THE SECRET WAR AT SEA

By
DAVID CARTER

COLONEL Grivas and his EOKA organization relied on their Greek mainland supporters to keep them supplied with arms and munitions, which they attempted to smuggle into Cyprus on board a variety of small craft that landed their loads at small coves along the coast, far from any habitation. To counter the illegal activity, the Security Forces monitored the coastline in Ton-class minesweepers, WW2 patrol boats and other vessels, operating covertly.

A captured photograph of EOKA fighters posing in the Troodos Mountains.

The author has interviewed several former RN personnel to find out more. Fifty years after the end of the EOKA conflict in 1959, many are reluctant to talk and only agreed if their identities were not revealed. To tell his story, I shall call my main informant 'Charlie' to preserve his identity. Sufficient to say he was an officer and comes from a family with a long tradition of service with the Royal Navy.

INTERVIEWER: I've heard from my contacts that Special Forces were deployed in the Cyprus conflict, but I've heard only second-hand stories about their activities. How widespread was their use?

CHARLIE: I can't speak for the Army or the RAF, but, yes, there was a multi-service Royal Marine covert Ops. Group and, so far as I could see, it operated independently of any overt contact with the Cyprus Establishment, Civil or Military. Certainly, the Governor was not in our chain-of-command, which was nice and short.

INTERVIEWER: How did you get involved?

CHARLIE: I was told never, ever 'volunteer' for anything, but back then when all the world was young and there were no unclean ideals in the land, many of 'my' generation thought we were immortal, and a lot of us youngsters not only volunteered rather than waiting for our National Service papers to arrive, we wanted adventure. Once past basic training, having heard the horror stories about whitewashing coal, and scrubbing down barrack floors with toothbrushes, we thought that anything had to be better than that sort of drudgery. So some of us volunteered for 'special duties', which - in the cold light of day - should have had us beating hasty strategic retreats.

Hence I - and several other chums - pottering around the Cypriot coastline in a varied selection of decrepit-looking, heavily disguised, civilian craft, and interdicting terrorist smugglers. We commanded motley crews drawn from all the services. We dressed as civvies - unshaven, and unwashed - and secretly armed to the teeth, 'Enemy' small craft were sunk where intercepted, along with their cargoes.

The St George, a typical caique used by EOKA arms smugglers. This vessel was intercepted and captured in January 1955.

Civilian police check the papers of the St George's crew and passengers after the vessel was captured as munitions were being unloaded at a secluded cove.

INTERVIEWER: Secrets in Cyprus are almost impossible to keep, so how has your existence never been revealed until now?

CHARLIE: Officially, we were all - officers and men - attached to bases and units located elsewhere, not in Cyprus, which never saw us - as far as others were concerned. We were listed as on 'detached duties off-base'. My mail was routed via a German BFPO, for example. We never wore uniform when 'in-Theater' and when on leave we came and went as civilians. Our Boss was a Brigadier - dead now, God rest him - of decidedly 'buccaneering' antecedents and an awesome whispered Special Forces' reputation. He was supposed to be tending his roses back in Hampshire, according to the Army List. He seemed to wield the kind of awesome powers one associates with a Theater Commander - but officially he and we did not exist 'in-Theatre'.

INTERVIEWER: I understand, but we're half a century on from the end of the EOKA conflict -

CHARLIE (interrupting): You didn't get any of this from me! OK?

INTERVIEWER: I agree.

CHARLIE: Most of my old Cyprus chums seem certain that any written records of what we did have been 'black-holed' under the Official Secrets Act. Several of them even refuse to chat about old times by e-mail, fax - or even on the phone. I mentioned that I was talking to you and a couple replied, 'you must be out of your tiny mind, old man! Save it until the next re-union, when we've 'tiled the Lodge... None expects our operations, in all their colorful detail, will ever be admitted by the authorities.' A couple replied that I expected the PTB to ever admit to our operations in all their colorful detail, 'you I get a very strong feeling that most of them will only feel comfortable chatting over 'old times in Cyprus' face to face over a pint - a bit bloody difficult for me as I'm the only one of our little group who lives in Jersey. Getting to re-unions is expensive.

QUESTION: There must have been occasions when your paths crossed those of the official Security Forces in Cyprus...?

CHARLIE: On the few occasions when we had to operate with other, Regular, uniformed, service personnel were briefed not to ask questions about our little 'band of pirates'. One officious major refused to take the heavy hints we gave him and went home to the UK in disgrace, within 24 hours - as a captain. I was privileged to be present when our Boss 'debriefed' him, prior to his white and shaking departure for the airfield, under guard. That was a most educational and enjoyable experience for a junior officer. It was a lesson in how to totally deflate a pompous windbag without using bad language once.

QUESTION: Tell me a little about your offshore activities.

CHARLIE: As I said before, we intercepted suspicious craft off the Cyprus coast. Because we didn't look like a military craft, we could get close before they got rid of their arms and explosives by dropping them in the sea. However, you may find a check on 'unsolved marine losses' of Greek, Turkish and Cypriot small craft and their crews - craft large enough to be capable of making the trip between Cyprus and the mainland during the Emergency. It's quite revealing - especially for what isn't there. A look at the Admiralty Marshal's local records during the Emergency for vessels confiscated and officially disposed of thereafter, and of local military & civil court convictions for smuggling during the will prove how effective we were - especially when you consider that officially reported events represent only the tip of the iceberg. To my certain knowledge a far greater quantity of terrorist munitions were 'sent to the bottom' by us than ever arrived in Cyprus, believe me.

The idea was that the Turks would think we were Greek entrepreneurs, and the Greeks would think we were Turkish 'private enterprise' - each hijacking the other's cargoes; and each side group would blame the other.

Prisoners and enemy bodies were handed over to our Special Constabulary contacts for identification and disposal.

I've always been curious as to whether the other side realized our 'black' offshore, anti-terrorist smuggling operation existed. By which I mean that cargoes and personnel were vanishing en-route.

Our own security seemed to be 'watertight', if you will forgive the pun - hell, according to our Official Records, none of us was serving anywhere near the Central Med, and contact with Regular Authority on the spot was kept to an absolute minimum for operational reasons. But then - from Grivas's point of view - somebody was targeting his couriers, recruits, and munitions cargoes en-route. Did he think the mainland-based criminal elements, upon which he must have relied, were hijacking and murdering? It would be very interesting to match how many terrorists and how much munitions' tonnage were lost against the numbers and amounts that actually arrived in EOKA hands.

The subject was not covered during our final debriefing prior to 'stand-down', nor did our Boss ever mention that point.

INTERVIEWER: The Cyprus coast is long and the Med is wide. Did you rely on luck to find the smuggling ships?

CHARLIE: Luck always plays a part, but so did the RAF, those who volunteered to work with us. They flew reconnaissance sorties and often guided us to our targets. Our covert 'cab' support offshore was 'officially' tasked as 'boring milk runs' - about which 'our' RAF aircrews complained loudly and bitterly to anyone in their Mess who would listen, so that they no one knew their real role. They never let us down, even though some very nasty situations occurred when a plan didn't survive contact with the enemy. I've often wondered how they explained the occasional bullet holes in their aircraft to the ground maintenance teams.

INTERVIEWER: Were you ever deployed on shore?

CHARLIE: I can recall one incident which I attended 'unofficially', as an 'observer', having signed the usual 'blood chit' and following a 'request' from my Boss to the Op CO of the Army chaps. It wasn't a deployment as such. I was interested to see what we could learn from others - and I wanted to see the munitions that slipped through our net being taken out of circulation, preferably permanently.

And we were all bloody lucky the whole lot didn't go up when one of the brothers refused to surrender and grenades were rolled down through a hidden trapdoor.

An officer throws light on the EOKA hideout under the trapdoor.

The Wiltshires would have probably lost several platoons from the cordon - and I certainly wouldn't be here talking to you - if the whole place had blown up by what we found. EOKA had packed this big cellar under the house with cased munitions, and then plastered mud over the walls of cases, until it looked like there was only a tiny wine cellar under the hidden trapdoor. The explosions cracked away the dried skin of mud, and - bingo - a hidden magazine.

Major 'Bomber' Harrison of the RAOC took the decision to blow the lot, rather than trying to recover the explosives. He was a bit enthusiastic with the charges he used. Instead of just demolishing the munitions, exit large part of the house as well. It was a lovely bang. We thought it was a great 'don't mess with us' object lesson to EOKA!

The Matsis hideout in Kato Dhikomo after grenades destroyed the house and it became a place of pilgrimage for Greek Cypriots. Note the Greek National flag that was raised after the death of the terrorist.

The Wilts soldiers, unfortunately, had to stick by Battalion Standing Orders and take the whole corpse back, strapped on a stretcher, for an Inquest. None of this 'head and hands for forensic ID' stuff that had been acceptable elsewhere. The lads puked their guts out.

Where the rumor comes from that the Wilts 'saluted the body of their 'brave fallen foe', I don't know. I didn't see it happening, but I do remember the ground-pounder's curses at having to trek to the transport carrying 'the dead meat'. Brave fallen foes? As far as we were concerned he was known terrorist, responsible for a number of murders.

No more questions, please. I'll have to think about whether I can safely tell you any more, later.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: The dead terrorist was Kyriakos Matsis, 32, the EOKA area commander in the Kyrenia/Girne District, with a price of £5,000. He died 19 November1958 in the basement of a house in Kato Dhikomo. His two comrades - Andreas Sofiopoulos and Kostaris Christodoulou - surrendered. An Inquest ruled he had committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.)

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