Historical Maritime combat

In the late Fifties while working as a newspaper photographer he became passionately involved in the Eoka movement's armed struggle against British rule

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In the late Fifties, while working as a newspaper photographer, he became passionately involved in the Eoka movement's armed struggle against British rule. Sampson was as ruthless as he was fearless, leading the colonial authorities to refer to him as the "executioner of murder mile", a reference to a street in the centre of Nicosia where a dozen or more British troops and civilians were shot dead. In 1957 Sampson was arrested by the British and sentenced to death on two separate occasions for the illegal possession of weapons. But he evaded execution following a general amnesty proclaimed with the 1959 agreement granting Cyprus independence from Britain.Sampson launched his own newspaper in the newly independent Cyprus republic and, at the age of 35, became a right-wing member of parliament for Famagusta. As tension between Greek and Turkish Cypriots developed into street clashes, Sampson formed and led his own militia.

For the island's minority Turkish Cypriots, Sampson became the most hated Greek Cypriot.After the Athens-backed coup in Cyprus of 15 July 1974, the Greek military junta chose Sampson as president ­ but he was forced to resign eight days later. In August 1976, after being tried and found guilty of military actions against the state, Sampson was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was subsequently allowed to go to France for medical treatment, before returning to the island in June 1990. Following his release from prison only a few months later, he went back to the newspaper publishing business, reviving two former titles, Machi and To Tharros.While the two papers enjoyed some success, the enthusiasm for Sampson and his extreme right-wing views was nothing like as great as it had been in the past He was diagnosed as suffering from cancer earlier this year. He leaves a wife and two children ­ including a son who is running one of the family newspapers.Right up to his death Sampson denied that he had been involved in the planning of the disastrous 1974 coup, saying that he had accepted the role of presidency offered him by the Greek officers in an effort to bring an end to the inter-communal conflict.

His supporters say, furthermore, that he was later singled out for punishment while many others who took part in the coup were allowed to remain free and take up posts in public life.But such assertions cut no ice with the majority of Greek Cypriots, who blame Sampson for the misfortunes that have beset the island since 1974. For Turkish Cypriots, on the other hand, he was nothing more than an evil and dangerous thug. As the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, said in reaction to the news of Sampson's death, "May Allah forgive him his mistakes."Gerald Butt. Lazar Krom (Leonard Crome), medical practitioner: born Dvinsk, Latvia 14 April 1909; MC 1944; married 1940 Helen H?er (died 1995; one son, one adopted son); died Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire 5 May 2001. Lazar Krom (Leonard Crome), medical practitioner: born Dvinsk, Latvia 14 April 1909; MC 1944; married 1940 Helen H?er (died 1995; one son, one adopted son); died Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire 5 May 2001. Len Crome was Chief Medical Officer in the 35th division of the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War, and a lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Army Military Corps during the Second World War ­ earning the Military Cross for outstanding bravery.He was born Lazar Krom in Dvinsk, Latvia, in 1909, but in 1926 he departed for Scotland, where his father had business interests, to study medicine at Edinburgh University. When, in July 1936, four years after he graduated, civil war broke out in Spain, Crome viewed the rising as an attempt to instil another Fascist dictatorship in Europe.

Though not a member of the Communist Party, Crome, like many others with leftist sympathies, on hearing that volunteers were leaving Britain to join the republican forces, decided to join them.He wrote offering his services to Harry Pollitt, who suggested that he contact Sir Daniel Stevenson, a rich Scottish mine-owner, who was organising a Scottish Ambulance Unit. Despite reservations about Stevenson ­ Crome was taken aback to discover Stevenson was the proud owner of a signed photograph of Adolf Hitler ­ he joined the ambulance unit and arrived in Spain in December 1936. However, he did not remain with it for long; in March 1937, amidst rumours of members of the unit's involvement in abetting the escape of rebel sympathisers from Madrid, Crome and three others left to join the International Brigades.Len Crome became Assistant Chief Medical Officer for the 35th Republican Division, of which the British Battalion was also part, until in August 1937 he replaced "Dr Dubois", the Chief Medical Officer (Mieczyslaw Domanski, a Pole), who had been killed by a sniper. Displaying exceptional courage, Crome, with "General Walter", the Divisional Commander (another Pole, Karol Swierczewski), personally retrieved Dubois's body from no man's land.In his new role, Crome demonstrated great competence and imagination: by placing mobile hospitals as near the front as possible ­ necessarily increasing the risk to Crome and his comrades from enemy fire ­ trauma to the patients was dramatically reduced.

As Jim Fyrth's history of the British medical unit in Spain, The Signal was Spain: the Spanish Aid Movement in Britain, 1936-39 (1986), acknowledges,Wounded men in hospitals under Crome's command were getting better treatment than they would have been given at the time in famous London teaching hospitals.When the International Brigades were withdrawn from Spain at the end of 1938, Crome returned to London, where he resumed his work as a GP and taught first aid to ARP workers. He also joined the Communist Party, impressed by what he had seen of their efforts in organising the resistance against Franco in Spain. He continued to look after brigaders: with the help of Jack Brent, the Secretary of the International Brigade Association, he successfully lobbied the US Ambassador to expedite the release of brigaders from camps in Vichy France.In 1941 Crome was drafted into the British army as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps and posted to North Africa. Whilst helping many survivors of the International Brigades who had escaped there, Crome wrote an article in The Lancet complaining that medical lessons learned in Spain were not being fully utilised by the RAMC.In the battles around Monte Cassino in Italy in 1943-44 Crome won the Military Cross for showing extraordinary bravery by carrying on working despite heavy enemy fire. His citation reads: During the battle for the crossing of the river Gari shortly after the bridge Amazon was established on 13 May 1944, this officer established an ADS [Advanced Dressing Station] on the west side of the river, having worked there himself from the time the bridge was established, until he decided it was safe to bring his section across. The section location was subjected to very heavy intermittent mortar fire for the next 48 hours, during which time an infantry ADS nearby was forced to withdraw.