Page 46 - Who Was Sapper Brown

On 1 August 1857, the Medical Staff Corps was replaced by the Army Hospital Corps. The men
were recruited from the infantry regiments and wore a grey uniform which changed to blue in 1861.

Detachments of the Army Hospital Corps, including the young Private Stephen Troubridge, had sailed
from Malta on 18 July 1878 and landed with Lieutenant General Sir Garnet Wolseley at Larnaca on

22 July 1878.38 On 20 September 1884, the title Army Hospital Corps reverted to that of Medical Staff
Corps. The medical officers became collectively known as the Army Medical Staff. On 23 June 1898, the

warrant officers, non-commissioned officers and men of the Medical Staff Corps amalgamated with the

commissioned officers of The Army Medical Staff to form the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Other graves. There are 140 other individuals buried in this cemetery, including the distinguished
Sir William Battershill (at various times Governor of Cyprus, Governor of Tanganyika and The Chief

Secretary in Palestine), Canon Frank Newham (ex-Director of Education, and the founder of the English
School in Nicosia in 1900), and the daredevil ex-Royal Flying Corps pilot Frank Broome DFC, who had

served in the First World War and was one of the founder pilots of the Royal Air Force.

The EgyptAir crash, 29 January 1973. Also buried in this cemetery is a young air hostess, Diana Rendle,
who lost her life in the tragic EgyptAir crash above Lapithos (Lapta) on 29 January 1973 in which 37

people died. Two young nurses from The Princess Mary’s RAF Hospital Akrotiri (TPMH), Flying Officers
Helen Deery and Sheila Noble of the Princess Mary’s Royal Air Force Nursing Service, were amongst

those who died.39 They are commemorated by a plaque ‘In fondest memory of Helen Deery and Sheila

Noble PMRAFNS’ which stood in the Garden of Remembrance at TPMH until the hospital closed on 1
November 2012.40 This plaque was then moved to the Garden of Remembrance at St Paul’s Church, RAF

Akrotiri, and re-dedicated at a special Service there on 22 May 2013.

Dorothyann Betts’ biography of Diana Rendle gives a graphic description of the EgyptAir crash and
sheds some light on the circumstances of this tragedy. Twelve of the victims are interred in Larnaca

British Cemetery and are commemorated on a memorial there (see Chapter 6).

The British Cyprus Memorial

The other claim to fame of The Old British Cemetery Kyrenia is the presence of the British Cyprus
Memorial whose strikingly dignified appearance catches the eye of every visitor immediately on entering

this cemetery. This memorial is dedicated to the 371 servicemen–28 members of the Royal Navy and
Royal Marines, 274 of the British Army, and 69 of the Royal Air Force – who died on active service during

the EOKA campaign 1955 – 1959, and who are buried in the British Military Cemetery Nicosia (Wayne’s
Keep).

The Memorial was the result of a campaign by the British Cyprus Memorial Trust to fittingly commemorate

the 50th Anniversary of the ending of the four-year conflict that preceded the granting of independence

to Cyprus in 1960, and to give the families and friends of these servicemen a suitable place where to pay
their respects.

38 Savile, Captain A R (1878), Cyprus – compiled in the Intelligence Branch, the Quarter-Master-General’s Department, Horse
Guards (London: HMSO), p. 31.
39 Flying Officer Sheila Noble 408611 PMRAFNS and Flying Officer Helen Deery 408618 PMAFNS are also commemorated
on the Roll of Honour in the Books of Remembrance at St Clement Danes, the Central Church of the Royal Air Force, in the

Strand, City of Westminster, London. Flying Officer Noble was cremated in Hatfield, and Flying Officer Deery is buried at
Dundalk Cemetery, County Louth, Republic of Ireland.
40 Vassallo, D J (2012), A History of The Princess Mary’s Hospital Royal Air Force Akrotiri 1963 – 2013 (Limassol: Cyprint)

(available via the HIVE, RAF Akrotiri, BFPO 57, or via the Army Medical Services Museum, Mytchett, Hampshire GU12
5RQ).

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