On the morning of Monday, 25 May 1964, following a ‘very pleasant, well organised and enjoyable’ flight, 38 Australian police stepped from their specially chartered Qantas Boeing 707, City of Brisbane, onto the tarmac at Nicosia International Airport, in the capital of Cyprus. It had been a long flight, ‘the longest [day] of my life’, wrote First Constable John Owens. Their landing had been delayed while the pilot ‘flew the length of the island several times’ waiting for the mist to lift. Finally on the ground at 7am, Owens recalled, ‘the Cyprus air was noticeably hot and moist – a marked contrast to the early morning frosts of Canberra, which we had left 24 hours before’.