Battle of Tillyria

A series of atrocities and intercommunal terrorist acts struck the island from 20-21 December 1963, as violence began to flare between Turkish and Greek Cypriot extremists.

As an additional measure, two heavy Greek Cypriot patrol gunboats were stationed near Morphou in order to launch a naval strike, should the need arise.

In the days leading up to the invasion the Cypriot National Guard began to mobilise infantry, artillery and armored forces for an assault on Kokkina.

On the morning of 8 August, the Cypriot patrol boats Phaethon and Arion were attacked by Turkish Air Force jets as they sailed close to Xeros Harbour, Morphou Bay.

As the Arion continued to evade the attack, a second formation of Turkish F-100 Super Sabre jets came in low to drop napalm bombs against Greek Cypriot National Guard.

Between 8–9 August 1964 the Turkish Air Force was given free rein to attack multiple targets within Tillyria, including a number of Greek Cypriot villages.

[5] Cypriot civilian casualties were reported as a result of heavy air attacks against several populated locations, including Kato Pyrgos dropping incendiary napalm bombs.

[6] Turkish planes also attacked sites controlled by the Cypriot National Guard, killing civilians and a number of military personnel and destroying a Marmon Herrington Mk-IVF armoured car.

The immediate geographical result of the conflict in the Tillyria region was that four villages were evacuated and the Kokkina enclave was effectively reduced to a narrow beachhead.

Fighting in the region ceased on 10 August 1964, but Kokkina's value to the Turkish military dwindled, as the Greek Cypriots had effectively isolated it from the coastal road and encircled it with enough forces to guarantee its destruction by the time of the 1965 expansion of the National Guard.