On this Day, 1977 – Greece. Notebooks. Uh, oh

“…silly, tasteless and costly game”

On this day in 1977, the boys get their notebooks back at a cost of 600 quid each.

here and here

‘I was done for plane-spotting – in 1977’

BBC News Online. In 1977, five tried to convince a Greek court they were not spies. Here one breaks his 25-year silence about the ordeal.

“They threw the threat of a death sentence at us just to scare us,” says one of the five British plane-spotters arrested on 15 March 1977, suspected of spying on the Greek Air Force.

“I don’t think I believed it though. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t think it would go quite that far. But anybody who says they were not scared in a situation like that would be pretty stupid,” said the aviation enthusiast, who asked not to be named.

The five men – mostly in their early twenties, with the oldest just 28 – were picked up by the Greek security police as they returned to Athens airport following a whistle-stop tour of military airbases.

“We were young, naive plane-spotters, like the boys you see at Heathrow jotting down aircraft tail numbers. We saw a cheap flight to Greece and said: ‘Let’s go!'”

Despite their youthful enthusiasm, the men – members of the West London Aviation Group and veterans of other European spotting trips – tried to show caution.

“Greece was an unknown place. No one had gone there to plane-spot before. We were wary of somewhere new, but never in our wildest dreams did we think that things would snowball as they did.”

Nabbed on way home

Greek agents had tailed the spotters’ rented car as it travelled from airbase to airbase, parking on public highways as the occupants noted down aircraft numbers.

The five’s trial judge When they swooped on the departing Britons, the security police accused the men of taking notes which might describe the layout and features of the military runways they had visited. The five were immediately taken for interrogation by the KYP – the central intelligence agency.

“It was good cop, bad cop, just like you see on TV. One interrogator would be quite nice, then the other one would turn nasty.”

After 48 hours of questioning, the five were put on trial.

“We were very nervous. We had no idea if they were going to release us or put us away for 20 years.”

During their brief court appearance, the spotters attempted to convince Judge Stephanos Matthias that the taking of aircraft serial numbers was a genuine hobby in the UK (likening it to the Greek passion for football) and that it was not a cover for espionage.

“How can this silly, tasteless and costly game be a hobby?” retorted the judge.

While even Wing Commander Ioannis Marinakis – chief of air force intelligence and a prosecution witness – said the group acted “amateurishly”, all of the defendants were found guilty of violating security regulations under article 149 of the Greek penal code.

“They wanted to make an example of us. They didn’t want us going home and telling other plane-spotters about all the great numbers we had collected. That would have opened the flood gates.”

Extended stay

Though the Britons could have gone to prison for two years, on 18 March 1977, the five were sentenced to 10 months behind bars.

And 25 years later, it all happened again.

Plane spotters as history. There’s a place for everyone.