NAVFAC Gerolakkos

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NAVFAC Gerolakkos (also NAVFAC Yerolakkos ) was a station of the US Naval Security Group , the intelligence service unit of the United States Navy in Cyprus . The station existed from June 1957 to April 23, 1974. The station's call sign was NKP.

The station's tasks included listening to radio signals and other electronic messages as well as analyzing and decoding them ( signals intelligence ), especially from the Middle East . The Naval Security Group was not only part of the Navy, but also part of the Central Security Services of the National Security Agency and passed on the data obtained to them.

effect

The station was of geostrategic importance especially at the beginning of the Cold War . The unexplained death of the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld in a plane crash over Zambia on September 18, 1961 was also noticed in Gerloakkos. An American intelligence officer from the station at Naval Security Group Station Yerolakkos overheard the region's radio communications and picked up the radio message from another aircraft in the region. On the radio message he heard the pilot approaching the DC6 from Hammarskjold, firing his on-board cannons and then reporting "I've hit it" . The shooting down was clearly documented by the NSA, even though it took place 5340 km from Cyprus.

The station in Gerloakkos focused its work on the Palestinian independence movement PLO of Yasser Arafat and his party Fatah , as well as the organization Black September . An Arabic linguist responsible for the PLO desk in Gerloakkos is quoted as follows: "The NSA sent transcripts with detailed movement data from wanted terrorists to the CIA, which passed them on to Israeli security circles and one of the guys was dead. We got one Message that this and that is arriving via Athens airport, and then you read in the Jerusalem Post that one of the poor pigs was killed in an airport. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NAVSECGRU Stations Past and Present. at: navycthistory.com
  2. ^ Matthew M. Aid: The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency. Bloomsbury, 2009, ISBN 978-1-59691-515-2 .
  3. ^ Giorgos Georgiou: British Bases in Cyprus and Signals Intelligence. In: Etudes helléniques / Hellenic Studies. (19), 2, 2011, p. 121 ff. ( Online ; PDF; 129 kB)
  4. ^ Giorgos Georgiou: British Bases in Cyprus and Signals Intelligence. In: Etudes helléniques / Hellenic Studies. (19), 2, 2011, p. 121 ff. ( Online ; PDF; 129 kB)