Palestine / 754 killed*

3 Sep 1945 to 30 Jun 1948

British troops faced Jewish insurgents determined to create the state of Israel.

Malaya / 1,443 killed

16 Jun 1948 to 31 Jul 1960

Britain fought a brutal but ultimately victorious war against ethnic Chinese communist guerrillas.

China (Yangtze) / 45 killed

20 Apr to 31 Jul 1949

HMS Amethyst was shelled by communists as it tried to reach Nanking to protect the British embassy there.

Korea / 1,129 killed

27 Jun 1950 to 27 Jul 1954

Kim Il-sung, grandfather of North Korea’s current ruler, sent troops to overrun South Korea, which was rescued by UN intervention.

Egypt (Canal Zone) / 405 killed

16 Oct 1951 to 19 Oct 1954

A British force of 80,000 stationed along the Suez Canal Zone came under sustained attack by Egyptians.

Kenya / 95 killed

21 Oct 1952 to 17 Nov 1956

Colonial troops fought a brutal war with Mau Mau guerrillas fighting for Kenyan independence.

Cyprus / 358 killed

1 Apr 1955 to 18 Apr 1959

Britain tried to hold its Cyprus colony against Eoka guerrillas who wanted union with Greece.

Egypt (Suez) / 24 killed

31 Oct 1956 to 22 Dec 1956

Prime Minister Anthony Eden launched an attempt to recapture the canal after Egypt had nationalised it.

Arabian Peninsula / 60 killed

1 Jan 1957 to 30 Jun 1960

Britain intervened successfully to protect the Sultan of Oman against rebels from across the Saudi border.

Congo / 2 killed

10 Jul 1960 to 30 Jun 1964

UN peacekeepers were deployed to avert civil war in the Congo after Belgians departed.

Brunei / 7 killed

8 Dec 1962 to 23 Dec 1962

Britain sent troops to save Sultan (and Shell Oil’s huge investment in Brunei) from Indonesian-backed rebels.

Borneo / 140 killed

24 Dec 1962 to 11 Aug 1966

Brunei rebellion was followed by war to keep both Brunei and Sarawak from being absorbed by Indonesia.

Cyprus / 3 killed

27 Mar 1964 to present

The United Nations has had a force in Cyprus since 1964 to keep the peace between Greeks and Turks.

Radfan (Aden) / 13 killed

25 Apr 1964 to 31 Jul 1964

Britain was desperate not to lose Aden. The first rebellion near the Yemen border was put down.

South Arabia (Aden) / 160 killed

1 Aug 1964 to 30 Nov 1967

Ultimately, however, 30,000 British troops could not hold the colony, which became the Republic of South Yemen.

Malay Peninsula / 39 killed

17 Aug 1964 to 11 Aug 1966

During the Borneo war, Indonesia tried to open a new front by landing troops and rebels in the Malaysian mainland.

Northern Ireland / 1,441 killed

14 Aug 1969 to 31 Jul 2007

The worst toll British forces have suffered since 1945 was on UK soil, during the Troubles.

Dhofar / 25 killed

1 Oct 1969 to 3 Sep 1976

British troops were sent again to the aid of Oman’s reactionary Sultan, after a rebellion in Dhofar province.

Rhodesia / 5 killed

1 Dec 1979 to 20 Mar

1980 British rule briefly resumed in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe as the white minority lost control, until power transferred to Robert Mugabe.

Falklands / 237 killed

2 Apr 1982 to 12 Jul

1982 Argentina’s military junta seized the islands in a bloodless takeover, but Margaret Thatcher sent a task force to dislodge them.

The Gulf War / 45 killed

2 Aug 1990 to 7 Mar 1991

A coalition of states combined to force the Iraqis out of Kuwait after Saddam Hussein had ordered an invasion.

Air Operations Iraq / 5 killed

16 Jul 1991 to 30 Apr 2003

After the war, the US and UK enforced no-fly zones to protect Iraq’s Kurd and Shia and keep the pressure on Saddam.

Cambodia / 1 killed

1 Oct 1991 to 30 Sep 1993

The UN maintained a 20,000-strong force to oversee the transition after the Vietnamese army withdrew from Cambodia.

Balkans / 72 killed

1 Jul 1992 to present

Nato intervened in Bosnia to prevent Serbs massacring Muslims and, in 1998, to wrest Kosovo from Serb control.

Sierra Leone / 5 killed

5 May 2000 to 31 Jul 2002

Tony Blair sent troops to restore Sierra Leone’s elected government, which had been ousted by Liberian-backed rebels.

Afghanistan / 453 killed

11 Sep 2001 to 27 Oct

Longest modern war involving the UK began to remove al-Qaeda fighters protected by the Taliban.

Iraq / 178 killed

20 Mar 2003 to 22 May

2011 Saddam said he had relinquished his weapons of mass destruction, as instructed by the United Nations. Tony Blair did not believe him.

Libya / 1 killed

19 Mar to 31 Oct 2011

David Cameron sent in troops to protect civilians from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s dictator of 42 years.

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