FED: Australian police attend Gallipoli service

AAP General News (Australia)
04-20-2001
FED: Australian police attend Gallipoli service

SYDNEY, April 20 AAP - Australian police who served in Cyprus will lay wreaths for
fallen colleagues when they attend next week's Anzac Day dawn service at Gallipoli.

A group of 39 police - including serving and retired officers from the federal, New
South Wales, Victorian, Queensland and South Australian police forces - will then travel
to the volatile island off the Turkish coast for a reunion.

Former Superintendent Merv Beck, 79, served in Cyprus with the United Nations during
the Turkish invasion in 1974.

"While we were there our duty was to take the Turkish people from the south to the
north," he told AAP.

"I wasn't frightened, but there were many occasions where there was a lot of tenseness."

During Mr Beck's time on the island a young police officer, Sergeant Ian Ward, was killed.

"He was escorting a young family," Mr Beck said.

"The previous day the road was clear but on this day there was a land mine."

Mr Beck will lay a wreath for Sergeant Ward and another police officer killed in Cyprus,
Sergeant Pat Hackett, during the service on Gallipoli Beach on Wednesday.

"I think it will be very sad," he said.

"I'm a retired airman from World War Two and there's many memories of the fellows killed
in the war."

The police will be part of the official ceremony, dressed in their uniforms and blue
berets, Mr Beck said.

Australian police were first sent to Cyprus following the outbreak of civil war in
1964 and there are still 15 Australian Federal Police officers on the island today.

AAP rk/nf/mk/las/de

KEYWORD: ANZAC POLICE

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