This article appears in today's Halifax Herald about Tom Johnson's visit to
Fess Campbell's grave in Cyprus. There are two pictures on the link below.
http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2003/11/09/fhomepage.html
Comrade's graveside visit to Canada's first Cyprus casualty reopens wounds
By Menelaos Hadjicostis / Special to The Sunday Herald ECHOES OF WAR
Nicosia, Cyprus - It was a soldiers' reunion unlike most. No bear hugs or
good-humoured barbs about getting on in age, no animated banter reminiscing
about the glories of old. Only tears, shed by the man standing over his
comrade's grave.
There was no fighting back tears. The sight of the grave of a friend he
helped bury at Dhekelia British Military Cemetery 39 years ago unleashed a
flood of emotion Tom Johnson couldn't resist.
"I was a pallbearer at Joe's funeral," said the 65-year-old Sackville, N.B.
native.
"He was short but stocky, a great hockey player. I remember the coffin was
too small for him," he added.
For the retired Royal Canadian Dragoon, the trip last month back to the
cemetery nearly four decades after a seven-month peacekeeping stint in
Cyprus was no mere trip down memory lane.
It was a pilgrimage to the grave of Canada's first UN peacekeeping casualty
in Cyprus he felt compelled to fulfill.
Like Johnson, 29-year-old Trooper Joseph H. (Fesser) Campbell, of New
Waterford, was among the first batch of Canadians to don the UN blue beret
and be dispatched to the strife-torn island in the spring of 1964.
In the first-ever UN force tasked with keeping the peace between warring
Greek and Turkish Cypriots, the Canadians were assigned to patrol a
500-square-kilometre rectangular swathe of rugged mountain terrain and dusty
plains stretching north of their base camp in the capital, Nicosia.
Although plenty of time would be spent trying to alleviate boredom, or
staying cool in the scorching, 40 C summer heat, the danger was palpable
through the sleepy farming villages caught in the crossfire.
"Once we were caught right under a mortar barrage as one side was hitting
the other's positions. We could see the arc of the mortar shells being
lobbed from our left, go over our heads and land in the enemy camp on our
right," said Johnson.
And patrols through the twisting, gravel mountain roads of the Pentadactylos
mountain range were definitely no Sunday drive.
Dodging gunfire from armed militias as the Canadians made their way through
the mountains in their British-made Ferret armoured cars bordered on the
routine.
"I didn't even hear the bullet that pierced a gas can inside my Ferret on
one patrol," said Johnson.
That's why the Dragoons were under strict orders to stay above a speed of 30
km/h at all times, even when negotiating tight mountain tracks that were
then little more than glorified footpaths.
It was on such a mountain road on July 31, 1964, that Trooper Campbell lost
his life when his Ferret plunged down a four-metre embankment.
Rounding a blind turn at speed, the armoured car swerved to avoid an old
woman shepherding her sheep across the road.
Campbell, who was sitting in the turret as acting car commander that day,
died instantly after being flung from the vehicle.
The driver survived, but took months to recuperate from multiple fractures
and lacerations.
Campbell was buried with full military honours on Aug. 4, 1964, at the
British military cemetery in Dhekelia garrison, one of two army bases
Britain retained on Cyprus after the island gained independence from
colonial rule in 1960. Distance prevented his family from attending.
Campbell, an avid fly fisherman who excelled in track and field, was the
first of 28 Canadian soldiers to die on the island through 29 years of
uninterrupted peacekeeping duty.
Last May, he was awarded the UN's prestigious Dag Hammarskjold Medal - the
first such medal to be awarded in Canada.
Lying next to Campbell in Dhekelia are eight other Canadians killed between
December 1964 and February 1970 through what is the fourth-oldest UN
peacekeeping operation in the world.
And that's where Tom Johnson wanted to be, to honour the memory of an old
friend.
But it took him several rounds of the cemetery to pick out the row of
Canadian headstones from among the dozens of others.
The only distinguishing marks that identified the dead as Canadians were
maple leaves on the headstones. And visitors to the cemetery could hardly be
expected to decipher the inscription "R.C.D." on Campbell's headstone as
his
regiment's initials - Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Johnson resolved to do something about that. The thought of repatriating the
men's remains did cross his mind. But according to Veterans Affairs Canada
spokeswoman Janice Summerby, that would be impossible.
She explained that until 1970, Ottawa's policy was to inter Canadian war
dead in the country where they fell. The policy was then reversed to bring
all war dead back home.
However, the policy shift had no retroactive effect, meaning that the
remains of those who were buried abroad prior to 1970 cannot be repatriated.
"There are 100,000 Canadians buried all over the world and you can't pick
and choose who to bring back," said Summerby.
But for Johnson, even a small Canadian flag planted beside each headstone
would suffice, just as is done for Canadians buried in Vimy or
Passchendaele.
Major Brian Mellor said that in the six years he's been in charge of
Dhekelia cemetery's upkeep, no one has paid official tribute to the
Canadians. It's uncertain whether any commemoration has been conducted since
Canada pulled out of United Nations Force in Cyprus a decade ago.
That's about to change.
With the blessing of the British Ministry of Defence, which raised no
objections to the planting flags next to the headstones, Johnson is rustling
some up to ship off to Cyprus.
According to Summerby, the first batch of flags is already on its way.
Menelaos Hadjicostis writes for Cyprus Weekly, where these stories appeared
in October. He was born in Cyprus and raised in Canada.