THUGS KILL ARMY MAJOR

Terror town battle by night and day

BRITISH HEADQUARTERS, Canal Zone, Sunday

British troops fought a battle with Egyptian police last night and again today in the terror town of Ismailia. Major J C S McDowell , of the Royal Signals, was found shot dead after the night clash. A second British officer was killed today and three of his men were wounded. Two British civilians are wounded. Nine Egyptians are reported to have been killed.
And tempers in both the British garrison and Egyptian police have been roused by an order from Egypt’s Minister of the Interior, Serag ed. Din. With cabinet backing, the Minister ordered the police to “shoot at sight any Britain who attacks an Egyptian policeman or civilian”. Todays fighting started when Egyptian police fired on British military police near the Governors Palace in Ismailia.
Rioting flared and a mob trapped a British family in a shop. Other families moved to a Royal Navy club. There a second mob surrounded them. Troops went in to the rescue but where pinned back by heavy fire from the Egyptian police. An ambulance tried to pick up a wounded British soldier and it too was forced back.
Men of the Royal Lincolns hurried into town from tea-dances and football. They manned fresh rescue convoys and drove the British families to safety in an Army camp. As the rescue trucks pulled out of town machine guns started shooting. Egyptian snipers perched in trees fired with rifles at anything British.
Britons who stayed at home in their flats were warned by the Forces radio “Do not go out. Do not loiter on your balcony. Lock your doors and go to bed”.
Military Police cordoned the town and stopped traffic. A British reporter, Mr. Ralph Champion, of the Sunday Pictorial, went through in an RAF car. An Egyptian bullet wounded him slightly in one foot.
The shooting stopped in a drizzle of rain after three hours at 6 pm. Then it started again. RAF police drove to the spot in riot cars. And later the Egyptians announced that their police had evacuated the European section of Ismailia.

AT CLOSE RANGE

The first fight started at 10 o’clock last night. It lasted five hours and after this clash Major McDowell was found badly beaten up and shot through the chest at close range. He was wearing a kilt. All his badges and identity papers were missing. So were his wallet and pistol. He did not belong to the British force involved, and an investigation is being held into his death.
In this first clash Mr. Peter Buckly of the Forces Radio was wounded. His condition is said to be critical.
This account of the fight was given by British Headquarters:-

"A patrol of the 1st Lincolns was carrying out it’s nightly check in Ismailia and saw what appeared to be an Egyptian civilian asleep on the pavement. The patrol approached him and found he was an Egyptian police auxiliary armed with a rifle. He ran towards the Police barracks shouted and fired.
About 60 Egyptian police ran out of the barracks and fired in all directions. The British patrol withdrew into tree-lined French Square and returned the fire.
Then Lt Col D.R. Wilson, commander of the Lincolns, directed his troops. He said the police came out of their barracks blowing bugles and opened fire on passing cars. "

TO GUARD BRITIANS

The police stopped shooting when one of their officers shouted “Cease Fire” through a loud speaker mounted on a British Army truck. General Sir George Erskine, General Officer, commanding British troops in Egypt, said the Lincolns patrol was touring the town to safeguard British families. He added “While British families are in Ismailia, I shall keep troops there to protect them by day and by night” – Express News Service
Express military reporter writes:- The first of the 280 railway men reservists in the Royal Engineers will fly to the Canal Zone this week to run trains for British troops, Egyptian railmen have deserted.