Report to the Committee on the Grant of
Honours, Decorations and Medals.

SUEZ CANAL ZONE 1951 – 1954

Introduction.

1.  In July 2002 the Secretary of State for Defence gave the following reply to a Parliamentary Question about the award of a medal to those who had served in the Suez Canal Zone between 1951 and 1954:

‘The Government considers it important to respect the principle that where there is a clear, demonstrable decision taken within five years of a campaign that a General Service Medal should not be awarded, that decision should not be reopened.  The evidence relating to consideration of a General Service Medal for the Suez Canal Zone is however less clear-cut.  A number of representations have been made by the veterans of that campaign with which the Government has considerable sympathy.  In view of these exceptional circumstances, the Government is setting up a small sub-committee of HD Committee (the Committee on the Grants of Honours, Decorations and Medals) under the chairmanship of General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank to report on the case for an exceptional award of a General Service Medal for the Suez Canal Zone without creating wider precedent or breaching longstanding principles which underpin the making of such awards.

2.  The membership of the sub-committee was as follows:
General the Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank GCB LVO OBE, Chairman.
Field Marshal Sir John Chapple GCB CBE DL.
Air Vice Marshal K D Filbey CBE.
Sir Max Hastings.
Eric Mattey, Protocol Division, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Mrs Gay Catto, Ceremonial Officer, Cabinet Office.
Technical advice was provided by Mrs Ruth Gardner OBE LVO and
Lieutenant Colonel John Sainsbury OBE TD.

3.  The sub-committee had access to a considerable amount of background material, including some supplied by the Suez veterans. Cabinet staff had conducted a special research exercise and provided the sub-committee with additional documents, maps etc from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office library and the Public Records Office.  They also invited the Suez veterans and the Ministry of Defence to give oral evidence.  They then considered the following questions:
(i.)  Would service in the Canal Zone between 1951 and 1954 be recognised today for the award of a clasp to the General Service Medal (GSM)?

(ii.)  Would it have warranted consideration at the time?

(iii.)  Was the case for a medal considered formally, or indeed, informally at the time?  If not, why not?

(iv.)  Is the Five-Year Rule which is normally applied to proposals for medals relevant in this case?

(v.)  Does the question of whether those involved were on either operational or active service affect the case?

(vi.)  What views were held at the time by those with an interest in the matter?

Background.

4.  The campaign was set against a background of growing Egyptian nationalism.  The British need to guarantee the freedom of Middle Eastern trade routes (and oil supplies) from Soviet control in the post-war era meant that considerable weight was attached to the security of British bases in the Suez Canal zone.  The main aim was, in fact, to create an Allied Middle East Command with other NATO countries such as the USA.  Under the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty Britain was allowed to keep 10,000 troops (including tanks and aircraft) in Egypt.  By the time the Egyptian government unilaterally abrogated the treaty in October 1951 this number had risen to 44,000.  As the crisis deepened the number of servicemen stationed in Egypt continued to rise and by March 1954 stood at 85,000. These forces were also supported by vessels of the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean.

5.  The conditions in which large numbers of mainly young servicemen had to live for periods of up to three years were very poor.  A contemporary memorandum speaks of concern that this might have a deleterious effect on long-term security by deterring potential recruits to the armed services.  There was a constant state of tension because of the danger of terrorist attacks and this was exacerbated by the need to conduct policing operations and guard vital installations.  These operations sometimes deteriorated into firefights with dissidents and there were a number of intense skirmishes including that at the Sweetwater Canal water filtration plant in December 1951 and an attack on the Ismailia police station in January 1952.  There were also many shooting incidents throughout the period. Casualty figures are disputed, but around 50 people are recorded as having been killed by deliberate dissident action.

6.  The campaign came to an end when an agreement was finally reached with Colonel Nasser in October 1954.  The British bases were run down on the understanding they could be quickly reactivated in time of war.  The troops were withdrawn and did not return until the 1956 crisis which followed the Egyptian nationalisation of the Canal.

7.  The material held in government files at the Public Records Office (particularly in the PREM 11,  FO 800, T 300 and WO 236 file series) provides a good record of conditions, actions, and diplomatic initiatives during the period.  However, there are only a small number of references to a possible campaign medal. A holding reply to General Robertson from the Military Secretary in January 1952 shows that the issue had been raised.  Other notes between departments in the War Office illustrate that the matter was looked at: some papers show that the number of troops was being queried with a view to considering a medal; and correspondence with General Robertson in the spring of 1952 shows that the Military Secretary believed the Army Council had considered and declined to declare the area operational though there is no other record of this.  There is no documentary evidence of discussion by the Army Council of a campaign medal.

Consideration.

8.  The sub-committee agreed unanimously that service of the sort given by the veterans, if it had taken place within the last 10-20 years, would almost certainly have been recognised by the award of the GSM (or the Operational Service Medal, which has now replaced it).  But those involved at the time would have been looking at the matter against the background of the Second World War and the years proceeding it, where the nearest comparable service had been in campaigns aimed at keeping the peace between warring factions as, for example, in pre-war Palestine.  Post-war counter-terrorism campaigns such as those in South East Asia and (again) Palestine were however beginning to be recognised as medal worthy by the 1950s and the sub-committee thought that the case for a medal would certainly have warranted consideration at the time.  Although the discomfort and poor conditions on which the veterans had laid a fair amount of stress were not uncommon at the time and did not in themselves provide grounds for the award of a medal, there were several fiercely fought actions during the period. Servicemen and their families were at risk of terrorist action and a number were murdered or wounded.  The overall casualty figures, while lower than for some contemporary campaigns, were nonetheless significant.

9.  It is never going to be possible to establish exactly what did or did not happen after General Robertson made his original proposal for a medal.  This came at a rather earlier stage in the campaign than was usual for such proposals and it may be that it was simply left on one side for a few months and then not pursued because General Robertson had moved to another post.  His successors might have assumed that the matter was still under consideration and seen no need to press it (though it is perhaps a little odd that they did not pursue it once it had been agreed that the British troops should leave Suez or, at the very least, in the aftermath of the 1956 crisis).  Alternatively, General Robertson’s proposal may have been considered, somewhat perfunctorily and against the background of medals awarded for Second World War campaigns, but in such an informal way that no-one saw any need to record a clear decision.  But it is unlikely that the matter was considered, however informally, on an inter-service basis, since this would almost certainly have been recorded on the files.  And, though there is absolutely no evidence to support the suggestion that the Foreign Office made it clear that they would oppose any award while delicate negotiations with the Egyptians were taking place, the fact that these were going on would have been known to those who might otherwise have pressed for a medal (though again this
need not have been an impediment post-1956).  But all of this is speculation and the sub-committee’s job was to consider the case on its merits.

10.  The sub-committee noted that HD committee normally worked to a five year rule which meant they did not consider proposals for medals etc where these were made more than five years after the events in question.  The veterans had pointed out that although this rule was understood to have been laid down by King George VI after the Second World War there was no documentary evidence to that effect.  This, in the sub-committee’s view, was irrelevant: what mattered was that the rule had been adhered to over many years, which gave it its own authority.  It was moreover a sensible guide which ensured that proposals for medals were considered against a contemporary background and not with hindsight many years later. However the rule was not relevant to the sub-committee’s deliberations because they had been set up specifically to look at the arguments for and against an exceptional award for service in the Canal Zone.

11.  The Ministry of Defence had pointed out that the Canal Zone had not at the time been declared an operational area for the purpose of military gallantry awards and suggested that this precluded consideration of a campaign medal.  The veterans had countered this by saying that they had been treated for most if not all of the period as being on active service.  The sub-committee thought that neither point affected the question at issue – a state of active service was declared primarily for disciplinary purposes and operational service was a technical term and did not imply a judgement about the case or otherwise for the award of a medal.

12.  The sub-committee looked briefly at the possibility that the award of a medal in this instance would set a precedent for other retrospective awards.  They did not think that it could or should.  The Suez campaign could be distinguished from other cases in which an award was being sought many years after the event because, although the GOC had put forward a proposal for a medal at the time there was no record of its having been considered by those who would have been responsible for deciding on its merits, either at the time when General Robertson submitted his proposal or at a later stage in the campaign.  Nor were the
servicemen involved eligible for any other medal to cover this period of their service.

Conclusion.

13.  The sub-committee concluded that a case for the exceptional award of a medal had been made.  They tried to make this judgement not against the standards of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries but, so far as was possible, against those which would have obtained in the early 1950s.  It would never be possible to establish exactly why a medal had not been agreed at the time but it would be right, in their view, to rectify this omission now.
 14.  The sub-committee therefore recommends that those who served in the Suez Canal Zone between 1951 and 1954 for a period of at least 30 days should be eligible for the award of a Canal Zone clasp to the GSM (for Royal Navy personnel the 30 days should have been spent ashore, not at sea). We are seeking MoD help in establishing the geographical limits of such service, but these should be set so as to include only the Canal Zone and not other parts of Egypt to which service personnel may have been posted.
December 2002.

24 July 2002.  In a Written Answer the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Defence, Dr Lewis Moonie announced: 'A number of representations have been made by veterans of that campaign (Suez) with which the Government have considerable sympathy.  In view of these exceptional circumstances, the Government is setting up a small sub-committee of HD Committee under the chairmanship of General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank to report on the case for an exceptional award of a General Service Medal for the Suez Canal Zone without creating wider precedent or breaching longstanding principles which underpin  the making of such awards.'

22 November 2002.  The meeting of the HD sub-committee and Suez veteran representatives took place.

December 2002.  The HD sub-committee presented its report.

11 June 2003. In a Written Answer the Prime Minister announced: 'Following a recommendation from the sub-committee chaired by Lord Guthrie we are pleased to announce that Suez veterans who served in the Canal Zone between 1951 and 1954 are to be awarded the General Service Medal.'

So it has taken eleven months from the announcement that the subject was to be re-opened to the announcement we are to be awarded the medal.  Hopefully the Government can, by ensuring sufficient funds are available, have the aging Suez Canal Zone Veterans receive their medal in time to wear it and take part in local Remembrance Parades, or for those who are able, march down Whitehall past their Queen and the Cenotaph.

Richard (Dick) Woolley and aye John (Jock) Marrs. July 2003