to-grave fight.
24:22There were two Egyptians that were shooting at me from behind a headstone.
24:28I walked around the corner.
24:30They opened fire on me. They missed.
24:33And I fired at them, and I shot them both.
24:38And then I went over to their bodies,
24:42and I took a postcard from out of the pocket of one of them.
24:47I just wanted to see who it was.
24:49This is the first person I'd ever killed, to my knowledge.
24:53I've looked at that photograph a few times over the years
24:57and certainly reflected on...
25:03how easy it is to take a life.
25:06When you have a gun in your hand.
25:14The international political battle
25:16was proving more difficult than the war on the ground.
25:20The British had chosen to invade
25:22on the day before the American presidential election.
25:26President Dwight Eisenhower, who was seeking re-election,
25:29had warned the British that he objected to the use of force against NASA.
25:37BELL TOLLS
25:41Eden now wrote to Eisenhower,
25:43convinced he could overcome the American opposition.
25:47Dear friend, I know how strongly you feel, as I do,
25:52the objections to the use of force.
25:55But this is not a situation which can be mended by words or resolutions.
26:02I believe as firmly as ever
26:04that the future depends on the closest Anglo-American cooperation.
26:08It has, of course, been a grief to me
26:10to have had to make a temporary breach into it,
26:13which I cannot disguise.
26:15If you cannot approve,
26:17I would like you at least to understand
26:20the terrible decisions that we have had to make.
26:23History alone can judge whether we have made the right decision.
26:28There were victims, I think,
26:30of their own self-deception with respect to Eisenhower.
26:35Eisenhower had made so manifest
26:38in the specific letters that he personally wrote to Eden
26:42that they could not possibly have not recognized
26:45that he was adamantly opposed to the use of force.
26:50They perfectly well knew
26:52that what they were doing would be opposed by Eisenhower.
26:55There's no doubt of that.
26:59The soldiers risking their lives on the ground
27:02had little idea of the desperate political gamble being taken in London.
27:08At the cemetery near Portside,
27:10the fighting was reaching a level of ferocity
27:13that shocked some of the British paratroopers.
27:16I know the expression, take no prisoners.
27:19We didn't take prisoners.
27:21Yeah.
27:25The Paris don't take prisoners.
27:28Didn't then.
27:32Because you didn't.
27:34You haven't got the men.
27:36You haven't got the men to guard them.
27:38You know, there's another problem.
27:40This is not an order, it's just a thing.
27:42It's a thing. You survive.
27:44You have to survive.
27:46You are a few hundred,
27:48a very small few hundred
27:50against potential, potentially, you know, thousands.
27:54And something's going to be in the way.
27:57It's going to be a problem.
27:59Get rid of the problem.
28:01You kill a lot of people.
28:04There are some shrubs and there were some men in there.
28:07I realised there were soldiers in there,
28:09so I turned around and I just did a rake through the bushes.
28:13There were a number of casualties there.
28:16Or dead men, actually.
28:19Your training ultimately is to kill.
28:22And all your training becomes instinctive,
28:26and you kill.
28:28The things were, somebody with a brand gun
28:31would have maybe three, four Egyptian soldiers running,
28:36and he'd stay out and fire and see if he could keep them in the air,
28:40keep them dancing in the air while he was firing at them.
28:43And that was just monstrous to me.
28:45That was... It was horrendous.
28:48I saw so many Egyptians that were
28:51essentially executed for no particular reason.
28:54I'm pretty sure if we'd just kicked their asses,
28:57they'd have run home.
29:01I felt sick. I really did.
29:03I felt utterly sick.
29:05And on a couple of occasions I remonstrated and said,
29:08why, when I was told to fuck off in my own business?
29:12A senior surviving officer from the campaign
29:15insists that the paras followed the rules of warfare at all times.
29:20The battle of the cemetery was a very difficult battle.
29:27But the important thing is, and all our soldiers knew it,
29:31that if they took any prisoners,
29:34these were to be treated humanely,
29:37to be carried back if they were wounded
29:40to our casualty clearing station,
29:43and to be treated as human beings,
29:46as under the Geneva Convention.
29:55How could a rifle fight against a warplane?
29:58When we realised that nearly three quarters of us were killed,
30:02we pulled out. We ran away.
30:10As darkness fell on the Egyptian battlefields,
30:13British commanders were content with the advance towards the canal zone.
30:21But in Downing Street there were some troubling developments.
30:25That night, Eden's private secretary received a call from the French embassy.
30:30I suppose it was round about midnight
30:33when I was woken by a telephone call from the French ambassador.
30:38He said there had been a letter from Bulgarian
30:42and had I read it.
30:45Nikolai Bulganin was the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union.
30:49Relations between East and West were strained
30:52following the recent uprising in Hungary.
30:57The day before the Suez invasion, Russian tanks had entered Budapest.
31:02Soviet troops were currently occupying the National Assembly.
31:13Now, in his letter, Bulganin issued dire threats of retaliation
31:17for the invasion of Egypt.
31:20There were threats of determination to crush the aggressors.
31:26The question was whether this should be shown to the Prime Minister straight away,
31:34which would mean waking him up,
31:37Having pondered over this for a bit,
31:39I thought that the best, most sensible thing to do
31:43was to leave it until the early morning.
31:52The next morning, the second phase of the invasion went ahead.
31:57We were on the flight deck early in the morning.
32:00The sun was shining.
32:03We were on the flight deck early in the morning.
32:06The sun was breaking in the eastern sky.
32:09The valley was at half past two in the morning.
32:17So exciting, you just can't believe it, you know.
32:20It was the very thing you joined up for,
32:22you know, to be in uniform, to have a rifle.
32:25We'd been practising for nine months how to shoot and how to kill
32:28and how to assault, and here we were actually doing it.
32:31You know, we couldn't believe our luck.
32:34While the paras approached from the west,
32:36a large Anglo-French fleet now attacked the canal zone from the sea.
32:42I recognised that this was a serious enterprise
32:45when I went up one morning and I saw this vast armada,
32:49mainly French battleships and aircraft carriers all around,
32:53and it was quite clear that, you know, this was a sort of second D-Day almost.
32:57We were definitely going to do it.
33:02THE BATTLE OF THE BEACHES
33:08At four o'clock in the morning,
33:10the naval guns opened fire at the coastal defences.
33:14Jet fighters strafed the beaches in preparation for the landing.
33:23At a quarter to five, Royal Marines of 40 and 42 Commando began their assault.
33:32GUNFIRE
33:35Their objective was to seize port side at the mouth of the Suez Canal.
33:39Once the town was secured,
33:41the British could press on and take control of the canal itself.
33:51Four-Five Commando now joined the attack by helicopter.
33:55Just as we were about to get in the helicopters,
33:58a cheerful naval officer announced on the broadcast,
34:03we've just received word that 45 Commando can expect heavy opposition ashore.
34:10That's the last thing I heard as we got in the helicopters and flew off.
34:29BOMBARDMENT
34:34Well, I was quite impressed, actually.
34:36The bombardment looked very efficient.
34:38Lots of black smoke and you got the feeling that somebody had taken a hell of a pasting on the beach
34:42and hopefully when we landed, we wouldn't be quite so rough.
34:46And then we're flashing across the water now,
34:49going over 50 feet above the sea.
34:51We can see ships out to the west.
34:55And then suddenly we're over the beach and I can see the shacks,
34:58which are on fire, still burning, the beach hunts.
35:06And then we were down, down, down, down,
35:09and suddenly we hit the deck in a cloud of dust.
35:12And as we leapt out, not knowing where we were really,
35:16I don't remember that we were being told we were going to be landed in Les Sables Statue.
35:21We landed, hit the deck, bang, out through the doorway,
35:24which is what we'd been trained to do, run out 20 yards,
35:27fling yourself down, don't know where you were,
35:29fling yourself down, come on aim, in a firing position, all round your fence.
35:33Helicopter takes off, clouds of dust,
35:36and there we are on the beaches in Port Said.
35:39And there's bullets flying over and the sound of gunfire
35:42and you think to yourself, God, we're here.
35:47That morning in London, the political crisis was coming to a head.
35:52Shortly after Eden learned of the threats from Soviet Russia,
35:56news came that the international money markets were turning against the pound.
36:01The Chancellor of the Exchequer began to wobble.
36:04Well, Harold MacMillan started to,
36:07I won't say lose his nerve, but he started to backtrack.
36:12When there started to be a run on the pound.
36:17Surely the issue here is financial.
36:20MacMillan informed his cabinet colleagues
36:23that there had been heavy selling of sterling overnight in New York.
36:27Devaluation and the death of sterling.
36:32Some of Eden's allies believed that MacMillan may have been playing a double game,
36:37using the crisis to advance the economy.
36:40Well, Harold MacMillan was a devious man, I think it's fair to say.
36:45Eden was a much more straightforward character in every way.
36:52I have just received confirmation during this meeting
36:56that unless we agree to a ceasefire...
36:59To support the value of sterling,
37:02Britain was spending millions of pounds from its reserves.
37:06To support the value of sterling,
37:08Britain was spending millions of pounds from its reserves.
37:11But MacMillan overstated the scale of the financial crisis.
37:18In addition to this, there is the serious danger of oil sanctions.
37:23You could say perhaps that Harold MacMillan was more subtle.
37:29I don't think that he betrayed Eden during the crisis.
37:34But I suppose he saw it as an opportunity to replace him, yes.
37:45In Egypt, the British forces were now entering Port Said.
37:48They encountered some desperate resistance.
37:52We then embarked half the unit in the LVTs
37:57and drove down the centre of the town,
38:01being sniped at by snipers from windows from the 5th floor down.
38:08And also we had grenades chucked in.
38:12Some of the young men with us only had wooden sticks.
38:15People who didn't know how to use guns just held sticks.
38:18Even women came out to fight with us.
38:21Initially we would reach the building, ground floor, and work our way out and clear it.
38:25Clear each floor. Kill anybody who was in the room.
38:29We saw this emplacement disappear in a cloud of smoke and dust and people screaming.
38:34And the routine then is to up and charge and kill anybody who's still alive.
38:45We reckon there were some that were 12 years old.
38:47And I saw one sergeant take the weapon away and cover him and told him to bugger off.
38:52He could hardly carry the weapon. He was quite an undernourished little lad.
38:56It does cross your mind that this isn't what we should be doing.
38:59You don't want to kill civilians or children particularly.
39:03It would make you hesitate slightly.
39:05Unless he was firing at you, then you wouldn't hesitate.
39:10The British didn't think that the Egyptian people in Port Said would fight in this way.
39:14They thought that the people would welcome them and overthrow Abdul Nasser.
39:19But it was the opposite. People fighting to the death.
39:24We had to take cover quickly and we got down behind this wall.
39:28We were harrowing down, really scared.
39:32The noise and the machine gun fire around us was just terrific.
39:36And all through my head I thought, that's it.
39:40I thought about my mother. I thought about my father. Picture their faces.
39:45It may have been an instant. It may have been like a one second or a two second instant.
39:48And I thought, God, I'm not going to see them again.
39:51And I thought, I'm only 19.
39:53I've never had sex, never been in love, never been out with a woman.
39:58And I felt so despondent in those about three or four seconds.
40:03Because I thought I was going to die.
40:06The diehards were stuck in flats, in a window.
40:09And sometimes we'd use this 105, basically our artillery, to clear the building.
40:14We'd just shoot one of these off and it'd wipe out anybody in the building.
40:21We had to be very careful.
40:23We had to be very careful.
40:25We had to be very careful.
40:27We had to be very careful.
40:29We had to be very careful.
40:32Of course, in those days, I've got to admit it, they were wogs to us in the Marines in 1956.
40:39They were Europeans and they were wogs.
40:41And we freely used their expression, without any hesitation.
40:46And we considered them a little bit of a threat.
40:51And we considered them a little bit of a threat.
40:53And we considered them a little bit of a threat.
40:56Without any hesitation.
40:58And we considered them lesser mortals, I dare say.
41:04We had no qualms about shooting them.
41:07We were carrying out the aims of the British government.
41:10Britain had said, we've got to take the canal.
41:13Take the canal we would, and to the devil the hindmost.
41:18And living in the Middle East, they were just trouble.
41:23Just as military triumph seemed to be within the soldiers' grasp,
41:27political defeat was staring their masters in the face.
41:35To rescue the pound, and to stave off the threat of sanctions from the United Nations,
41:39Britain now needed the help of her great wartime ally, the United States President.
41:44The response was emphatic.
41:47Eisenhower simply told his people in the administration
41:51that they were not to do anything to assist the British
41:54with respect either to the currency or with respect to oil
41:58until they had made a firm commitment and started to withdraw from Egypt.
42:07And he held to that.
42:10But unless we agree to a ceasefire,
42:13the American government will not support us with the IMF.
42:21We've got to stop.
42:23With no prospect of American help for Sterling,
42:26and in the face of worldwide condemnation,
42:29the British government caved in.
42:33So we all agreed then?
42:37So we all agreed then?
42:47A ceasefire it is.
42:53I think he would have gone through with it, and he was always in favour of going on.
42:57The cabinet really lost their nerve at the last minute.
43:03But while discussions in London veered towards peace,
43:06the tragedies of war continued in Egypt.
43:13I'm looking along the promenade westward,
43:16and low down on the horizon I saw a silhouette of an aircraft come towards me.
43:21And I thought nothing of it, and I kept walking.
43:23And then suddenly I looked up again,
43:25and along the leading edge of the wings I saw little sparks flickering,
43:29and I thought, what's that? What's he doing?
43:33Just like that.
43:35And then there was loud explosions either side of us all the way down the road.
43:40Bang, bang, bang, bits of concrete going.
43:44And for another split second I still thought, what's that?
43:48It was a fighter from a British carrier mistakenly firing on British troops.
43:53You could see the smoke coming from his guns,
43:56and the next second we were hit by a burst of 38mm cannon shell fire,
44:01which went through us like a sigh.
44:03And then I saw in front of me two or three Marines' bodies going up in the air,
44:08rifles and bodies going up about eight feet into the air.
44:12And I was doing somersaults and came down with a bit of a thud,
44:15with my left leg hanging by a few shreds.
44:18It was only 50 feet above our head, a frightening sound, a roaring sound, gone.
44:24People up ahead, there was bodies all over the place up ahead.
44:27Actually, my trousers were on fire as well at the time,
44:29so it was quite an interesting situation.
44:31It was an absolutely devastating experience.
44:34There was a Sergeant Powell on the opposite side.
44:36He'd had a shell hit him in the side, and all his intestines were hanging out in a plastic bag.
44:40I felt quite sorry for him, actually, it looked very painful.
44:43And I didn't appear to be in any pain at all.
44:45I mean, suddenly, in a matter of seconds, there was carnage all around you, really.
44:51And it was the first time I'd experienced the devastation of air power,
44:58and I never forgot what it was like, and we're only talking about one plane alone.
45:04I remember lying down on a stretcher, and they brought my colleague in with his leg all shattered,
45:24and we held hands together, and I've got a little tag on me saying,
45:30So that was the end of that. He got the same tag on him.
45:33We'd just shook hands and said, well, at least we'll be home by Christmas.
45:38Colin Ireland is not bitter towards the British pilot who mistakenly fired on his own troops.
45:46I would have rung his neck at the time, but afterwards I realised he was doing his duty possibly a bit too diligently.
45:53But otherwise, no, I don't blame him.
45:57The friendly fire incident claimed the life of one Marine, and 16 others were wounded.
46:02But by the end of the day, resistance had crumbled,
46:05and with port side secure, the canal was at the mercy of the British and French troops.
46:13We had no strength left. We were being attacked from all sides.
46:19The town fell because how could we attack tanks and armoured cars?
46:25We were finished.
46:29But after less than 48 hours, the British advance was stopped in its tracks.
46:34This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the news.
46:38The Prime Minister announced in the Commons tonight that the government had ordered a ceasefire in Egypt at midnight,
46:46subject to certain assurances by the United Nations Secretary General.
46:50We were pleased that it had come about, because we had done our job.
46:59But what we couldn't understand was why our advance had been halted.
47:04We could certainly have completed the occupation of the canal.
47:07We were only about 24 hours off doing so.
47:11And I think that we would have had then an ace in our hand.
47:17And I certainly regretted that it was called off, and Eden certainly regretted calling it off.
47:25In a Cyprus military hospital, it was calm after the storm.
47:28Lieutenant Cavanaugh of Worcester, a doctor, was wounded by anti-aircraft fire as he parachuted down.
47:34I thought this is simply terrible.
47:36I mean, we've gone off on this bloody awful expedition, which nobody could justify,
47:41and these boys have been wounded and ruined and died for nothing.
47:46And that didn't seem to be right.
47:51After the ceasefire, there were still thousands of British troops in Egypt.
47:55Soldiers like young Army Captain Michael Parkinson faced an increasingly hostile local population.
48:02It was the first time that I had seen men at war.
48:04It was the first time that I had heard and been under gunfire.
48:08And I didn't come out of it very well.
48:11I mean, I just didn't like it at all.
48:15We were driving through, in this convoy, through the city of Cyprus.
48:21We were driving through, in this convoy, through the streets of Port Said,
48:26and there was quite a mob around.
48:28When the mob came across an intersection in front of us and isolated us from the rest of the parade,
48:36and I sat there looking at them, and they were looking at me,
48:40and there were four guys in the back who were not armed.
48:42I had the .45, which I mean, I'd never fired in anger, and he had a Sten.
48:48And we were looking at them, and it seemed like an eternity.
48:51And then one of them jumped on top of the Jeep and started jumping up and down.
48:56And I thought, we've had it.
48:57At which point, my driver got out and said to him,
49:01here, I just cleaned that fucking Jeep.
49:03He said, get off.
49:04And I thought, now we have had it.
49:06And the guy looked at him and got off and parted.
49:08And I thought, this is extraordinary.
49:10I mean, I was convinced we were going to be killed on the spot.
49:19The British tried to downplay the number of Egyptian casualties,
49:23initially claiming only 100 Egyptians had been killed during the invasion.
49:32I think the first thing that goes through my mind is death.
49:37I always think about death when I think about suicide.
49:40These graphic images were not broadcast at the time.
50:00The streets were empty, and there was blood and dead bodies everywhere.
50:06It was mainly bits that we were picking up.
50:08And it really was a torso, and then a head, and then a leg,
50:12and then a couple of arms, and then another half a torso,
50:16and just chopping them onto the lorry and throwing lime over them.
50:24The British were very careful.
50:26They didn't want to get killed.
50:28They didn't want to get killed.
50:30And just chopping them onto the lorry and throwing lime over them.
50:35There must have been several hundreds.
50:38I can't see there being any less,
50:40because we were at it all day, picking up the body pieces.
50:48We saw lots and lots of dead bodies.
50:50I mean, we had dead bodies all around the apartments where we were based, of course,
50:55because there had been fighting and hand-to-hand fighting, street fighting,
50:59to clear the streets, so we saw all that.
51:01And indeed, when we went to purloin our first car in a garage to get around,
51:06to nick our first car from a garage, I suppose was the word,
51:10we looked under the car, because we were trying to push it out,
51:13and there were two bodies under there. There was a reason why we couldn't move it.
51:17In fact, at least 650 Egyptians were killed,
51:21around a quarter of them civilians, including women and children.
51:26An estimated 2,000 were wounded.
51:29Anglo-French losses were 26 dead, 129 wounded.
51:36In spite of the fury across the Arab world
51:39and the international condemnation of the invasion,
51:42Eden remained unrepentant.
51:49We make no apology and will never make one
51:53for the action which we and our French allies took together.
52:00It was an empty defiance. Britain had been humiliated.
52:07Eden hung on to the last desperate hope that with a large army in place,
52:12Britain could still maintain some influence and save face.
52:18But in the final blow for British power,
52:20the Americans insisted on the complete withdrawal of British and French troops.
52:26We had not understood that so far from doing this,
52:30the United Nations, and in particular the United States,
52:34would insist that all advantages gained must be thrown away
52:38before serious negotiations began.
52:42This was the most calamitous of all errors.
52:45Had we expected it to be perpetrated, our course might have been otherwise,
52:49but we could not know.
52:52As it seems to me, the major mistakes were made not before the ceasefire
52:57or in that decision, but after it.
53:00I did not foresee them.
53:06I think he felt let down by the Americans.
53:12I think he was disillusioned and disappointed by their behaviour
53:18because he had always considered them as allies and loyal.
53:23Eden also came under serious pressure at home.
53:26Suspicions were growing that the British government
53:29had played some role in provoking the war with Egypt.
53:35In fact, two months earlier at a secret meeting in a French villa,
53:39Britain had conspired with the governments of France and Israel to start the war.
53:45On the 20th of December, Eden was asked in the House of Commons
53:49whether he had prior knowledge of the Israeli attack.
53:53I want to say this on the question of foreknowledge
53:56and to say it quite bluntly to the House,
53:59that there was not foreknowledge that Israel would attack Egypt.
54:03There was not.
54:07Anthony Eden, one of the great international statesmen of his generation,
54:12had misled the House.
54:14It was to be his last appearance in the Commons.
54:26Days later, Britain withdrew its troops from Egypt.
54:29It was the final humiliation.
54:33All I want to do is to get home.
54:35That's all I want to do, get home in one piece.
54:38I mean, I know it sounds rather sort of callous, but that was the way it was
54:43and most national servicemen felt that way.
54:47CHANTING
55:04With his health failing, Eden addressed the Cabinet for the last time.
55:11As you know, it is now nearly four years
55:15since I had a series of bad abdominal operations,
55:20which has left me with a largely artificial inside.
55:27In short, the doctors have told me
55:32that I should not last long
55:37if I remained in office.
55:46It was announced from Buckingham Palace
55:49that the resignation of Sir Anthony Eden as Prime Minister had been accepted
55:53and a statement from Number 10 gave ill health as the reason.
55:58I wish my successor all good fortune
56:01and Godspeed to you all.
56:03Goodbye.
56:04Thank you very much.
56:07While Suez marked the end of Eden's political career,
56:11Nasser emerged triumphant.
56:13Nasser became the biggest hero in the Middle East.
56:17He became a god,
56:19because they considered that he had defeated
56:23France, Britain and Israel
56:26by throwing them out of Egypt.
56:29And he became a god.
56:31The meaning of Suez is that there is an end
56:35to the methods of the 19th century.
56:38Suez gave confidence to many countries.
56:41And Suez helped many of the African countries
56:44to be sure of themselves and insist about independence.
57:00For the rest of his life, Nasser remained an iconic figure.
57:04At his death, he was warned of the Arab world.
57:08In the wake of Suez, Iraq had followed Egypt and overthrown its king.
57:12Arab nationalism swept through the Middle East.
57:23For all the achievements of his political career,
57:26Eden's reputation will forever be defined by his role in Suez.
57:38My memory would really be
57:41that his determination to go through with it
57:46and his fortitude,
57:48he never doubted that what he was doing was right.
57:52But Eden's ill-fated invasion of Egypt
57:55became the single most enduring symbol of Britain's post-war decline.
58:01We have the trappings of a great power, but after Suez,
58:04we really know that it is empty.
58:07It's a pretence, it's a husk.
58:09We are not a great power anymore.
58:11We can't pretend to be, as of right,
58:15through our own strength,
58:17sitting at a table with the Soviet Union,
58:20the United States, China.
58:23It's a myth.
58:29The events of the crisis from the Egyptian perspective tomorrow,
58:32the other side of Suez at nine on BBC4.
58:35If you haven't got BBC4, you can find out how to receive it
58:38by calling 08700 10 10 10.
58:42Here on BBC2, Jeremy Bowen is in the hot seat.
58:45Have I Got News For You is next.