Brigadier Francis Henn dies
THE man who was chief of staff of the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Cyprus when it was rocked by a Greek-backed coup to annex the island followed by Turkey’s military intervention in July 1974 has died.
Brigadier Francis “Frank” Henn, CBE, died on October 15, 2020, aged 99 according to an obituary published last Saturday by The Times newspaper.
Recounting the events the day before the attempt to assassinate Archbishop Makarios TheTimes wrote: “It was 8.30am on July 14, 1974, and Brigadier Frank Henn’s staff conference was about to disperse. He gave them a few crisp orders to deal with what he instinctively knew was afoot, an attempt to seize the international airport, one of the essential moves of a coup d’état to unseat President Makarios.”
The paper said he knew that “attempts by the coup leaders to occupy the broadcasting station, police stations and presidential palace would be followed swiftly by widespread violence as the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities turned on each other”.
The obituary continued: “As firing and further explosions could be heard from the airport he ordered the seven battalion-sized national contingents around the island to cover known flashpoints of community tension and drafted a cable to UN HQ in New York.
“Worst fears were soon realised. Groups of Greek Cypriot terrorists were rampaging through the towns, firing into the air and settling old scores. Tanks and artillery of the Greek National Guard were pounding the presidential palace and an announcement over Nicosia radio at 10am declared (falsely) that Makarios was dead.
“This was followed by another in midafternoon to say that Nikos Sampson, a known psychotic killer, had been appointed president of a ‘Government of National Salvation’. Then Henn knew that Turkey’s intervention was certain.”
Henn then recommended to the UN force commander the deployment of “lightly armed” peacekeepers to contain outbreaks of intercommunal fighting and the urgent evacuation of civilians to areas of safety to avoid a “bloodbath” in the capital.
He later received the “friendship and gratitude of both communities” until the end of his life, TheTimes said.
He retired in 1975 and subsequently lectured widely on his UN peacekeeping role in Cyprus.