The World: Battle on a Vacation Isle

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Trapped in the fierce fighting last week on Cyprus were thousands of tourists. A11 together, in the course of a week, almost 10,000 people were evacuated by British and U.S. ships and planes. Tales told later were more than enough to fill a "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" scrapbook.

Jill Davis, a vivacious office worker from West London, flew home with the memory of 24 hours spent inside a Roman tomb with her boy friend while Turks shelled the area; the couple feared they would be buried alive. Twins Amanda and Penny Mieras of Kent spent their 16th birthday using lipstick, eye shadow and a bed sheet to make a Union Jack to identify them as neutrals. U.S. Businessman John Mazzarella of New York City was among a group of tourists forced to remain inside the Ledra Palace Hotel in Nicosia as hos tages of the Greeks against Turkish snip ers outside. He told of the "Hollywood scene with planes flying in formation and paratroopers dropping all over Nic osia. Our waiters disappeared and came back wearing khaki uniforms. But at least we never had to pay our bills."

Said another evacuee sadly: "You know, the sky is always blue on Cyprus. Suddenly it was gray. Even the birds were scared away."

Frequent Gallantry. The first wave of the Turkish invasion force to taled 8,000 men in three brigades, equipped with TOW missiles, armored personnel carriers and tanks. They were backed by jets that dominated the sky and naval forces that protected them with offshore shelling. Ranged against them were nearly 15,000 Greek Cypriot troops, plus a Greek Cypriot reserve force that came into battle dressed in everything from blue jeans to World War II helmets and armed with anything from shotguns to ancient bolt-action Lee-Enfield rifles. The reserves, like the regulars, fought with verve and frequent gallantry. Near the coastal resort of Famagusta, TIME Correspondent Karsten Prager watched in awe as a Greek Cypriot mobile unit that consisted of a Fiat, a BMW and a bright red open-top MG tried to turn the flank of a Turkish column.

In Famagusta, Prager reported, Turkish jets pounded targets that had no military value just two hours before the cease-fire went into effect. One heavily struck area was the city's famed Golden Mile, a chain of beach hotels. The last of the foreign tourists were still being evacuated when the afternoon strikes took place. In a first aid center near the beach, Greek volunteers flattened themselves on the floor. Young women bravely, if thinly, sang a song of the Greek underground that has as its theme the old Spartan saying about coming home carrying one's shield or on it. When the planes pulled up and headed back to Turkey, the waterfront was a shambles. Five hotels and many shops along Kennedy Avenue, the main hotel street, were smashed. In what had been the bar of the Salaminia Tower Hotel, the body of a beach boy hung upside down, legs caught in the wreckage. The Turkish planes also hit residential areas, and numerous civilians were killed or wounded.