Between 1947 and 1963 over two million young men were called up for national service and sent to far flung locations including Korea, Palestine and Kenya.
Young recruits were turned into soldiers, airmen and sailors.
For Terry O’Reilly – a corporal radar operator in the RAF – a dusty outcrop known as ‘Cape Greco’ near Ayia Napa became his home sixty years ago.
Now aged 81 and living in Uxbridge, UK, O’Reilly has penned a serious – if often very entertaining – account of British military life on the rocky outcrop.
Back in 1956, Cape Greco, sat on the front-line of Britain’s regional air defences. Everything was new for O’Reilly, he had little idea of the adventures he would face and the people he would encounter.
In his book ‘The Dustbin Bandits’, he tells his tale beginning at the moment he touched down at Nicosia airport on March 3 1956.
“I was sitting enjoying a pint of Keo beer in the Corporal’s Club at RAF Nicosia when that enjoyment was interrupted by a heavy detonation that seemed close by,” he recalls.
He had been on the island barely an hour when the explosion rocked the Nissen hut where he was sipping a cool local beer – he had just witnessed a key moment in the Cyprus troubles.
“Following the crowd I soon found myself by the airfield perimeter fence and about fifty metres inside the fence was a parked up Hermes passenger aircraft with flames coming from a large ragged hole in its underside and partly disembowelled items of luggage were strewn on the tarmac beneath.”
The commotion was the bombing of a civilian airliner which was destroyed by a time-bomb. The explosion occurred 20 minutes before the aircraft was due to depart for London.
The 68 passengers due to fly were preparing to board.
“All of us were fully aware of the political situation in Cyprus at the time,” O’Reilly told the Sunday Mail.
“But to have the aircraft we arrived on blown up by a terrorist bomb was a very early introduction to the hostile situation.”
Cyprus was in turmoil as the EOKA struggle escalated, the Cold War became chillier and Britain’s fight in Suez stretched resources. A few days after O’Reilly arrived, Archbishop Makarios was exiled to the Seychelles, further stoking tensions.
In his 400-page account, O’Reilly paints a detailed picture of extreme danger face by young conscripts, mixed with periods of intense boredom and typical British army camaraderie.
Soon after the excitement at Nicosia airport, O’Reilly along with troops from 751 Signals pitched up tents under the wind-worn cliffs at Cape Greco, transforming the area into a mobile radar station.
Here the airmen endured grim conditions – battling venomous snakes, living on a diet of tinned ‘compo’ food and working in blistering heat – mixed with enduring the most basic sanitation and the occasional hangover.
O’Reilly remembers that rations included powdered egg, beans, pom, corned beef and jam – a horrid stodgy diet for a soldier, but ‘novel and interesting food for the local folk’.
The wintertime also gets a special mention, especially when high winds blew the tent covers sky-high: “It became quite cool and we had to resort to paraffin heaters in the tents. Excursions to the beach and swimming became rare events and indoor, or in tent, activities of cards and board games took over.”
Bombings, shootings, sporadic outbursts of violence, ambushes and sabotage were also commonplace as EOKA had intensified its activity against the British.
“If I was still serving I would have no choice about going into hostile situations – that is what service people do. The old saying ‘We took the shilling so take the consequences’ is still true.”
Injuries and fatalities did occur – therefore most of the personnel, except for occasional respite, spent their time behind barbed wire, an existence akin to prisoners of war.
The security situation worsened and the unit’s remote location at Cape Greco meant when leaving the camp – they ran the gauntlet of ambushes by very active members of EOKA in the south east.
“The first idea was to use a mattress to shield the cab escort, but this proved awkward and precarious and warm. Another idea was to use a domestic style dustbin. The bottom was removed from a bin and placed in the circular roof hatch on a three tonner cab.”
Even though it was not standard Ministry of Defence design – a bin on top of lorries became a familiar sight in the east of Cyprus. A gunner sat in the bin looking for potential threats.
“As most of the incidents seemed to occur in or close to Paralimni, we took to dismounting outside the village and going through on foot.”
Now, well into retirement after 36 years in the RAF and twelve years in teaching O’Reilly still vividly recalls daily life over half a century-ago.
“The bad events such as ambushes and bad living conditions stick in the mind. But the best times were when we could get out and about a see some of the island.”
The book, which is also available as a Kindle download has been well received, especially by former servicemen.
“Most of my book sales seem to be to ex-RAF and we are a dwindling band. But I write as a hobby and not for profit and to preserve a little facet of RAF history not written about elsewhere,” he tells the Sunday Mail.
O’Reilly was eventually posted to Scotland in 1958, where he continued his RAF service – and kept in touch with many of his fellow airmen from Cyprus.
“In later years in the mess and at reunions we often spoke about those odd times in the early 50s. I decided to write that book but when I had assembled all the material and had written an outline draft I had enough for three books.”
Unfortunately for most returnees that visit their old stomping ground at Cape Greco, not much remains of the RAF station.
“Some features left from the 751 occupation of the site are still discernable in Google earth images. The concrete accommodation tent bases and those of a few other former buildings can still be seen.”
There is not much else.
