Kratinos Pyliotis, a 19-year-old National Guardsman in 1974, served at an artillery unit in Athalassa (known as 189MPP) and recounts his experience of the coup and invasion
July 15: I was threatened with summary execution by [Greek] Major Gotsis, head of 189MPP. The reason was I took shots at a helicopter flying over the CyBC area of Nicosia, with a big mean anti-aircraft machine gun. Thankfully, I missed (my story from ’74 was one of near misses, bad in the main but one or two saved my skin). I had been told to shoot at anything that flew because they were expecting the archbishop to escape by helicopter. Turned out it was a pro-coup helicopter.
July 16: I was stationed at the Fota of Kalispera (the traffic lights at the entry to Nicosia from the Limassol highway) controlling the entry point to Nicosia when a citizen made an appearance on a high balcony of the Kalispera building. I saw this as a clear and present danger and turned the machine gun on the building. As he did not go inside, I fired (we had been warned about snipers). I missed and he went inside faster than you can say ‘near miss’.
July 19: My father arrived at the gates of 189MPP with a truly worried look on his face. Told me he heard on the BBC World Service that Turkish warships had sailed for Cyprus and barring miracles they would arrive on our shores within the next 24 to 48 hours. I remember distinctly my pride when I realised that at only 19, I would have the honour of laying my life, soul and body on the line for my country. I swelled with pride and my heart was thumping wildly.
To die for one’s country and preserve Hellenism in our beloved island was a price I was happy to pay. Or maybe my feet turned to jelly, and I asked my father if there was any chance of the British stopping the invasion. Thoughts of never being able to see Spurs and the Rolling Stones live did cross my mind, so it could be that the truth was the latter. It was too long ago. So I will go with the first version.
July 20: Major Gotsis gathered us all at around 4.30am and said that having seen off the traitor of Hellenism, Makarios, we would now get the chance to crush the nasty Turks. Boy, was I thrilled to hear this. My anti-aircraft unit of five soldiers, of which I was in charge as the sergeant, was sent back to the Kalisperas traffic lights. To put things in perspective, we had had two target shooting training sessions, during our initial training using WWII MK4 rifles. As for anti-aircraft gun training, in my case, at least, it consisted of zero days, zero hours, zero minutes and zero seconds. We had one training session, shooting at a balloon attached to a helicopter, moving very slowly, but alas they had run out of ammunition by the time it was my turn to use the gun. Our national guard was indeed battle-ready.
It was a beautiful July morning, the only thing spoiling it was that about 5.30am we could see a large flock of crows flying in the distance, over the Kyrenia mountain range. I just couldn’t believe what the other guys in my unit were saying, that we were seeing Turkish planes dropping parachutists. As we also heard a couple of very big explosions, I changed my mind and decided to return to base.
As we were turning into Athalassa I saw my father’s car coming to the lights to find me. Within minutes of going back to base, the Turks paid us a long and loving visit, dropping bombs like it was confetti at some big wedding event. I did what every brave Cypriot boy would have done in the circumstances. I knelt down in the midst of all the bombing and prayed. Nothing else was going to save us so I gave it a go. Sure, I recovered enough, after being sworn at by fellow soldier for doing nothing to defend the country, like shooting at those planes, that would have been as effective as a fart. Did not see one plane go down that morning.
When the morning bombing session was over every battalion (184,185,187,195) apart from mine (189) had lost soldiers. Not one dead and don’t believe a word about Turkish pilots being great. We were sitting ducks and they missed us, bless them. Either that or my prayers worked well. I choose the prayers, because it makes me think I saved my battalion. By now, Major Gotsis and the two other Greek officers under his command were nowhere to be seen. They somehow were assigned elsewhere but forgot to tell us.
We headed for the woods behind Athalassa where we stayed until the afternoon round of bombing began.
In the afternoon, under the cover of trees we were safe and watched the bombing as if it were a film. That is until one aircraft did its dive and headed in our general direction, at which point we did the right thing – we aimed and fired at it and rejoiced at seeing smoke coming from the plane. It was the next bit we didn’t like. Its nose pointed towards us, and we had a very quick decision to make – shoot at it again or abandon the gun and run for cover. As you may have guessed by my writing this, we ran like we had never ran before, as far away as we could. The plane never spotted us, and we saw it fly lower and lower, and to this day I like to think we shot it down.
By nightfall, somehow we got word that we should go to the Nicosia airport to protect it from the expected attack on Day 2. I couldn’t feel happier at hearing the news. My father drove to the airport with my mother who brought me sandwiches, just like the ones you took on school excursions, while the fighting and bombing was taking place. He also brought me cigarettes even though he was a committed anti-smoker, but he realised that it was not smoking that would kill me.
July 21: We were told to sleep at the far side of the airport and I have to relate a disgraceful episode. Halfway through a sleepless night, on the back of truck in which an anti-aircraft gun was fixed, the whole unit jumped up from a noise in the distance – the unmistakable sounds of aircraft engines closing in. Panic gripped and I am not sure who said ‘fire’ but everyone did. Rifles, semi-automatics, machine guns, we all blasted the dark sky in the direction we thought the noise was coming from. As it got closer and closer, we kept firing and it took a while before someone yelled ‘stop, it’s ours’.
The plane flew over us and only later did we find out that it was carrying Greek commandos that were killed. I cannot say whether other battalions or units fired at it, but we were the last one by the airport, so we probably had a lot to do with it. It was an example of the amateurish way in which the island was defended. When my parents arrived at the airport in the morning to see me, my father looked very worried, and it was not because I was a smoker.
