ROYAL CANADIAN REGIMENT DEPLOYS TO CYPRUS
By Frank Reid
From Volume 22 Issue 12 (January 2016)
A member of the Royal Canadian Dragoons Reconnaissance Squadron, deployed as part of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), during a patrol. Canadian Armed Forces members have been deployed as a peacekeeping force since 1963. (DND, Library and Archives Canada)
In 1974, when violence erupted on the small Mediterranean island of Cyprus, Frank Reid did all he could to get deployed
I arrived in London, Ontario, home of the 1st Battalion of The Royal Canadian Regiment (1 RCR), in April 1973. Having just finished basic training in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, I was ready for the next adventure. My basic training had started with 132 people from all elements of the military and, by the end of a three-month training period, only 83 remained. Of that number, 29 were infantry, including myself. This entire bunch of “unruly teenagers” was posted to 1 RCR.
On July 15, 1974, the Greek Cypriot National Guard staged a coup and overthrew president Archbishop Makarios III. Five days later, on July 20, the Turkish army invaded Cyprus in response to the overthrow, officially claiming they wished to protect the Turkish minority on the island. Three days after the Turkish invasion, a ceasefire was reached between the belligerents, but it dissolved following repeated attacks. A permanent ceasefire and a division of the island was finally reached on August 16, 1974. The United Nations have supported the ceasefire contingent of peacekeepers ever since. (DND)
Upon our arrival in London, we embarked on the second part of our infantry training. At the time, Canada had not been involved in a war for many years. We had a few senior NCOs (non-commissioned officers) who had served in the Second World War, but most of them were getting long in the tooth. Our course training was to be assigned to an exchange officer from the British Army, a young captain that had just completed a tour in Northern Ireland. In my estimation, he was a very effective trainer.
I particularly recall one class on the 9mm pistol, which he waved and aimed at us. We all thought we knew what he was going to do and, finally, he did it — he pulled the trigger. I vividly recall everyone flinching in expectation of a blank going off, but nothing happened. Without missing a beat, the captain went back to instructing us on the use of the pistol. We looked at him like a bunch of sheep, confident that we were going to experience the same thing as before. He pulled the trigger and — BANG! The room was small and the noise of the blank firing echoed with an ear-splitting sound. Twenty-eight wide-eyed soldiers were scrambling to find cover where none existed. It must have made his day. He had palmed the blank cartridge and loaded the pistol in front of us with no one noticing. It left an impression on us all and instilled in us a healthy dose of distrust.
To this day, his training reminds me to never take anything at face value and to trust nothing, even when I believe I saw it with my own two eyes.
Training continued. We then received word that 1 RCR was to rotate on a peacekeeping tour to Cyprus in December 1974. Between 1972 and 1974 hundreds of young troops were rotated to London. The battalion was going to be deployed to Cyprus as a peacetime contingent, therefore only some of us were to go. A number of associates and I were not picked because we were relatively new. I was told there would be plenty of other opportunities to go to Cyprus in the next few years, which was not a comforting thought.
Author Frank Reid`s course graduation photo, with his British exchange officer (front row, centre). This was taken before the 1st Battaliion of the Royal Canadian Regiment was deployed to Cyprus in December 1974. (Frank Reid)
I was eager to go to Cyprus and wanted to go immediately, so I looked for a reason to get myself on this tour. A call went out from the sergeants’ mess looking for a bartender with experience for Cyprus and, even though I was young, I had managed a bar at some point in my civilian life. The main task called for a bartender to serve beer and throw out unruly people who had consumed too much. Seeing a glimmer of light on the horizon, I volunteered for the position, which is something you should never do in the army. I was immediately sent off to train as a bartender for the Cyprus tour. Had I known that a war was about to break out on Cyprus, I would have tried to buy more time, because I was in search of peacekeeping rather than bar tending. There were many more checkpoints and OPs (observation points) to man following the invasion, so in the end almost everyone from Base London went to Cyprus, even soldiers with only one year of experience. For myself, I was stuck as a bartender, longing to be out in the field. The soldiers who had been to Cyprus two or three times before told me to shut up and enjoy the bird job — I thought they were crazy!
The Republic of Cyprus had been relatively quiet for a few years, but by the summer of 1974 things were heating up, as trouble had been in the making for a long time. The first Canadian-led peacekeeping mission to Cyprus was in 1963. Initially, the United Nations and the Canadian peacekeeping mission (the Canadian Airborne Regiment was deployed in April 1974) had only a 90-day mandate.
On July 15, 1974 the Greeks launched a coup d’état against the government of Cyprus and its leader, Archbishop Makarios, who was also the president. Greece installed a puppet government led by Nikos Sampson, a nationalist who wanted Cyprus to become part of Greece. The minority Turkish population, fearing slaughter at the hands of the Greek majority, asked Turkey for assistance. In the wake of these events, Turkey invaded Cyprus five days later, on July 20, and took over approximately a third of the island. The Turkish forces were stopped at the Green Line by the Canadian Airborne Regiment, which had been reinforced with British tanks.
The wrecked and burned remains of a jet sit on the tarmac at the airport in Nicosia. This was the scene when Frank Reid and his fellow Canadian peacekeepers landed on th3e island of Cyprus in December 1974. In July of that year, a battle erupted between the Greek and Turkish communities on the island resulting in the creation and rapid deployment of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus. (Steve Zelezen)
In December 1974, four and a half months after the invasion, I landed in Cyprus. I had left London dressed for -20° C and landed in Cyprus at 27° C above. The first thing I saw after walking off the plane was a wrecked and burnt out passenger jet littering the runway. This was an awesome sight for a bunch of 22-year-old soldiers who were extremely inexperienced and untraveled.
Amid decades-worth of debris and peeling paintwork, the waiting areas, check-in counters and passport control desks at the Nicosia airport remain as they were when abandoned over 40 years ago. (Neil Hall, Pri)
The airport, a new multimillion-dollar complex, sat silent and dark with no electricity. There was virtually no movement anywhere, and the atmosphere was quiet and eerie. I recall there being many ticket counters and shops waiting for tourists who would never arrive. The airport was empty that day, save for the local rat population. We grabbed our rifles and silently exited the airport, and found a convoy of white UN buses ready to take us to our respective bases. This was the first day of our six-month tour.
The Canadians had taken over the Ledra Palace Hotel in Nicosia — the capital and largest city on Cyprus — soon after the fighting began since it was the highest building around and coveted by both sides. This was done with the blessing of the owners, who thought the war would be over in a few months. To them, Canadians offered much-needed protection under the UN flag. The hotel was subsequently used by the military as a base for many years and, in 2004, was designated a Green Line crossing point between the Turkish and Greek populations on the island.
I was posted to the Ledra Palace Hotel upon my arrival in Cyprus. The invasion was only a few months old and the Ledra was still mighty, grand and beautiful. Prior to the invasion, it had been one of the most exclusive and expensive hotels on the island. The hotel was a unique gem: marble floors, outdoor swimming pools heated by the Cypriot sun, well-stocked bars, and ballrooms large enough to fit 500 people surrounded by mirrors 15 feet high and 10 feet wide. In this setting, wealthy guests were known to dance at night while a 20-piece orchestra played and dozens of waiters served Champagne. I was making $280.00 a month at that time, and would have never dreamt of sleeping in one of the hotel’s bedrooms. Thinking back makes me realize that I would have been hard pressed to even purchase a single glass of Champagne. But there I was, in luxury nonetheless.
Frank Reid`s roommate at the Ledra Palace Hotel writes a letter home. Note his hat on table. Every night they would starch them and stretch them over a large fruit can to give them shape. Then they would sweat in the hot sun and the starch would run out of the hat and down their foreheads adn run in their eyes and burn them. (Frank Reid)
Frank Reid on guard duty at the Ledra.
There were only two of us to a room. Each room had a complete bathroom with shower and bidet, not that any of us knew what a bidet was at that time. Being very resourceful, as most Canadian soldiers are, we soon found a use for the bidet. It was perfect to clean the muck out of the treads of our boots. We also had maid service costing a Cypriot pound per week, or about $3 Canadian, which included only cleaning our rooms.
Unfortunately, the hotel had one problem. It was located on the Green Line with Turkish Cypriots on one side and Greek Cypriots on the opposite trying to shoot each other, and us in between. At night, I often heard bullets hitting the hotel on the upper floors. Acting as adolescents, my buddies and I would sit with our feet dangling over the edge of the balcony, drinking and watching the tracers go over the top of the hotel. We called this entertainment. On April 1, a soldier out on his balcony was shot and killed, but this incident did not cure us of our foolishness. Some soldiers were more concerned than we were about keeping their skin without aeration holes and slept with their backs against the inside wall on the upper floor, with their mattress in front of them. The thinking was that if a bullet entered the room, it would hopefully get lodged in the mattress and not the soldier.
The Ledra Palace was centrally located on the island, which made it the perfect location for a battalion rest and relaxation site. Soldiers from other parts of the island came to visit us on their rare days off, and my job as bartender was to take care of the bar and its military patrons. The bar was open from 10:00 a.m. and remained open late into the night, which meant that I did not have to get up early.
Mortar round hit on the Ledra Palace Hotel. (James Humpheys)
Bored stiff, I often harassed the mess sergeant and asked him to get me out from behind the bar. He had been with the Air Force and his usual duty was to serve drinks on planes to generals and politicians as they winged their way around the world. I will never know exactly how he ended up on an army base in London. My thoughts, which I wisely kept to myself, were that he must have irritated a superior and was sent to the infantry base as punishment. He must have thought it strange that I wanted to go out on patrol and do 12-hour guard duty as an infantryman.
Two weeks after I landed in Cyprus, my bartender career came to a screeching halt. A soldier from one of the rifle platoons who broke his arm was immediately transferred to the Ledra Palace to take over my duties and I got my wish to be reassigned to a rifle platoon — life was as it should be!
EDITOR’S NOTE: To this day, the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) maintains a presence on the Mediterranean island to supervise ceasefire lines and maintain a buffer zone between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. Between 1964 and 1993, Canada sent a large contingent of soldiers to the island to help maintain the peace, although only a few Canadian peacekeepers are currently deployed to this mission. Of the more than 25,000 Canadian Armed Forces members who have served as part of UNFICYP since its inception, 28 have paid the ultimate sacrifice with their lives.