Moorhouse Affair

The Moorhouse Affair was a military confrontation between the United Kingdom and the United Arab Republic over the abduction and murder of Second Lieutenant Anthony Moorhouse in Port Said, Egypt, following the end of British military operations in the 1956 Suez Crisis.

Biography

Anthony Gerard Moorhouse (1935 – 13 December 1956) was a Second Lieutenant on National Service in the 1st Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment. His father, Francis Gerard Moorhouse,^[1] owned a jam-manufacturing company in Leeds, Yorkshire, Moorhouse's Jam.^[2] Moorhouse was stationed in Port Said after 7 November 1956 ceasefire.

Abduction

On 10 December 1956 Moorhouse had led a raid in Port Said on the premises of an Egyptian dentist and arrested seven Egyptian commandos.^[3] On the morning of the following day, 11 December 1956, he returned to the scene alone and without military authority^[4] where he was surrounded in his army Land Rover by a crowd of Egyptians, one of whom took his pistol. He was overpowered and driven off in a civilian car which was later found by British forces.

Lieutenant General Hugh Stockwell, the British Task Force commander and commander of the British Army's II Corps, ordered a house-to-house search of a five-block area and for all males over the age of 15 found there to be detained and questioned.^[5] The searches were unsuccessful in locating the missing officer.

The United Nations also made efforts to obtain information on Moorhouse's disappearance. On 22 December 1956 Moorhouse's kidnappers allowed Major Wiks, a Norwegian UN officer, to see a man in a British uniform claiming that he was Moorhouse. After the encounter the UN officer reported that Moorhouse was ‘alive and well’.^[6] However, uncertainty as to Moorhouse's situation remained.

Confirmation of death

A family friend and former army colleague of the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the British Member of Parliament Colonel Cyril Banks, travelled to Cairo in an effort to establish the missing officer's fate. On Christmas Eve, 24 December 1954 he finally had a meeting with President Nasser who told him that Moorhouse had died of suffocation when held captive.^[7]

On 31 December 1956, Dag Hammarskjöld, the Secretary-General of the United Nations received a report from the Egyptian Army that Moorhouse after capture was kept with the intention of exchanging him for Egyptian prisoners. When British troops began to search for him he was locked in a small metal cupboard; his captors returned once to feed him but, as the search intensified, they felt it unsafe to return and he was left for two days.^[8] When they finally returned they found him dead, apparently from suffocation, and buried him in the house where he had been kept prisoner.^[9]

According to an account made in 2006 by one of the Egyptian kidnappers, Moorhouse was captured and then taken to a safe house where he was trussed, gagged and hidden under the floor. It was confirmed that Moorhouse was held as a hostage with the intention of exchanging him for Egyptian prisoners. However, he was left alone and bound by his abductors for four days due to the curfew and constant British patrols, and when they returned they found him dead. He was then buried secretly in the Port Said graveyard.^[10]

In late December 1956 Banks returned to Egypt to recover Moorhouse's body^[11] and the British government asked the UN and Swiss government to mediate to recover the body with the Egyptian authorities.^[12]

The Egyptians complied with the UN request on 2 January 1957^[13] and on 4 January 1957 Moorhouse's body was flown to Naples, Italy, for formal identification.^[14] On 5 January 1957 British pathologists from Scotland Yard formally identified the body as that of Moorhouse^[15] and it was flown back to the UK on 6 January 1957.^[16]

Memorial

Lieutenant Moorhouse was buried with full military honours in Lawnswood Cemetery in Leeds on 10 January 1957 after a service at Leeds Cathedral.^[17][18]

His memory is marked in the name of a road, 'Moorhouse Close', in Chester, Cheshire. A small plaque refers to his "heroic death during the Suez Crisis" at the right entrance to this cul-de-sac.

Political and social aftermath

This tragedy "aroused furious anger in Britain" and became "a national symbol of Egyptian deceit".^[19] It also led to widespread criticism of the Eden government from opponents of the Suez invasion. When residents of Port Said planned to turn the house where Moorhouse had been held into a museum^[20] British public opinion was further inflamed. Moorhouse's death also raised questions regarding President Nasser's authority and the effectiveness of the United Nations.

Depiction in drama

Lieutenant Moorhouse's death was the model for Mick Rice's fate in John Osborne's The Entertainer. It was also the inspiration for the depiction of Leslie Williams, a British conscript soldier seized by the IRA in Brendan Behan's play The Hostage.^[21]

References

1. ^ http://www.moorhousehistory.co.uk/biographies/fgmoorhouse.htm
2. ^ http://www.moorhousehistory.co.uk/businesses/moorhousejam.htm
3. ^ "Egyptians Kidnap British Officer" The Daily News, St Johns, December 12, 1956
4. ^ "Last Allies Leave Egypt" Sunday Herald, 23 December 1956
5. ^ "Port Is Tense After Attacks On Police" The Miami News, Dec 15, 1956
6. ^ "GREAT BRITAIN: The Kidnapped Lieutenant" TIME Magazine, Jan. 07, 1957
7. ^ "Attempt to Recover Body of Officer" The Age, 31 Dec 1956
8. ^ "HOODED EGYPTIAN LOOKS OVER SUSPECTS" The Miami News, Dec 18, 1956
9. ^ http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1957/jan/22/second-lieutenant-anthony-moorhouse-death
10. ^ "An act of folly" The Guardian, 8 July 2006
11. ^ "Attempt to Recover Body of Officer" The Age, 31 Dec 1956
12. ^ "Egyptians Kill Britain (sic), Reports Say" Tri City Herald, Dec 26, 1956
13. ^ "British Government Gives Priority To Gas Muddle " Rome News-Tribune, Jan 3, 1957
14. ^ "BODY FLOWN TO ITALY" NY Times, January 05, 1957
15. ^ "BODY IS MOORHOUSE'S; Identity of Briton Slain in Egypt Is Established" NY Times, January 06, 1957
16. ^ "OFFICER'S BODY FLOWN HOME" The Glasgow Herald, 7 Jan 1957
17. ^ "Parents Mourn Suez Victim" The Spokesman-Review, Jan 11, 1957
18. ^ "Amateur sleuths find last resting place of soldier executed in Suez" The Yorkshire Post, 2 December 2005
19. ^ "Briton's Fate a Symbol" NY Times, December 29, 1956
20. ^ http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1959/dec/07/united-arab-republic-proposed-museum#S5CV0615P0_19591207_HOC_193
21. ^ MEMORIES OF ENGLAND: BRITISH IDENTITY AND THE RHETORIC OF DECLINE IN POSTWAR BRITISH DRAMA, 1956–1982