When asked why the young freedom fighters were sentenced to death, Field Marshall Harding said that his aim was not to intimidate the EOKA men themselves, but their mothers, so that they would try to prevent them from joining the fight. But here, too, we failed, admitted the former Governor, for their mothers gave them their blessing when they joined up and welcomed them as heroes when they were killed: ’Our country is more than worth your sacrifice’. One of the measures of intimidation the British took was the policy of deporting Cypriot political prisoners to prisons in Britain. They must have regretted it, eventually, for in their own prisons the Cypriots managed to convince the other prisoners and even the wardens for the justice of their cause. Most importantly, the Cypriot fighters met with Irish revolutionaries who were also serving time in British prisons at the time, and they became close allies a team fighting against a common enemy for the freedom of their country. From the first organised threads they received from both convicts and prison guards, these men joined their powers and confronted the danger as one. Escape was on the freedom fighters’ minds right from the start. When the Irish met this group of determined Cypriots who were planning to attempt an escape, no matter how great the danger of such an endeavour, they decided to stand by them. With the help of their organisations in England and Ireland, and with the cooperation of Cypriot students in Britain, they planned an escape. After the escape they would all go to Ireland and fight against the British together, until the Cypriots were able to return home and rejoin the EOKA struggle.