Seven Hours of Hell
The Ismailia Riots as told by thw wife of a serviceman

This web site recently received an email from a lady who at the age of five years was in  the middle of the riots that occurred in Ismailia around the end of 1951.  This lady, Jill Armstead stayed in married quarters in Ishmailia with her parents.   Her father was a member of the RAF Regiment.  What follows is the account of what happened as recorded by her mother. Every wife in Ismailia woke up that morning in October 1951, not dreaming that  by 8am the Town would be one seething hysterical mob.   The whole scheme was diabolically planned because husbands were safely out of the way by 7am careering up towards the many RAF stations in the Egyptian Canal zone at that time, or they were safely inside Moascar Garrison and RAF Ismailia, both at the extreme end of the town, several miles from the shooting.

The first question everyone's mind was whether to send the children to school.  The gharries would be at their usual pick-up points at 7.45 am and even as late as five minutes to eight everything was still normal or sounded so.

The occupants of that five storey building in the Rue Alexandria made the lucky decision to keep the children at home, congregate on the top floor and hope for the best.  For the next seven hours, while all hell was being let loose in the narrow streets below, we played games, made tea, sang and talked with our hearts in our throats, not daring to let our thoughts go further than the moment when our homes would be invaded by dark-skinned fanatical rioters.

Peering through slits in our tightly-closed shutters we were stoned from the roof of adjacent buildings if we ventured outside- we saw the NAAFI grocery shop in flames and everywhere cars were being overturned and set on fire.

Out flat was just one block away from the native quarter, a very dangerous position, we thought.   But again  we were lucky.   Hundreds of British families were living in Arishia, a subsidiary district of Ismailia, separated by the railway, and as the `hordes` of Arabs, specially imported from Cairo,  alighted from the train to start their rioting, it was apparent that Arisha was to be their first objective.

They swarmed up the streets in hundreds, yelling, screaming, and brandishing their bludgeons, and broke into every house occupied by a service family.  Like Locusts they stripped  bare the rooms and it was soon obvious their objective was terrorize not to harm.   Only when a  serviceman at home or on leave tried to resist, as any man would in the circumstances did a beating take place.

In spite of the hysterical reports which got through to the British daily newspapers, frightening friends and relatives at home,  very few people were physically harmed.

Towards ,three o'clock that afternoon, as the shouting grew  nearer and we thought our turn must surely come, we suddenly heard gunfire in the distance. The Army had stepped in. and within minutes the rabble were running like rabbits towards the Arab quarter and us!

Slowly the fighting drew closer and louder, and louder became the cries of the fleeing mob.   Then as if a fog had suddenly descended and muffled all sound, a stillness settled over the town, even more frightening than the noise of the previous seven hours.

We ventured out on to the balcony to peer on the scene below.  A gathering some 200 strong, with galabyas torn and ragged were being ushered past quickly-erected barbed wire. British soldiers adequately armed were taking up positions at every street corner.   It was over, we could breathe again.

By Win Masters