Page 13 - The Princess Mary's Hospital 124pp book.pdf

TROODOS FOREST FIRE: 1956
The newly opened RAF hospital very soon had to deal with the human cost of this conflict, as is cryptically recalled in its archives:
(17 June 1956) “Troodos Forest Fire. Six lying cases, nine sitting cases admitted to this hosp. Two died of
burns.” (Kew20)
This tragedy occurred during the hottest summer in Cyprus for many years, as British troops were closing in on Grivas, holed up in a 25-square-mile area of dense tinder-dry woodland in the mountains west and south of Mount Olympus:
“When the net finally closed in on Grivas, disaster struck the operation. A fire broke out in the trees behind him, and the flames streaked through the wood and up the nearby slopes, setting ablaze an army lorry. Nineteen soldiers died and 18 others were injured. Helicopters buzzed in to rescue the injured, and in the commotion the guerrilla leader vanished.”21
This was the single greatest loss of life in the Cyprus Emergency. The 17 soldiers who died that day in the Troodos Forest Fire, and the two who died subsequently in hospital, were almost all young national service conscripts of 21 years of age or less, mainly serving with the Gordon Highlanders and The Royal Norfolk Regiment. Their names are recorded on the British Cyprus Memorial unveiled on the 50th
anniversary of the ending of this conflict, Remembrance Day 2009, in the old British cemetery in Kyrenia, and can be viewed in the online Roll of Honour at www.BritishCyprusMemorial.org/roll. Their names and those of all 371 British servicemen who lost their lives in Cyprus during this period are also recorded on the National Memorial at the National Arboretum, Nottingham. The soldiers themselves are buried in the British Military Cemetery (Wayne’s Keep Cemetery22) in Nicosia (now relatively inaccessible as it is situated in the Green Zone).
Their names are also recorded in a book, Mayhem in the Med, dedicated to the memory of the spirit and sacrifice of the young national service conscripts who served in the Cyprus Emergency, originally published in 2005 on the 50th anniversary of the start of this conflict23. This book chronicles the events and circumstances of those times on a daily basis in the form of unfolding news stories.
12
20 AIR/29/2789 TPMH January 1956 – December 1960. All unreferenced quotes hereafter are taken from the relevant Operational Record Book.
21 The Cyprus Conspiracy, p35, quoting Barker, Grivas, p126–7.
22 Wayne’s Keep Military Cemetery www.britains-smallwars.com/cyprus/
Davidcarter/Wayneskeep/keep1.html
23 Mayhem in the Med: A Chronicle of the Cyprus Emergency 1955–1960. Richard Stiles. Savannah Publications 2009.