Page 29 - Demo

He explained the Albas was an infrared night vision apparatus, with a range of up to three hundred yards. My buddy and I made ourselves familiar with the equipment and believed we would have no trouble operating it. He also issued us a “chore horse” (an army term for a generator), with which we would charge a new type of battery called NiCad (nickel-cadmium). The NiCad battery contained no acid and could operate the Albas for up to eight hours. The charger was to be used in the daytime only, he explained. Our officer then told us that we were to surveil the Turkish positions approximately two hundred yards to our front for unusual movement and for locations of defensive positions. He gave us a map on which to mark these positions. “You must protect this equipment at all costs,” he said.
We were surprised with how much we could see through this green world, even what we believed were Turkish NCOs checking the trenches and bunkers we were supposed to locate. Each morning before dawn we would unhook the battery, drag the generator out of the bell tent, put the Albas in its place, fire up the generator and set the battery to charge. After breakfast we would take turns sleeping.
In about two days, a young Turkish boy, herding his flock of goats and sheep showed up outside our wire and tried to walk in. Through sign language he was given to understand that he wasn’t allowed to enter. He backed off. We learned his name was Salih. The next day was an exact repeat of the day before, but this time Salih reached into a cloth sack and produced two ice-cold, seven-ounce bottles of Coca-Cola. Although we would have loved to have one each, we signaled him 28 part one: army stories to back off because, clearly, he was on an intelligence mission for the Turks. We didn’t see him after that.
The next probe came several nights later. We were following our usual routine, placing two 500-watt Coleman lanterns so one shone at the Greek positions and one shone at the Turkish positions. We removed the Albas from the tent, hooked it up the charged battery, and Ernie took the first watch. I went into the shack to man the 5-10 radio set.
When it got good and dark and our lamps were creating cones of light in both directions, Ernie called to me in a loud whisper. Two Turk soldiers were quietly coming our way, carefully staying outside the cone of our light that was pointed in their direction. Though they were trying not to be seen, with the Albas I could clearly make out even that they were wearing wool-type battle dress. I quietly radioed our backup platoon for help, and Ernie and I kitted up — belts, helmets and weapons — to intercept the intruders. We were sure they wanted to know what we had in that outpost.
We slipped out of the outpost and went into the darkness deep enough to ensure we wouldn’t intercept the Turks head- on, but could see them silhouetted by the light. Sure enough, they wanted to inspect the outpost. Not only did we stop them, but we captured them. As we were preparing to search
them, we could hear a jeep approaching and we could see its lights bouncing into the field where we were standing in the dark, and then we noticed a .30 calibre, pedestal-mounted machine gun on that truck, pointed in our direction, manned by one of our regiment.
The minute our soldier on the back of the jeep started to call out how they were coming to help us, we realized the guy was intoxicated. Now there were four very young soldiers, two Canadian and two Turkish, hoping that machine gun didn’t go off, accidentally or not.
It didn’t. We were relieved of our prisoners and returned to the O.P., paying much closer attention to Albas until daylight. In the morning, a corporal who periodically checked on us congratulated us on our night’s work and said we should be Mentioned in Dispatches. Two days later he came back and said rather gruffly, “This is from the Colonel. You’ll both be lucky if you don’t have your Cyprus Medals taken away, and you are both being sent back to Canada for using force without the outpost (that wasn’t)
authorization.”
After leaving the service I became a member of the Ontario Provincial Police, retiring as a Detective Sergeant on January 1, 2000. In retirement I decided to write, and have published several books, two of which are in the Regimental Library. I have often wondered, though, what happened to those two Turks.
I made an inquiry through the Regimental Museum, only to be told there was no record of that incident in the Operational Diary, nor was there ever any outpost called UNCLE. I was shocked!
I decided to send copies of eight photographs, including ones showing the OP sign, the Turkish shepherd boy, and (as we called them) some Mobile Turkish Roadblocks — herds of goats and sheep. Once these got to the museum an exhaustive search was conducted and I was again told that UNCLE did not exist, nor did the incident ever happen.
Being a retired cop and a writer, I decided to dig in a bit further, and sent emails to those who should know. No answers. Stonewalled.
That leaves me only to ass-u-me, which is scary enough, that we were doing work so secret against one of our NATO allies that it wouldn’t have been considered entirely kosher. Although what was happening was two NATO allies were facing off against each other. Just a few years later, in 1974, Canadian soldiers were killed and wounded by our Turkish NATO ally in a plain act of aggression, when Turkey invaded Cyprus.
Note: This document is the sole intellectual property of Kirk Du Guid Books and can be reproduced only with the permission of Kirk “Al” Du Guid
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