Operation Anvil (Mau Mau Uprising) authorities. Within 48 hours the British had detained 206 known insurgents. In the following weeks over 50,000 Africans were detained and questioned. Nevetheless, numerous leading figures among the rebels managed to escape from Nairobi into the countryside. The operation ended on 26 May. Operation Anvil marked a turning-point in the British campaign against the Mau Mau. The action left the insurgents mostly isolated in the forested mountains of Nyandarwa and Kirinyaga without access to supplies and the assistance of passive supporters. It proved to be the most sophisticated undertaking of the Kenyan Emergency. In the following weeks Mau Mau activity
Mau Mau Uprising the Pipeline. There were originally two types of works camps envisioned by Baring: the first type were based in Kikuyu districts with the stated purpose of achieving the Swynnerton Plan; the second were punitive camps, designed for the 30,000 Mau Mau suspects who were deemed unfit to return to the reserves. These forced-labour camps provided a much needed source of labour to continue the colony's infrastructure development. Colonial officers also saw the second sort of works camps as a way of ensuring that any confession was legitimate and as a final opportunity to extract intelligence. Probably the worst works camp