What Happened to Lionel 'Buster' Crabb?

 by Flixy Coote

On the 19th of April 1956, Lionel ‘Buster’ Crabb vanished from Portsmouth Harbour and just over a year later on June the 9th, 1957 the body of a diver was found floating in Chichester Harbour and despite missing it’s head and hands, was identified by Sydney Knowles, his previous diving partner, as Crabb. At the time, Crabb was believed to have disappeared after diving under a Russian warship, which was visiting Britain during the time of the Suez crisis. However, the mystery of his disappearance has never been fully solved, leading to the creation of a large multitude of conspiracy theories.

Lionel Crabb was a Royal Navy frogman and diver who was born in 1909. In 1939, he attempted to join the Navy but was refused on medical grounds, and instead became an army gunner at the outbreak of WW2. In 1941, he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve where he discovered his skill for diving so then became a part of the Royal Navy’s new diving unit. Following this, Crabb was sent to Gibraltar to remove unexploded mines from the hulls of Allied ships where both his bravery and expertise were recognised leading to the nickname of ‘Buster’ after the American swimmer and action hero. After the war ended, Crabb received a number of medals including the George Medal and an OBE and even though he left the Navy, he kept in close contact and did continue to help out with a number of naval projects. 

The year of 1955 marked Crabb’s first involvement in a covert mission surrounding the Cold War where he was tasked with his diving partner Sydney Knowles to undertake some secret dives surrounding a Soviet ship docked in Portsmouth Harbour. However, in March 1955 Crabb was forced to retire as a result of ill health and old age, but this was not the end to his career because allegedly he was recruited by the MI6.

In April 1956, in the period surrounding the Suez crisis the Russian ship Ordzhonikidze was moored in Portsmouth on a goodwill visit to Britain, with Britain aiming to keep relations with Russia strong as Russia was supplying arms to Egypt. However, Kruschev called a halt to these proceedings because he believed that his ship had been under surveillance by the British. On the 29th of April of the same year, in an incident which was apparently not related to this, Crabb was reported missing. A few days later, on the 4th of May there was a complaint to the foreign office from the Russians that a diver had been spotted in the waters surrounding their ship in Portsmouth harbour. 

Files surrounding the incident were not released until 2006, and these showed that on the 17th of April 1956 Crabb and an MI6 navy liaison officer checked into a hotel in Old Portsmouth after being recruited to investigate equipment on the Russian ship by another MI6 officer. Then, on the 19th of April Crabb and his partner took a boat out into Portsmouth Harbour and reportedly Crabb made one successful dive before coming up to gain some extra weights for his next dive which he never returned from. Before this, allegedly Crabb told his friends that he was short of money and was going to take a quick look at a russian ship for 60 guineas. A year later, a body missing both its arms and legs which was later identified as Crabb was found in Chichester harbour. But, this itself was unusual because both Crabb’s ex-wife and his girlfriend and technology at the time could not identify him, it was Knowles who made the decision based off of the fact that the body had a similar scar on it’s left knee to Crabb. The cause of death could not be determined.  

Even since the release of the files surrounding the case, there has been no concluding evidence to what actually happened to Crabb and whether the body found was actually his. One theory is that he had been caught in the propellers of the Ordzhonikidze and decapitated, another is that he was captured and killed by the Russians. In 2005, after Tim Binding released his book on Crabb’s life, Man Overboard, he reported that Knowles contacted him to share with him that allegedly Crabb’s intention was to join the Russians and the MI5 were aware of this. The theory that followed this was that Crabb had been assassinated by MI5 by a buddy diver during his dive. There was also a report of a former Soviet Naval intelligence officer Joseph Zwerkin alleging that he and his crew had noticed Crabb in the water and promptly shot him. A less extreme theory was that Crabb had suffered a respiratory issue in the water due to his health and age. Crabb did have a connection to the Cambridge five who were a spying ring providing information to the Soviets which would have been an implication on his disappearance. Finally, some believe that he was attempting to attack surveillance equipment to the Soviet ship, however this does not seem entirely credible because one would not think that Britain would want to be bombing Soviet ships during peace talks. What is most interesting of all though is the fact that the government will not formally release the Cabinet papers in relation to Crabb for another 60 years as a result of the Freedom of Information Act, therefore the truth will not be made known until 2057. 

What really happened to Buster Crabb will never be fully known or understood but hopefully the information which will be released in 2057 will shine more of a light to the surroundings of his death.