Authors: John Urwin
The army convoy drove straight on to the airport runway and we jumped out to an utterly amazing scene: thousands of troops stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see. The place was full of hustle and bustle, the air filled with noise: the roar of planes taking off and trucks racing around. Thousands of marching feet and hobnailed boots crunched on the runways, as sergeants screamed out orders. My unit formed part of an airlift in which we were told some eighteen thousand troops were flying out to the Middle East.
‘Christ, the Third World War must have started!’ someone
commented, as we lined up to board our plane, a twin-engine Dakota.
And for all we’d known at that time, he could well have been stating the truth.
Inside, the plane was noisy, cramped and uncomfortable. We sat in long rows down either side, making little or no conversation, each man lost in his own thoughts. This was partly due to the noise of the plane, which made it difficult to talk without shouting, partly because we were beginning to feel the effects of all of the jabs, but mainly because we were all stunned by the speed of it all. One moment, we’d been about to go home and the next we were on a plane with dozens of other soldiers, most of whom we’d never seen before, except for maybe three or four, heading towards God knows what in the Middle East. We’d heard all kinds of rumours about what was going on out there and knew that a lot of our lads were being killed, but we didn’t really know what to expect.
Whether it was always the intention for us to land in Malta I’m not sure, but our plane diverted there when it developed engine trouble. Looking out of the window, I saw thick black smoke coming from the port engine.
‘Hey look at this!’ I said, nudging the lad next to me.
‘Eh! What?’
‘Look, the flamin’ engine’s on fire! I don’t think we’re going to make it!’
‘F*** off, Geordie, try it on someone else!’ he said, thinking I was winding him up.
‘No, honest, look,’ I’d insisted as the intercom suddenly crackled into life.
‘Sorry about this, gentlemen, apparently we have trouble with our port engine, but don’t worry, chaps, we have two. We’ll just have to make a little unscheduled stop at Malta,’ the pilot cheerfully
informed us in a poncy, upper-class accent that was pure ‘Battle of Britain’.
His announcement was met with a variety of moans, groans and comments.
‘Oh, bloody great, we’re going to snuff it before we even get there. Just my flamin’ luck!’
‘Don’t worry, old boy, we’ve got another engine, don’t you know, eh, what!’
‘That’s right, old bean. Toodle pip, chocks away!’
‘Shut the f*** up, this is serious.’
‘Oh Jeez, I think I’m going to be sick.’
The incident had certainly woken us all up from our previous stupor! Now we were quiet for a different reason – we were all bloody terrified!
Our landing at Malta was very hairy and I for one thought we weren’t going to make it. The pilot seemed to be coming in at an alarmingly steep angle and I remember the immense, almost tangible, feeling of relief when we heard the tyres screech as the plane bumped along the runway and finally stopped. We all just sat there a bit numb, grinning stupidly at one another, as we realised we’d landed safely in one piece.
‘Thank God for that!’ the lad sitting next to me muttered. ‘Mind you, it’ll just be my luck to get shot at the other end the minute I get off the bloody plane!’
I don’t remember a great deal about Malta, as all we really saw of it was the airport where we were given orders to change to other planes, which split most of us up. I was told that I would now be going to Cyprus together with several other men who’d trained with me at Wrexham – three of whom stand out for no particular reason other than the oddity of their collective names – Dave Hatfield, Dave Bradfield and Dave Buckfield.
The airport was busy, noisy with numerous planes coming in to refuel and hundreds of troops emplaning and deplaning with all of the usual army paraphernalia. I had time to buy a postcard to send off to my mother. It had a picture of the local hospital – an old fort – on it and I merely had time to write:
‘Mother – Cyprus – didn’t get weekend pass – will write and explain when we get there’, before we were on the move again. It would be almost two years before we were back in England and I saw her again.
For a young Geordie lad like me, arriving in Cyprus was like being in a dream. The airport was ablaze with lights and noise, and as the plane doors opened, we were bombarded with a variety of strange, alien smells mingled with petrol and diesel fumes. The night air that hit us was warm and humid. We were given no time to look around; as soon as we deplaned we were quickly shepherded onto waiting trucks, issued with empty rifles and dispatched to our final destination. Only the officers’ revolvers and a handful of the escort troops had loaded guns.
Our vehicle formed part of a large convoy of canvas-covered Bedford trucks, which eventually set off into the pitch-black night. None of us knew where we were going or what to expect when we got there. Just outside the airport gates we caught a glimpse of several market-type stalls covered in fruit, and I recall seeing oranges and watermelons, their vivid colours brighter than anything I could ever have imagined. I was briefly aware of tiny white-painted houses and narrow cluttered streets but once we left the built-up area around the airport, we saw nothing apart from a brief glimpse of one another when the lights of the following vehicle lit up the back of the truck. The only other light came from cigarette ends, which would light up someone’s face briefly as they drew on it.
The canvas sheet at the back of the truck had been pulled to one side with the tailboard up and every so often, out of the opening, we could see the lights of a small town or village in the distance. The roads were quite smooth for short distances but then we’d hit rough patches and be tossed all over the back of the truck. Constantly being thrown around like that after the long, uncomfortable flight together, along with the warm night air and petrol fumes, had begun to make some of the lads feel queasy. By this time we were all very tired and groggy from the long journey and the effects of our shots.
‘I’m bloody beat, I wish we were there!’ the lad opposite me grumbled as, almost stabbing me with his cigarette end, he was thrown against me yet again, practically landing on my knee.
Then just as we’d hit another large bump in the road, we heard a loud crack like a truck backfiring and the guy sitting next to me suddenly keeled over and lay still, face down in the bottom of the truck. The convoy had come to an abrupt halt and I went to help him up thinking he’d simply been jolted out of his seat, when we heard several more loud cracks and the truck engines and lights were switched off! As I tried to lift him, my hand made contact with his back and to my surprise I’d discovered that it was warm and damp. The realisation of what had actually happened instantly hit me – he had been shot! In that moment, all hell broke loose.
‘Snipers!’ a voice nearby bawled.
‘Get out of the trucks, take cover.’
Everyone seemed to be yelling, shouting and screaming at once as, frightened and confused, we dived out of the back of the truck, bashing into one another in our haste and falling over our rifles. We landed painfully on top of each other, unable to see in the pitch black. Having received no training for this kind of situation, we
desperately scrambled about in the dark trying to find whatever cover we could and, once found, kept our heads well down. It was a terrifying experience, lying there in the dark, clinging to the steep hillside with no idea what was below us, bullets thudding into the trucks in front of us and burying into the ground only feet from where we lay.
We were all carrying rifles but had been issued with no ammo. Even if we’d had bullets, I doubt whether most of us would have been able to use them; we’d be too scared of hitting one of our own guys in the dark, as we knew there had to be hundreds of us scattered all around but couldn’t see a thing. Above the noise of the intermittent gunfire, officers and sergeants could be heard shouting.
‘Stay where you are, lads, and keep your heads down!’
‘Keep under cover and don’t move.’
‘What’s he on about, “don’t move”? I couldn’t bloody move if I wanted too, I’m so scared!’ one of the lads crouched next to me grumbled. ‘And even if I could where the bleedin’ hell would I move to, for Chrissake?’
‘Watch where you put your hands, there’s bloody snakes and things around here!’ another nearby voice mumbled.
‘Oh Gawd! Bullets and snakes!’ the first lad moaned. ‘That’s all I bloody need!’
‘Sarge! Sarge!’ I shouted. ‘There’s someone in the back of our truck, I think he’s been hit and he’s in a bad way, he needs help!’
I knew the sergeant had heard my shout for help as he instantly began to call out for a medic. I wondered how the lad in the truck was doing; with all that blood around, I thought he might be dead.
The sky ahead and above us flashed with gunfire and I guessed that the snipers must be somewhere on the hilltop in front of us. Some of our guys were firing back, as there had been occasional
flashes, followed by the loud crack of gunfire, further along the hillside.
It seemed as though we lay there for hours and as dawn broke, we began to see our surroundings more clearly. Like much of the island, the area was mainly barren and rocky with some scrub and a few thorny bushes. As the light increased, the ‘alien’ landscape became more visible.
On a hilltop in front of us, silhouetted against the gradually lightening sky, we saw four or five terrorists, now captured, being marched down the hillside towards us, their hands above their heads. They had managed to keep several hundred British troops pinned down for hours in the darkness. What became even more apparent as it grew lighter, was the fact that British soldiers had been surrounding their position the whole time!
We were given orders to get back into the trucks as quickly as possible and clambering back into ours I saw the large pool of blood on the floor, where the lad who’d been shot had fallen. Obviously, during the night, the medics had somehow been able to get to him and move him to a safer place.
‘Let that be a lesson to you all,’ the sergeant warned us. ‘Don’t underestimate these bastards. They’re well armed, well trained and bloody determined. Soldiers, women, kids – they don’t give a shit. So keep well away from them and watch your backs at all times! This isn’t a bleedin’ holiday camp!’
As the trucks moved off we all sat quietly, trying not to look at one another or at the pool of blood that now stained the truck floor, and no one spoke or asked where the injured man was. Any thoughts we may have had of being on a ‘paradise island’ had been quickly dispelled on that very first night, as the full reality of the situation hit us all. This was to be no holiday in the sun!
I later discovered that the young lad who’d been shot was
eventually shipped back to England. Apparently, the bullet had entered his left shoulder, travelled along and through his body to finally exit from his chest on the right-hand side, causing considerable internal damage. The rumour around the camp was that he’d lost the use of his right arm due to his injuries.
We were stunned when we arrived at our ‘camp’ – it was virtually non-existent! We’d had to make it ourselves over the next couple of weeks from the surrounding, mainly barren area, and were kept busy putting up tents, organising cooking facilities, digging latrines and eventually erecting a perimeter fence.
The camp, in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by barbed wire, looked more like a prison. There were no towns in the near vicinity and, to begin with, none of us had the remotest idea of where we were in relation to where we’d landed at Nicosia. There was no wildlife as such either, with the exception of lizards, which could be seen scuttling about or basking on rocks. Days and nights were filled with the incessant chirping of crickets and buzzing of insects. The days were baking hot, the nights warm and oppressively humid. There was nothing to see and nowhere to go other than the camp NAAFI or the long walk down to the beach at Episkopi.
There were about three hundred of us stationed at 524 Company, D Platoon, four to every tiny tent, dust and ants in everything we touched. Each tent was equipped with two bunks down either side, about six inches off the ground, with a couple of planks of wood running down the middle. This meant that at least there was something to stand on other than the ground. But when we did stand up our heads touched the top of the tent and we kept knocking each other over, as we all tried to get dressed at the same time in the tiny space between the bunks, still half asleep.
To top it off, a little wimp of a sergeant would come along every
morning, screaming his bloody head off and bashing the sides of the tents with a stick. This just caused even more confusion and made matters worse, although he probably thought it would make us get dressed quicker! We really didn’t need any encouragement to escape from the cramped confines of the tiny enclosures and get to the mess tent as soon as possible, as we always seemed to be hungry.
Once the battle was over between the four of us trying to get our clothes on, there would be a mad dash to get washed and shaved – we only had half an hour to do this before breakfast. Half an hour might seem quite a while, but when there are hundreds of men all trying to get washed at the same time, it really isn’t very long at all. To perform our ablutions, we used what looked like a couple of wooden troughs, roughly thirty feet in length. About every yard or so a pipe stood up with a tap stuck on the top of it. Of course, the next dash was to the toilets (or latrines, as the army calls them).
These consisted of lines of steel buckets with wooden seats on the top, surrounded by a four-foot wall of hessian sacking. We would all sit there trying not to look at one another, discussing how hot the weather was yet again in order to cover our embarrassment, while at the same time trying to prevent ants from climbing up our legs. We also had to dodge some huge buzzing things, which looked like bees but were called horseflies. Following this came breakfast and we just couldn’t wait!