Messages from Mike Steeds:

1) I’m sorry to inform you that George Byrne passed away last night (17/10/2017) in Broomfield hospital, Chelmsford after a long illness.

2) The Funeral will be on Tuesday 31st Oct.

    Mass at St. Agnes church Crumlin. at either 9 or 10am to be confirmed

    Burial after at Mount Jerome Cemetery Harolds Cross, Dublin.

    This info is all I have…

Tributes:

From John B:

Very sorry to learn of George's death. I met and worked alongside him at the Honningsvaag NATO Early Warning site, North Norway in the autumn of 1961.  He specialized on the Radar Office and ppi display equipment. Because of the vital need to hand-over by a set date, the pressure was really on!

It would have been understandable had he been slightly resentful of my coming in to assist with the commissioning of the installation, but that was not Geoge's nature.  We worked together very harmoniously - he with that wry sense of humour which belied his outward demeanour of seriousness. He was a very competent engineer and obviously enjoyed his work.  Being the prototype HPRP station, we experienced the inevitable teething troubles;  however, this only added to the satisfaction for both of us, when the SHAPE inspector signed his approval of the Acceptance Test Certificate.

I departed to do the same thing at Maakeroy in the South;  however, whenever George was passing through Church Green, he would always call in to say 'hello' and catch up.

I will always remember George with great respect as a highly competent engineer, plus a very genuine person.  

From Barry F:

I was very sorry to hear that George had passed away. I went to see him at Broomfield hospital a few days ago.

I first met George in Amasra, Turkey, in 1963 on the first of the Turkish NATO Early Warning sites. George was a member of the NATO commissioning team under Keith Mountford. I was pretty green at the time and George took me under his wing and patiently taught me everything he could about the radar office including all those "little tricks and fixes" to make the system work. His favourite trick at the end of the commissioning phase on each site was to replace the normal slide in the SD100 moving coil video map with his own slide showing a Playboy type page 3 girl which always went down well, especially on the Turkish and Greek sites.

George was a very keen photographer and in Amasra we had a darkroom complete with developing tanks and enlarger. We both spent considerable time taking photos and processing them together.

George was a good engineer, with no airs and graces, a very good sense of humour and was happy to spend as much time as necessary to help me master the various equipments on the NATO sites. He will be missed.

from Malcolm M:

I first met George Byrne when he worked for George Coates on Project KAWAL in 1991, he was involved with the Communications package of the project and I was part of the design review process. Must say I found George a good and competent engineer in his quiet way, and his passing is a sad loss.

from Leslie T:

I liked George a very helpful engineer when we had a problem in the test department