Tony Cunnane's RAF Years

The news of my new job in Berlin quickly spread around the station but there was a mystery about it from the moment the chitty was handed to me by RAF Marham's Station Commander. It's true to say that, like me, most of my colleagues had never heard of 26 Signals Unit, but one senior engineering officer knew exactly what the unit’s role was. He said that he was not allowed to tell me what the job would involve for security reasons but he did offer one snippet of gen. He said that the posting order was undoubtedly wrong and would soon be amended. That was because, so he asserted, the appointment of OC 26 Signals Unit was for a wing commander engineer not a squadron leader pilot. It turned out that he was correct – but not for the reasons he had given me. Some weeks later, while I was still at Marham serving out my last few weeks as Officer Commanding Victor Standardisation Unit, my posting notice was amended to show my new appointment at 26SU as Senior Intelligence Officer in the rank of squadron leader.

Many months later I learned from two independent and impeccable sources that there had been a battle between the RAF and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) - an organisation I had never heard of at that time. RAF Signals Units were traditionally commanded by Engineering Branch officers which seemed not unreasonable since, by and large, aircrew do not know very much about signals engineering. However the top echelon of the General Duties Branch, which includes all aircrew officers, had apparently long been trying to create more command appointments for GD officers and my posting came at a time when GCHQ was, quite independently and for their own reasons, trying to bring the signals units under the command of GD officers rather than engineers. I had become due for posting just at the time that the RAF was intending to put the conflicting arguments to the test. Perhaps I had been selected because I was available and because someone had noticed that earlier in my RAF career I had been a ground wireless fitter, or as the RAF memorably called it 'Gd W Fitt (CTR & L)'. Whatever the reason, the RAF and GCHQ lost that little battle and it would appear, therefore, that the Engineering Branch won!

I arrived at the RAF Language School at North Luffenham in August 1976 several weeks before the Russian course was due to start. It was the summer of the Great Drought in England and also the time that large areas of the county of Rutland just down the road from RAF North Luffenham were being dammed (not damned) and deliberately flooded to create what eventually became known as Rutland Water. Imagine trying to create a vast new inland lake in the middle of the longest drought for decades! What unfortunate timing. But what a magnificent location Rutland Water and its environs have become over the last 30 years.

I managed to 'wangle' myself a weekend passenger trip to Berlin in September 1976. I had never been to Berlin and I thought it would be interesting to learn a bit about my new job before I arrived - or even before I started the Russian Course. The security people were obviously on the ball, or so I thought, because before that trip I was summoned to the Ministry of Defence for a briefing by someone known as DDSy4(RAF) in the Old War Office. Being pedantic by nature, I wondered idly whether this was an office dealing with the 'old war' as distinct perhaps from the 'cold war' or whether it was simply that the War Office itself was old. In many respects it turned out to be both!

A car and driver was arranged to take me to London and back - odd really when there was a perfectly adequate train service to the capital. It was a curious briefing that told me nothing whatsoever about my future job at 26 SU. I was simply warned that West Berlin was a 'hot bed of spies' and that I must always be on my guard against loose talk and loose women, and that was about it. Well how about that? I would never have thought it!

A couple of days later I drove from North Luffenham to RAF Scampton and then flew out on Hastings TG503, captain Wing Commander Rick Crowder, to Templehof. It was an entertaining weekend socially, but no loose women, and a waste of time professionally. I met all the right senior officers, including the ones I would eventually work for, but they would tell me nothing about my future job. I realised that once again I was 'not one of them' - a problem that I had first encountered in Singapore in 1965!

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