By John Vogel
June 9th, 1957 was a record setting date for a couple of British fishermen trolling the waters off Chichester Harbor. Along with their normal harvest of various ocean dwelling creatures, they found the catch of a lifetime: a body of a diver in a Royal Navy wetsuit. Identification was nearly impossible as it was missing both hands and its head. But a few folks in the British Government had an idea of who it was—a man by the name of Crabb.
Lionel Crabb was born of humble means in January of 1909 in South West England. For most of his 20s, he prepared himself to live a life at sea with the Royal Navy. When war hit England, the Royal Navy shifted gears and prepared for all out battle. Crabb had a brief stint as an Army machine gunner but quickly jumped back to the Navy, volunteering to become a Navy diver. He spent much of the war paddling around the Mediterranean, pulling Italian made mines off the bottom of Allied ships.
After the war ended, Crabb continued diving in and around the Mediterranean and Africa as a civilian. He participated in everything from expeditions to explore 16th century Spanish ships sunk in battle to scouting potential nuclear sites for the British government.
As the world entered the Cold War, Crabb found himself crab-walking into a bottle. Years of diving, smoking, and drinking caught up with him. With a failed marriage under his belt and adventure fading, he became a prime candidate for contractor work.
MI6 approached Crabb with a mission—if he was willing to accept it—to conduct an underwater reconnaissance of a Soviet naval vessel. He accepted the offer. The intel he reported back to MI6 allowed for a greater understanding of Soviet naval capabilities, including the overall engineering direction of the Soviet Navy. MI6 had themselves a diver.
Come 1956, Nikita Khrushchev was planning to sail to England to meet with Winston Churchill. Not wanting to waste an opportunity, MI6 received word that the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze would bring Khruschev across. Crabb was tasked with performing a nighttime dive to investigate the hull of the parked ship and its propeller system, recording anything of value for Naval Intelligence. His handler from MI6 watched him dive into Portsmouth Harbor and never saw him again.
So, when a headless, handless body dressed in a Royal Navy wetsuit is found in a net 14 months later, MI6 rushed to identify the body. Some said the body hair was a dead giveaway that it was Crabb, but others questioned the conclusion. Friends claimed the body was missing key scars that would positively identify him.
Either way, the official press release was that Crabb died during a simple training op. The Soviets were quick to counter the story, saying they identified frogmen around the ship the night he went missing, and that odds were good it was Crabb.
So of course, the rumor mill started.
The current running theories:
-Crabb’s mission was known by the Russians, and they sent in a frogman to slit Crabb’s throat.
-Crabb was captured, interrogated upon the ship, died during interrogation, and the body was dumped overboard.
-Crabb was taken back to Russia, interrogated and brainwashed, and converted into a Soviet frogman instructor by the name of Leonid Krabov. A corpse was dropped in the ocean covering the defection.
-Crabb was planning on defecting, and MI5 (not MI6) had him killed during the mission to avoid embarrassment.
-Crabb died of carbon dioxide poisoning due to faulty rebreathers and poor lung capacity due to drinking and smoking.
Eventually, the Brits admitted to the operation and that Crabb just simply didn’t come back. Where he went, though, is still up for debate.
