page_title: Operation Parthenon
section_title: The operation
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Parthenon / The operation
caption_attribution_description: A photo from 1955 showing the British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Centaur (R06) with the recently added 5.5° angled deck.
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: Operation Parthenon would have been a full-scale assault on the revolutionary forces defending Zanzibar to prevent the Umma Party from cementing its control of the island.  It would have involved forces far in excess of previous plans which concentrated on the evacuation of and protection of European citizens.  The Operation would have involved the landing of British land forces by parachute and helicopter on the island of Unguja to secure the airport before repeating the process on Pemba.  The operation plans required a maximum of two aircraft carriers, three destroyers, Owen, 13 helicopters and 21 transport or reconnaissance aircraft.  The land forces would have been provided by the second battalion of the Scots Guards, 45 Commando of the Royal Marines and one company of the second battalion of the Parachute Regiment.  If it was carried out Parthenon would have been the largest British airborne and amphibious operation since the Suez Crisis.  The two carriers selected for the operation were HMS Centaur and HMS Victorious which were transferred to the region in readiness.  With the revelation, around 20 February, that communist troops may have trained the Zanzibar revolutionaries the British planners decided that a different mix of forces was required for the task and Operation Parthenon was replaced by Operation Boris.
caption: HMS Centaur
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