Richard M Osborn

On Her Majesty's Cyprus Mission Richard M Osborn

This historical novel is about Ian Black, a young Second Lieutenant in the British Army, who arrives in Cyprus in the middle of the 1950s Emergency, after graduating from MONS, and is assigned to the Royal Artillery 188th Radar and Searchlight Battery. His first mission is to manage a radar site on the northwest coast of the island. As he travels on the narrow road to the camp, his convoy is ambushed and he has to use all his army skills to survive. While in the Nicosia BMH, recuperating from his wounds, he meets a nurse, the beautiful Aphrodite Palas. Upon returning to duty as the OIC for Camp Pomos, he comes face to face again with EOKA terrorists. Due to his fluency in the Greek language, Ian is recalled from Camp Pomos and transferred to the Intelligence Corps. In order to find the whereabouts of the EOKA leadership, including the infamous Grivas, newly promoted First Lieutenant Black has to prowl the back streets and alleys of Nicosia. In addition, to help prevent the smuggling of arms into the island, he has to fly on a RAF Shackleton search plane over the Mediterranean and travel to Beirut, Lebanon to look for the source of the arms. Twice, Ian saves the Governor-General of Cyprus from assassination attempts by the terrorists. Through the efforts of Lieutenant Black and others, the safe house where Grivas is hiding is finally located in Limassol. A plan is formulated so that they can capture him alive but, at the last minute, politics ends up trumping military action. This book by the Osborns shows that one man can make a difference, even in dangerous times.