Book contents
- The Long Search for Peace
- The Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post–Cold War Operations
- The Long Search for Peace
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Maps
- Preface
- Glossary
- Part 1 Actor and observer
- 1 The origins of peacekeeping
- 2 St George and the maiden
- 3 Inventing peacekeeping
- 4 Failure
- 5 Success
- 6 Observing at a critical moment
- 7 An intractable dispute
- 8 ‘Tough men wanted’
- 9 Australia and the problem of Palestine
- 10 The Six Day War and after
- 11 ‘If you’re not confused, you don’t understand the situation’
- 12 Over jungle and swamp
- 13 A reluctant start
- 14 The first decade
- 15 Australia and the invention of peacekeeping
- Part 2 New ambitions
- Part 3 Carrying on
- Conclusion
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate Section (PDF Only)
13 - A reluctant start
The road to Cyprus, 1964
from Part 1 - Actor and observer
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2019
- The Long Search for Peace
- The Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post–Cold War Operations
- The Long Search for Peace
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Maps
- Preface
- Glossary
- Part 1 Actor and observer
- 1 The origins of peacekeeping
- 2 St George and the maiden
- 3 Inventing peacekeeping
- 4 Failure
- 5 Success
- 6 Observing at a critical moment
- 7 An intractable dispute
- 8 ‘Tough men wanted’
- 9 Australia and the problem of Palestine
- 10 The Six Day War and after
- 11 ‘If you’re not confused, you don’t understand the situation’
- 12 Over jungle and swamp
- 13 A reluctant start
- 14 The first decade
- 15 Australia and the invention of peacekeeping
- Part 2 New ambitions
- Part 3 Carrying on
- Conclusion
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate Section (PDF Only)
Summary
On the morning of Monday, 25 May 1964, following a ‘very pleasant, well organised and enjoyable’ flight, 38 Australian police stepped from their specially chartered Qantas Boeing 707, City of Brisbane, onto the tarmac at Nicosia International Airport, in the capital of Cyprus. It had been a long flight, ‘the longest [day] of my life’, wrote First Constable John Owens. Their landing had been delayed while the pilot ‘flew the length of the island several times’ waiting for the mist to lift. Finally on the ground at 7am, Owens recalled, ‘the Cyprus air was noticeably hot and moist – a marked contrast to the early morning frosts of Canberra, which we had left 24 hours before’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Long Search for PeaceObserver Missions and Beyond, 1947–2006, pp. 318 - 346Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019