Rear Admiral Sir Stanley Knife RN NFI@Bar Senior Naval Officer Tactical (SNOT).
Upholding the traditions of the Fleet Air Arm I was invited to attend the recent FAAOA Taranto Night dinner at the In and Out club in London.
An enjoyable evening was had by all. However, at the end it was discovered that the dinner may have been the target of an audacious raid by Agents of Carluccio Enterprise (ACE)!
You may recall, from a recent unintelligence briefing, that the head of ACE is the notorious Salvatori Fartertony. Salvatori holds a personal grudge against the Fleet Air Arm, and Taranto Night celebrations.
His grandfather, Captain Alfresco Fartertony IN, was the officer in charge of the Taranto harbour air defences in November 1940 and his blossoming career progression came to an abrupt halt after the attack. It did not help when the Italian Navy enquiry discovered that Alfresco was not at his post during the attack but was otherwise engaged in the back of a Fiat with the Admirals wife!
The Fartertony family suffered years of shame as a result and in Salvatori’s mind the Fleet Air Arm, with those ridiculous “stringbags”, were to blame.
Our recently commissioned Squadron of Special Operations Commemorative Coasters (SOCCs) were deployed at the Taranto night dinner with a mission to support the port glasses, and port, in style.
Each coaster proudly displayed a depiction of the Battle of Taranto with the date of the battle.
What was not known to the dinner attendees was that these SOCCs had been modified by Lieutenant P.G. Tips RN of ‘Q’ branch and each one contained a miniaturised recording device and a tracker! Data collection from all conversations of the evening was planned to be reviewed to see if anything might be used to increase the FAAOA funds using the old “pay up or else” ploy!
Unfortunately, despite being surrounded by a vast number of FAA Observers, it appears that the ACE agents managed to appropriate a huge number (132) of SOCCs, shortly after the port had been drunk.
We can only assume that the Observers were focused elsewhere, maybe a cunning distraction by waiting staff, and “lost the plot” allowing the ACE agents to complete their mission. We cannot imagine how else the SOCCs might have left the building!
The SOCCs trackers have a limited range but indications are that the majority of the MIA SOCCs were taken South and West with only a few going North or East. The major concern is that it seems ACE now has a collection of potentially damaging information contained in each SOCC if they were to realise the full capabilities of the SOCCs.
Fortunately, after stealing the idea from the “Mission Impossible” series, each SOCC has an inbuilt self destruct mechanism that will activate if the SOCC does not receive the correct coded ident before replay or after 60 days if not disabled by the correct code.
The self destruction mechanism may also activate if the SOCC is subjected to high temperature such as being used to support a hot mug of tea!
The FAAOA assets, throughout the UK, to mount rescue missions are limited. We do have contact with a number of “underground’ movements and they are ready to assist any SOCCs that manage to escape to return to SNOT HQ to be disabled and be ready for subsequent operations.
The original plan was that the SOCCs would be used for several Taranto Night dinners, not just the one, as part of the FAAOA’s green commitment.
We therefore need your help to try and save these brave SOCCs from ACE, stop the sensitive information from being divulged, and prevent the SOCCs untimely demise if they do not get the correct code.
If any SOCCs should come into your possession the correct code can be obtained from the Admin Director covertly. We need to know the information contained within the SOCCs is not in ACE hands.
After further evaluation Special Operations Commemorative Placemats (SOCPMs) are currently being considered as these would be more challenging for ACE agents to kidnap. More of this later.