SUEZ EMERGENCY
NO WONDER THE TROOPS ARE REVOLTING IN 1951
• NATIONAL SERVICE EXTENDED TO 2 YEARS
• 60,000 MORE TROOPS SENT TO THE CANAL ZONE IN JUST 10 DAYS
• 20,000 EGYPTIAN LABOURERS DOWN TOOLS & LEAVE
• OVERCROWDED & INADEQUATE CAMPS
• FRESH FOOD SUPPLIES BLOCKED AT PORT SAID
• ALL TOWNS ARE “OUT OF BOUNDS”
• ONLY ALLOWED OUT WITH AN ARMED ESCORT
Mrs
Barbara Castle (Blackburn East) – Speech in Parliament -
The question of the living conditions
of our troops in the Canal Zone is one that affects not only the well-being
and safety of some 70,000 of our troops, but also the happiness and peace
of mind of their mothers and fathers and their wives and families in this
country, as many of us know from the letters we receive. My excuse for speaking
on it tonight is that with every month that passes the problem is getting
worse. If we go on letting the matter drift we shall not only be betraying
the faith and trust which our soldiers and their families have in this House
to fight their battles for them, but we shall feel the evil consequences of
this drift throughout the whole of our defence policy.
By now everybody in this House is aware of the central problem: namely, that in this stretch of territory in the Canal Zone, which, before the war, housed one brigade in excellent quarters, we have today crowded depots, stores and troops without any proper provision for garrisoning them. We have three and a half divisions of men in accommodation originally intended for one brigade. Those men are sitting behind barbed wire watching the base deteriorate and watching the stores which we accumulated at such expense and trouble being pilfered almost under their eyes. Here I quote figures given in the debate in January, by the Under-Secretary in reply to my hon. Friend. Of these troops, only 1 per cent, are in permanent accommodation. Of the rest, we were told that 3 per cent, live in huts, 38 per cent, live in tents, and over half in camps which were partly hutted and partly tented.
The Memorandum tells us: Most units live in almost completely tented camps, surrounded by barbed wire, which are extremely cold in winter and desperately hot in summer. They are subjected to sandstorms, flies and mosquitoes. The amenities for our soldiers there are "most austere" and: It is far from easy for a soldier to get away from this atmosphere of tents, sand, barbed wire, and flies. If he leaves the camp, he must be armed and escorted. There are, indeed, few places for him to go to as it has been impossible to provide amenities on the scale required for the large garrison which came at such short notice. These are almost poetic words with which to describe the conditions in which so many of our soldiers are living; but agony is piled on agony. We know that since the abrogation of the Treaty all local leave has been stopped. The soldier cannot escape from this deadening atmosphere of monotony and decay by going to Cairo, Alexandria or Ismailia.
The War Office is obviously very
unhappy about this situation. It knows that it is disastrous for morale. It
would be bad enough to work under those conditions if the soldiers felt that
the job was worth doing. But what are our men doing out there? The theory
is that they are supposed to be defending a lifeline of Empire. In practice,
they are spending all their time watching the depots and trying to protect
our installations and property from the depredations of the local inhabitants.
Here, again, the White Paper gives a most dramatic and vivid picture of local thugs specially trained for the work, lying in wait at night to attack our men, hoping to catch them off their guard, and jumping on vehicles and attacking drivers and escorts from behind. It must be the strangest kind of soldiering in all our history to have our soldiers spending their time defending themselves and British property from the local inhabitants on whose friendly co-operation we should be completely dependent in time of war.
To the sense of danger which the men must have is added the sense of futility. In addition to his normal duty, every man does two nights guard duty a week watching for an enemy who ought to be an ally if this base is to have any military sense at all. It is not surprising that a tour of duty in Suez is considered the worst assignment that the Army can offer. In fact, despite the additional dangers, the soldiers would rather be in Korea or Malaya.
It is not surprising that our men in the Canal Zone consider themselves to be the forgotten Army sitting as they are in a concentration camp, doing a job which has no military sense. It is no wonder that commanders on the spot want the Government to reach a decision which will end this uncertainty. No wonder, too, that the War Office is worried and that the Secretary of State for War is worried, as I appreciate he is. He knows that the position is quite intolerable and that as long as it drags on our chances of stimulating recruitment to the Regular Army are seriously reduced. Above all, our chances of persuading men to stay on in the Army are reduced.
Despite this, no proposals have been put forward for improving the conditions. Nobody has brought forward any plans for making the situation better. Why? The answer, quite obviously, is that, when we have over 80,000 men living in accommodation originally planned for 4,000, it will cost millions of pounds to make that accommodation anything like habitable. As the White Paper points out, no one will suggest that we should spend that amount of money at present.
The War Office and the Foreign Office know quite well that there are only two ways of ending this uncertainty and of dealing with these conditions. One is by withdrawing all our troops and equipment before 1956, as we are committed to do under the Treaty. The other is by reaching an agreement with Egypt under which we would co-operate with them to maintain the base. In either case, of course, our fighting troops will have to go and anyone in this House who imagines that we can dig in our heels and stay in the Zone in the teeth of Egyptian objection, has just not read the White Paper. As the Memorandum points out: The soldiers have two main tasks in the Canal Base, to operate it and to defend it. It goes on to say that our men are trying to do these jobs amongst an unfriendly and often hostile population. In other words, our soldiers are defending the base not against a future enemy of this country, but against the local population of the sovereign country in which it is situated.
Mr
Richard Crossman (Coventry East) also responded:
I saw the situation again during the Christmas Recess. I would pay my tribute
to the troops over there. Frankly, I do not believe there is another Army
in the world which would stick the conditions of the Canal Zone and which
would maintain its discipline as high as their discipline is maintained. They
are not as miserable as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, East (Mrs.
Castle) seemed to think, because British soldiers have an incredible facility
for making the best of life. They are making the best of life in miserable
conditions, and if they are not happy, they are certainly miraculously avoiding
looking miserable to the people who visit them. We need to pay them a tribute
for what they are doing out there.