GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY
Operation Toreador and The “Crane” Incident, 3 November 1956
On 16 July 1956, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, head of Egypt's military government, announced to the world that he had nationalised the Suez Canal. This summary seizure of an asset previously owned by the French and British Governments was a direct challenge to Great Britain's long standing leadership in Middle East affairs. As a result Egyptian assets held in France and the United Kingdom were frozen, and all further financial aid to Cairo stopped. The USSR seized the opportunity to increase its flow of money, weapons and technical support to Egypt and other Arab countries. Israel watched with mounting dismay as the Egyptians continued to build up a massive military presence on the Sinai Peninsula, presumably in preparation for an attack into Southern Israel through the Gaza Strip. All of the ingredients for a multinational conflict were coming together in the same area and at the same time.
What is often overlooked by historians is that whilst the Anglo-French force mobilised to attack Port Said, the Royal Navy was fighting a war of its own, five hundred miles to the south, in the Red Sea, where a small but powerful squadron, including H.M.S. Crane, under Captain Pemberton had been sent under the code-name Operation Toreador.
There had been a report that an Egyptian frigate was somewhere up towards Aqaba and it was Crane's task to stop her from breaking out, sinking her if necessary. H.M.S. Crane (F 123) was a modified 1,350 ton Black Swan Class sloop (later re-designated a Frigate) laid down by Denny & Company of Glasgow in June 1941, launched in November 1942 and completed in May 1943. Her length overall was 300 feet, her beam 38.5 feet with a draught of 8.75 feet. Powered by steam turbines driving two shafts, she had a top speed of 20 knots. She was armed with six 4-inch guns in twin mountings and six 40 mm AA Bofors guns.
Roy Loader’s action station was at one of the two 40mm Bofors guns mounted at the ship's stern. On 3rd November Crane was patrolling close inshore, not far from Sharm el Sheik. “It was a beautiful evening, not a cloud in sight". Captain Pemberton cruised into the rapidly narrowing Channel, the sand-brown Tiran Island to the east, the cliffs and dunes of Sinai to the west. He was now very close to the mainland, and the land battle which had been raging all day could be seen in great detail. Shells were bursting amongst groups of lorries while opposing tanks and armoured cars crawled blindly through the banks of smoke and dust. To the men watching from the Crane's upperworks, there could have been no greater contrast between the war fought by the sailor and that fought by the soldier. Circling above the battle were five aircraft. They were seen to swoop low over the cliffs and their bombs exploded near Ras Nusrani.
The Crane was now only three miles from the fight. Clearly the Egyptians were determined to block the Israeli drive southwards for as long as they could. It was at this point that H.M.S. Crane ceased to be a spectator. The aircraft, initially identified as Egyptian MIGs but now seen to be Israeli Air Force Mysteres, climbed to 6,000 feet, turned seaward and dived towards the British ship. "I was number one on the gun and the standing order was that I must fire at anything I believed was a threat to the ship. I didn't need an order from the bridge before I opened up. I could see that they were Mystere fighter-bombers and guessed they were Israeli. But that didn't matter. Once they started to dive down in line astern I pressed the peddle and let fly".
The aircraft were indeed Mysteres of the Israeli Air Force. They too had been alerted to the presence of an Egyptian frigate in the Gulf of Aqaba and, having failed to identify the Crane as a Royal Navy ship, they attacked her as a legitimate target. One after the other, they swept in to launch their salvoes of 2-inch rockets. The rockets missed the central superstructure but burst all over her quarterdeck. Both of the Bofors guns were hit and three of the gunners were struck by splinters of steel. Roy Loader looked around as the aircraft climbed away to the east and saw that he was the only man uninjured. "The rockets had cut through my hydraulics, so I could only train the gun by hand. My Number Two was on the deck, with a lot of little holes in him, and the other gun's crew were also laid flat. My mate was not too badly hurt, but one of the other gunners had a mangled leg. A damage control party came running aft to see what they could do. I shouted to one of the seamen, who was even younger than I was, to give me a hand. He hadn't a clue about Bofors, but I quickly told him how to load the clips of ammo and what I wanted him to do. By the time the aircraft had circled around and were coming in for their second run, we were just about ready for them". The Crane's formidable armament did not deter the pilots from now strafing the ship with cannon fire. The White Ensign had been hoisted and there was a Union flag painted prominently on the forecastle deck but, coming in low at 500 knots, the Israelis were obviously convinced that they were attacking the Rashid.
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