On Her Majesty's Cyprus Mission - Paperback

by Barbara a. Osborn (Author), Richard M. Osborn (Author)

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.

Author Biography

Richard Osborn was born and raised in England, and educated at King's School, Canterbury. He is a veteran of the British Army Royal Artillery and served in Cyprus from 1956 to 1958. After leaving the British Army, he emigrated to the U.S. and served in the United States Air Force, where he was involved with the Bomarc missile. He is a graduate of California State University at Los Angeles and of the Thunderbird Graduate School of International Management. he worked at General Dynamics, Aeronutronic Ford, Hughes Aircraft and Tektronix. He is a licensed pilot and has conducted numerous seminars for Tektronix in the Far East and Europe. He is now writing fiction and non-fiction in Knoxville, Tennessee. Barbara Osborn was born and raised in Virginia. She attended art classes at the University of Georgia and studied art history, in addition to creative writing, at the University of Tennessee. She has traveled extensively in Europe and the Mediterranean area. After living in England for awhile, she returned to Knoxville, Tennessee, remarried and retired. Currently, she and her husband are co-writing novels. The Osborns wrote "The Red Moon Affair" a fictional novel about a U.S. President who wants to remain in office after his two terms are up. The President, Edward Tuckwell, figures out a way to create a state of emergency and cancel the next election, using a false flag operation.