Operation Musketeer (1956)
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. The operation had initially been given the codename Operation Hamilcar, but this name was quickly dropped when it was found that the British were painting an air recognition letter H on their vehicles, while the French, who spelled Hamilcar differently, were painting an A. Musketeer was chosen as a replacement because it started with M in both languages. 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.
Suez Canal invasion during the 1956 Operation Musketeer
Troops of the Parachute Regiment escort a captured Egyptian soldier at Port Said
A Hawker Sea Hawk of 899 Naval Air Squadron, armed with rockets, about to be launched from the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle for a strike on an Egyptian airfield
General Sir Charles Frederic Keightley, was a senior British Army officer who served during and following the Second World War. After serving with distinction during the Second World War – becoming, in 1944, the youngest corps commander in the British Army – he had a distinguished postwar career and was the Governor of Gibraltar from 1958 to 1962.
Sir Charles Keightley, pictured here in 1949.
From left to right: Charles Keightley, GOC 78th Infantry Division, Sir Richard McCreery, GOC X Corps, Sir Oliver Leese, GOC Eighth Army, and Sidney Kirkman, GOC XIII Corps, all watching an Allied bombing raid on Monte Cassino, 15 March 1944.
Major-General Charles Keightley (right), GOC 78th Infantry Division, at work, 2 April 1944. On a table outside his dug-out is a model of the Cassino area. Lieutenant. R. Grimshaw (left) is pointing out a feature to Lieutenant-Colonel D. E. P. Hodgson, Welsh Guards (middle).
Senior British and French Army officers observe a NATO exercise in Germany, 1950. Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Stephens, CO 1st Battalion, The Rifle Brigade explains the exercise to a group of officers including Général d'armée Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, Major General Robert Arkwright, GOC 7th Armoured Division and Lieutenant General Sir Charles Keightley, C-in-C British Army of the Rhine.