British Military Intervention in The Sierra Leone Civil War - Operation Palliser

Operation Palliser

On 6 May, the RUF blocked the road connecting Freetwon to Lungi airport, prompting UNAMSIL staff to evacuate to the Mamy Yoko Hotel in preparation for a total withdrawal from Sierra Leone if the RUF advance continued towards Freetown. In response to the deterioration, British troops – at Richards' request – were flown to Dakar, Senegal, to decrease the time it would take them to deploy to Sierra Leone, and 1 PARA (with D Company, 2 PARA – replacing A Company, who were on exercise in Jamaica – along with several attached assets including artillery) was ordered to the Air Movements Centre in South Cerney, Gloucestershire. The following day Richards was designated Joint Task Force Commander and his ORLT became the forward headquarters for a British deployment. At the same time, the authority to launch an evacuation operation was delegated to Richards and the British High Commissioner, Alan Jones.

With the RUF rapidly advancing on Freetown and controlling most of the interior of Sierra Leone, the only means of rapidly evacuating entitled persons or reinforcing UNAMSIL was by air via Lungi airport. Thus, the enhanced 1 PARA was flown to Dakar on 7 May, where C Company and the special forces squadron were almost immediately put aboard RAF Hercules C-130s with orders to secure the airport. They arrived at Lungi before sunset and were joined by the remaining elements of 1 PARA the next morning. The ARG en route, the paras were able to deploy rapidly and with minimal equipment, knowing that they would not have to wait long for reinforcements and supplies should they be needed. By the evening of 8 May, the non-combatant evacuation operation was underway – the high commissioner issued the orders for the operation in the afternoon and it began almost immediately. Entitled persons who wished to leave were instructed to assemble at the Mamy Yoko hotel, from where they would be helicoptered to the airport by Chinooks and from Lungi they would be flown to Dakar.

Over the course of a week, British forces evacuated approximately 500 entitled persons from Sierra Leone – the vast majority in the first two days of the operation. However, the arrival of British soldiers boosted morale in the country and many foreign citizens opted to stay. The operation took on a slower pace after the first few days, but personnel and aircraft remained ready to evacuate any entitled persons who had been unable to reach Freetown earlier and to evacuate the British High Commission if the security situation deteriorated.