The Big Shoot

Out of the clouds that hide the mountains of southwest Cyprus came a strange army of men dangling on ropes from hovering helicopters. Touching down in the region of Mount Troodos, the parachuters cordoned off a circular area while 2,000 British soldiers and Cyprus police moved into the villages. Operation "Black Mac," concluded last week, was rated by the British the largest and most successful campaign yet against EOKA, the Union-with-Greece underground that in the last 22 months has assassinated 98 British and 140 Cypriots on Britain's island base in the Mediterranean.

What made the soldiers' task simpler was that Cypriots were talking--a sign, in the eyes of Field Marshal Sir John Harding, that they are weary of fruitless terrorism. A man found in possession of a pistol (under the emergency regulations, an offense punishable by death) volunteered to tell of an underground hideout. After a hard search on terraced hillside vineyards, the soldiers found a 2-ft.-by-2-ft. opening leading down to a 15-ft.-by-10-ft. subterranean room. Three terrorists, smoked out of this room, told of other secret places. A total of 17 hideouts (not all of them occupied) were found behind bookcases and false walls and down hidden trapdoors. One contained 300 cans of food, including Scotch salmon.

With the aid of huge flares, 30 parachutists made a night descent on Omodhos, a shiny white vineyard village of small, neat houses and narrow cobblestoned streets. Nothing looked more innocent. In the cottage of the village constable the parachute lieutenant walked in on a family scene: before a blazing fire the constable was helping a child with his homework while his wife tended a baby in a cradle. Another child crawled on the floor, and a grandmother was setting the table. But the lieutenant noticed that the fire had only just been lit. Kicking it apart, he found that the hearthstone moved. Underneath was a shaft leading down to a room in which eight men were hiding. Among them: much-wanted Argyrious Karademas, Greek arms smuggler, trained saboteur and prison breaker.

In one week Black Mac yielded 20 hard-core top EOKA leaders, four of them with prices of $14,000 on their heads (which the soldiers are ineligible to collect), 2,000 rounds of ammunition, scores of hand grenades and dozens of revolvers, half-a-dozen Thompson submachine guns and a 3.5 bazooka. The British had reason to congratulate them selves, and did. Said pink-cheeked, wax-mustached Brigadier J. A. Hopwood: "It was like a jolly big shoot, and my men acted as beaters."

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