Operation Parthenon was a British plan for military intervention in Zanzibar following the 1964 revolution. The operation was authorised by the British Commanders Committee East Africa on 30 January. The main objectives were to restore law and order in Zanzibar and to prevent the radical left-wing Umma Party from taking control of the government from the moderate Afro-Shirazi Party. The forces assigned to the operation included two aircraft carriers, three destroyers, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel, 13 helicopters, 21 transport or reconnaissance aircraft, a battalion of Foot Guards, a battalion of Royal Marines and an independent company of paratroopers. The plan was to launch a helicopter and parachute assault of Unguja, Zanzibar's main island, before proceeding to take the smaller island of Pemba. If it had been carried out, Parthenon would have been the largest British airborne and amphibious operation since the Suez Crisis of 1956. Parthenon was scrapped around the 20 February and replaced with Operation Boris.
Read more about Operation Parthenon: Origins, The Operation
Famous quotes containing the word operation:
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)