Its not Cricket – August 3^rd 1986

It must be one of the most interesting entries ever in a cricketing score-book – in fact probably unique :-

“RAF Akrotiri Station Commanders Cup

Cricket semi final

Ops wing 24 all out

34 Sqn RAF Regiment – did not bat – incoming mortar fire stopped play

match abandoned ! “

Akrotiri had been in the Middle East front line for a number of years in the 80’s – mainly as the main staging post for the resupply of the ill-fated US/French/UK peacekeeping force in Beirut. The continuing war in Lebanon and the sabre rattling between the yanks and Qhadaffi in the Gulf of Sirte kept the whole region on a war footing – everywhere that is except Akrotiri. Having arrived there in July 84 straight from the usual field squadron rotation of about 10 months of the year away from home – it seemed a little haven of peace and serenity – just the job to catch up on some sensible family life and get some sun.

34 was a field squadron and an armoured squadron rolled into one – still tasked with the defence of Akrotiri 24/7 but also with a war role in Germany, Wildenrath. These squadrons are large infantry companies around 160 men with much enhanced firepower, comms kit and vehicles. Consequently 2/3 of the year it was about the tactics of the last disturbances at the base in 1974, using tactics that were out of date in 74, and 1/3 doing armoured work up with the flights worth of armour we had. Our annual all island Internal Security exercise consisted of a few intruder attacks against the base and then a huge staged riot – usually at Episkopi with the Squadron on one side and the resident battalion, fuelled by a fulsome ration of Keo, on the other. This got more interesting every time we did it – especially on the occasion when one of the war dogs bit the Squadron Commander on the backside. Poor dog was ill for weeks, given the calibre of the man. We all knew, that in reality, this was play acting and if anything happened it would be very different to how our leaders planned it. Even so the tactics were still based on the box drills of the late 60’s and 70’s – and this in a regiment with unbroken service in Northern Ireland, most of us recently updated in the UK , and as the Heiniken ad would say – probably the best anti-terrorist armed force in the world!. Sqn Leader Terry S took over command of the Squadron in late 85 and took us to Germany and the glimmerings of some up to date tactical nous started to infuse the squadron. Much more up to date training and deployments started to be used – use of Rat Trap Vehicle Check Points to seal areas and all the fruits of the accumulated knowledge of NI began to be implemented.

All change in late April 86 when Maggie in her wisdom allowed her good mate Ronnie to use UK as a base for bombing Libya. There was an interesting piece of graffiti in the Guins bogs in the Ops block at Akrotiri ( The one we couldn’t use because it was air-conditioned and ours weren’t – which obviously we did when they all went home at lunchtime) it said – ” Every time someone farts in Outer Mongolia it’s get into the North Ridge 34 Sqn” True words

For those of you who don’t know Akrotiri a short sojourn into the topography.

Akrotiri sits at the southern end of that funny pointy bit that sticks out the bottom of Cyprus towards the left had side as you look at it. It has a number of salient features –

· the large salt pan in the north of the peninsula which becomes a lake and pink flamingo city during the wet season

· a ridge – the aforementioned North Ridge which runs from west to east across the width of the peninsula and gives a reasonable view of the approaches to the base

· the legendary Lady’s Mile beach which is on the eastern side of the peninsula north of the base and which abuts both the NE corner of the base and stretches into the suburbs of Limassol

· two roads N – S which serve the base – one to the main piquet post and the other down Ladies Mile into the ARABS crash gate. There is a track joining these just South of Akrotiri village

Well when the Americans bombed Libya, 34 Sqn got into the North Ridge in a big way as usual. Beds and stuff became lust objects as the squadron deployed to await Qhaddaffi’s revenge. We were joined for a period by detachments of 48 Sqn from Lossiemouth – the first time the Electric Bullets had been deployed by air. There were also the odd Hereford Hooligans about doing dark and dastardly deeds to the innocent boats of 10 Port Squadron. This went on for about 4 months as I remember. The only incidents of note was sitting in the CP of 48 Sqn one early morning when Syrian MIG 25 Foxbats for the third morning running flew out of Libya to do an overflight recce of Akrotiri and being locked on by the Rapier radar and the hotline direct from Downing Street telling them politely, much to the angst of the detachment crew ( and everyone else), that – no they were not to shoot it down – but that’s another story. Towards the end of July things began to settle down despite the fact that Intelligence knew that the Loon in Libya was offering £5M for any group to attack US or British assets in the Middle East. By this time we had settled down into a mode of 1 Flt deployed on standing patrols at various locations, 1 Flt on Quick Reaction Force and 1 Flt on training. The standing patrol locations were around the area and approaches – one of which was in a Spartan dug in – hull down at ARABS (Akrotiri Rowing and Board Sailing ) gate.

As things seemed to be so quiet, everyone expected the Alert State to revert to the normal 1 Flight on after the usual Island Security Review meeting on Friday morning, 25^th July. However, it would seem that the Brigadier was not entirely convinced and sentenced us to another week. Bright and Early on the 1^st of August we got the order to revert to normal posture and guess who’s flight got the short straw of an extra week on – yep ours; A Flight. (The bit about the dates may seem to be insignificant but has some bearing on the issues – see later). Normally on a Friday I would do Duty Regiment Officer and the Flt Commander would do Saturday. This was because of the hand over and equipment checks and lots of NCO type stuff which was always done by the FS to the oncoming Flt and, as any good rock knows, there is always something missing. To let a young Officer in there is letting a lamb loose amongst a pack of wolves with the inevitable consequence of having to steal something extra for the next weeks hand over. The hand over went smoothly and we took over from B Flt on time at about 13:00. As we took over one of the Cpls – Chalky J came in and said the lock and chain on the Arabs gate needed changing – on such small details wars are won and lost. I contacted J P the Supply Sgt who went into blagging mode with the station and turned up an hour later with the good news and the bad news. The good news, a brand spanking new Chubb brass padlock with all the knobs on, the bad news, the only chain he could lay his hands on until Monday was a length of aircraft tie-down chain from the mobility stock. No matter thought I – a chain is a chain is a chain. The chain and lock were replaced and I handed over to Mike B the Flt Commander for the first 24 hours.

Normally, we would have been situated in the Ops Block next to the fire section, but as the air conditioning was being renewed, we and the RAF Police were moved to the old Ops Block at Cape Gata. Bad move, no aircon not even a fan – sweat city as anyone who has been in Cyprus in August will appreciate. We had jointly operated from there for about a fortnight and our Police friends had just about had enough of getting their KD dirty – so unbeknownst to us moved back to the main Ops block on the Friday evening. This then posed us major comms problems as all the main phones came through to them. We jury rigged a phone line to them and had a radio attached to the police net so all seemed well – although events were to prove not so. I spent the second day of our weeks QRF as DRO having relieved the Boss bright and early on the Saturday morning.

Sunday was the first major sporting event of the calendar, as due to the deployment 34 had not been able to take its usual paramount position in the CO’s Cup. I had finished DRO at 8 on the Sunday morning and arranged the various stand-ins for the cricket competition – where wonder on wonders we actually had a team. The pitches on the Sunday afternoon were packed – troops and their families, visitors from UK et al. Because of the reduction in alert states the squadron had gone on block leave on the island so there were only the keen and slow on the sports pitch. We did well and progressed to get through to the semi-final to face OPS Wing. Normally they gave us a hard game but they batted first and we did ’em over good – all out for a paltry 24 – piece of cake. Back to the pavilion to get padded up – Mike B, in his uniform as he was DRO – landrover and signaller sitting alongside the Pavillion, and me to open the batting. Just as I reached there I was chatting to one of the Loadies from 84 – Smokey F, when one of the OPS Wing zobs said ” I didn’t think the rocks were playing on the training area today – listen to those thunderflashes” There followed one of those sharply clear moments in one’s life where you just know that the end product is not only about to hit the fan but its going to splatter everyone. Dai D was stood beside me – another ex – Soggy Weps man and as I turned to look at him the look in his eyes told me that I was not mis-hearing things – they were mortars. Then things turned nasty and corny fast – to this day I am embarrassed to say that my first words were ” Incoming – take cover” as the first rounds started to hit across the road on the Floodlight football pitch. The next few minutes were spent in getting the few Rocks available to get at least 100 people into the monsoon drains around the edge of the sports field. Mike was off and running for the rover and the CP – actually driving into the mortar fire while the rest of the team – mostly, A Flight got people, into the drains. All the while rounds were impacting across the road.

As there seemed to be a lull in the firing, I got the troops together and told them to get kitted up and head for Cape Gata. Just as I did this the rounds came in again

Imagine the look on my face when I got home to find wife sitting on the verandah drinking iced coke and moaning because the kids down the street were banging dustbin lids together and making a hell of a noise. Well not being one to mince words I informed her in a couple of pithy sentences what was happening and that for her own safety the wooden walls of the bungalow had no protection and that she had better get under cover in the monsoon drain. Again, one of the crystal clear moments in life when my wife, my chosen soul mate, looked me disdainfully in the eyes and said quite unequivocally that that was out of the question because there were spiders in there. Good leaders know when to fold up their tents and steal away in the night and that was precisely what I did in the face of such irrefutable female logic – grabbed the bergan, belt order and kit and legged it to the insanity of the Ops Centre.

When I got there Mike and the signallers were deploying the on duty QRF sections. We sent them to 2 Rat Trap Locations – at the Aerial Farm on the Salt Pans and to the North end of Ladies Mile and to stop – not search but stop everything trying to get out of the SBA. The logic behind this was that we were playing for time to get enough troops together to conduct a follow- up and piece together what had happened. Flt Lt Hugh C the 2 I/c – a soldier of great experience from Oman and elsewhere joined us as the CO was on Leave at Troodos. Hugh was a great character, his god father had been Douglas Bader and he loved a bit of action – he told me to get Sqn HQ organized and sort out the deployment. I shall never forget his words as I started to move off to the sqn compound – ” and don’t let the armourers do their usual f***ing tricks – full warloads for every man and I want at least 10 rounds of HESH and cannister in those Scorpions.” Well just about hit the spot that did – except when I neared the squadron compound the road was cordoned off by a solitary RAF policeman laddie – 20 if he was a day. When I told him I had to get past he went into plod mode and informed me that there was an unexploded mortar round in the BP garage and that no-one could get past until EOD had cleared it. I meandered up to take a squint as there was a crater just by the entrance as I had a suspicion that it was part of the exploded round. Sure enough it was the tail fin of what appeared to be a 2″ HE round. So I told my driver to go straight past him leaving the poor laddie torn between running after me and stopping the traffic. Plod mode won and he stayed to watch over the traffic.

Sqn Recall was initiated and the troops started to arrive in dribs and drabs. In the meantime the thousands of Greek Cypriots on Ladies Mile were so frightened that about 200 of them crowded the Rat Trap Landrover and fire – team and lifted it bodily out of the way. This was because a car full of terrorists had driven down ladies mile firing AK 47’s over the heads of the bathers. The Squadron started to deploy and we got the east side of the main road with Flt HQ at the sailing club.

What had happened was that the object of the attack was to provide a highly visible signal to the world – and Cyprus in general that Libya was not to be messed with. The attack team was spilt into 5 groups – assault and penetration team, 2 mortar teams and probably a cut off group. The assault team were to cut the chain at the ARABS gate and drive down the internal road to the Buttons Bay Bulk Fuel Installation and put up to 9 RPG 7 rounds into it – causing it to catch fire. They would then withdraw under mortar fire and escape into Limassol, thence to Larnaca and Syria. However, as I said before, small things mean the difference between success and failure and the bolt cutters they had purchased in Limassol were not up to cutting high tensile lashing chain. You can just imagine the look on the face of the bad guy when the kit did not work and him slinging it down in disgust. One of the bad guys then did the Hollywood thing and tried to shoot the lock off. It proved that Chubb was more than equal to an AK 47 round ( or rather half a mag of them) or he was a bad shot or Hollywood is not kosher. Anyway at this time another of the bad guys lobbed a Russian anti personnel grenade onto a packed ARABS beach – full of women and children and wounded a woman in the foot. The Station Education officer’s son had just wandered out to his dad’s car in the car park – about 15M from the gate when the bemused failed lock opener spotted him and proceeded to give him a mag and a half of AK47. The lad was terrified that he would get the blame for getting his dads brand new Mazda 323 shot up and stood stock still. He didn’t even get a scratch and as he was stood beside the car and the car had only one bullet hole in it, it was obvious that the Marksmanship Principles were not taken as seriously everywhere as they were on 34. As the mortars went into action a third member of the gang sallied forth with his RPG7 and tried to lob the rounds into Buttons Bay ( either that or he was aiming for the sailing club tower – about 50 M away and was as good a shot as his mate with the AK). What he forgot was the RPG round has a self destruct fuse for 900M and they all went off in mid air. I should imagine what happened then was that they all looked at each other and decided to bin the whole works – chucked the RPG away in disgust and legged it. All except our friend with the grenades, for as he legged it, he lobbed another one just over the fence and forgot that a chain link fence does not give you the cover that a proper grenade pit does and that grenades hurt! Still they all legged it down the road and off to Larnaca. Just over a hour later a flight to Damascus was taxiing near the airport fence, when the plane was stopped by 2 men with pistols on the flight deck. The 23 passengers all got off and 23 others got on and the plane continued on to Damascus.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, things were slightly chaotic, the Station Alert was sounded and Akrotiri went to war. We could not get any comms or information from the Police at all as their phones were jammed and they took the jury rigged line off the hook. Their radios would not answer and the first task Sqn HQ had to do was to rig a complete comms set up back into Ground Ops. This was done by Taff S and his gang in record time and shortly after 8 we rejoined Ground Ops. It was a good job that we didn’t know what the Police were doing as in the meantime some loon had deployed every policeman they could find, drunk or sober onto Ladies Mile with pistols and SMG’s to find the bad guys. As we had started follow-ups on foot any blue on blue contact with fire teams armed with full war loads and a GPMG and 800 rounds of 1 bit would have been a mite one sided. However, luck was on their side and we deployed for the night into series of standing patrol/ offensive OP’s. I made it back to Ground Ops just after 2200hrs for a squadron Orders Group and saw a sight that has never failed to make me chuckle to this day. Ground Ops was fully manned with every Penguin officer seated at their consoles ready for war – in KD and Shorts – with cam cream on their faces and steel helmets on. Well I could not help but burst into a chuckle or two, after missing the CO’s shush signal as I came in. Result – instant bollocking by the Station Master – what do you find funny? Wits like a rapier and I replied the Steel Helmets sir. To which he replied if we come under attack again the helmets will give us some protection. Sadly tiredness and irritability were taking over and I replied ” If a round hits the roof with its reinforcing and penetrates, you’ll need a f***ing sight more that a tin pot to save anyone sir. Oops – daggers and the CO got me out of there quick. – Must have struck a chord though as when I left some 30 minutes later they all had their helmets off.

Next day we swept the ground outside the base. The RPG had been found outside ARABS gate by the SBA police, who all promptly went on sick leave. We swept along the northern edge of the North ridge from the main piquet post to Ladies mile. Warm work and they stopped us about 50 M short of where the first mortar was recovered by a local workman. Next day we settled in to a more routine pattern of static OP’s and foot patrolling.

We had some Int by this time and knew that the mortars were Belgian 60mm Hotchkiss Brandt’s with a range of 2200M. We also had an impact plot. Try as we could, we could not reconcile the plot with only one mortar and came to a conclusion that there had to be another one. Sure enough at about 1230hrs Dai and myself were called to Sqn HQ to be briefed by the Adj and the CO. When we said that we thought there was another mortar out there it confirmed their own thinking and said that a 4 man Weapons Iintelligence team from Epi were looking at the ground. Dai and I had done some back plots on the impact map working on the assumption that the mortars would be fired by such a windy lot of baddies at full bore – max range. This gave us an area of about 2 grid squares to cover with a probable position of about 200M by 200M. Working on the theory that they would have legged it by car, it would have to be by a track and this fitted. Trouble was that A Flight were deployed and to redeploy them and hand over to C Flt, the reserve flight was out of the question and we would run out of daylight. So we took all the NI search trained personnel from A Flight and 4 teams from C flight. We got the order to go at 1330hrs – we briefed the troops at 1415 and deployed at 1500hrs. The op went like clockwork and we located the second mortar in its firing position at 1530hrs. The whole bit, with it being swept by Felix and recovered by WIZ, was over by 1730hrs. The only weapon recovered from the attack with any uncontaminated forensic information on it was the second mortar. I ran the Op from the Incident Command Post (the front of a stripped down rover) with Dai as the search advisor – a more clockwork operation it could not have been – reward for all the fruitless derelict searches in NI – a thing of beauty!

Well that was about it apart from a solid years deployment afterwards. Interesting fact came to light though and that was the terrorists had all renewed their visitor’s permits at Limassol Post Office on the morning of the 25^th July – before even we knew there would be no change in the alert state. That has always made me think that they had someone inside. Other than that, I found out later that the Brigadier wanted to detach 34 as the Island reserve as the best trained troops on the island and the big air force turned them down flat. An eventful few days followed by months of drudge. One of the most remarkable things was that for almost 5 months 34 rarely had less than 2 Flights on and the other on two hours notice to move. In all that time the troops carried loaded weapons. As most people will know there is never been a NI roulement where there wasn’t at least 1 Negligent Discharge. 34 did not have one in the whole period from Aug 86 to July 87 – a remarkable testament to the calibre of the troops and the junior leaders.

The only other thing of note in the whole period was the night EOKA – B fire-bombed the Phissouri Police Station and the water works, and I got to kick Commander British Forces Cyprus out of his scratcher at 5:00am. That, and a remarkable police dog handler who could do a sweep of an area and declare it safe to the Station Master – in the dark, was another riotous night. The Quadaffi in the NAAFI party was also another fond memory when the lads got dressed up in Fedayeen kit with Uzi water pistols and held up the NAAFI for beer. But as they say – these are other stories.