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1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
Preparing vehicles in Cyprus
Nations (UN) peace keeping force in Nicosia, 3rd Troop under Lieutenant De Spretter and Sergeant McWilliams and 6th Troop under Lieutenant Napolitano and Sergeant Malbon. The
Loading the Sol Phryne
Lebanese people in the government of Lebanon by showing British support for their President, Amin Gemayel’ (who was the brother of the recently assassinated
Bashir).
This would be achieved
in two ways: Firstly, by patrolling and waving the flag and secondly by overtly supporting the Lebanese Army, which was the only legitimate force amongst the countless militias.
There were two respites, however, during our stay in Cyprus. One was a day’s skiing in the Troodos Moun- tains and the other was an evening of entertainment provided courtesy of the
Blues and Royals, when their Squadron Leader reassuringly advised us that we should look at any casualty as ‘just another body.’
During dinner in their Mess, there was excitement in the Turkish camp opposite. A sentry had been found asleep and the duty officer had shot him on the spot. Apparently, this action itself was not the problem. It was more that this officer had already shot two other soldiers that week! I was sitting next to a Captain from the Princess Patricia’s Canadian
Light Infantry (PPCLI) which made up the Canadian contingent of the UN. He commented that the Turks were a rum lot. One of their soldiers had made a local Turkish girl pregnant and on reporting this to his Platoon Commander, had been shipped immediately back to Vancouver as they were very concerned about retribution from the family. By an extraor- dinary coincidence, I was posted twelve months later to Fort Lewis, in Wash- ington State, with my Troop, for Exercise Trumpet Dance. We were attached to the Light Infantry as their recce troop. One of their sister regiments was the PPCLI and I was reunited with this Captain beside whom I had sat at the Blues and Royals dinner. He reminded me of the story about their soldier getting the Turkish girl pregnant. Apparently, he returned home to his mother and two days later, early in the morning, the doorbell rang. His mother answered and on the doorstep was a swarthy looking man in a long coat who asked whether her son was at home. Summoned out of bed by his mother, he came to the door where upon the visitor pulled a shotgun from under his coat and shot the soldier dead.
I digress. The only training we had time for was, bizarrely, a little drill. The idea was that we would arrive at the port in Beirut and would be met by our
remainder of the Squadron
stayed in Akrotiri and took
delivery of our Ferrets,
which arrived four days late
as a result of a storm off Italy.
This left us with only eight
days to prepare the vehicles
before we left. In the interim
time, we focused on fitness
and weapons training. When
the ship finally arrived, the
vehicles were still in a terrible
shape. Not only were there
no radios, but there was
no infrastructure (loom) to
actually connect and operate them. The final straw was that there was no paint for the vehicles, which looked as though they had not been touched since they were built in 1953. Some bright spark mixed oil with petrol and painted all the vehicles so that they gleamed – even the tyres. The following frantic days were spent getting the vehicles operational and we had the opportunity to have one day on the ranges, but no troop training what- soever. It was a pretty intense scramble to sort the vehicles out and hold a 24/7 exercise. We received a visit from the British Ambassador to Lebanon who provided an in-depth briefing that left us totally confused about which faction stood for what. One thing that was clear is that they were all fighting each other: Christians vs Christians vs Muslims vs Israelis vs Syrians.
The Ambassador recounted a story about the arrival of the French Marines who, as we were about to do ourselves, landed in the port and formed up on the dockside. There was a burst of machine gun fire nearby and they all dived for cover, which caused much hilarity to all those present and who watched it on the television news. Less importantly, as it turned out, he told us our mission:
A sentry had been found asleep and the duty officer had shot him on the spot
‘To instil the confidence of the
On the ranges in Cyprus - Sergeants Ratcliffe, Davies and Pritchard