The Crabb Enigma
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Product Description
Product Description
Commander 'Buster' Crabb, a British naval frogman, disappeared whilst undertaking an underwater 'spying mission' involving the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze in 1956. Just over a year after he disappeared, a body washed up headless and handless near Portsmouth. The establishment took charge of the body and, at an inquest, declared it to be Crabb. However, vital evidence was omitted and key witnesses not called. It's now known that it was not Crabb who was buried in Portsmouth. The problem for the establishment was that Crabb worked for the then head of the Royal Navy, Lord Mountbatten. At the time, US government security agencies had alleged that Mountbatten was doing 'unofficial' business with the Soviet Union. This, UK officials believed, was a valid reason for Crabb's story to be held secret until 2056 - an unprecedented 100 years. The FBI and CIA state that it is in the interests of US National Security not to make available any documentation or information, and applications to the KGB by the authors remain unanswered. However, for thirty years Admiral Gennadiy Zakharov trained Spetsnaz troops in Naval sabotage and states that Crabb was in the Eastern Bloc at that time. Sir Percy Silitoe, former head of MI5 also states that the department had a file that proved Crabb was in the Soviet Union. The story also involves the British ruling class and Royalty. It is a tale of illegal activities, art and currency smuggling, Nazi looted gold and treasure, homosexual blackmail, threats and mysterious deaths. The authors and witnesses have been subjected to government surveillance, mail interception and telephone tapping both by the UK authorities and INTERPOL. Following publication of the authors' previous book Frogman Spy, attempts were made to kill both a researcher and a vital witness. This is the murky world of what the establishment does not want you to know.
About the Author
Following the publication of Frogman Spy (1990), Mike and Jacqui Welham continued to gather information about Commander 'Buster' Crabb. Mike was a professional diver and involved with diving for almost 45 years. Jacqui is a recreational diver and both have dived in the UK and abroad.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Confused prose, poor proof-reading and many appearances by The Flying Apostrophes have turned this book into a wasted opportunity to tell an interesting story . A simple illustration: Crabb's diving partner is referred to as Knowles, Knowels and knowles, which is just plain sloppy workmanship. A disappointed reader, I'm afraid I gave up very early on. The only consolation was- sorry Amazon - that I'd borrowed it from the library and hadn't spent money on it.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an unusual book, an odd book and is partly very readable, while at the same time containing a huge number of spelling errors and which makes a number of largely or wholly unproven assertions about the fate of the enigmatic Crabb, who disappeared, famously, while trying to investigate the hull of a Soviet warship in 1956.
There was been a 1958 film made about Crabb (Laurence Harvey playing Crabb), covering his wartime years as a daring diver in Gibraltar. There have been also a nunber of books about him, including one I remember reading while at school (which book is cited in this work too). That book, from 1968, claimed that Crabb had been captured, "turned" (possibly before capture, if I remember aright what I read 40 years ago) and made into a Soviet naval officer. Personally, I find the claim impossible mainly because if the Soviet naval Spetsnaz forces found Crabb useful, he would have been used as a trainer of diving saboteurs, not (as the book claimed) serving in uniform on Soviet ships. There is also the point that Crabb was born 1909, so by the late 1950's he would be about 50, old for a diver, let alone a combat one. Then there is the Soviet suspicion about people, especially those with foreign origins or links. Also, by the late 1950's Soviet diving had moved on greatly from the zero-point it was in when Crabb was serving and fighting in and around Gibraltar (from 1941). Would they really have needed him?
This book does tend to follow in the footsteps of that 1968 book, i.e. that Crabb was still alive for years, indeed decades, after his disappearance and was in Soviet service. One cannot totally discount the theory, if only because it is odd that the British files on Crabb will not be released until 2057, but the evidence is slight.
This book brings up extraneous facts which do not seem relevant: Nazi gold buried in the mud of Swiss or Austrian lakes, the scandal of the Kincora Boys' Home in Northern Ireland and allegations that Mountbatten and others were involved; also in relation to the latter, allegations that Blunt, the spy, was involved with Kincora from the 1930's. There is little or no evidence provided as to these claims and no attempt to properly link them together or with the Crabb story as a whole. Indeed, a major problem with this book is the number of times quite startling or interesting claims are made without any corroborative evidence. There is no index though there is a bibliography of sorts.
As to errors of spelling, proofing etc, they are truly legion. A few which caught my eye:
# "Silitoe" for [Sir Percy] Sillitoe, one-time D-G of MI5;
# "Borovick" for Borovik;
# "Court Marshall" for court-martial;
# "Suverov" for [Viktor] Suvorov, the GRU defector and author;
# "Tedington" for Teddington and so on.
One or two translations from the Russian were not quite right, either.
I should like to have known something of the authors, a husband and wife. From one part of the text it appears that the husband was a commercial diver in the 1970's.
I did find the book quite a good read in quite a number of places, but this is not a work I would recommend.
There was been a 1958 film made about Crabb (Laurence Harvey playing Crabb), covering his wartime years as a daring diver in Gibraltar. There have been also a nunber of books about him, including one I remember reading while at school (which book is cited in this work too). That book, from 1968, claimed that Crabb had been captured, "turned" (possibly before capture, if I remember aright what I read 40 years ago) and made into a Soviet naval officer. Personally, I find the claim impossible mainly because if the Soviet naval Spetsnaz forces found Crabb useful, he would have been used as a trainer of diving saboteurs, not (as the book claimed) serving in uniform on Soviet ships. There is also the point that Crabb was born 1909, so by the late 1950's he would be about 50, old for a diver, let alone a combat one. Then there is the Soviet suspicion about people, especially those with foreign origins or links. Also, by the late 1950's Soviet diving had moved on greatly from the zero-point it was in when Crabb was serving and fighting in and around Gibraltar (from 1941). Would they really have needed him?
This book does tend to follow in the footsteps of that 1968 book, i.e. that Crabb was still alive for years, indeed decades, after his disappearance and was in Soviet service. One cannot totally discount the theory, if only because it is odd that the British files on Crabb will not be released until 2057, but the evidence is slight.
This book brings up extraneous facts which do not seem relevant: Nazi gold buried in the mud of Swiss or Austrian lakes, the scandal of the Kincora Boys' Home in Northern Ireland and allegations that Mountbatten and others were involved; also in relation to the latter, allegations that Blunt, the spy, was involved with Kincora from the 1930's. There is little or no evidence provided as to these claims and no attempt to properly link them together or with the Crabb story as a whole. Indeed, a major problem with this book is the number of times quite startling or interesting claims are made without any corroborative evidence. There is no index though there is a bibliography of sorts.
As to errors of spelling, proofing etc, they are truly legion. A few which caught my eye:
# "Silitoe" for [Sir Percy] Sillitoe, one-time D-G of MI5;
# "Borovick" for Borovik;
# "Court Marshall" for court-martial;
# "Suverov" for [Viktor] Suvorov, the GRU defector and author;
# "Tedington" for Teddington and so on.
One or two translations from the Russian were not quite right, either.
I should like to have known something of the authors, a husband and wife. From one part of the text it appears that the husband was a commercial diver in the 1970's.
I did find the book quite a good read in quite a number of places, but this is not a work I would recommend.
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