GRIVAS ORDERS: KILL 'THIS BLOODSTAINED OGRE' The story of the bed bomb

The story of the bed bomb
By
David Carter

Colonel Grivas, the mastermind behind EOKA.

ONCE Archbishop Makarios was settled in exile in the Seychelles, Colonel Grivas, now the undisputed leader of the EOKA organization, needed to demonstrate quickly his power and determination to the Greek Cypriot population as a whole and, in particular, any on the left who disapproved his avowed intention to unite the Island with mainland Greece.

While the wily colonel was personally delighted that Field Marshal Sir John Harding, had acted decisively to rid the Island of the Ethnark and freed him of any political control or rivalry, Grivas saw the Governor as the greatest threat to his terrorist organization. He now felt the time was right to deliver a double blow against the British. By killing Harding, he could garner more public support from Makarios's religious followers and, at the same time, strike at the heart of the military establishment.

Grivas encouraged his followers to send 'hate' letters to the Governor. These likened him to Genghis Khan, Tamerlane and Hitler. He was also described as 'this bloodstained ogre whose hands drip with the blood of his victim.'

Radio Athens, broadcasting to the Greek Cypriots on behalf of Grivas, increased its vituperative attacks on the Governor. Time and time again, its commentators declared: 'Field-Marshal Harding commits tyranny, vandalism, cowardice and incites to treachery.'

The Ledra Palace Hotel, Nicosia, in 1955. Today it stands in the UN Buffer Zone between the Turkish and Greek Cypriots parts of the Island's capital. It is the home of the British UN contingent.

Ball and Bombs

HARDING had escaped an earlier attempt on his life on Saturday, 26 November 1955, when he was due to be the Guest of Honor at the Caledonian Society's annual charity ball held at the Ledra Palace Hotel in Nicosia. Only the most influential members of Colonial society were invited. Earlier in the evening he had broadcast at 17.00 his decision to place Cyprus under a State of Emergency and his arrival at the ball was delayed, unknown to the would be assassin.

Yannis Pafitis, EOKA's intended killer, was an hotel employee and had smuggled two grenades in a basket of oranges to do the job. When dancing was well under way, he cut the hotel's electricity and, under cover of the darkness, rolled his bombs in the direction of the Governor's table in the ballroom, believing him present.

Charles Foley, the editor of the Times of Cyprus (center) at a reception at Government House with General Kendrew (left) and Mrs. Foley (right).

Charles Foley, editor of the Times of Cyprus, reported that several guests were injured, including the Cyprus Police Commissioner's wife, in the ensuing explosions and the 'chaos of sudden darkness, explosive fumes and shattered glass'. Fortunately there were no fatalities.

Next day Foley's newspaper said: 'After the explosion, the Royal Scots band played Glasgow Belongs to Me, and everyone wanted to continue dancing but as the water on the floor made this impossible the assembled Britons, after singing God Save the Queen with fervor, adjourned to the refreshment bar.'

Pafitis was picked by the police, but after questioning was released. Little is known of what happened to him later.

A bomb under the Governor's mattress

GRIVAS, after considering various assassination methods, including planting a sniper on the roof of the Greek Consulate opposite the Anglican Church to shoot Sir John as he came out from Sunday morning service, settled on what he thought was a sure-fire plan.

The plan was to be implemented on 21 March 1956, this time using Neophytos Sophocleous. He had been recruited by EOKA in the previous January.

Earlier, Grivas had warned Harding in a mimeographed leaflet distributed in the capital, 'We will get you, even in your bed', but the feisty Governor retorted: 'If they do attempt it, they will have to deal with my army, and that is no trifling matter.'

Originally known as the 'cat's guardian' at Government House, the 20-year-old Sophocleous had been employed by the previous governor, Sir Robert Armitage, in 1955. One of his special tasks had been to look after the Armitages' cats of which he was very fond. 'Benji and Poo were two lovely kittens,' he said. 'It was my duty to look after them and, believe me, it was the most pleasant duty I ever had.'

Neophytos Sophocleous, the EOKA bomber, who loved cats

In March 1956 he returned from leave to continue working for the new governor, Field Marshal Sir John Harding. At Government House, British Army sentries at the gate knew Sofocleous well and did not search him when he arrived for work as usual on his bicycle. Unknown to them, he was carrying a flat bomb with a time pencil strapped to his body under his clothes.

Iakovos Patatsos and Stavros Stylianides had constructed the bomb. Both were members of EOKA's execution squads in Nicosia.

Because, as a valet, Sofocleous had access to the Governor's bedroom, that was where he took it. In his privately published memoir, Francis Noel Baker, a Labor MP with sympathies for the Greek Cypriot cause, writes 'Sofocleous planted a bomb under the gubernatorial mattress and hopped onto his bicycle, not to be seen again for several years.'

The bomb was described as looking like 'a small brown-paper parcel that might contain a book - except that a small tube protruded from one end.' It was timed to go off during the night, but its mechanism required a constant room temperature of 67F, but unknown to the bomb-makers and Sofocleous, Harding always slept with his bedroom windows open. And that night it was colder than usual and the temperature fell well below the required temperature for the device to explode.

Next morning, in a routine sweep of the bedroom, Lance Corporal Welch of the King's Royal Rifles and Guardsman Ball of the Grenadiers discovered the bomb.

According to Noel Baker, Lady Harding was writing in her boudoir next to the bedroom when Welch shouted: 'There's a bomb in your bed, my Lady.'

'Don't be so silly,' she replied. 'Let me get on with my letters.'

Lady Harding swims in the waters of Kyrenia, determined to ignore EOKA threats to her safety.

The two soldiers then called for the young commander of the duty-guard platoon, 2Lt Michael Buckley of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, who collected the bomb without fuss using a shovel. He took it outside to the garden and popped it into a sandbagged slit trench. Three seconds later, the gelignite charge exploded with a force that 'would have demolished half of Government House itself'.

Informed of the bomb, Harding mused: 'That's funny, I slept better than usual last night.' He added dryly: 'I'm told there's a story-of a princess who couldn't sleep for a pea under her mattress. It puzzles me.' Later he dismissed his remaining 12 Greek Cypriot servants (many of them with years of faithful service behind them.)

Meanwhile Sofocloeus escaped to join one of Grivas's mountain gangs, with a price of $12,000 placed on his head.

Conflict heats up

GRIVAS now stepped up the conflict, not only against the British, but the Turkish community as well. He also killed his own people. Major-General R Kendrew described the EOKA leader as 'a madman, very religious and certainly unscrupulous. He was pathologically opposed to Communism and the Left.'

Although banned by the British AKEL, the main political party of the Left, concurred with Kendrew's opinion. 'When the armed struggle of EOKA began a tense and unsettled situation was created in Cyprus,' its spokesman says. 'AKEL disagreed with the form of the armed struggle, coming to the conclusion that in the concrete conditions prevailing in Cyprus this would not vindicate the aspirations of our people but, on the contrary, it would lead to deadlocks and adventures.'

The body of Manoli Pierides murdered in church by EOKA.

In Kythrea, four EOKA terrorists, their heads covered by black woolen hoods, walked into St. George's Greek Orthodox Church during a service and shouted to the 40 worshiping villagers: 'Stand up and face the wall!' Then, with a single pistol shot, one of the hooded men killed lay reader Manoli Pierides while he was in the act of chanting the Gospel - apparently because of his British sympathies. Two of his four children watched their father die.

In the evening of Sunday, 15 April 1956, Assistant Superintendent Kyriakos Aristotelous, a Greek Cypriot officer, went to a private maternity home in Nicosia to pay his daily visit to his wife and his five-day-old son. Three gunmen, masked and armed with two pistols and a Sten gun, shot him dead in the doctor's office within calling distance of his wife, and wounded the doctor. Had he lived this young officer could have become the first Cypriot-born Commissioner of Police, his shocked colleagues said. During his comparatively short service of 14 years, he gained no less than 44 commendations from the Commissioner of Police, in addition to two from the Governor.

In Vasilia, Greek Cypriots rampaged through the once peaceful village, hospitalizing 21 Turks, including women.

The view from a window in Nicosia's Central Police Station.

Soon afterwards, on 23 April, Iakovos Patatsos, the primary bomb maker, was arrested, when he and another tried to murder a Greek Cypriot policeman outside Nicosia's Central Police station. Nihat Vasif, a Turkish officer was shot dead as he grabbed Patatsos before he could make off on a bicycle, once more EOKA's chosen means of transport.

Iakovos Patatsos was tried, found guilty of murder and taken to the gallows on 10 August 1956

Stavros Stylianides, one of EOKA's technical experts.

Stavros Stylianides, the second bomb maker, died in Nicosia Hospital on 19 February 1957 after the explosives he was used in his Episkopi bomb-making 'factory' went off three days earlier. His death was declared 'self-inflicted'.

Field-Marshal Sir John Harding, visits the 1 Royal Norfolks at CBS Camp. He was met by the Commanding Officer, the Adjutant and the RSM and inspected a quarter guard found by A Company, which was commanded by Sergeant Campbell.

2Lt Buckley was made an MBE 'for the calm and gallant way in which he handled the difficult and dangerous situation with which he was faced' in removing the bomb from Harding's bedroom. Buckley died in October 2005. leaving a widow, Mary Ann.

(Editor's Note: Contrary to many published accounts, including one in London's Daily Telegraph, Major Harry 'Bomber' Harrison, played no part in discovering or destroying this bomb, although he was awarded the George Medal for his courage and leadership while serving as the Government Explosives Expert.)

In January 1957, Sofocleous was appointed to head the Marathassa group - 'the first valet to fight as a guerrilla chieftain,' quipped Grivas. Sofocleous was caught a few months later in the Troodos Mountains, during Operation Bullfinch on 4 April, but was released in time to say farewell to Colonel Grivas in March 1959 with the signing of the London Agreements.

The last word

AFTER Cyprus was granted independence in August 1960, Sofocleous, like many other EOKA stalwarts, was rewarded with a government post. The former valet was made a Special Branch police inspector.

Noel Baker, while having a drink on the terrace of the Ledra Palace Hotel in 1960 with another EOKA 'hero' - Polycarpos Yorgadjis, the new Minister of the Interior - was approached by Sofocloeus. 'How's Sir John?' he asked. 'Please give him my kind regards.' There were passed on to the Field Marshal in England.

Back to Cyprus Index