Behind enemy lines: The untold story of Malvene Dicker

She is one of thousands of unsung Australians who performed those more routine duties in our conflicts, yet there’s still a hint of James Bond glamour in Malvene Dicker’s experiences.

Malvene Dicker, 80, at home in Chermside West with her eldest grandson Zazh Vivian, 18. Malvene was a teleprinter operator who deciphered 'top secret' encryption codes for the Australian Women's Air Force during the Vietnam War. Picture: Liam Kidston

She is one of thousands of unsung Australians who performed those more routine duties in our conflicts, yet there’s still a hint of James Bond glamour in Malvene Dicker’s experiences during the Vietnam War.

“If we even told anyone what it was we were doing, we could have been sentenced to six years’ jail,” Mrs Dicker, 80, says from her home at the TriCare aged care facility at Stafford Lakes. “I didn’t tell anyone, not even my mother.”

Mrs Dicker, born in Toowoomba on June 7, 1944, the day after the D-Day landing at Normandy, was possibly destined for the military.

But after leaving school in her mid-teens she was, at first, a copy girl on Brisbane’s Courier Mail before joining the Royal Australian Air Force in 1962 and training to be a teleprint officer in Signals.

Stationed in the Lower Blue Mountains, Mrs Dicker spent about eight months dealing with intelligence communications from Australian personnel in Vietnam.

The information – anything from battle plans to air strikes – was typed and sent around the nation.

Malvene Dicker during her time at RAAF Radio School, Laverton, Victoria, 1963.

Malvene Dicker during the Encryption Course at RAAF Radio School, Laverton, Victoria, June 1965.

Anxious that her role not be overstated, Mrs Dicker insists her role was largely limited to compiling the reports – and she saw herself as simply a cog in a large wheel.

But she is nonetheless proud of her role in dealing with crucial, classified information and the cutting-edge technology of the day.

She and her colleagues were warned not to speak of their work to anyone, and the possibility of jail was quite genuine. But, nearly 60 years later, she’s confident federal police won’t come knocking.

And while she is proud to have served in the military, Mrs Dicker has no illusions about the Vietnam conflict. “It was a complete waste of time,” she says. “We never should have been there in the first place.”

The man she was engaged to was deployed to Vietnam and returned “a totally different person”.

Marriage cancelled, Mrs Dicker (then Miss Cornwell) took to the skies as an “air hostess”, as they were then called, before marrying and having “two beautiful daughters and six beautiful grandchildren”.

Life was good to her, she says, and remains so, even if she is getting a little old for the Anzac Day march.