THE FAMILY of a Cypriot World War II veteran said yesterday they would be happy to meet the son of a fellow British soldier who has been seeking information on his father’s war exploits.
Following an appeal in the Sunday Mail nearly two weeks ago by British policeman Robert Molloy, the family of Theofilos Piperides, the man he has been looking for, stepped forward to help.
Piperides and Molloy’s father, Bill, were together for a time in an Italian prisoner of war camp in 1942. The only thing linking the two men was an old photo of Piperides which had lain unidentified in a Molloy family album until two weeks ago.
If the glue on the photo had not come loose, Molloy might never have seen the message on the back of the 70-year old picture. It read: “Souvenir of our friendship to my friend Bill Molloy from Theofilos Piperides CY/2583 POW camp 65 Italy”. The message is dated December 17, 1942.
Both the Molloy family and the Piperides family know their fathers escaped from the POW camp but it is not clear whether they got away at the same time. Molloy said his father did not talk much about his time as a POW and he wondered if the Piperides family could help.
Yesterday Molloy was thrilled to learn that the family of his father’s old friend had got in touch but he himself was in France “visiting the battlefields of the Somme”. He said he would get in touch with Piperides’ son-in-law Kyriacos Nikiforou when he returns to the UK at the weekend.
Nikiforou said he would be expecting his call.
Speaking of his father in law, Nikiforou said he also hadn’t spoken a lot about his war exploits.
“He told me he escaped and was saved by a priest in Italy who hid him in the bell tower of his church,” said Nikiforou.
Piperides died 17 years ago at the age of 73 after suffering from diabetes for many years. His wife Androulla who was 17 years younger than him, is still alive. The couple had four children, two sons and two daughters.
Nikiforou said not only had Piperides suffered during the war as a POW, and in later years from illness that necessitated amputating his leg, but he had also had an unhappy childhood.
Piperides family originally came from Asia Minor and were expelled from Turkey in 1912. He was born in Kythrea, in the north of the island, in 1918 but because his parents had so many children and were poor, he was given to a Turkish Cypriot in Nicosia to raise and teach him a trade. In his British army papers, Piperides is listed as a mechanic.
“I found a lot of photos and papers, he had a British passport and five or six medals,” said Nikiforou.
He said Piperides was very upset with the British during the EOKA struggle from 1955-1959 and gave back his army medals to the Crown.
“He always said how they had fought alongside the British for freedom during the war but the British didn’t want to give freedom to Cypriots,” said Nikiforou.
He said Britain cancelled his passport, and although in later years he tried to find the medals again for his father in law, he got no response from the British. One of the medals was for “long service”.
“They didn’t even give him his pension and he was in the army for nearly ten years,” said Nikiforou. “No one ever sent a letter saying anything about his pension.”
Nikiforu said he wrote to the British Defence Ministry around 20 years ago about the pension but got no response.
“Shame on them,” he said. “He gave them ten years of his life”.
According to his army papers, Piperides joined the army in June 1940, and was discharged in 1948 with a good conduct record. He had travelled widely during the service including Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon and had spent some time in the UK.
Back in Cyprus he worked as a waiter and cook at various Nicosia hotels but Nikiforou said it had always been a struggle to get by. “He was trying to build a house in Ayios Dhometios but didn’t have the money to finish it,” said Nikiforou. He described Piperides as “generally a quiet man unless something really upset him” but he was unable to shed a lot of light on what happened during his father in law’s army days.
However Professor Petros Polyviou at the University of Cyprus, who is compiling research on all Cypriot World War II veterans, was able to fill in some of the gaps yesterday.
Speaking on the radio, Polyviou said he had been researching Cypriot veterans for some time.
“We hope to have a record of every Cypriot who served during World War II,” he said. Polyviou said many Cypriots like Piperides had joined up early in the war, even though the vast majority had joined after 1943.
“We know from the research that there were different reasons people joined up. Some joined for economic reasons. Some had no work so they volunteered. Others joined because they wanted to help Britain fight against the Fascists,” said Polyviou.
He said according to the records, Piperides was posted to Greece in 1941 and spent a month in Larissa. He was arrested in late 1941 and taken to Italy, and had changed camps two or three times.
In 1943 he escaped and reached Switzerland and in September 1944 went to the UK. Polyviou also spoke about how British soldiers generally didn’t talk about their experiences in POW camps, which would explain why Molloy’s father was so reticent to speak about it. They didn’t think it was very professional, Polyviou said.