AN INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN BELL OBE
EYEWITNESS
DEATH EMPIRE
TO
THE
TRAINING FOR NATIONAL SERVICE
How did you feel when you were called up
for national service on 13 June 1957?
OF
It’s something that you knew was going to
happen, but what I wasn’t aware of was that it
was about to be phased out. The chief of the
Imperial General Staff had been asked to reduce
national service from two years to 18 months on
the grounds of military efficiency. The chief, Field
Marshal Harding, subsequently became governor
of Cyprus during some of my time there.
AN INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN BELL OBE
The veteran war reporter discusses his first experiences of conflict as
a national serviceman, during the dying days of the British Empire
How did it feel as a new conscript to
become a professional soldier?
Something like 12 per cent of national
servicemen did active service, which meant
that there was some small element of risk. I
suppose it was quite exciting. The first flight I
ever took was a troop transport in an old Avro
from Southend Airport to Malta and then to
Cyprus. There must have been about 100 of us.
You went in drafts, maybe 100 at a time,
to join the battalion, replacing the national
servicemen who had completed their two years
and were very joyfully going home. There was
definitely a pecking order depending on how
long you had been in Cyprus and whether you’d
“got your knees brown”.
WORDS TOM GARNER
he Cyprus Emergency was one
of the biggest military operations
by the British armed forces since
1945. 35,000 British soldiers
were stationed in Cyprus between
1955-59 to defeat a guerrilla insurgency whose
numbers could be counted in their hundreds.
Although war was never officially declared, the
‘Emergency’ was a bitter conflict between the
colonial authorities and armed Greek Cypriot
nationalists (known as ‘EOKA’) who wanted selfdetermination and union with Greece.
T
British soldiers fight EOKA in the
Cypriot capital of Nicosia, 1956
“XXXXX”
66
The Emergency turned Cyprus into a
warzone, and the British introduced unpopular
military policies to counter the insurgency,
including detention without trial, severe press
censorship, roadblocks, anti-riot patrols and
the death sentence for bearing arms. Despite
these punitive measures and vastly superior
numbers of soldiers, Britain failed to defeat
EOKA, and Cyprus’s independence was
declared on 16 August 1960.
Many of the British troops who served in
Cyprus were conscripted national servicemen,
including the future war reporter Martin Bell.
Bell was 18 years old when he was drafted
and served in the Suffolk Regiment during
the Emergency. He would go on to become a
distinguished BBC war reporter, Independent
MP and UNICEF ambassador.
During his career, Bell has visited 121
countries and 18 warzones, but his national
service in Cyprus was a formative experience.
It is a forgotten story of military incompetence,
shameful cover-ups and a unique glimpse into
an empire on the brink of collapse.
“IT IS A FORGOTTEN
STORY OF MILITARY
INCOMPETENCE,
SHAMEFUL COVER-UPS
AND A UNIQUE GLIMPSE
INTO AN EMPIRE ON THE
BRINK OF COLLAPSE”
“THERE WAS
DEFINITELY A
PECKING ORDER
DEPENDING ON
HOW LONG YOU HAD
BEEN ON CYPRUS
AND WHETHER
YOU’D ‘GOT YOUR
KNEES BROWN’”
Martin Bell is a British UNICEF
ambassador and former war
reporter who was an Independent
MP for Tatton between 1997-2001
67
EYEWITNESS TO THE DEATH OF EMPIRE
AN INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN BELL OBE
“HE ASSURED US THAT THE
EOKA ‘TERRORISTS’, AS HE
CALLED THEM, ONLY ENGAGED
THE BRITISH MILITARY WHEN
THEY HAD THE ADVANTAGES OF
POSITIONS AND NUMBERS”
In your memoir ‘The End Of Empire’, you
describe how you were not selected for
officer training. How did that feel?
I was a bit mortified at the time. I was what was
called a “College Boy” because I’d come straight
out of a minor public school. The commanding
officer of the depot said I should go to the
War Office Selection Board, which conducted
initiative and intelligence tests. I failed my
intelligence test, and the presiding brigadier was
suspicious of how I could be quite so stupid so I
had to take it again. I failed again.
I didn’t mind until I saw the officers who had
passed: I didn’t respect them enormously.
We actually had one of the most useless
commanding officers in the history of the
infantry in Cyprus. He would never get past
acting major today, but he was supplied
with two very able second-in-commands so
they essentially ran the battalion. He did
the parades and the drills but they did the
operational stuff.
British soldiers search
for EOKA fighters in
Cyprus, c.1956
“WE ACTUALLY HAD ONE OF THE MOST USELESS
COMMANDING OFFICERS IN THE HISTORY OF THE INFANTRY
IN CYPRUS. HE WOULD NEVER GET PAST ACTING MAJOR
TODAY, BUT HE WAS SUPPLIED WITH TWO VERY ABLE SECONDIN-COMMANDS SO THEY ESSENTIALLY RAN THE BATTALION”
Soldiers of the Suffolk Regiment
escorting demonstrators in
Nicosia, October 1958. Bell took
part in anti-riot duties armed
with a rifle to defend patrollers
from rooftop bombers
How significant was the Cyprus
Emergency for the British armed forces
at the time?
It was huge. It began on 1 April 1955, so
the Emergency had already started when the
Suez operation happened in 1956, which
was a national disaster and humiliation. The
headquarters of the Middle East Land Forces
were moved from Suez to Nicosia so we had an
extra general. There was a substantial force of
35,000 men, something like 19 battalions or
battalion-sized formations, and you had field
artillery acting as infantry, engineers and so on.
I think at one time the island had 19 military
bands on it! It was another age.
What did you know about the Emergency
before you were deployed?
I knew absolutely nothing. We were briefed
of course before we went out and we got
another briefing when we got there by the
second-in-command. He assured us that the
EOKA ‘terrorists”, as he called them, only
engaged the British military when they had the
advantages of positions and numbers. I thought
this was only sensible, but he said it showed
how they were “yellow”, meaning cowardly. I
don’t think he really understood the nature of
the insurgents we were fighting.
Corporal Martin Bell pictured in Cyprus,
1959. Although he was rejected for
officer training, Bell rose to the rank of
acting sergeant (substantive corporal) by
the end of his national service
First Battalion, Suffolk Regiment marching
into Kykko Camp, Nicosia, May 1957. Bell
would be stationed at this camp for the
entirety of his service during the Emergency
KYKKO CAMP
What were your first impressions of
Cyprus when you arrived?
I remember the very strange smell. There had
just been a rain shower and the island has an
interesting, almost acrid smell when the rain
falls on hot sand. We were driven to the camp
68
69
EYEWITNESS TO THE DEATH OF EMPIRE
at Kykko, which was only three miles (five
kilometres) away from the airport, onto a rocky
plain with tents. There were a few more solid
structures, like the cinema, which was used by
the band and the armoury, and of course the
officers’ and sergeants’ messes, but we were
mostly living under canvas for two years.
We stayed at the same camp and never
moved during the entire time. I arrived in late
September 1957 and left in May 1959, so I
was there for about 19 months.
AN INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN BELL OBE
“THE PARATROOPERS AND MARINES HAD QUITE A REPUTATION, THE
SCOTS AND THE IRISH TENDED TO BE SENT TO THE MOUNTAINS, AND
THEY USED QUIETER, STEADIER INFANTRY BATTALIONS IN NICOSIA”
and very good tea it was. It was carried in great
urns on two poles and the ordinary soldiers
paid them. They would serve us their mugs of
hot sweet tea for about sixpence each and lived
frugally. It was from a completely different age
and world.
regiment. We got to know them all because
we were forced to play sports against each
other. I’m being unnecessarily cynical here,
but it seemed that victory over the Beds and
Herts at field hockey was more important than
defeating EOKA!
Very primitive, and they became the subject
of a parliamentary scandal. Charles Foley, the
editor of The Times of Cyprus, was a radical
character, and the paper was banned inside our
camp because the army said it was pro-EOKA.
Nevertheless, Foley believed that outbreaks
of indiscipline were related in some way to the
very primitive conditions in which we lived.
Just towards the end of our deployment we
suddenly found ourselves receiving a bedside
lamp, an armchair and even a wooden door to
keep the rain out. But we left Cyprus about two
weeks later!
Did you make your first television
appearance during the Emergency?
RIOTS AND ROADBLOCKS
What were your duties when you were
working in the intelligence section of the
Suffolk Regiment?
Who were the ‘Char Wallahs’?
What other British regiments were
serving in Cyprus during the Emergency?
What were the living conditions like in
Kykko Camp at Nicosia?
It was unbelievable. They were camp followers
from the Indian army. Most of our senior
officers in Cyprus seemed to have served in
the Indian army on the North West Frontier on
the Afghan border. The army had these camp
followers, who would have been outside the
gates in India. The army didn’t employ them,
but they had a quasi-military status. They were
allowed inside the wire, and one of my duties
was to get their work permits. They made tea –
Yes I did. There was a very fledgling forces
broadcasting service, which must have been
subsidised by the government. My first ever
television appearance was on a spelling bee
[competition] because I was quite good at
spelling. We, the Suffolks, defeated the Royal
Army Service Corps, but we then got beaten
by a bunch of apprentice Oxbridge dons who
were serving on the staff of the Cyprus district
headquarters. It was an interesting introduction
to television.
The quality of the British units was very variable.
The paratroopers and marines had quite a
reputation, the Scots and the Irish tended to be
sent to the mountains, and they used quieter,
steadier infantry battalions in Nicosia.
Our brigade comprised of the Bedfordshire
and Hertfordshire regiments (“Beds” and
“Herts” we called them), the Suffolks,
Lancashire Fusiliers and a Royal Artillery
The intelligence section was a very small unit.
It started with an officer, one sergeant and two
private soldiers, and I was one of the privates.
‘Military Intelligence’ is a contradiction in terms
anyway because it was mostly just putting pins
on maps!
What were your other duties, and how
did the Suffolks operate during the
Cyprus Emergency?
It’s what I would call “asymmetric warfare”, and
we had our successes. We killed a man called
Markos Drakos, who was EOKA’s ‘number two’,
but I don’t have a very high opinion of the army
mindset in dealing with an insurgency. We were
using brute force and alienating the people we
were trying to win over. I spent a lot of my life
as a war reporter being stuck at roadblocks, but
in Cyprus I was putting them up.
The men of the Royal Horse Guards, who
were very posh and never wanted to get dust
A Turkish Cypriot demonstration in Nicosia, July 1958.
The significant Turkish population on Cyprus made
EOKA’s aim of unification with Greece impossible
70
Georgios Grivas, the
leader of EOKA, receives a
hero’s welcome in Athens,
19 March 1959. EOKA’s
primary aim was Enosis –
unification with Greece
“EOKA OPERATIVES NEVER NUMBERED MORE EOKA
THAN 200-300 GUERRILLAS, BUT THEY WERE GUERRILLA
FIGHTERS OF
THIS CONTROVERSIAL GREEK
MOVEMENT
DETERMINED FIGHTERS WHO WARNED THE NATIONALIST
FOUGHT A COVERT AND
RUTHLESS
BRITISH, ‘THE MORE TROOPS YOU BRING TO THE SOMETIMES
CAMPAIGN TO ACHIEVE THE
ISLAND, THE GREATER YOUR LOSSES WILL BE’” INDEPENDENCE OF CYPRUS
Cyprus had been ruled by Britain
since 1878, first as a protectorate
and then as a crown colony from
1925. The island was of great
strategic value to the British in the
eastern Mediterranean but, like many
colonies after WWII, the Cypriots
began to push for independence.
Greek Cypriots made up 80 per
cent of the population at that time,
and in 1950 the Greek Orthodox
Church organised a referendum on
Enosis (unification with Greece). 95.7
per cent of Greek Cypriots voted for
Enosis but Turkish Cypriots (who made
up 18 percent of the population)
boycotted the referendum while the
British authorities ignored the result.
This event led to the creation
of a Greek Cypriot underground
movement called the ‘National
Organisation of Cypriot Fighters’.
Commonly known as ‘EOKA’, this
group was organised by Georgios
Grivas, a Greek Cypriot who had
become a general in the Greek army.
Makarios III, archbishop of Cyprus,
also supported it.
From 1955, EOKA began an armed
guerrilla campaign against British
rule. Its tactics included sabotaging
British installations, armed attacks
against British troops (both on and
off duty) and encouraging popular
passive resistance. Despite being
supported by the majority of Greek
Cypriots, EOKA was hostile towards
Turkish Cypriots, and its campaign
precipitated the breakdown of
inter-communal relations. EOKA
also targeted any Cypriots (including
Greeks) who supported the British,
and civilians were killed.
EOKA operatives never numbered
more than 200-300 guerrillas, but
they were determined fighters who
warned the British, “The more troops
you bring to the island, the greater your
losses will be.” 105 British soldiers
were killed by EOKA, with a further
603 wounded. A total of 371 British
troops died during the Emergency,
which was a greater fatality rate than
the Falklands and Iraq wars. This was
partly down to EOKA’s campaign and,
as Bell succinctly stated, “Our force of
35,000 failed to defeat their 200.”
The Emergency ended in 1959 and
Cyprus attained its independence
from Britain on 16 August 1960.
Nevertheless, the island continues
to be bitterly divided between Greek
and Turkish Cypriots, and Britain still
retains two sovereign base areas,
which cover three per cent of the land
area of Cyprus.
71
EYEWITNESS TO THE DEATH OF EMPIRE
on their boots, had the Suffolks go around
with them. They had an armoured vehicle and
would command us while I, as a corporal, would
be in charge of the Suffolks putting up the
roadblocks. We would have a trestle table and
chair and sit there checking everyone’s identity,
because they all had identity cards.
We actually crippled the island’s transport
system with these roadblocks. We also
benighted the towns and villages with our
curfews, cordons and searches. All we did
was alienate the Cypriots and rally them to the
EOKA ‘freedom fighters’.
What did you think of Sir Hugh Foot’s
policies during the Emergency?
What were the British soldiers’ tasks
when they went on anti-riot patrols?
Today I’m embarrassed by myself because I
was a thoughtless young Tory to begin with. In
my very first letter home there is a crude map
of the camp with one sign that says, “To the
Airport” and the other going the other way that
says, “To the Wogs”.
We were racist and I was a completely
mindless young man, but over the space of
about 16 months I began to see the light. I later
wrote to my parents that all we were engaged in
was a policy of armed repression – which it was
– and that it would never work.
This was the way we thought and operated
at the time, but not all of us. I later discovered
that some of the national service officers were
critical of our tactics. Similarly, our interpreters,
who tended to be in the Intelligence Corps,
were trained in Greek and understood the
insurgency much better than the generals.
You had a platoon of 24-25 men, some of
whom were unarmed except for batons and
shields so they could charge the crowd of
rioters. I carried a rifle and my job was to shoot
the rooftop bombers, because if somebody
throws a bomb you need to have some people
with rifles. There was also a stretcher party
and even two squaddies who carried a banner,
which said in two or three languages, “Disperse
or we fire”. These were exactly the same kind
of banners and techniques that were later used
in Londonderry in Northern Ireland, such as the
baton charges and snatch squads.
What was Operation Matchbox?
Matchbox was the ‘big push’ in July 1958.
It lasted for at least 48 hours and the whole
island was in total lockdown. The import of
British newspapers was even banned for a
while. All the telephone communications were
interrupted so there could be no tip-offs, and
Special Branch had spent more than a year
assembling its list of suspects.
The idea was that we’d lift all the principle
EOKA sympathisers, and I think we detained
about 3,000 young men. There were no women,
just the men, who were detained without charge
and herded into detention camps.
Most of them were released when the new
governor arrived as a Christmas goodwill
gesture, but it achieved absolutely nothing.
General Sir Kenneth Darling wrote the final
report and said honestly, “A campaign of this
sort cannot be won by an attack on the common
people.” However, that’s what we were doing.
Would you come under fire during
operations like this?
The first time I heard a shot fired in anger
was actually during Operation Matchbox. We
had been cordoning and searching a village
called Kythrea and we had to help the farmers
get their vegetables to market. We actually
escorted them, but the convoy came under fire
and a Greek Cypriot was wounded in the knee.
I think that’s the only time I ever used my field
dressing to patch anybody up, but it’s a fairly
light encounter with danger compared to what
happened later in my life.
MASSACRES, COVER-UPS AND EOKA
Did the partition of Cyprus between
Greek and Turkish Cypriots begin during
the Emergency?
There was no formal partition until the Turkish
invasion of 1974, but there was an outbreak
of violence on both sides against people in
72
AN INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN BELL OBE
I think he was an honourable man. He was trying
to extricate Britain from an expensive colonial
commitment and an extraordinarily difficult
situation. This was because the EOKA objective
of union with Greece was obviously not possible
at that time and 18-20 per cent of Cypriots were
Turkish. He cobbled together a plan as we sailed
home. We got a telegram of congratulations from
him, but I don’t think it was ever going to last.
“HE JUST WOULDN’T COME OUT SO
THE BRITISH POURED PETROL INTO THE
HIDEOUT AND BURNED HIM TO DEATH.
THERE’S NOW A BIG STATUE OF HIM”
A soldier of the
Suffolk Regiment
fights a fire that
was created during
an arson attack in
Nicosia. Attacks
of this kind were
common during
the Emergency
What was your view of the Cypriots at
the time?
Sir Hugh Foot, governor of Cyprus, inspects
the Suffolk Regiment, August 1958
“THE CHIEF JUSTICE HAD
A COURT OF INQUIRY, BUT
THE ARMY OBJECTED TO HIS
FINDINGS SO THEY WERE TAKEN
OUT OF HIS REPORT. IT WAS A
TOTAL COVER-UP”
outlying communities. Turks in mainly Greek
areas and vice versa tended to withdraw to the
safety of their own areas, and it was during this
period that the Gönyeli Massacre happened.
This was in June 1958, when a group of 35
Greek Cypriots was intercepted by the Royal
Horse Guards.
There was nowhere to send them and the
police stations were dealing with riots at the
time, so the officer commanding the squadron
decided to use a technique called ‘Walking
Home’. They would take them to a place 30
miles (48 kilometres) from their village and say,
“Find your own way home.” The unfortunate
thing was there was a Turkish hamlet on their
way and they were attacked. About a quarter of
all the Greeks were killed and others were badly
wounded, so it was a huge issue.
I later found in the Kew archives what
actually happened. The chief justice had a court
of inquiry, but the army objected to his findings
so they were taken out of his report. It was a
total cover-up.
Did you know about the Gönyeli
Massacre at the time?
We absolutely knew about the massacre, but
we were dealing with Turkish Cypriot riots in
Nicosia at that time. Although it was very public
what had happened, we didn’t know the extent
of the government’s complicity in the cover-up.
It was a disastrous period in our colonial
history, and I think a lot of the blame lies with
the then-colonial secretary, Alan Lennox-Boyd.
The governorship changed towards the end of
1957, shortly after I arrived in Cyprus, when Sir
Hugh Foot came in. He was a conciliator and
peace-seeker, but he and Lennox-Boyd were
not on the same wavelength at all. At one point
Foot cabled Whitehall and said, “I told you I
couldn’t hold the troops.”
What was your opinion of EOKA’s fighting
ability?
I think they were very brave men. One of the
heroes was Grigoris Afxentiou. He was spotted,
his hideaway was found and he sent out some
of the other EOKA people who were with him
with their hands raised. They were arrested,
but he just wouldn’t come out, so the British
poured petrol into the hideout and burned him
to death. There’s now a big statue of him.
However, they were also variable. Nikos
Sampson was just a common assassin. He
worked as a photographer for The Times of
Cyprus and covered murder scenes suspiciously
often. Special Branch eventually cottoned on
and he was arrested, but after the settlement
in 1959 he was released and came home a
hero. When there was the attempt to overthrow
Makarios III (first president and archbishop of
Cyprus), which led to the Turkish invasion in
1974, he was declared president of Cyprus for
about six days.
What did EOKA’s weapons consist of?
They were lightly armed, and many of them
were escapees from British custody. They hid
in caves and mineshafts or were sheltered by
friendly people. Their weapons were also mostly
captured from the British. Occasionally they
would break into armouries or ambush a small
number of soldiers so we mostly supplied their
weapons, but they had nothing heavy. They had
a Bren gun but no ammunition for it. They also
had shotguns, they were plentiful on the island.
What were your interactions like with
both Greek and Turkish Cypriots?
We had some trouble with the Turks, because
in the Turkish quarter of Nicosia we were on
British troops take part in a baton
charge near the Kyrenia Gate in Nicosia
against a Turkish Cypriot demonstration
73
EYEWITNESS TO THE DEATH OF EMPIRE
immediate standby. We had to deal with rioting
Turks and had great difficulty because they
were very brave and fearless. The danger was
that you’d be outnumbered and they’d take
some of your weapons from you.
However, on the roadblocks, I noted in my
letters home how patient the Cypriots were with
us while waiting to be checked in the heat of
the day. I became more and more critical and
did start to think a little bit, towards the end,
that this really was not working.
DEPARTURE FROM CYPRUS
How did it feel to leave Cyprus at the end
of your national service?
It was a huge relief and I loved going home on
the troop ship. When I left the army back at
home I had a haircut because I knew I had to
go in for a final session with the adjutant on the
eve of my demob. I knew my appearance was
critical, but the barber in town thought I was
an officer and gave me an officer’s haircut. The
regiment sergeant major gave me the biggest
bollocking of my life, but the adjutant then tried
to get me to sign on again! It was strange, but it
was part of a whole imperial tradition.
To what extent did your national service
inform your career as a war reporter?
I understood the military well, so when it came
to identifying weapons in war I was wellplaced. The army taught me field craft, which
is how to stay alive in dangerous places, such
as battlefield first aid and how to tie up your
mate if he’s hit, so that’s all useful. It was an
advantage and I’ve described it as the best
education I ever had. It was better than three
years at Kings College, Cambridge, because it
was the real world.
74
Above: Soldiers of the Suffolk Regiment are searched by their own officers
outside Kykko Monastery in the presence of a monk, September 1958
“REPORTERS ARE OFTEN AT
RISK OF BEING KIDNAPPED,
RANSOMED OR EVEN
EXECUTED, SO MOST WARS ARE
UNREPORTED OR ARE REPORTED
IN A VERY FRAGMENTARY WAY”
A FORGOTTEN IMPERIAL LEGACY
To what extent do you think the Cyprus
Emergency reflected the overall decline
of the British Empire?
It happened at a very peculiar time because of
the humiliation of Suez, and Harold MacMillan’s
Conservative government said there could be
no more retreats. The theory was that Cyprus
was as British as Gibraltar, which is how we
ended up with sovereign base areas that are
still there.
Cyprus was a huge issue at the time and
Labour MPs used to come and give speeches
in some of the villages. In fact, Barbara
Castle was once arrested and detained by the
Suffolks. Richard Crossman and Jim Callaghan
(the future prime minister), were also critical.
Of course this was the height of the Cold
War. We still had a substantial empire and
behaved as if we had an even bigger one.
However, MacMillan saw the way it was going,
hence the ‘Winds of Change’ speech. The
African colonies all became independent quite
quickly, and the process of de-colonisation took
about ten years.
Is there an argument for bringing back
national service today?
Do you think modern Britain is adversely
affected by not knowing enough about its
colonial past?
No. It was very good for us but very bad for
the army. The army became a huge training
establishment, and by the time you were a
halfway proficient soldier you were nearly
gone. It’s also not good for any army to have a
majority of people in its ranks who are there by
compulsion and not voluntarily.
We have not attended to the lessons of our
own history. Britain does not know about
its own imperial past because one of the
difficulties is that it’s very controversial. We
can take a certain amount of pride in some
aspects of empire and we kept the peace in
Cyprus, but we didn’t do much to develop it.
Similarly, there are two schools of thought
concerning the British influence in India –
where Britain was either a benign influence or
a catastrophe.
However, we have recently come out of
our fourth Afghan war and we didn’t win the
other three. If we knew enough about our
imperial history we wouldn’t embark on military
expeditions where we had nearly always been
beaten before. I think our interventions in
Afghanistan and Iraq have been equally futile
and not served the purpose. The Royal United
Services Institute described them both as
strategic failures, but I was first aware of this
type of application of force in Cyprus.
Since your national service and long
career as a war reporter, how has
conflict changed over the decades?
It has changed in many ways. It seldom
involves main force units manoeuvring in
battle space now. It is not classic warfare, and
the war is wherever the insurgent wants it to
be. This is what we found in Afghanistan.
And of course war reporting has changed
beyond belief because after the 9/11 attacks
you lost your freedom of movement. Reporters
are often at risk of being kidnapped,
ransomed or even executed, so most wars
now are unreported or are reported in a very
fragmentary way.
How important is the study of history?
Kids ask me in schools, “What is the most
important subject to study?” I tell them
there are a dozen countries
in the world where the most
important subject is landmine
recognition, but after that it’s
history, history and more history.
Martin Bell is the author of
The End Of Empire. The Cyprus
Emergency: A Soldier’s Story,
which is published by Pen
& Sword Military. For more
information and a review turn
to page 93.
Images: Getty, Pen & Sword Military
Above: John Harding, governor of Cyprus (October 1955-October 1957)
addresses soldiers of the Suffolk Regiment in their riot gear, 1957