Former Faculty Member John Fahey Named to Muliphen Wall of Honor

John A. Fahey, an associate professor emeritus of foreign languages and literatures at Old Dominion University, recently was named to the amphibious cargo ship Muliphen's Wall of Honor.

Fahey, a retired Navy commander, served as the ship's operations officer in the 1950s. He joined the Old Dominion faculty in 1966 and taught for 25 years.

The Virginia Beach resident is the author of "Licensed to Spy: With the Top Secret Military Liaison Mission in East Germany" and "Wasn't I the Lucky One," in which he offers a memoir of his early days flying Navy airships, including the story of the L-8 airship's mysterious flight to sea and return to land, undamaged, without a single crew member. He served as a combat airship commander during World War II and after the war flew airships from aircraft carriers.

A Russian linguist during the Cold War, Fahey was assigned to the Russian army as an American liaison officer in East Germany and played a key role in the Berlin Wall crisis. When tensions were at the highest on Aug. 13, 1961, he was in the East behind the wall. Despite many arrests for spying and espionage, Fahey's excellent Russian language fluency helped him to survive two years of exciting and challenging incidents in face-to-face confrontations with the Russians.