In the absence of a specific campaign medal an MiD bronze oak leaf was mounted on a plain ribbon. As a result of the 2012 Independent Medal Review conducted by Sir John Holmes, from 1 March 2015 a Cyprus clasp on A General Service medal will be awarded to those servicemen who served in Cyprus during the period 21 December 1963 to 26 March 1964
From: Through Adversity – K M Oliver
In 1963 the armies of the three former British dependencies in East Africa mutinied and 37 Squadron was flown from Aden to secure the airhead in Tanzania from which the Royal Marines mounted the operations which quelled the mutinies. Later in the same year the simmering antagonism between the Greek and Turkish communities erupted into open violence in Nicosia and – when there was a danger that the Turks would gain the upper hand – President Makarios appealed to the British government for military intervention to restore the situation.
The officers and NCOs of 3 Wing were serving Christmas lunch to their airmen at RAF Akrotiri when the order was given to move to Nicosia. Within two hours the entire wing, fully-armed, was on the move, by air and road, to RAF Nicosia. OC 3 Wing established his headquarters in the Ledra Palace Hotel and with orders to separate the warring communities, began intensive patrolling to carry out this difficult task while Cypriots were still exchanging fire with one another – often with scant regard for the Union flags draped over British vehicles which happened to come between them. When the situation had been stabilised, and the Greeks and Turks had beenforced into their respective enclaves, Wing Commander Hobden deployed his force along the line which had been marked out – using green chinagraph pencil – on the large-scale town map in the JointArmy/RAF Headquarters on the island. The “Green Line” thus established in 1963 still exists today as the boundary which divides the city of Nicosia between Greek and Turk. The Chief Justice of Cyprus – a Turkish Cypriot – commented subsequently that it was aremarkable achievement, which only the British would have attempted, let alone succeeded in resolving.
3 Wing RAF Regiment (which, had it been a composite Army organisation, would undoubtedly have been named “Hobforce” after its commander) was expanded to include no fewer than five RAF Regiment squadrons, two armoured car troops from 14/20 Hussars, a battery of 2nd Royal Horse Artillery and a company of 1st Bn Sherwood Foresters. When the situation stabilised, the force was dispersed and on leaving the Ledra Palace Hotel OC 3 Wing was presented with a bill for C£2,413.175 for accommodation – which he declined to pay on the grounds that, as the President of Cyprus had requested the British intervention, the account should be sent to the presidential palace.
Flying Officer GR Lee and his flight of 34 Squadron had been moved by air from Akrotiri to Nicosia on Christmas Day and he soon found himself and his men carrying out a wide range of duties, ranging from patrolling the streets, dispersing mobs, clearing improvised roadblocks, retrieving hostages taken from one community by the other and recovering civilian dead and wounded from various parts of the city. For this latter task, his vehicles carried the Red Cross as well as the Union flags which they had displayed prominently since their arrival. However, the Red Cross flag meant that the Regiment officers and airmen in the vehicles which flew it had to be unarmed – an order which the gunners were reluctant to obey. However, once Flying Officer Lee had found, and removed,the sub-machine guns hidden in their vehicles by his airmen, theLandrovers started to bring back the bodies of the men, women andchildren who were the victims of this frenzied inter-communal violence.
From Nicosia 34 Squadron was ordered to move north to Kyrenia where fighting had broken out between Greeks and Turks. When the Regiment column reached the pass where the road wound through the Kyrenia mountains it was brought to a halt by a road block manned by Turkish irregulars, armed to the teeth and in no mood to let the British reach Kyrenia and stop the fighting. As negotiations progressed the Turks were reinforced by larger armed groups and an impasse was reached. Despite the orders which the column commander received by radio from higher authority to fight his way through to Kyrenia, common sense prevailed. The Turkish commander was told that if the road block was still in place at dawn, it would be destroyed by the Regiment, supported by the armoured cars and artillery which were following from Nicosia. This face-saving solution enabled the Turks to back down during the hours of darkness,thus avoiding unnecessary bloodshed and political confrontation, andthe column rolled on along an empty road to Kyrenia the next morning.
When, some weeks later, it was reported that the Greeks were building improvised tanks by cladding bulldozers with armour plate, the deployment of a Regiment LAA squadron’s 40mm L70 Bofors guns loaded with armour-piercing ammunition, at strategic points along the Green Line, had an immediate effect in removing that particular threat to peace.
One of the valuable lessons which came out of this operation was that a civilian population which had, as a result of prolonged anti-British activity, come to regard the Army as a hostile force, more readily accepted the intervention of RAF ground forces whom they considered to be neutral and impartial. Accordingly, the RAF Regiment squadrons in Cyprus had few difficulties in enforcing the separation of the two communities and were able to establish the basis of a peace which United Nations forces have since been able to maintain.