CHAPTER THREE
In 1954, Cyprus District was commanded by Brigadier Abdy Ricketts from his HQ at Wolseley Barracks on the outskirts of Nicosia. Late of the Durham Light Infantry, he had commanded 3 West African Brigade during Major General Orde Wingate’s second Chindit campaign in Burma in 1944 and then led 29 Infantry Brigade during bitter fighting in Korea.
The garrison numbered about 1,500 men and included a 2 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers company detached from Egypt providing an infantry presence and the Governor’s Guard at Government House. The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) provided transport; distributed fuel, ammunition, war stores, rations by air, sea and land; managed Barracks Services and married-quarter accommodation; and provided clerical services to Brigade HQs upwards. Units in Cyprus included 17 Transport Company, 74 Supply Depot, 252 Command Petroleum Depot providing bulk petrol, oil and lubricants, and were supported by the mixed military and civilian 42 Army Fire Brigade at Four Mile Point, 539 Field Bakery at Wayne’s Keep Camp and 136 Supply Platoon in Wolseley Barracks. The Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) was represented by 625 Ordnance Depot at Four Mile Point and the military police by 227 Provost Company.
A fundamental principle of military withdrawal is to ensure that rear-area logistics are in a suitable condition to support the front line. Within weeks of Field Marshal Harding’s announcement, sheds were built at Larnaca for stores shipped from Egypt. Cyprus Signal Troop had relied on civilian-manned military telephone exchanges, the Cable and Wireless and the Forestry Telephone system used for forest fire emergencies. When Major General Morrison, the Command Signals Officer, planned for the transfer of Middle East Command, he enlarged the Troop into the Cyprus Signal Regiment. Needing to support the two HQs in Cyprus and Egypt, he convinced the War Office to send him the Marconi Relay System used by the disbanded Anti-Aircraft Command and placed it on Mount Olympus in three Nissen huts that would eventually house about fifty radios linking Army, RAF and naval command nets and the Cyprus Police. The antennae were mounted on two 60-foot towers that gave a wonderful panoramic view in summer, threatened to topple in gales and were too cold to touch in the four months of deep winter snow.
As the force levels rose from about 1,100 in April 1955 to about 27,500 within a few months, Deputy-Director Supplies and Transport formed 1 (Transport) and 65 (Motor Transport) Companies at the Golden Sands Leave Camp, Famagusta and 40 and 41 (Motor Transport) Companies at Dhekelia and Limassol respectively. Ten-ton Leyland Hippo and AEC Mammoth lorries of 65 Company moved ammunition from Army Landing Ship Tanks at Famagusta and Limassol ports and on to beaches elsewhere. 45 (Independent) Transport Company at Episkopi supplied drivers for the growing fleet of Humber Super Snipe staff cars. Although Land Rovers were first introduced to the Army in 1948, it was not until 1956 that they became widely issued. As an intermediary to reduce reliance on US vehicles, the British-designed Austin Champ had replaced the ubiquitous Jeep. Air portable, able to tow a quarter-ton trailer and adaptable to carry stretchers, compared to the Jeep it was heavy and difficult to extract from sand and mud. For years, the Armed Forces relied on variations of 3-ton trucks, in particular the Austin K3 and Bedford QL, for general-purpose transport until they began to be replaced by the Bedford RL in 1953, a lorry that saw service until the mid-1970s. First-line repair of weapons, radios, vehicles and equipment was provided by REME-manned unit Light Aid Detachments supported by second-line services from the Cyprus District Workshop REME and later by 8 Infantry Workshops in October 1955 and 9 Infantry Workshop in 1957. When vehicles broke down or were damaged in crashes and ambushes, it required military operations to prevent interference by EOKA or local sympathizers during the recovery. The ingenuity of the REME in rigging ropes and pulleys to recover damaged vehicles jammed in ravines was fully tested. The REME also provided infantry attachments, as did other Corps.
RAMC 2 Field Ambulance at Four Mile Point had several detachments across Cyprus supporting Regimental Medical Officers. As for ambulances, the Austin K2 RAF crash vehicle had been adapted to carry four stretchers but lacked sufficient room for medical staff. The seriously injured were treated at the British Military Hospital, Nicosia, which was serviced by 37 Medical Company, and later at Dhekelia and Akrotiri. The hospitals were supported by the Command Medical Equipment Depot and the Command Medical Laboratory. Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps nurses were also posted to the military hospitals, as were Princess Mary’s Royal Air Force Nursing Service nurses to Akrotiri. Those casualties with life-threatening wounds, injuries and illnesses were stabilized in Cyprus and then flown to a naval or military hospital in the UK for specialist treatment and rehabilitation.
Royal Air Force (RAF) Nicosia was established in 1940 when the existing runway was expanded to include dispersal areas. As the fighting in North Africa ebbed and flowed, 272 Squadron Beaufighters escorted Allied convoys and patrolled the Eastern Mediterranean, while 162 Squadron electronic warfare Wellingtons jammed enemy communications and the Spitfires of 680 Squadron photographed enemy activity. After the Allies landed in Italy, 79 Operational Training Unit dominated the region. When a civil airport was built alongside RAF Nicosia in 1945, squadrons rotated through No. 26 Armament Practice Camp and its live firing range at Morphou. In 1953, Transport Command flew in supplies when an earthquake hit Paphos. Helicopters had first been used in the Burma campaign and then in Korea for casualty evacuation and liaison. On 1 April 1955, the Joint Experimental Helicopter Unit was formed at RAF Middle Wallop as a joint RAF/Army venture to develop the operational uses of helicopters, particularly in assaults from aircraft carriers and the delivery of small numbers of troops in counter-insurgency operations. The only helicopters in Cyprus were several Bristol Sycamore HC 14s of the RAF Search and Rescue Flight, which had been based at RAF Nicosia since May 1954. This aircraft had been introduced into service in 1953 to support Fighter Command pilot search-and-rescue and also for coastal anti-submarine warfare. With a crew of two, a Sycamore could carry up to four lightly-equipped soldiers with an endurance of three hours.
One of the most crippling restrictions suffered by Grivas was the naval blockade. The controversial submariner Rear Admiral Anthony Myers, who was nicknamed ‘Gamp’ and had been awarded the Victoria Cross in 1942, was Flag Officer, Middle East and directed naval operations from Maritime HQ alongside HQ Middle East Command. His principal objective was to prevent the smuggling of weapons and thus any ship entering Cypriot waters was liable to be boarded. In mid-September 1955, the minesweeper HMS Appleton fired a shot across the bows of the Italian liner Enotria and then boarded her. Although the ship was within Cypriot territorial waters, the Italian Government lodged a complaint. Boarding could be hazardous. On 26 February 1958, a boarding party in a cutter returned to the destroyer HMS Alamein after boarding a Cypriot fishing boat; but as the cutter was being hoisted on board, a fall shredded and the sailors were tipped into the sea. It took several minutes for the the destroyer to go about and search for survivors. One body was recovered but two others were lost. Over the horizon, patrols were provided by the 1st Destroyer and the 6th Frigate Squadrons. They were often guided to suspect vessels by the 38 Squadron Shackletons Maritime Reconnaisance aircraft flying from Malta. Ton-Class minesweepers of 104 and 108 Squadrons from the Inshore Flotilla of the Mediterranean Fleet provided coastal patrols from the naval base at Famagusta until 104 Squadron was sent to Aden. The sailors sometimes exchanged places with soldiers and not only went on patrol but were also subjected to Army cooking, which most rated as poor. Not surprisingly, the soldiers welcomed the traditional tot of Navy rum. Four former torpedo recovery boats were formed into a patrol boat squadron at Famagusta until it was decommissioned in September 1956. Also involved in coastal defence were seven sections, consisting of an officer and about twenty soldiers of 188 Search Light and Radar Battery, covering the entire Cyprus coastline. It lost a major and two gunners killed in attacks on posts. For a year from January 1958, 847 Squadron Fleet Air Arm provided Gannet anti-submarine aircraft.
Many of those who served in Cyprus were National Servicemen. The Labour Government that ousted Winston Churchill in 1945 had not been convinced of the need for post-war conscription; however, the need to discharge Hostilities – Only servicemen called up during the war, the loss of the Indian Army in 1947, the requirement to provide forces to support UK’s global strategic commitment and provide sizeable garrisons in West Germany, the Far East and the Mediterranean all led to conscription under the 1947 National Service Act. By 1954, National Servicemen were fighting Communist terrorists in the Malayan jungles, Arab nationalists in Egypt and the Mau Mau in the forests of Kenya. Some had survived brutal prison camps as prisoners of North Koreans and Chinese determined to subvert them to communism. Others were involved in nuclear weapon testing in the South Pacific. Women joining the Armed Forces did so as volunteers. The National Servicemen were backed up by a hard core of Regulars and Reservists, many of whom had fought in the Second World War. Almost all had survived the rigours of the Second World War as children, some experiencing the death of close family members in action and in air raids, and most had interrupted educations.
By 1954, the post-war austerity was drawing to a close and most National Servicemen were reluctant to exchange the excitement of Elvis Presley and Bill Haley, winkle-picker shoes and the Teddy Boy fashion for a drab uniform. Men aged up to twenty-six years and usually resident in UK were committed to two years’ full time service followed by three and a half years in the Reserve. Exemptions included the clergy, trawlermen and merchant seamen, some agricultural workers and those in government positions overseas. Deferments were granted to apprentices, university undergraduates and those undertaking professional articles. Northern Ireland was excluded, because of the fear of Catholic dissent, as were the Channel Islands, still recovering from German occupation. After a medical, interviewing officers allocated the recruits, with the Army taking about seventy-two per cent and the Royal Navy about two per cent. The remainder entered the RAF. Those with existing skills increased their chances of entering either the RAF or Royal Navy or a relevant Corps in the Army; for instance, a bank clerk could probably be sent to the Royal Army Pay Corps (RAPC). Army basic training usually took place in dilapidated camps or stone barracks built to house soldiers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although some had been evacuated to Canada, the USA and the British shires during the war, joining up for most was their first time away from home and suddenly they found themselves sleeping in a large cold dormitory with a bunch of strangers from all over UK and eating food that lacked the quality produced by Mother – ‘Take it or leave it, son!’ Royal Navy and RAF accommodation was usually more adequate, and haircuts were less brutal than in the Army. As the basic training progressed and the recruits adapted to Service life, they moulded into units and left for trade and advanced training. Few regarded the rantings by corporals, sergeants and sergeant majors, the insistence on traditions and compliance with restrictions as bullying or an attack on their human rights; these were simply a necessity of life in uniform.
Most officers had gained military experience in public and grammar school Combined Cadet Forces. The Royal Navy and RAF sought experience in the Reserve Forces. Those Other Ranks talent-spotted as Army officers were assembled into potential officer platoons at training depots where they prepared for the three day commissioning War Office Selection Board – ‘WOSBee’. Not all made the grade. Lord Willoughby de Eresby, heir to the Earl of Ancaster, served as a trooper with the Royal Horse Guards in Cyprus. Those selected for three-year Army Short Service Commissions (SSC) attended either Eaton Hall or Mons Officer Cadet Training Units (OCTU) near Chester and Aldershot respectively and could apply to convert their SSC into Regular commissions. Regular Army officers graduated from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst after two years.
Some of those posted overseas flew in RAF Transport Command aircraft such as the Hastings, others on civilian aircraft contracted by the Ministry of Transport, sometimes with a stopover in Gibraltar or the heavily bomb-damaged Malta where they may have sampled its lazy beaches, the delights of Valetta and its infamous ‘Gut’ of bars, tattoo rooms and prostitutes. Most knew the island for the award of the George Cross for its heroic stand during 1941 and 1942. The vast majority sailed in crowded troopships contracted from shipping companies by the Ministry of Trade. Some had led adventurous lives, for instance, the 9,523-ton German East Africa Line Ubena had spent the Second World War as a U-Boat depot ship until she was converted to a hospital ship in 1945. After being captured at Travemunde, she was renamed Her Majesty’s Troopship Empire Ken. She was scrapped twelve years later. Part of the joining instructions presented to a soldier on embarkation was the Army Form 5218D Bedding Card which gave the name of the ship and the man’s deck, section and berth in one of the tiers of retractable steel bunks in crowded large spaces below decks. The ship’s Regimental Sergeant Major managed the Other Ranks. Officers led an altogether more comfortable life in the equivalent of first class accommodation. Dependants had cabins in a third sector. The departures from and returns to such ports as Southampton were often nostalgic occasions of military bands, flag waving and tears from families and girlfriends. The voyage to Cyprus usually took about eleven days with a run ashore in uniform either in Gibraltar, where it was not unknown for some to go absent without leave into Spain, and or in Malta where most hit the Gut until turfed out by the naval and military police. Although those originating from Glasgow and the Tyne had seen ships being built and those in Liverpool had witnessed the arrivals and departures of Atlantic convoys, few had experienced oceangoing ships and the heaving waves of the Bay of Biscay. The voyage through the Mediterranean in summer was pleasant and gave the Servicemen time to develop tans. Sunburn and sunstroke, in environments where air conditioning rarely existed, were disciplinary offences.
The summer uniform was Khaki Drill shorts and a shirt with either a helmet or beret. In winter, Battledress was worn. Boots were leather and fitted with hobnails that signalled the presence of patrolling soldiers. Webbing consisted of two 1938 Bren gun pouches, water bottle and a 6inch spike bayonet in a scabbard attached to a belt supported by braces, until the 1958 webbing pattern and its yoke appeared. Accommodation spaces were inspected daily and expected to be spotless. Duties and fatigues included the provision of fire picquets at watertight doors with orders to slam shut and lock when instructed, and helping the cooks prepare meals by peeling potatoes and vegetables and washing up pots and pans. Training ranged from drill parades and weapon training to physical fitness, games and lectures. Off-duty activities included reading, betting and gambling, and lounging on the rails, interrupted by queuing for food. There was also the inevitable ‘sod’s opera’ – entertainment put on by crew and passengers in the Ship’s Own Dramatic Society. This is very much part of Service life on ships, in a Mess, in a prison camp or even a jungle clearing. Performers are drawn from all ranks, either real talent or those who think they have it. Officers usually come in for extensive ribbing. Meeting another troopship was usually an occasion for shouting and waving and envy at those returning to England and discharge. Little did those on the returning ship realize that on reaching port, kitbags would be unceremoniously searched by HM Customs and Excise, who very rarely granted any leeway to servicemen returning from active service. Weekly ‘free from infection’ inspections were undignified affairs in which the men dropped their PT shorts so that their genital areas could be inspected by doctors and medical orderlies looking for evidence of sexually transmitted diseases and infections. Some canny soldiers retained their issue Durex to protect the muzzle of their rifles from dirt, rust and dirt. After the sinking of a troopship off Algeria in 1954, life boat drills were taken seriously.
On arriving off Famagusta or Limassol, troopships anchored offshore while military port operations, such as that run by 51 Port Squadron, Royal Engineers, organized the transfer of men in lighters and Z-Craft to port assembly area where they were allocated lorries or coaches and taken to their units. Some were unlucky enough to be allocated to the holding unit at Wayne’s Keep and the dreaded parade square. Wayne’s Keep hosted, as it still does, the military cemetery. In 1955, the War Graves Commission was responsible for the upkeep of the graves of those killed in the First and Second World Wars and the two memorials to the men of the Cyprus Regiment and Cyprus Volunteer Force, as well as the Cremation Memorial to those Hindu soldiers cremated in Cyprus.
Also at Wayne’s Keep, for those who fell foul of naval and military legislation and were convicted by commanding officers and courts martial anywhere in Middle East Command, was the forbidding 52 Military Corrective Training Centre, in which discipline was strict and the training regime hard. In July 1955, 2 Green Howards suffered public embarrassment when three of their men were convicted for attempting to sell a pistol to a Greek-Cypriot. Three other soldiers were the first to be convicted at a court martial for stealing a fishing boat in order to desert to Turkey. Some soldiers were sent home with dishonourable discharges while others emerged better sailors, soldiers and airmen. At the height of the Emergency there were about 350 prisoners under sentence, with convictions ranging from persistent ill-discipline and refusal to obey a legitimate order to desertion. About 150 Turkish prisoners were also held in order to avoid them mixing with Greek-Cypriot offenders.
The majority of the new arrivals moved into one of the ninety-two camps spread across Cyprus. From 1954 to 1956, Royal Engineers surveyors of No. 1 Radar Air Survey Liaison Section, which consisted of about seven soldiers commanded by a major, and 42 Survey Regiment, were kept busy carrying out topographical surveys of sites before the field engineer squadrons built the camps. Three types emerged. Cyprus Scale ‘A’ were suitable for a stay of a few months and came in two stages of tented ‘get you in’, supported by the basics of ablutions, cookhouse shelters and assistance in pitching tents, followed by piped water, hard standing and soakaways. Most units lived in Scale ‘B’ tented camps with a few communal buildings, electricity and hot water. The men lived six to eight men to a 160lb canvas tent, each commanded by a corporal or lance corporal, surrounded by a low sandbag wall that helped drainage and gave some shelter. The sides could be rolled up to let in the summer breeze. Water for washing and shaving was usually collected from several taps early in the morning. By midday in summer the water was almost boiling, while in the chill of winter it could freeze. Most camps were equipped with a water tower, which fed primitive showers. It was not unknown in the summer for drinking water to be rationed to one water bottle per day. Ablutions were generally rudimentary affairs, with a range of lavatory seats perched over cesspits. Urinals consisted of a half tube of corrugated iron feeding into a hole. Hygiene was critical. Since Nissen and Romney huts were not available, locally designed, prefabricated Symmonds huts sufficed. Scale ‘C’ camps consisted of temporary huts.
Some camps such as that at Xeros, were located alongside one of the copper mines, which allowed the Royal Engineers to divert water, electricity and drainage, as opposed to having to bore for it. The camps on the Messaoria plain suffered from summer spirals of ‘dust devils’ that scurried through the tents several times a day. In the autumn and winter, some camps ran the risk of flooding. Polymedhia Camp close to Berengaria had been blasted from a rock face and the tents placed on concrete bases. It was first occupied by 35 Engineer Regiment, who also inhabited about thirty married quarters first used by Major (later Field Marshal) Herbert Kitchener in 1882. The camps were surrounded by barbed wire, with access through a barrier at the Guardroom that was controlled from 6 am to 6 pm by the Regimental Police and from 6 pm to 6 am by a Guard assembled from the incumbent unit. Tented life tended to be relaxed, although several grenade and shooting attacks meant the men were expected to carry their personal weapons. Initially, the standard rifle was the .303-inch Lee Enfield bolt action, although after the British Government had signed a contract for the 7.62mm Self Loading Rifle, this semi automatic weapon became common from 1957 onwards. The 9mm Sten sub machine gun was replaced by the 9mm Sterling. Officers usually carried a .38-inch Smith & Wesson revolver. This was also used as a personal protection weapon. Unlike in Northern Ireland, there was little if any pre-deployment training, and consequently the young and inexperienced National Servicemen were pitched straight into operations that they had only read about in newspapers or heard about on the wireless.
Each camp had separate Messes for officers and senior non commissioned officers, while the NAAFI provided for the remainder. Cigarettes were rationed. When 1st Battalion, Highland Light Infantry (1 HLI) moved into the camp at Dhavlos, beer glasses were not available because they had been used in a fight, so the Jocks resorted to using mess tins. Coca-Cola was freely available from a kiosk run by a Cypriot. When the Black Watch arrived in 1958, they were not too surprised when an entrepreneurial Indian trader they had used elsewhere set up shop. Contact with home was limited and usually confined to letters and parcels distributed by the Royal Engineers of 19 Command Postal Depot at Wayne’s Keep, under the British Forces Post Office 53 nomenclature before it moved into the new camp at Dhekelia in 1958. It also distributed classified mail. Seven field post offices were provided by 275 Postal Unit, one at RAF Akrotiri. As the terrorism in Cyprus escalated and EOKA infiltrated camps, all outgoing letters were held for a day and parcels for two days to allow devices to detonate. When 19 Postal Command Depot installed an inspection machine, it was not then known the damaging effect X-rays had on undeveloped rolls of photographic film. The machine also vetted incoming parcels for weapons.
A few applicants were mentioned on the regular BBC Light Programme Two Way Family Favourites, broadcast at midday as families in UK sat down for Sunday lunch. The Forces Broadcasting Service supplied entertainment, and Soldier magazine was one Service periodical that ran regular articles from Cyprus. Leave was usually taken at one of the rest camps near the beaches. Some soldiers who elected to be discharged in Cyprus used rail warrants to return to UK through Europe.