Wet Work: The Story of Buster Crabb

In early 1956 Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party, and the Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin arrived on a diplomatic mission to Britain aboard the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze. For the duration of the mission the cruiser was docked in Her Majesty’s Navala Base, Portsmouth.

The mission came at a delicate time. Stalin had been dead for four years and while his successor Khrushchev was by now firmly established as the Soviet leader, he was still very much an unknown quantity to Western analysts. This was the height of the early Cold War.

The mission, in the end, could reasonably be called a success. Pleasantries were exchanged along with gifts, Khrushchev toured London and other sites of interest, discussions were held and then the Ordzhonikidze sailed off into the night, back to Russia, her stay an uneventful one.

Or at least, that was how it seemed. In the weeks following a diplomatic furor erupted surrounding the visit. Not for anything which happened to the Soviet leader or his party, to be sure, but for strange rumors which swirled around the Ordzhonikidze. 

It seemed that the Russians had become convinced that something was up. They were convinced that the Royal Navy had attempted something during the warship’s stay at Portsmouth, and they cried foul to anyone who would listen.

The Royal Navy was outraged, of course. The very suggestion that such a thing could occur when a warship was visiting during peacetime, especially one with so valuable a passenger as Khrushchev, was unthinkable.

But things, as always, were not so simple. The Russians believed that a diver had attempted to approach the Ordzhonikidze undetected. And the Royal Navy were, indeed, missing that diver.

This is the story of Lionel “Buster” Crabb.

A Scandal Beneath the Waves

Lionel Crabb was born into a lower class family in south London in 1909. Crabb would grow up unsure of his calling in life, but it can be said that he truly found it in his twenties abord the Royal Navy training ship HMS Conway. Crabb would prove to be a fine sailor.

Joining the Royal Navy Reserve shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Crabb would be initially called up to the Royal Artillery as a gunner. However in 1941 he joined the Royal Navy, finding much work removing limpet mines attached to Navy ships in the Mediterranean by Italian divers.

Crabb may have been a reasonable sailor but he proved to be an exceptional diver. The Royal Navy had none of the sophisticated modern equipment, and Crabb and his fellow frogmen would retrieve the live mines without fins and with only a primitive rebreather to rely on for oxygen.

Recognized for his bravery, by 1943 Crabb would be a Lieutenant Commander and the recipient of the George Medal, one of the highest non-military awards in Britain. Becoming diving coordinator for the entire area around northern Italy, he would go on to receive an OBE for his work.

After the war Crabb went into business for himself as a civilian diver, exploring wrecks and looking for salvage. However, his work for the British Government was not entirely in the past.

In 1955, he was tasked along with another frogman to investigate a Soviet Sverdlov-class cruiser. He discovered an unexpected opening at the bow of the hull, one he believed could house a propellor mounted perpendicular to the hull, allowing for exceptional maneuverability.

The Ordzhonikidze was also a Sverdlov-class cruiser, and Crabb’s observations about the bow may have caught the interest of the British authorities. A year after this investigation in 1956 Crabb was recruited by MI6 in an unknown function. And in April of that year the Ordzhonikidze arrived at Portsmouth.

The first signs that something was afoot came from the British. On 29th April British newspapers ran articles detailing that Crabb had been lost during an underwater mission. This was supported by an announcement, not from MI6 but from the Navy, that Crabb had been lost during a trial of new underwater apparatus.

However something more was clearly going on behind the scenes. In response to the announcement by the Royal Navy, the Russians claimed to have seen a frogman near the Ordzhonikidze during its stay in Britain. The strong insinuation was that this was Crabb.

The press speculated that Crabb had been tasked with some kind of underwater espionage mission, and had been captured by the Russians and taken back behind the Iron Curtain. Further rumors swirled: Crabb was investigating the same mysterious propellor, Crabb was attempting to sabotage the ship, Crabb was secretly a Soviet agent, Crabb was dead.

The scandal forced the UK Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden to address the issue publicly. While it became clear that MI6 was involved, very much out of its jurisdiction (domestic espionage is the preserve of MI5), he told the House of Commons that publicly revealing the fate of Crabb was “not in the public interest”.

Many theories had come to light in the years since. Soviet sources claimed that Crabb was intercepted and drowned as he approached the ship, or that he was shot by a sniper while on the surface, or that he had fallen foul of underwater Soviet sentries stationed around Ordzhonikidze and taken captive.

UK officials became concerned that Crabb had defected to the Soviets, either as a result of torture and brainwashing or, worse, willingly. Some believed that he had disappeared into Soviet Russia forever, others that MI5 had him pre-emptively killed to prevent this.

14 months after Crabb disappeared, a body in a diving suit was found in Chichester harbor. The suit and equipment matched those Crabb used, but formal identification was not possible as the body had no head or hands.

Investigators were divided as to whether this body could be Crabb. On the one hand, it did not seem to have a distinctive scar behind the knee which should rule out an identification. On the other, there was no other diver missing in the area, let alone one wearing old Royal Navy gear.

More information came to light in 2006 under the UK Government’s 50 Year Rule regarding classified documentation. It was confirmed that there were indeed UK espionage attempts on the Ordzhonikidze during her stay in Portsmouth. 

Furthermore Sydney Knowles, the frogman who had accompanied Crabb on his 1955 investigation of the Sverdlov-class warship, confirmed in a BBC interview that Crabb had been given the mission, and that he was not alone. It now appeared clear that the death of Crabb was at the center of a cover up.

But what of the man himself. Was he killed by the Soviets as he investigated the Ordzhonikidze, or taken captive back to Russia? Did his equipment fail in the attempt or did he himself, a heavy drinker and smoker, find the task too much?

Or was he ever there at all? Even after all this time, and with many secrets brought to life, we can never be sure what happened to Buster Crabb.

Top Image: Lionel “Buster” Crabb in diving gear off Gibraltar, 1944 (Coote, R G G (Lt) / Public Domain)