Station HYPO

Sabotage?!

Another time we had a power failure and discovered a couple of natives had climbed down into a manhole and used a chisel to remove the lead covering over the high voltage cable splice.  Instead of being satisfied with the lead covering the splice, he decided to go further down the cable, which resulted in getting the shock of his life.

The Hard Way to Level the Ground

My first task was to level the ground, which required use of a bulldozer. The Post Engineers wanted us to pay them stateside commercial rates for an equipment operator. Well, we operated on a shoestring budget so we went to the Navy at Naha and talked them into loaning us a D-7 dozer, telling them I was qualified to operate it. Hell, I never even sat in the driver’s seat until I had to unload it at our site. Everything was going fine as I was pushing a lot of the dirt into a big hole containing water.

The Communists Are Coming

The second time our emergency defense capability was employed happened on 1 May 1952. The communists had publicly claimed they were going to come on-board the naval base. The Marine detachment had a Sherman tank planted in the middle of the road on the inside of the gate. On each side were a mobile quad .50 caliber machine gun unit and a company of Marines behind the tank on the road to the officer’s club. Our company was located on the road to the hospital with M-1 and bayonets fixed. I believe most of us were wondering what we could do.

Specialist “Q”

Initially, I was designated a Specialist “Q” striker which was the letter “Q” inside a diamond. This was one of the many specialist ratings created during World War II. It was not uncommon while wearing this rating badge to create a disturbance in the local taverns. The typical question posed was, “Does that rating mean you’re a queer?” would start the problem. It was a great day in 1948 when all the ratings assigned to the Naval Security Group were changed to “CT.”

William Hadley enjoyed an impressive 27 year career with the U.S. Naval Security Group.  Throughout his career he carefully documented details of his adventures, accomplishments and support to missions.  Due to the length of his story, however, this five part series will only focus from March 1958 to June 1966.

By William Hadley

On a wall within the confines of the National Security Agency is a memorial to over 150 cryptologists from all services killed while performing cryptologic duties.  Among those names so honored are many familiar to NCVA members – those killed in the Kamiseya fire (1965), those lost during the Liberty attack (1967), those who perished in the crash of RG-407 (1971), two CTI aircrew lost in the Med (1986), and others lost in more recent conflicts, most recently CTICS Shannon Kent.  There is one name missing, however –