Page 6 - The Princess Mary's Hospital 40pp book.pdf

Cyprus in context – the Cyprus Emergency: 1955–1959
After the Second World War, the Greek Orthodox Church in Cyprus was under duress from a resurgent Cyprus Communist Party. The politically ambitious Archbishop Makarios III, elected in 1950 at the early age of 37, launched an emotionally charged campaign for Enosis (union with Greece, a long-standing aspiration of many Greek Cypriots)10 and independence from Britain as a way of re-asserting the Church’s authority and influence in society, and many Greek-Cypriots followed his lead. This caused a reactive struggle for Taksim (partition) by many Turkish-Cypriots.
Makarios secretly collaborated with a retired Greek Army colonel and very experienced guerrilla fighter, 52-year-old Cypriot-born George Grivas, to help achieve Enosis by military means. Grivas founded the organisation EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kypriou Agonistou, or ‘National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters’) for this purpose. EOKA commenced its operations with a bombing campaign against the British Colonial Administration on 1 April 1955, and the increasingly bitter guerrilla conflict resulted in the declaration of a State of Emergency in November 1955 by newly appointed Governor and Commander-in-Chief Cyprus Field Marshal Sir John Harding11.
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.” (Kew12)
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
The Royal Air Force (Temporary) Hospital Akrotiri, Hawker Drive
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.”13
10O’Malley, Brendan & Craig, Ian. The Cyprus Conspiracy 1999.
11Tabitha Morgan. Sweet and Bitter Island: A History of the British in Cyprus. I B Tauris, 2010.
12AIR/29/2789 TPMH January 1956 – December 1960. All unreferenced quotes hereafter are taken from the relevant TPMH Operational Record Book (F540). Those from 1956–1980 are at the National Archives, Kew. The ones for 1981–1982 are with the Corporate Memory reviewers, while the ones thereafter are with the Air Historical Branch.
13The Cyprus Conspiracy, p35.
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