Valley Aerodrome, McAlpine, Rhosneigr, Royal Engineers

Once long ago a kid with big ears heard something about Free French Training at RAF Valley

but I was unable to confirm it...

Laurence wrote:

It is as you mention a a very strange thing the novel "Our Man in Havana" pre-dates the real missile crisis.

The RussianCastro deception of the real thing was so great, they added disinformation to the bulk of the real observations made by anti-Castro Cubans, that both British and US intelligence services were deceived. Even Sir Herbert Stanley Marchant, was mislead. So the Cuban resistance to was sending info to the US, and my uncle Jose Norman was releasing it to the press, but only getting sporadic attention. Finally there was so much info coming out of Cuba that Kennedy with press pressure had to send the observation planes U-2 if I recall correctly without my notes. Uncle NOrman is best known for composing "Cuban Pete," but he kept trying to inform the British Embassy under Stanley Fordham, but was ignored by pompous idiots on staff in the Havana Station.

I am trying to cover as much of this as I know in my book "Love and War in Cuba" the first volume should come out next year/

BTW Most interested people know that Sir Herbert had been at Bletchley Park during WW2, but few of these people know he did a long tour of Russia in 1935-1936 apparently trying to check out the then controversial reports of Gareth Jones had been sending to Lloyd George until he was killed... then after WW2 Sir Herbert was doing something from diplomatic bases in Eastern Europe

Peter:

Although it is somewhat off topic there is a relatively new Dissertation which high lights British Intelligence in Eastern Europe, immediately after WW2 and which mentions Sir Herbert among others, although not Captain Fernandez who apparently also used Valley and its Lystander STOL apparatus in WW2:

Sitariu, Mihaela 2013 British-Romanian Relations during the Cold War. University of Western Ontario - Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. Paper 1862. BRITISH –ROMANIAN RELATIONS DURING THE COLD WAR Thesis format: Monograph By Mihaela Sitariu Graduate Program in History A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3089&context=etd [a not readily accessible url] For example page 95: “...The Romanians’ great ‘discovery’ was something they certainly knew from the beginning since the legation was watched closely: that the trumpeted ‘blackmarketeers and smugglers’ were actually employees of the British and American Information Offices. Since they could not obtain passports they attempted to depart secretly the country.55 The group consisted of Constantin Mugur, the chief of the Romanian staff at the British library, Eleonora Bunea of the British Press Office, Nora Samuelli from the American Press Office, Annie, her sister, from the British Press Office, and Liviu Nasta, a Romanian journalist, correspondent of the New York Times. All of them had been arrested, accused of espionage and detained for trial the following year. During the trial, Sarell, Ramsden, Francis Bennet, Ivor Porter, John Bennet and Marchant were ‘unmasked’ as spies.56...” see page 93-105, with general contex in other pages.