Shadow under the keel
Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the United Kingdom took place from April 18 to 27, 1956, and was the first foreign trip by a Soviet leader to a capitalist country. Arriving on the brand-new cruiser Ordzhonikidze, he held talks with Prime Minister Anthony Eden, met with Queen Elizabeth II, and visited several industrial sites. This marked an attempt to ease Cold War tensions, strengthen economic and cultural ties between the two countries, and reduce international tensions following the death of I.V. Stalin. Pictured: The Soviet delegation's arrival in Portsmouth on the cruiser Ordzhonikidze.
This mysterious story The story began on April 18, 1956, when the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze arrived in Portsmouth, England, with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev on board. This visit was significant, as it was the first official visit of the Soviet leadership to the West, celebrated with flowers, hugs, and thunderous applause. Just one day later, on April 19, something mysterious happened when the celebrated British frogman Lionel Crabb, nicknamed "Buster," disappeared without a trace under the cruiser's hull.
The body of an unknown man was later discovered in the waters of Chichester Bay. It was decapitated and missing limbs, but the absence of a head and arms didn't prevent the identification of a Pirelli diving suit as Crabb's, as that was the type he typically used. The question of what he was doing there remains unclear, and to this day, it remains unclear what he was doing there.
Note. Pirelli diving suits are Italian-made suits from the mid-20th century, used by rescue divers during World War II (Decima Flottiglia MAS) and later by professional divers. Until 1968, Pirelli was a major manufacturer of diving equipment for the Italian Navy. fleetToday, these suits are highly prized as rare, groundbreaking examples in the history of scuba diving…
So what really happened seven decades ago in Portsmouth Harbor? And why was all of Britain outraged by the "cruelty and treachery" of the Soviet sailors, debating the press and television reports?
Lionel Crabbe
In 1956 the hotel Sally Port Inn, in Old Portsmouth, where the British diver Lionel Crabb, nicknamed "Buster", lived and worked, briefly found itself in the spotlight of international attention. News, when the mysterious disappearance of one of its guests, diver Lionel Crabbe, led to a huge political scandal and one of the greatest spy stories of all time.
Hotel Sally Port InnSituated just metres from the seafront, built in 1947 on the site of a war-torn 17th-century house, it is the setting for the legendary Buster Crabbe story, the birthplace of James Bond and a historic pub in the heart of Old Portsmouth.
A year later, June 9, 1957, marked a record for two British fishermen fishing in the waters off Chichester Harbor. Along with their usual haul of various marine creatures, they discovered the catch of a lifetime—the body of a diver in a Royal Navy wetsuit. Identification was virtually impossible, as both arms and the head were missing, but several in the British government speculated that it was a man named Lionel Crabb.
Lionel Crabb was born in 1909 to a modest English family in the southwest of England. Before the Second World War, he served in the Merchant Navy and the Royal Naval Reserve, and when the war began, he volunteered as a minesweeper diver, spending much of his service in the Mediterranean, clearing booby traps laid by Italian frogmen on the bottoms of British ships.
Lionel Crabb (1909–1956) – Royal Navy frogman and intelligence officer MI6, went missing during a reconnaissance operation against the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze in April 1956. The materials of this incident remain classified to this day.
Nicknamed "Buster" after the American actor and swimmer Buster Crabbe and recognised as a war hero and recipient of numerous awards including the George Medal and the Order of the British Empire, Lionel Crabbe was considered a brave but unconventional officer with a penchant for risky intelligence work and was in poor health at the time of his death due to smoking and alcohol abuse.
After the war, Crabb continued diving in the Mediterranean and Africa as a civilian. He participated in everything from expeditions to explore 16th-century Spanish ships sunk in battle to reconnaissance of potential nuclear sites for the British government. He later returned to the Royal Navy, where, in 1950 and 1951, he made two dives to explore sunken Royal Navy submarines. HMS Truculent и HMS Affray.
For his service, Crabb was awarded the George Medal and promoted to lieutenant commander. In 1943, he became a senior diving officer in Northern Italy, clearing mines from Italian ports. He was later awarded the Order of the British Empire.
As the world entered the Cold War, MI6 approached Crabb with a proposal—if he agreed—to conduct an underwater reconnaissance of the hull of the newest Soviet cruiser, the Sverdlov-class (68-bis), to assess its superior maneuverability. Crabb accepted the offer, and the information he obtained allowed the Admiralty to better understand the capabilities of the Soviet fleet, including the general engineering direction of its development. But years of diving, smoking, and drinking had taken their toll, and after a failed marriage and a waning thirst for adventure, he became the ideal candidate for contract work. So MI6 a diver appeared...
Maritime diplomacy
In 1956, British intelligence MI6 Crabb was assigned to a mission to study the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze, which was carrying high-ranking Soviet officials—First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev and Prime Minister Nikita Bulganin—who had been invited by Prime Minister Anthony Eden for an eight-day tour aimed at easing tensions during the Cold War. Crabb was tasked with conducting a night dive to examine the moored ship's hull and its propulsion system, capturing any valuable information for British naval intelligence. He was promised £3 for his underwater exploration of the Soviet cruiser.
First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N. S. Khrushchev and Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers N. A. Bulganin on the cruiser Ordzhonikidze
It was later revealed that this was part of Operation Claret, which was carried out by British intelligence services against Soviet ships and a government delegation.
Note. In addition to Crabb's underwater exploration of the cruiser, Operation Claret, conducted by British intelligence, also included other objectives. This included eavesdropping on the conversations of Soviet delegates, primarily N. S. Khrushchev and N. A. Bulganin, in their rooms at the five-star Claridge's Hotel in London. It was also planned for British submarines to record the propeller noise of the Soviet cruiser as it transited the English Channel. Furthermore, operational work was planned with the crews of Soviet warships, particularly the officers...
First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N. S. Khrushchev and Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers N. A. Bulganin on the cruiser Ordzhonikidze
After receiving Crabb's consent, on 8 April 1956 the First Lord of the Admiralty approached the British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, with a request for permission to carry out Operation Claret, directed against the Soviet cruiser and its crew.
However, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, who had high hopes for better relations with the Soviet Union and a softening of the Cold War, issued a clear directive to all intelligence agencies prohibiting any intelligence operations against Soviet leaders and the cruiser Ordzhonikidze on which they were arriving.
First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N. S. Khrushchev and Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers N. A. Bulganin on the cruiser Ordzhonikidze
And on 12 April the Prime Minister personally replied to the First Lord of the Admiralty regarding Operation Claret:
Unfortunately, under the current circumstances we are unable to take such action.
However, the intelligence services and the military department ignored the decision of the head of the British government...
Five-star hotel Claridge's in London, where the Soviet delegation stayed during an official visit
When an order is not a decree
But the London branch MI6, led by Nicholas Elliott, decided that the visit was too good an opportunity to miss and ten days before it was submitted to a certain adviser MI6 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a list of six operations directed against the Soviet delegation, with particular interest in the noise characteristics of the Soviet cruiser's propellers.
The cruiser Ordzhonikidze in Portland. This cruiser, along with the destroyers Smotryashchiy and Sovershenny, supported the visit of N. S. Khrushchev and N. A. Bulganin to Great Britain.
So, Crabb arrived in Portsmouth on the eve of the visit of the Soviet ships and, together with an assistant from MI6 He stayed at the local Sally Port Inn, and with the arrival of the Soviet delegation, he began to earn his fee.
In theory, Crabb was supposed to dive under the Soviet artillery The cruiser Ordzhonikidze, temporarily moored in Portsmouth harbor, was photographed to photograph its keel, propellers, and rudder. The British, then embroiled in complex Cold War espionage activities, sought to understand the underwater design of Soviet ships and the anti-submarine equipment they carried beneath their hulls.
Note. The cruiser Ordzhonikidze arrived in Portsmouth harbor amid great fanfare. On board were the two most important men in the Soviet Union: Nikolai Bulganin, the pragmatic, elegantly dressed Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, and Nikolai Khrushchev, the energetic and unkempt First Secretary of the Communist Party. They had arrived in Britain on a goodwill mission as guests of the British government.
British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N. S. Khrushchev and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR N. A. Bulganin at the official ceremony
Despite his exemplary wartime service, 47-year-old Crabb was not in the best physical condition. A heavy drinker and smoker, he reportedly downed five double whiskeys the night before during a drunken pub crawl in nearby Havant—not the best preparation for such a risky mission.
Crabb surfaced less than 20 minutes into his dive, complaining of cold and poor visibility, and requested an extra pound of ballast. His companion, J. Franklin, also a submarine officer, complied, attaching the extra weight to Crabb's gear. After checking Crabb's oxygen levels, Franklin watched him begin to descend and then sat back down to wait.
But around nine o'clock in the morning, Franklin realized something was wrong. Almost two hours had passed since Crabb had disappeared, with only 90 minutes' worth of oxygen left in his tank, yet no alarm or search had been launched after Crabb had been reported missing. Instead, Franklin, who had checked into a hotel, Sally Port Inn He and Crabb, who had met two days earlier, calmly paid the bill and hurried back to London, taking with him the diver's personal belongings, including his famous sword-like cane with a large silver tip adorned with a golden crab. Crabb hasn't been seen since.
Thus began the seventy-year mystery of the disappearance of Lionel "Buster" Crabb – a true spy story full of intrigue and speculation, which gave rise to numerous conspiracy theories and inspired journalists to write a number of books…
Seven decades after these events, many questions remain unanswered. What was Crabb doing on that fateful day? Who was he working for? What happened to him? And why has the British government still not declassified crucial evidence related to this case?
Secrets of the Depths
Between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m., three Soviet sailors aboard the destroyer Sovershenny, escorting the cruiser Ordzhonikidze, caught a glimpse of a diver surfacing between the sterns of two destroyers—it was almost certainly Lionel Crabb. The fact that he surfaced at all meant he was likely in serious trouble, and his position between the two destroyers suggested he was disoriented.
That same night, James Thomas, First Lord of the Admiralty, was dining with Admiral P. G. Kotov and some Soviet guests, one of whom asked:
What was that diver of yours doing near our ship this morning?
According to the Soviet admiral, Crabb was spotted floating on the surface around eight o'clock in the morning by a Soviet sailor. The First Lord of the Admiralty, denying the presence of any diver, assured P.G. Kotov that the most thorough investigation would be conducted and expressed hope that all discussions had been concluded. The Admiralty, using its intelligence services, attempted to conceal the attempted espionage of the Soviet ship…
In the photo on the left: Pavel Grigorievich Kotov (1911–2007) was a Soviet and Russian shipbuilder, engineer-admiral, and Hero of Socialist Labor, who held key positions in shipbuilding and management of the Soviet Navy. Pictured rightJames Purdon Lewis Thomas, 1st Viscount Silkennin (1903–1960) was a British politician who served as First Lord of the Admiralty from 1951 to 1956.
Fearing the consequences while the Soviet delegation was in Britain on a goodwill mission, MI6 immediately went into damage control mode, hastily preparing an elaborate cover-up of the truth. On April 21, 1956, a police officer approached the hotel reception desk. Sally Port Inn and tore out three pages from the guest book, removing any mention of the diver and his assistant staying there, attracting the attention of the ubiquitous British journalists. Then, on April 27, the Admiralty issued a statement claiming Crabb had gone missing after participating in a test of some underwater equipment in Stokes Bay, a few miles west of Portsmouth Docks. And it was a thinly veiled lie…
To the outside world, these details clearly didn't add up; Crabb's family was eager to get the full story, and journalists immediately sensed something was wrong...
Note: Given the information about the enemy diver, N.S. Khrushchev, despite the potential danger, decided to return home on the cruiser, and on April 27, 1956, the Soviet delegation departed. Information about the mysterious diver was kept under wraps, and most of the crew learned of the incident only upon returning to base, while the Ordzhonikidze was unscheduled for a thorough hull inspection. All participants in this naval campaign received commemorative tokens "For the Voyage to England." Furthermore, a significant group of sailors received valuable gifts from the USSR Minister of Defense, Marshal G.K. Zhukov.
Echo of the Abyss
After the Soviet ships left Portsmouth, the British press immediately went into an uproar, demanding an explanation for where professional diver Crabb had disappeared to and why he was near the Soviet ships. Some believed he had been killed by Soviet Navy divers, while others were certain he had been captured by the Soviets. Tensions grew further when the British Foreign Office confirmed Crabb's presence near the Soviet destroyers, adding that he had been acting undercover. "without any permission".
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden was furious. Not yet aware of the involvement MI6 Until May 4, he was forced to answer awkward questions in Parliament while simultaneously fending off questions from an increasingly suspicious press. And already on May 4, 1956, the Soviet embassy in London lodged an official note of protest regarding the discovery of an unknown diver near Soviet ships. That evening, Prime Minister Eden was again forced to answer to Parliament, as, according to British tradition, the prime minister is the head of all intelligence services, so he was the one held accountable.
Giving evidence in Parliament, Eden argued that it was not in the public interest to reveal the circumstances of Crabb's disappearance - actions MI6 were undertaken "without the permission or knowledge of Her Majesty's Ministers", and will be accepted "appropriate disciplinary measures"Although Eden maintained a restrained public demeanor, he was privately furious that the Secret Service had clearly violated his orders.
Eden, giving evidence in the House of Commons, said:
It would not be in the public interest to publicize the circumstances under which Commander Crabb is believed to have died. While it is customary for ministers to accept responsibility, I believe it is necessary, given the particular circumstances of this case, to clarify that what was done was done without the authorization or knowledge of Her Majesty's ministers. Appropriate disciplinary action is being taken.
And “appropriate disciplinary measures” were not long in coming!
The person responsible for the failure of Operation Claret was Major General John Sinclair (1897–1977), head of MI6, was dismissed from his post as head of the secret service in July 1956. The head was also replaced MI5 Dick White (1906–1993) and First Lord of the Admiralty Jim Thomas (1903–1960), and head of the London office MI6Nicholas Elliott, the overseer of Operation Claret, was also fired. Lower-ranking officials were also dismissed.
From left to right: chapter MI6 Major General John Sinclair, Chief MI5 Dick White and the London office manager MI6Operation Claret supervisor Nicholas Elliott
Thus, the Prime Minister admitted that British intelligence had taken unprecedented action against the cruiser Ordzhonikidze in Portsmouth while high-level negotiations with the Soviet delegation were underway. And no matter what the head of government said in parliament, he could not absolve himself of responsibility for this failure.
The British newspaper The Guardian wrote at the time:
The Russians were displeased. Pravda, the official daily newspaper of the Communist Party, called the episode "a shameful underwater espionage operation targeting those coming to the country on friendly visits," forcing us to issue a humiliating apology. Therefore, the construction of the friendship bridge with the USSR during the Cold War was interrupted by an earthquake...
But over time, Soviet-British relations improved. Eden resigned in January 1957 due to the Suez Crisis and was replaced by the more left-wing Harold Macmillan. Interest in the Crabb case seemed to have waned when, in June 1957, a fisherman named John Randall and his assistant discovered a headless body in a diving suit entangled in their fishing nets in Chichester Harbor, eight miles east of Portsmouth Dockyard.
Portsmouth Harbor in the 1950s. Portsmouth in the 1950s was a city undergoing rapid post-war transformation, recovering from heavy German bombing. Following World War II, the city underwent massive construction, replacing bomb-damaged buildings with new homes and businesses.
And instead of ending the controversy, this incident only fueled it. The missing vital body parts—the head and hands—made the body difficult to identify. Neither Crabb's mother nor his wartime diving partner, a certain Sydney Knowles, could definitively confirm that the body was Crabb's. Nevertheless, the coroner ultimately declared there was sufficient evidence to conclude it was Crabb's. Some believed him, but many did not, believing he had been captured and taken to the USSR.
Regarding the terrible discovery The Daily Telegraph published a message:
Yesterday, the funeral of submariner Captain 3rd Rank Lionel Crabb took place in Portsmouth. His body was discovered on June 9 in Chichester Bay, a year after he went missing during a visit by Russian ships to Portsmouth in April. No Navy representatives attended the funeral.
The recovered remains were interred in Milton Cemetery in Portsmouth, though Crabb's mother still refused to acknowledge that they were her son's. And while the discovery of the body ensured the celebrated commander a dignified burial, it didn't dispel the theories about his disappearance, which had been piling up like sketches at a police station.
In the photo on the leftLionel Crabb's gravesite at Milton Cemetery in Portsmouth, Hampshire. Although his death in 1956 remains shrouded in Cold War mystery after his disappearance during a mission, a body identified as his was buried there in 1957. Pictured right: Crabbe Awards
Theories about the disappearance
The cover-up soon gave rise to a wealth of speculation over the years, including claims that Crabb was alive and well and living in Russia, as well as allegations that he was murdered by Soviet authorities. Here are some of them:
Death under the cruiser's propellersLionel Crabb was near the propellers at the very moment the propulsion system was turned on. But several "coincidences" disprove the theory that the diver died under the cruiser's propellers. "Coincidentally," Crabb ended up under the bottom of this particular ship. "Coincidentally," the cruiser's propulsion system was warm and ready for immediate start-up. "Coincidentally," the cruiser's mechanics received the order: "Turn the propellers!" "Coincidentally," the diver was sucked under the cruiser's spinning propellers. However, according to the testimony of M. Urusov, one of the participants in the visit, the cruiser's propeller-driven mechanisms were not turning at the moment the diver was discovered...
Killed by a sniper with a rifleIn 1990, an interview with former Soviet intelligence officer Iosif Zverkin, who had emigrated to Israel, was published. Zverkin insisted that Commander Crabb was spotted from the cruiser Ordzhonikidze and shot by a sniper who was part of Khrushchev's security detail. Only then did his body fall under the propeller of one of the ships. This theory was not discussed by either the British or Soviet sides, as the likelihood of its realization in real-life circumstances is extremely low. Furthermore, Zverkin's account is not corroborated by other sources, including the watch crews of the Soviet naval detachment.
Death at the hands of a Soviet diverThe oldest version. In 2007, a Navy veteran, Eduard Koltsov, allegedly directly involved in Crabb's assassination, appeared on Russian television and admitted to being the one responsible for Crabb's death. Koltsov told reporters that on April 18, 1956, he, a 23-year-old combat diver, was assigned to conduct an underwater inspection of a cruiser after suspicious activity was detected around it.
Immediately after diving, I noticed the silhouette of a diver in a light wetsuit attaching something to the bottom near the ammunition magazine. As I swam closer, I realized it was a mine.
In the brief melee that followed, Crabb was killed—Koltsov slit his throat. As proof, Koltsov showed journalists the knife that had been used as the murder weapon, along with the Order of the Red Star he had received for successfully completing the mission. The naval veteran claims he decided to tell the truth after 50 years because he doesn't want this story to remain a secret forever.
This theory is relatively plausible, but not entirely realistic, especially in regard to the mining of the cruiser. If the cruiser had exploded at sea, the Soviet side would have received irrefutable evidence of a sabotage operation by British and other NATO intelligence agencies against not only the cruiser Ordzhonikidze but also the battleship Novorossiysk in Sevastopol Bay in 1955.
Soviet Navy veteran Eduard Koltsov, who allegedly killed the British underwater saboteur. Then 23, Koltsov claimed he slit Crabb's throat during an underwater skirmish after seeing him plant a mine on the Ordzhonikidze. Koltsov even showed a Russian film crew the very dagger he used and the Red Star medal he allegedly received for the deed.
Note. A similar incident had already occurred. Six months earlier, the battleship Novorossiysk exploded in Sevastopol, killing 829 people. One theory was that the mines were planted by British submarine saboteurs led by Crabb.
Hardware malfunctionThis is the simplest explanation. It was that Crabb's death was an accident, the result of an unfortunate equipment failure or perhaps a heart attack, given his pre-dive drinking. However, this line of reasoning underestimated Crabb's abilities as an experienced diver and ignored the fact that Portsmouth's sheltered docks weren't particularly challenging diving terrain for someone of his experience and skill.
Another version, the most conspiracy-theoreticInstead of killing Crabb, Soviet sailors took him—willingly or against his will—back to the Soviet Union, where he served as a diving officer in the Soviet Navy under the name Leonid Krabov (according to other sources, Leonid Korablyov), and that Soviet sailors dumped an anonymous, headless, and armless corpse into Chichester Harbor as a cover. This is not hard to believe, because Cold War espionage reached its peak in the 1950s...
According to the official version of the Admiralty, voiced after this incident, Crabb was
was specifically involved in connection with the testing of certain underwater equipment and went missing, presumed drowned.
Here's what the American magazine Time wrote:
...shortly after anchoring, the Ordzhonikidze took the precaution of releasing its divers overboard. Did the Russian divers encounter their British counterpart in the quiet depths? Was Buster Crabb killed there or kidnapped and taken to Russia? By the end of the week, the mystery of Crabb's fate remained as deep and inscrutable as the waters that surrounded him for most of his life.
In culture
Crabbe is often credited as the inspiration for writer Ian Fleming's creation of Britain's most beloved agent. MI6, James Bond, and it was even common knowledge that through his work as a naval intelligence officer, Ian Fleming became friends with the head of the London office MI6 Nicholas Elliott and is said to have been fascinated by Crabbe's mysterious disappearance.
Just like Bond, Crabbe stood out from the crowd—a complete eccentric, he often wore a monocle and carried a silver cane with a crab-shaped handle. But unlike the slender and trim Bond, in 1956 Crabbe was middle-aged, his health deteriorating under the influence of alcohol and strong Turkish cigarettes.
The Lionel Crabb case today
In October 2006, the British National Archives (The National Archives) published documents confirming that Crabb was part of the British intelligence service MI6, spying on the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze in Portsmouth Harbor. In October 2015, additional documents were released, including a full investigation report into the incident, which described the operation as "completely unsuccessful and unplanned".
But even despite these publications, some files remain classified, and their full release is planned for 2057. Then we will learn the whole truth...
The article is based on materials from Russian and foreign newspapers and magazines...
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