NEW Memory Project Video Highlighting Canadian Peacekeeping Efforts in Cyprus

TORONTO – March 19, 2024 – 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the ongoing United Nations peacekeeping mission in Cyprus. Canadian Peacekeepers were the first to arrive on the ground in 1964. Now, Historica Canada is marking the anniversary by releasing a new episode of the Memory Project’s In Their Own Words series. 

The Cyprus operation is one of Canada's longest overseas military commitments and is the second most deadly peacekeeping operation for Canadians. While tensions on the island have stabilized, the conflict in Cyprus remains unresolved.  

Our new episode, entitled Patrolling the Green Line: Canadian Peacekeepers in Cyprus provides an overview of Cyprus’s contested sovereignty since the Second World War, and focuses on Canadian involvement in the United Nations mission. It offers the perspectives of three Canadian veterans, Sergeant (Ret'd) Robert Thomas, Major (Ret’d) Paul Hale, and Lieutenant-Colonel (Ret’d) Ronald Bragdon, who served in Cyprus over three decades. 

For this production, Historica Canada worked with Toronto illustrator Jessie Durham, Bonfire Productions, and script consultants Dr. Andrew Burtch, the post-1945 Historian at the Canadian War Museum, and Dr. Walter Dorn, a professor of Defense Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada and the Canadian Forces College. 

As well, Historica Canada’s Memory Project presents an online Q&A Panel with two of the veterans featured in the video - Maj (Ret'd) Paul Hale and Sgt (Ret'd) Bob Thomas. The Q&A will take place on March 28th, 2024, at 1 PM EDT on Zoom, with French captioning available. Register here. 

Historica Canada is a charitable organization that offers programs in both official languages that you can use to explore, learn, reflect on our history, and consider what it means to be Canadian. The Memory Project is a volunteer speakers bureau that arranges for veterans and Canadian Forces members to share their stories of military service at school and community events across the country.