The Underground resistance did many amazing operations, I believe the amazement came from the facts that most people who participated in it, were not military and never had a military training except for the boys of the National Guard like Dr. Yahia El-Shaer and Mohamed Maharn. They were like you and me, normal people who were put in extraordinary situation and did extraordinary things for their country, they didn't care for their safety, and they risked everything for what they believed in, from freedom and sovereignty
Today insh Allah, I will share with you some unknown yet important operations to famous ones with the correct details, but the way there are lots and lots of operations yet I chose those, I don't know why but they attracted me
My sources here are mainly two: Port Said online.com and Dr. Yahia El-Shaer valuable Website
1. Not every blonde is a western
Well this is what jumped in my mind after I read that story ,a mix of espionage ,courage and adventure , really those boys and men were too adventurous and that's why the history will remember them
Our hero here is half Egyptian - half European , young Mustafa Mustafa Abd El-Wahab who was 24 years old then "Born in the year 1939" , Mustafa 's father was a captain in the Universal company and he was a close friend to Dr Yahia El- Shaer in the high school. During the war Mustafa had a very big and dangerous assignment which was to spy on the invasion troops , thanks to his European look with his blonde hair and fluent language tongue he got,he wasn't caught.He provided the secret resistance with lots of information about the French and English troops on daily base. His biggest assignment was the 24 hours surveillance he made to the British troops while departure on the 22nd of December, his complete detailed surveillance report was sent immediately to the Egyptian Presidency and General intelligence
Big salute and kiss to Mr. Mustafa Abd El-Wahab where ever he is now ;)
2.It was a great lose to the MI5 and a great victory to the Egyptian Secret Resistance
That is what I said to myself ,it was a big lose to the MI5 when their man in Egypt major John Williams for 25 years got killed in a very simple suicide operation . major Williams worked in Egypt for 25 years ,he spoke not only Arabic fluently but also several Egyptian accents beside learning the Egyptian customs and traditions very well.In the war of 1956 he headed the intelligence service of the British forces in Egypt , yet it wasn't his only assignment his other more dangerous assignment was to track down the secret resistance in Port Said and destroy it , and he succeeded for sometime , of course he wasn't nice with the young resistance members , he used to torture them to get the information. On the 14th of November 1956 Williams was riding a car with colonel Green and a driver when the car stopped by an Egyptian young man who was only 16 years old holding in one hand a paper that looked like a complain and in the other hand what seemed a sandwich , but as soon as Williams opened the car windows to take the complain ,the young man threw a hand grenade in to the car and it exploded in few seconds , killing colonel Green and the driver immediately, while Williams who suffered from bad injuries died in the hospital from the implications as he was a diabetic
The 16 years old man , really he was a man ,was "Said Asran" , a member in the secret resistance ,yet despite his connection to the resistance ,he made this operation individually , the resistance didn't know about this operation at all till it happened , there was no arrangement at all for that operation on the opposite of what is known in Egypt. All the credit goes to"Asran" who did to avenge for his brother murder , from what I think after reading and search that his brother was also in resistance and he may have been caught by Williams and torture to death and that's why it is too personal and dangerous "Asran" didn't care for his life to get William , it was a personal vendetta issue . Already he refused to take the money reward from the resistance commanders and according to Dr. El-Shaer the resistance underestimated his anger "In Arabic" . "Said Asran" died on the 4th of July 2004
A Big salute and prayer on the soul of Said Asran "Please if you are a Muslim ,read on his soul "El-Fataha"
3. The De lessepes' statue operation and El-Shaer family
First before the 24th of December 1956 Port Said had one big statue in city ,the "De Lessep" statue , very big statue that reminds you if you see it with the big statue of Ramses II statue in Cairo or Mustafa Basha Kamal statue in Alexandria ,it was so silly and provoking ,yes "De Lessep" was the man who had the idea of the canal , but who digged it with his own blood and paid his life for it ,the Egyptian, the poor Egyptian worker who digged this canal in the most inhuman work conditions , hundred thousands paid their life because of it , Egypt paid its independence for more than 70 years because of it , and in return nothing was made to remember those who really dig it , the really owners and really builders ,that's why many didn't like the "De Lessep" , a symbol of the western Franco superiority reminding to the Egyptian till that date , of course after the Anglo-Franco attack the city people hated more and more than provoking French statue
On 24th of December ,and it was Monday ,the Egyptians found that one of the soldiers from the departed invasion forces put rudely on the top of the statue The French flag and The GB union jack flag with a French Para troop hat ,it was so rude and provoking , when the Egyptians reached the two flags ,they burned them ,after that there was some kind of a group thinking condition all the people had it around the statue ,it must be destroyed ,they tried but the problem was that it was so huge from bronze
Anyway those angry people weren't alone who thought about this idea of destroying that statue ,an Egyptian Journalist who was in Port Said then though about it before them and even before the departure of Anglo-Franco troops , but of course for such big operation with big implications you need the Cairo permission and thus from El-Shaer family house where the Egyptian wireless unit was hided a coded message was sent to Cairo ,yet the answer didn't come immediately, in fact it came after the major Samir Ghanam ,the commander of this operation made his mind I believe from what I understand even thought the orders came from Cairo prohibiting any revenge attack to the European features of the city above them that statue ,I don't know really what Major Samir was thinking ,but I believe may be the act of the departed Soldiers had did it from putting the flags in a provoking way had its share. Anyway Ghanam acted on his own just like the angry people who gathered on the 24 of December trying to destroy it. But Major Ghanam was lucky than them he got the explosive , and he even chose the man for that mission Young Yahia El-Shaer who didn't complete his 18th year yet {You can see him in the picture here}
Young Yahia didn't want to be alone in that historical mission , he was going to erase the last sign of western imperialism in Egypt then , he should share that glory and thus he asked Ghanam to include his brothers with him , but he only included one brother Abd El-Monam, while his brother Mohamed Hady was on another assignment
And thus the Al-Shaer brothers with black bag full of explosives went to destroy the big statue ,they went and it was a difficult operation
When they arrived they were already an audience about 20 or 30 people from the angry people who tried to destroy the big statue in vain ,so they were spectators who began to watch the two young boys who some of them knew their name trying to bomb that big thing
The problem was that they had to try three times to explode the statue till at last they did it and bombed it
and thus there was no more of the De Lessepes statue
The remaining thing is the base ,while the body De Lessepes is somewhere , it should be put in the museum
Check the story here
Big Salute and a Kiss to El-Shaer brothers
P.S : Today is the Victory Day in Egypt , the national day of Port Said where the last British and French Soldier left Egypt