US Air Force Security Service - USAFSS



From 1948 to 1977 the Air Force had a small command called the United States Air Force Security Service (USAFSS). While we appeared to work for the Air Force, we actually worked for the National Security Agency (NSA). Because we had the word "Security" in our command name, we were often confused with the "Security Police". While it bothered a lot of us, we never corrected anyone, thus we didn't have to explain our REAL mission to anyone. Most of us worked at permenant sites with a very large antenna (an AN-FLR-9 which was over a hundred feet tall and sat on 35 acres), though some of us were stationed at little bases or even in aircraft. We spent our time listening to radio signals from all over the world. This was during the Cold War so you can guess our primary target.

Because of the nature of the job, postings in the US (excluding Alaska) were practically impossible. Here is a list of the vacation spots where we could be stationed:
  • European Theater
    • Augsburg, Germany
    • RAF Chicksands, UK
    • Karamursel, Turkey
    • San Vito dei Normanni AS, Italy
  • Asian Theater
    • Clark AFB, Phillipines
    • Elmendorf AFB, AK
    • Misawa AB, Japan
    • Ramasun, Thailand


Because, most of the time the Cold War was just that, COLD, we spent most of our time monitoring the same ol' stuff day after day, looking for new stuff, stamping codewords on blank forms so we wouldn't have to hunt down an ink pad when we needed one, or just trying to keep ourselves amused.
We spent many many hours twisting the dials listening to radios like this one
Here are some photos of the antenna we used
Click the photo to see the full version

Turkey


Germany
The size can be judged by the size of the cars in the parking lot


Clark AFB


Japan
Amusement
Many a paper airplane was made with paper that couldn't be removed from the OPS building because it had been classified already. We'd spend hours trying to think of practical jokes that we, "Charlie Flight" could plan on "Able Flight". We played fair, only playing jokes on Able because they were the only ones that would be after us for 3 days and before us for 3 days. The other 9 days of our cycle we'd follow Baker Flight and Dog Flight would follow us.