Operation Finery - Objectives

Objectives

The Zanzibar Revolution had occurred on 12 January 1964 and since then British forces had kept a presence in the area to safeguard European citizens. Since 30 January British forces had also been kept on standby to launch a military intervention in the event that the radical left-wing Umma Party staged a coup to overthrow the President Abeid Karume's moderate Afro-Shirazi Party which controlled the governing Revolutionary Council. The first operation with this objective was Operation Parthenon which would have used two aircraft carriers, four other ships, 34 aircraft and elements of the Scots Guards, the Parachute Regiment and 45 Commando of the Royal Marines to launch an amphibious and airborne assault on the main, southern island of Unguja before taking the northern island of Pemba. Parthenon remained in place until around 20 February when it became known that the forces of the Revolutionary Council may have received military training from communist troops, it was then decided by the British Defence Council that a different mix of forces was required. Thus Parthenon was replaced by Operation Boris. Boris would have made use of British airfields in Kenya to launch the attack, however it was decided that secrecy could not be maintained in Kenya where some of the population sympathised with the Zanzibaris and so, on 9 April, Operation Finery was developed as a replacement.