"I suspect the marines were transferred to the USS Inchon (LPH 12) to assist with evacuation of civilians from Cyprus. Any comment from the marine contingent?
The U.S. Ambassador to Cyprus, Roger Davies urgently requested the evacuation of U.S. citizens from the island. On July 22, with the USS Forrestal providing air cover, marine helicopter squadron HMM-162 from the USS Inchon evacuated 466 people, 384 of them U.S. citizens, over a period of five hours. The Little Rock and other units of the Sixth Fleet provided operational support during the evacuation and remained on station until July 28, 1974.
Someone from the Inchon might be able to fill in some details. The Inchon at the time was assigned to Sixth Fleet Task Force 65, which was established to help the Egyptians get the Suez Canal operational.
The Sixth Fleet assist with the Suez Canal opened the door for our visit to Alexandria, Egypt. The Little Rock was there from July 29 to August 1.
A Greek Cypriot assassinated Ambassador Davies inside the American Embassy on August 19, 1974."
I was on the Inchon as part of the Marine contingent. I was on a naval gunfire Marine artillery forward observer team with 16 of us a Naval gunfire officer and my XO Leuitenant McCullough A Battery, 1st Battalion 10th Marines 2nd MAR DIV. This whole thing was intense. I remember the evacuation but what happened prior was very interesting. The Turks were sonic booming us with their brand new phantoms, the Russian trawlers were getting in the way. The new destroyers of ours were flying around cutting the Russians off and belying their top speed in Janes. They passed us doing 16 or so knots like a Ferrari passes an F150. The Turks were actively probing the British base where the western civilians were. In retrospect, they were playing a game of chicken with US and the brits and I now believe were taking an offensive approach to us to keep us rocked back on our heels so they could complete the invasion. It got to the point where for three days our Marines were in rows on the flight deck locked and loaded so to speak to go support the British base and being on the forward observer team we were given extra mags and were going to be landed on a hill about half a klick ahead of the projected perimeter to call in naval gunfire to protect the landing. If we had gone we would have been lucky to last a half hour but most of us were ready. I sure was being 18 and not quite right in the head, hey I was a Marine. Still am to a point.
On three occasions they fired up the choppers and we (forward observer team) got up waiting to load. The other Marines were looking at us like we were dead meat. On one of those occasions one of the guys in the chopper gave a signal yelled, it's a go! and the door gunner actually did lock and load and we were getting on before they countermanded. Talk about adrenalin...
That was the most intense three days of my life. Thirty minutes away from likely death... Liberty in Barcelona was amazing but that's another story. Looking back I still have this array of ambivalent feelings about the whole thing. I've been meaning to respond to this post for a few years.
