Remembering the fallen in Britain’s ‘forgotten war’

t.cork@bepp.co.uk

It was a bloody and long military conflict that killed more British servicemen in five years than have died in Afghanistan in nearly ten.

There were no repatriations for the 416 British soldiers, policemen and even wives and children, killed in the Cyprus Emergency – no massive charity appeals and little even known about their plight.

But now, in time for the 50th anniversary of the end of the conflict next month, a Wiltshire military historian is publishing a new version of his book on the conflict.

Richard Stiles, from Chippenham, is on a one-man mission to end the secrecy that left the Cyprus Emergency Britain’s forgotten war for decades, and pay tribute to the men and their families who were killed as Britain tried to cling on to its colonial past.

And with a nod to the present day heroes of Britain’s foreign wars, £1 from each book sold will go towards Help for Heroes.

He hopes to raise £10,000 for Help for Heroes and wants his book to shed new light on the sacrifice made – often with little or no recognition back home – by those who lost their lives in the five-year battle.

“As a former soldier myself, I know the sacrifices they made. I wanted to link today’s problems and the work of the soldiers now with the heroes of yesterday,” said Mr Stiles.

“The chaps that fought out in Cyprus for five years are really kind of forgotten about. When you look at remembrance days and Britain’s military history, it often tends to go from the Second World War to perhaps Suez to the Falklands. Cyprus is forgotten.”

The Mediterranean island was a British colony in the years after the Second World War, but the Greek Cypriots wanted freedom from the British Empire and to be part of Greece. In 1955, a guerrilla group EOKA began an armed struggle against British rule, embarking on the sort of terrorism campaign of bombings and assassinations the British later saw in Northern Ireland.

“Comparisons with Afghanistan are also stark,” said Mr Stiles. “Hundreds of soldiers were killed by a guerrilla enemy who disappeared into the night. But because there were permanent British bases there, there were married quarters and wives and children out there, who also became victims.

“There were also British police officers stationed out in Cyprus, training up the Cypriot police force. One of those killed, Sgt WSF Gilbert, was from Bristol, for instance,” he added. “They didn’t have repatriation ceremonies or a groundswell of national support and grief, even though 416 were killed in five years.”

His book,

It is available from Waterstone’s in Chippenham, other West bookshops and from Savannah Publishing on