Lionel Crabb – Diver and man of mystery

"I have a little job to do," Crabb told a friend in April, 1956. The famous and highly decorated
Royal Navy frogman had experienced hard times since his retirement at the end of the war in
1945. At 46, he was in poor health, having trouble with his eyes and ears, and verging on
alcoholism. Since he was nearly penniless, the new job was a godsend. So began one of the
Cold Wars intriguing episodes.

Crabb had joined the Royal Navy (RN) during the Second World War transferring from the
army. He was involved with the defusing of Italian limpet mines that the RN divers had
removed from ships and after a stint of this he decided he would learn how to dive himself. At
this stage diving was very much in its infancy within the Royal Navy whereas the Italian Navy
were far advanced by the standards of the day. The RN divers used a primitive rebreather
set called a Davis Escape Set which created in 1910. This rebreather was primarily a
submarine escape tool but was adapted for diving. Even by the 1940's the RN used this set
along with weights and the breaststroke as they had not invented fins in order to dive. Only in
1942 when 2 Italian frogmen were killed in Gibraltar and there bodies recovered did the RN
discover fins. The Italian fins were then used by Crabb for all future dives. At the wars end he
was a highly decorated hero with extensive diving and ordinance disposal experience before
he was demobbed in 1947.

Crabb continued diving in his civilian life working on shipwrecks and doing work for various
UK Government agencies for civilian projects. In 1955 he was approached by MI5 to dive
and spy on a visiting Soviet cruiser called Sverdlov. Crabb dived with his old friend since the
days of the war Sydney Knowles. The Sverdlov was reported to have greater maneuverability
than normal so MI5 wanted to know. According to Knowles, they found a circular opening at
the ship's bow and inside it a large propeller that could be directed to give thrust to the bow.

Within the year he was again approached by MI5 to take part in another operation. This time
Soviet Premier Khrushchev was visiting the UK on a diplomatic mission on the cruiser
Ordzhonikidze which would dock in Portsmouth with its escorts. Reputedly Crabb was asked
to look for anti-sonar equipment and mine-laying hatches. Crabb booked into a hotel in
Portsmouth using his real name with a second man called Bernard Smith. Smith was a MI5
agent. At dawn on the 19th of April, as Smith watched, Crabb wearing a rubber diving suit and
equipped with a naval closed-system rebreather--entered the water and swam 70m to the
ship and dived beneath the Soviet warship. He returned at 7:30 A.M. to adjust his breathing
gear, which had given him trouble, forcing him to surface. He re-entered the water and never
returned. "We've lost Crabb," Smith reported to London.

Crabb's companion then went to the Sally Port Hotel took all his belongings and even
removed the page of the hotel registry book where they had written their names. But ten days
later the British newspapers began to publish stories about Crabb's disappearance on an
underwater mission. At this time the Soviets also let it be known that sentries on their ship
had spotted a diver in the water near the ship though this was denied by the British.
Questions were raised as to where was Crabb? The RN issued a statement that Crabb had
died on exercise in a different part of the coast and his body was not recovered also at the
same time but this was largely seen as a smokescreen. In the House of Commons Prime
Minister Sir Anthony Eden was furious as it was embarrassing but also Crabb's dive was not
authorised. On Apr. 29, in the commons Eden said that Crabb was "dead," a remarkable and
never explained admission when he needed only to state that Crabb was "missing."

So began the biggest story of the day with Cold War tensions running high. Had Crabb been
caught swimming beneath the cruiser, or electrocuted by anti-frogmen devices, or held
against the cruiser's hull by a powerful magnetic field until he drowned, or killed in a deadly
underwater struggle with Russian frogmen? Or had he been captured and taken to Russia?
Nobody could answer these questions. But just when it looked like the mystery would end
there, a year later on June 9, 1957, fishermen dragged from Chichester Harbour, 15 miles
from Portsmouth, the body of a man dressed in a naval-pattern frogman's suit. Head and
hands were missing. The body could have been in the water for 6 to 14 months, the time
elapsed since Crabb's last dive, stated a pathologist. But it was impossible to determine the
cause of death. Crabb's ex-wife was not sure enough to identify the body, nor was Crabb's
girlfriend Pat Rose.. An inquest jury returned an open verdict but the coroner decided that the
body was Crabb's. It conformed to his description--size of feet, shape of legs, colour of body
hair--and it bore a scar on the left knee identical to a wartime wound Crabb had received.
Sidney Knowles said that Crabb had had a scar on the left knee.

Had his body, half-eaten by fish, drifted from Portsmouth, or had it been released from a
Soviet submarine? Was it dumped from cruiser with weights attached?

Possible Solutions:
There are several theories. Did the Russians kill Crabb beneath the cruiser and allow the
body to drift away? Did they take him to Russia and kill him there? Did a Soviet sniper kill him
from the deck of the ship? Did they capture and brainwash him to join the Soviet navy and
dump another body in the English Channel? According to a West German source, Crabb
joined the Russian Navy and instructed them in underwater small unit activities, changing his
name to Korablov but needless to say this was never verified.

It is more probable that Crabb died in Portsmouth Harbour from respiratory failure. He was in
poor health and above the age limit for diving at the time. His breathing equipment was meant
for dives down only to 25 ft., and he would have needed to dive below that depth to clear the
33-ft. draft of the Ordzhonikidze so it looks like an accident. Fish and being dragged along
with tides could have accounted to the missing head and hands over time.

Because he needed the job, Crabb took a chance and lost. Or did he?

Sources – Wikipedia.com
- Trivia Library.com
- Cabinetoffice.gov.uk

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