Written on 26 March 2009
The news that the advertising of condoms is to be permitted on UK commercial TV channels before the 9pm watershed, and a separate news item which states that the Pope will still not allow the use of condoms by the faithful, reminded me of what had possibly been an illegal trade that used to take place between Cyprus and Malta in the late 1950s.
I was serving on 38 Squadron, a Shackleton anti-submarine and search and rescue squadron that was also engaged, in my time, carrying out anti-smuggling patrols around the coast of Cyprus. Those flights, known as MARSO (Maritime Air Reconnaissance Special Operations), were always flown, first from RAF Nicosia and later from RAF Akrotiri, by night at low level (as low as 100 feet above the sea) and with no navigation or other external lights showing. We were searching on radar for small boats that might have been involved in support of the EOKA terrorists. When we found suspicious surface contacts we would illuminate them with flares and, if necessary, call in the Royal Navy to intercept and search them. We stayed in Cyprus at RAF Akrotiri for one or two weeks at a time before returning to our home base, RAF Luqa on Malta. On the return flight crew members almost always carried a box of one gross of contraceptives (144 packets of 3) that had been requested by other married RAF aircrew based on Malta who rarely had the opportunity to leave the island. For religious reasons condoms were not on sale in Malta. The RAF Police, not local Customs officers, always searched our luggage on landing at Luqa (for operational reasons!) and they never seemed to find the boxes which, presumably by mutual agreement, were concealed in piles of our soiled flying clothing undergarments – and no-one would wish to search through them!
The second bit of news today concerned the re-formation of Spandau Ballet, a pop group from 30 or so years ago which seems to have passed me by. I was stationed then in Berlin at RAF Gatow, barely three miles from the other Spandau – where the Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess was still incarcerated. I believe Spandau Ballet changed their name from The Makers after a visit to the West Berlin Spandau. I imagine their records were played a lot on the local British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS), a station I rarely listened to because its programmes consisted almost entirely of non-stop pop records. That item of news reminded me that BFBS Berlin once conducted a poll after a lot of complaints from servicemen who said they should play something other than pop music. There was only one question in the poll: "Which would you rather listen to: the Top Twenty or a symphony by Mahler?" I didn’t even bother voting. I think modern day polling organisations are well aware that you can always get the result you want by asking the right questions. The result was predictable.
That reminds me. One night on a MARSO about 60 miles due south of the Akrotiri peninsula, rather further out than we normally went, we located several large contacts on the surface. It was near the end of a boring flight with nothing found so the captain decided we might as well investigate. We closed in, descended to about 100 feet, and illuminated the contacts. The ship recce expert on board our Shackleton shouted out on the intercom, "It looks like the American 6th Fleet!". Another crew member watching through binoculars in the light of our powerful flares added, "Bloody hell, their guns are tracking us – let’s get out of here!" We did!
When we got back to RAF Akrotiri a worried-looking senior officer met us at the aircraft to say that the Americans had complained at what we had done. Then he added, "Apparently they’re on a secret mission to Lebanon. But it’s their own damned fault – they hadn’t told us they were there." I suppose that would have been some consolation to our relatives had we been shot down.
In 1975 I spent 10 happy days as the guests of the US 6th Fleet on board USS Independence. That story is on this website here.