Before the first light of day dawned, artillery bursts were heard from the Turkish side... The talks in Geneva had broken down a few hours earlier and the Turks were putting into action their plans to occupy the entire northern part of the island , starting the second phase of the Turkish invasion... Shortly after the first strikes I saw three white armored vehicles (Oiedes) running at high speed on the road in the direction of Nicosia (they were probably going to the Nicosia airport)... At daybreak, the Turkish air force began to hits with rockets the lower outposts (2nd Company) and especially F.306 ("Aspres" hill) which was diagonally in front - to the right of the headquarters of the battalion... and where Captain Zenios, Commander of the 2nd Company, was also located.
Together with others we had taken cover in the elevated concrete testicle of vehicles at the headquarters of the battalion, and we saw the dives of the Turkish planes which were continuous and "cross" not giving the defenders a chance to breathe... I remember that we had at least one dead (a Sergeant of the 73B' YOU). Under this terrible pressure, a retreat was ordered from F.306... which the Turks captured (together with F. 308).... In the afternoon, the Battalion Commander His Excellency Haramaras Dimitrios ordered a counterattack by the 3rd Company under General Athanasios Mamalis to recapture F.306... It was a completely impulsive and unplanned action doomed to failure since Turkish tanks had already been advanced in the due to an outpost... in the face of prohibitive enemy fire, the 3rd Company was forced to return back to its line of advance to Ag. Kingdom – fortunately no casualties…
The entire battalion retreated to the small heights behind Ag. Vasilei... I had loaded the main documents and files of the 1st Office into a Land Rover, of which I also became the driver. In the evening, the 3rd Company was pushed back to Ag. Vasilei and occupied positions on the south side of the village, near the cemetery. Since I had also become a driver, I carried water and dry food for the men of the 3rd Company, driving with the lights off, a dangerous thing because it was an unfamiliar dirt road, one side of which was defined by the dry bed of a small stream, with steep slopes... if I fell due to darkness into the torrent, then apart from the physical danger, the evening movement of the 3rd Company would also be revealed to the Turks...
After leaving water and supplies, I returned back to the small hills behind Ag. Kingdom, always driving with lights off. The next day I walked back to the battalion headquarters with DEA Achli and Galano... the camp was empty and not yet occupied by the Turks... I took a few more files under my arm as well as the photos posted on the KPSM notice board and we returned to the hills back from St. Kingdom of…
The Final Retreat
I think it was already August 16 when the Turks continued to advance with chariots towards Ag. Vasilei, he saw and the whole battalion retreated to the side of Filia. Every resistance was futile, without any heavy weaponry (and of course no anti-tanks), and with very low morale... We marched to the village of Filia and I remember the Command Company had marched to the aqueduct of the village. We dug rough trenches at the foot of a hill, on the top of which the Artillery had placed Beaufort anti-aircraft guns.
The next morning the Turkish air force was trying to hit the artillery positions on the hill behind us, but the Beaufort anti-aircraft fire would not allow the Turkish pilots to line up properly to aim, they just fired their rockets like - like, without hitting their aim, so they fell close to our rough trenches, and I remember that earth kept falling upon us and covering us.
One scene will remain unforgettable to me from this episode… the one with the soldier Andreas Fadoussi (Materials Management clerk) from Larnaca who was next to me in the trench… In all that loss of
repeated attacks by the Turkish air force, of throwing rockets, and the dirt that covered us from the explosions, Andreas Fantousis was holding a magazine and a pencil in his hands and.... solve crossword!
When I looked at him in astonishment and asked him if he had gone mad, he answered me in a cool and phlegmatic tone:"so much Cyprus, Iliad, straight at us before the rocket falls"? I laughed at his answer (half-covered by dirt from the successive explosions of the rockets that exploded near us)... It is incredible in what ways the human mind tries to defend itself against the death and destruction that surrounds it... From Filia we moved in Morphou. I was now driving the Land Rover and also acting as clerk to the 1st Office, all the salvaged documents and files of which I was now carrying in the Land Rover...
We arrived at Morfou at dusk and fell asleep in the orange groves… Late at night, midnight – perhaps later, we received urgent instructions to board the vehicles… the Turkish tanks would enter Morfou in the morning and in the face of the danger of blockade and capture, we had to escape… we were driving in phalanx, always with lights off, at very low speed (no more than 5-10 mph), trying to keep track by looking at the rear wheels of the vehicle in front… except ours battalion, and other units of the E.F. were retreating from the Morphou region, as well as thousands of citizens, families with their own civilian cars, buses, trucks....
A sad, long, silent phalanx with all the lights off was advancing towards Astromeritis and then towards Troodos, leaving behind us the whole region of Morphou... already Turkish. Fugitives and refugees in our own land... With the harama the phalanx of 231 TP reached the height of Evrycho, where we turned towards the village of Korakou where we stopped... I was exhausted from the over-intensity of the effort and concentration to drive for so many hours with lights off the lights… I leaned over the steering wheel and immediately fell asleep. We stayed in Korakou for about a week... From our stay in Korakou I remember an incident, where one night there were shouts and commotion from the side where the 2nd Company was stationed.
One of the soldiers who had experienced the hell of aerial bombardment on F.306 took his weapon at night and kept saying that he was going to counterattack on F.306. I don't remember the soldier's name, nor do I remember what happened (he must have been taken to the hospital). After Koraku, we went to Lythrodantas to regroup the battalion... We slept on the concrete floor of a cinema, naturally emptied of seats. I remember a short but heavy summer downpour that made us all ducks as we ran to collect weapons and other supplies. I don't remember which day, there in Lythrodontas, my family came to see me... I don't even remember how they found out that I was in Lythrodontas... I remember that from being naked and from the fact that for over a month I had been wearing the boots, the soles of my feet they had turned white and melted, the skin was falling off, and I was limping and my feet smelled unbearably....
I will never forget my mother, who took a bucket of water, made me sit down, and bent over to wash my feet slowly, since the skin from my feet (what was left) came off easily... My father made her silently remarking that the other soldiers were watching us and she looked at him with watery eyes telling him that she would wash the feet of all the soldiers... I told her that she didn't need to do that and that I felt okay about my feet because of it and asked her to she stopped washing me, which she finally did after she protested and after I assured her several times that my feet were now clean and no longer hurt (lies of course).
The image of my mother, teary-eyed washing my feet, is for me the image of absolute devotion, absolute love, and I will never forget it – equal to my father's self-sacrifice and life-threatening love he traveled from Limassol to Vasilea to find me... I was dismissed to Lythrodontas, where my father brought a certificate from the Conscription confirming that I was enrolled in a French University for the academic year 1974-75, and that I should be dismissed as soon as possible …
I had received this registration certificate just a few days before the coup and it was truly a godsend... My turn, the 72nd SSSO served a total of 36 months, and was discharged a year later. who calmly solved a crossword while the Turkish air force bombarded us with rockets in Filia)...
Arriving in Limassol, there was no one at home, so I sat on the front steps of the entrance of our house... After a while, my mother appeared on the street, holding some bags in her hands (apparently the grocery shopping)... As soon as I she realized, let go of what she was holding and ran crying with joy to hug me... dear mother, always ready to leave everything for her children....
The bitter Today...
This was how one chapter of my life was closing and another was beginning... I survived the war, but what I lived through remains forever etched in my memory... I remember that for many years afterwards, now a student in France, I always instinctively turned sharply to the sky every time hearing a military plane... Having lived in my skin that summer, full of experiences with bitter memories, I will never be able to come to terms with the occupation, or its "normalization" and "socialization"... The illuminated flag and inscription that stain the Pentadaktylo are still for me the highest disgrace...