Operation Anvil (Mau Mau Uprising) Many Kikuyu were sympathetic to the Mau Mau cause and provided the insurgents with supplies. They also housed them, thereby facilitating attacks in the city and the neighboring Kiambu District. In June General George Erskine was dispatched to Kenya to assume control over British forces. He immediately began instituting reforms and organised a series of attacks against the Mau Mau. In January 1954 the British captured rebel leader Waruhiu Itote, who gave them critical information about Mau Mau deployments and strategy under interrogation. Two months later the colonial command structure was overhauled, increasing decision-making efficiency and granting Erskine greater influence
Mau Mau Uprising Kenyans suspected of supporting Mau Mau rebels were finally released in April 2012. On 20 October 1952, Governor Baring signed an order declaring a State of Emergency. Early the next morning, Operation Jock Scott was launched: the British carried out a mass-arrest of Jomo Kenyatta and 180 other alleged Mau Mau leaders within Nairobi. Jock Scott did not decapitate the movement's leadership as hoped, since news of the impending operation was leaked. Thus, while the moderates on the wanted list awaited capture, the real militants, such as Dedan Kimathi and Stanley Mathenge (both later principal leaders of Mau Mau's forest