National Experiences - British Commission for Military History

Pe t t e r i Jo u k o *
Inconclusive Experiment – British Air Power and
the Suez Crisis, 1956. The Allied Air Campaign
reassessed
Finlandia
Introduction
(The overall concept of Operation Musketeer Revise, Author) was dictated
to the Force Commanders as a result of political limitations and was never
“It
considered by them to be a sound military operation.” 1 The quotation from
the report of Air Marshall Dennis Barnett, the Air Task Commander of Operation
Musketeer, the Anglo-French operation designed to capture the Suez Canal in
November 1956 is revealing. The military planning of Operation Musketeer was
truly coloured by political manoeuvring and indecisiveness, constant change of plans
and inter-service rivalry added by the French co-operation with Israel from the very
beginning of the crisis. It is also widely recognised that the operation was a political
disaster for Britain. The United States took advantage of the situation to wipe out
the British influence in the Middle East. Yet, the military execution of the operation
cannot be judged as a total fiasco. The tactical tasks were carried out with accordance
to the plans and the encountered Egyptian forces were defeated.
This article deals with one aspect of military planning: the use of air forces. 2 The
concept of using air power3 is among the most fascinating aspects of the military
planning during the crisis. The use of Anglo-French air forces established the core of
the whole operational concept at one stage of the planning. In the end, however, the
concept of an extensive and decisive air campaign was almost totally watered. This
article seeks to explain the role of the air forces and the concept of air operations
during the planning stage of the operation in the light of the contemporary Royal
Air Force doctrine. So often are military operations judged without realising that
the armed forces are products of their era. The military thinking is expressed in
* Lt. Col. Ph. D., The head of research section at the Department of Tactics, National Defence University
of Finland. Finalised his doctoral dissertation about British military planning during the Suez
Crisis in the Helsinki University in 2007 he has written several articles on the Finnish Cold War
defence planning and evolution of Finnish tactics and operational art since the Second World War.
1 TNA AIR 24/2426, Air Task Force/TS 287/56, 27 November 1956, Report on Operation Musketeer.
2 For a comprehensive analysis of the military planning, see Petteri Jouko, Strike Hard, Strike Sure –
Operation Musketeer. British Military Planning during the Suez Crisis, 1956 (diss.) (Helsinki: Edita
Prima Oy, 2007).
3 The term “air power” was quite certainly understood differently in the 1950s than today. The term,
however, was used already in the Royal Air Force Manual in the late 1920’s, see Royal Air Force
War Manual, Operations (AP 1300, 1928), Chapter VII.