Tony Cash (1922–2020)

Several years ago I read - and relished - two rather obscure (perhaps not in the UK, but certainly here in the U.S.) books about the JSSL. See? I'll bet ya don't even know what that is! Well, it WAS the Joint Services School for Linguists, a rather secret institution the British government cobbled together for training linguists in the wake of WWII. The Cold War was already underway when the UK realized they had very few speakers of Russian (and a few other Eastern Bloc languages too). So the JSSL was born. One of the books I read was MY LIFE AS A SPY, a rather tongue-in-cheek title for a very personal memoir by Leslie Woodhead of his National Service (the Brit version of our draft) time with the RAF in which he describes how he was trained in Russian at JSSL and did a subsequent tour of duty monitoring Soviet air traffic at a listening post in Berlin. The other was SECRET CLASSROOMS, jointly authored by Geoffrey Elliott and Harold Shukman, two army National service men who also studied Russian at the JSSL.

Since I enjoyed these two books so much, I was pleased to learn about this newer book, THE CODER SPECIAL ARCHIVE (2012), edited jointly by Tony Cash and Mike Gerrard, which gives us the same story, but told from the viewpoint of men who did their National Service with the Royal Navy. I didn't have to read far to learn that doing one's required National Service with the navy was a very rare thing, as the RN is much smaller and more 'exclusive' than the other two services. The RN group of Russian linguists who trained at the JSSL, then, is a rather small one, around 1,500 perhaps. And, since the school existed for only ten years (1951-1960), it's perhaps not surprising that Cash and Gerrard were only able to contact a limited number of RN alumni of the JSSL. From the Introduction -

"Much of our story derives from personal verbatim recollections volunteered by more than 70 contributing ex-coders (S), all now in their eighth or ninth decade. Yet this is not an oral history. The overwhelming majority of the direct quotations printed here came to us electronically. Dare we suggest that this is one of the first ever email histories?"

The places where these men studied Russian were familiar to me from the other two books - remote towns in Cornwall and Scotland, far from prying eyes, often under rather primitive conditions. And a few, who did well enough, got further training at universities in London. The former coders share stories of their early lives and initial callups, basic naval training ("Raw Recruits"), minimal sea duty ("Sprogs at Sea"), and, of course, JSSL ("Grappling with the Language") and duty stations ("On the Job - Untold Watchroom Stories"). We hear stories of struggling with the new alphabet and language, adapting to a killer study regime involving unending lists of vocabulary, grammar and verb endings, as well as occasional extracurricular activities. Drama clubs, Russian choir and chorus and more. Many also found time to form small jazz bands, do a bit of pub crawling, and hanker after the local women. (Editor Tony Cash was a clarinet player who, later in life, hosted a radio show that broadcast forbidden popular music into the USSR.)

Most of the RN grads of the JSSL Russian language program did not serve on ships, but landed at listening posts in northern West Germany, near the towns of Cuxhaven and Kiel, where they monitored Soviet military communications. The Kiel location afforded opportunities to sample art and culture. Coder Paddy Heazell remembers -

"Kiel was notable for its splendid provincial opera company and the public concerts held every week. In Hamburg we went to hear a number of operas, held in the half-destroyed opera house."

Hamburg also offered other things, as Coder Gareth Mulloy remembered -

"A visit to the Reeperbahn and then to Herbertstrasse, the brothel street closed to women and children, came high on our list of priorities. Attractive, scantily-clad women displayed in the windows of their little brothels were exciting for a bunch of sex-hungry twenty-year-olds. Shortage of money, and probably moral probity mixed with fear of infection, deterred us from indulging. Similarly, an evening of carousing in the bars led to no more than the usual excessive consumption of beer."

Oh yeah. I can relate - to all of this stuff. Full disclosure. I studied Russian with the US Army and did tours in Turkey and Germany. Basic training is a universal - mostly awful - ritual. And I know about the pressures and stresses and competition involved in learning that language, beautiful as it is. And I know about the camaraderie and lasting friendships forged in the ranks, about nights of bar-crawling and chasing women. I've even been to Hamburg, where (in 1965) I visited the Star Club on the Reeperbahn, where the Beatles honed their musical chops; and walked up and down that Strasse with the women in the windows that Mulloy describes.

TCSA goes on to offer further stories and adventures of various coders, covering not just the the decade of the fifties, but other subsequent reserve tours of duty. There is history here too, with stories from the eras of Krushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev and beyond, because many of the coders went on to distinguished careers in journalism, broadcasting and diplomacy. (The Foreword is written by Alan Bennett, also a JSSL alum.) There are even a few anecdotes from the other side, from an Estonian and Belorussian who did the same kind of work, but for the USSR.

At the back of the book, the editors offer a helpful glossary of terms, a Cold War timeline, a reading list, and an index. It is obvious that Cash and Gerrard put a tremendous amount of thought, effort and research into this book, which will become, I believe, a valuable document to the Intelligence Community. Old RN coders and other National Service members who attended the JSSL will find it fascinating. Reading THE CODER SPECIAL ARCHIVE will jog more memories, I am sure. It did for me, and I live across the Pond.

Because of its obscure subject, TCSA will appeal to a niche audience. And because of the way it was 'assembled' - that oddly shaped "email history," the book at times has a kind of cobbled-together feel. And yet ... and yet. This stuff is IMPORTANT dammit! The Royal Navy owes Tony Cash and Mike Gerrard a debt of gratitude for the stories - the HISTORY - gathered in this book. I will recommend it highly to old linguists, SIGINT-ers, electronic eavesdroppers, 'spooks.' Well done, you guys - all of you.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the Cold War memoir, SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA… (más)