Nick Van Der Bijl - The Cyprus Emergency: The Divided Island 1955 - 1974

O n 20 July 1974, Cyprus was an island with a single government. Three weeks later, it had been divided into two. This books sets out to tell the story of how this tranquil and idyllic island in the Eastern Mediterranean was torn apart by a nationalist rebellion and then suffered sixteen years of uncertainty and instability until Turkish intervention in 1974 led to it being split into two republics. Few tourists know why or that 371 British Armed Forces died during the Cyprus Emergency between 1955 and 1959, most of them National Servicemen aged twenty-one years and under, and now buried in a military cemetery that international politics makes largely inaccessible.

I am beholden to Pen & Sword Books, who for the third time have given me the opportunity to tell some of the story of one of the United Kingdoms forgotten post-1945 campaigns. I am indebted to several people who helped me with information: to Captain Tony Dunn and Commodore Michael Clapp for supplying me with detailed accounts of the seizure of the caique Ayois Georghias in Janaury 1955; to the former journalist and BBC producer, the late David Carter, who passed away almost on the day that I finished this project. He permitted me to use his research and the accounts of the campaign that he has collected which he posted on the Cyprus segment on the www.britains-smallwars website. I must also thank those contributors. This unfettered and invaluable website allows Service veterans and dependants to lodge their recollections and reminiscences for historians and researchers. Robert D Egby, who worked for British Forces Broadcasting in Egypt and Cyprus in the 1950s before becoming an award-winning news photographer, very kindly donated his collection of Cyprus News photos. I should also like to thank the librarians of Bridgwater Library in Somerset who patiently tracked down some obscure books and pamphlets.

I must thank two stalwarts who have helped me in the past. Peter Wood, of GWR Ltd and a former Royal Engineer surveyor and cartographer, created the maps for this book. The former Royal Navy John Noble compiled the index. He sailed home from Malta on a troopship with the 2 Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers after their tour in Cyprus in 1955 and remembers the soldiers playing endless card games on the decks. Brigadier Henry Wilson, Commissioning Editor, Pen & Sword Books, was again invaluable in championing this project.

My wife, Penny, has again been invaluable in proofreading and asking searching and awkward questions about the draft, as was a former colleague, Roy Millard, who used his considerable experience in proofreading to ferret out inconsistencies. I must also thank George Chamier for his patient and meticulous editing of this book.

Nick van der Bijl

Somerset