The ill–fated Suez Crisis saw the only large–scale combat parachute drop conducted by British forces since the Second World War — Operation ‘Telescope’. John Ash uses the dramatic recollections of veteran paratroopers to detail the drop.
Since the Second World War, 3 PARA had been serving in Palestine on internal security duties. The battalion arrived in October 1945 and was soon preventing rioting, enforcing curfews and otherwise assisting the Palestine Police Force. Next came a number of cordon and search operations, a search of every dwelling in Tel Aviv, and endless patrols. On the conclusion of the 6th Airborne Division’s (3 PARA’s parent unit) three-year campaign in October 1948, in which it had lost 58 killed and 230 wounded, 3 PARA was disbanded. Reformed the same year, 3 PARA was part of the massive mobilisation of 60,000 troops, the largest military airlift since the Second World War, to the Suez Canal Zone in 1951. The surge led to three years of operations in a forlorn attempt at stabilising a continuing (and resented) British presence in Egypt.
British interest in the Suez Canal had its origins as far back as its construction, which began in April 1859. In the year following its opening …
