The Disappearance Of Lionel “Buster” Crabb

The same day Mountbatten was assassinated, the Provisional IRA also blew-up 18 paratroopers at the Warrenpoint Ambush. So, although the Provisional IRA seemed to have ‘claimed’ responsibility for Mountbatten’s death in their press release, it was in fact the Warrenpoint Ambush that they were claiming responsibility for. The Provisional IRA’s statement spoke only in the singular confirming;

“…This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country…”

“This Operation”; which operation that day were they referring to? If the press release was referring to Warrenpoint then the Provisional IRA did not carry out the Mountbatten attack. So who did?

McMahon a know bomb maker was arrested and ultimately convicted for the planting the bomb but not for detonating it. The problem was the bomb was detonated at 11.39am at which point McMahon was 70 miles away and in police custody having been arrested on suspicion of a stolen car. He’d also been in police custody since 9:00am, two hours prior to the bomb exploding. McMahon was convicted by forensic evidence supplied by forensic scientist Dr James O’Donovan that showed flecks of paint from the boat and traces of nitro-glycerin on his clothes. But he didn’t detonate the bomb that killed Mountbatten? To this day McMahon has refused to even discuss the matter.

Whilst in Portlaoise Prison McMahon met and befriended Patrick Holland better known as ‘Dutchy’ who died in a British prison under suspicious circumstances (one of many people that came into contact with McMahon to die suspiciously). Before he died Holland confided in Giovanni Di Stefano to what McMahon had told him.

Holland said that Mountbatten had not been a target of the IRA and that McMahon had told him whilst in prison that the reason he had been arrested two hours before the explosion was to ensure he would not be blamed for what he termed ‘special operation’. McMahon was certainly a known Provisional IRA man and he and his father knew explosions well but ‘Dutchy’ was adamant that McMahon had told him he did not do it. Holland told Di Stefano that the deal McMahon had agreed was that he would take the blame for all the murders and his family would be taken care of. McMahon’s wife was indeed ‘looked after’ and even entered the political forum and throughout McMahon’s time in jail Holland confirmed that McMahon lacked for nothing. McMahon in fact was released from jail in August 1998 as part of the Good Friday peace agreement. He lives in Ireland in a hillside bungalow in Lisanisk, close to the market town of Carrickmacross in Co Monaghan.

Di Stefano claims Mountbatten was murdered by the British Security Services because of a deep rooted secret involving Mountbatten, that if revealed would have been so damaging to the Royal Family that it may have damaged their reputation forever.

The name of Atwood as a CIA operative also pops up in reference to the Mountbatten assassination. Perhaps MI5 used the CIA/Atwood to help push the IRA along, in order to target Mountbatten in the first place? Perhaps Atwood planted the seed in the IRA War council to begin with. Either way MI5 couldn’t directly get involved for 2 reasons. The IRA wouldn’t trust them and they could never be connected to it. An arms dealer like Atwood, on the other hand, well he could be used in the same way that MI6 had used Crabb via the CIA back in 1956, over The Ordzhonikidze. Which is for denial of responsibility.


continued ......

Conclusion
If Mountbatten, the man who introduced Elizabeth II to her husband, Phillip, was passing information onto the KGB, there’s no question, it would have to be kept a secret. The release of that news would have being an embarrassment to The Queen. Realistically the breaking of such news would mean that The Palace (who normally never respond to anything or used to until recently) would have to publically respond. It wasn’t only the queen though; it would also be an embarrassment to Prince Charles, the future King. Charles was devastated by the death of Lord Mountbatten. Remember he was his mentor and pretty much his surrogate father.

There’s no way that Margaret Thatcher could have exposed Mountbatten along with Blunt in 1979 or even just 7 years later in 1986 when the Crabb Affair papers came under review. It was too close to his death and would have being insensitive, even if he had being a spy. Anyway the death of Mountbatten was good PR for the British Government. His assassination was seen as appalling and in the public arena, worked in their favour, against the IRA.

Perhaps the Crabb Affair Cabinet Papers revealed Blunts involvement directly, and in the intervening years up to 1986 it retrospectively pointed to Mountbatten. I don’t know. My point is that surely the only explanation for 100-year secrecy can’t just be over the death of a diver. Or as is often proposed, to protect government incompetence or sovereign embarrassment on behalf of the USSR (that no longer exists). It has to be something very big. Something like or close to this? The Palace could not possibly be allowed the embarrassment of having to address the fact that a very close royal family member (even forgetting he fact he was head of the armed forces) was a KGB agent. Blunt was one thing but Mountbatten would be something else. It would have been the same as revealing that Prince Charles was a KGB spy.

Speaking of which, Prince Charles was born in 1948. If you do the math’s 2057 just makes sure even if he lives a long healthy life, he’s avoided the embarrassment of commenting on the duplicity of his mentor either in 1986, now, or in the future as King.

I realise this is probably a little unsatisfying if you were hoping to find a few more specifics directly relating to Crabb himself or how he met his end, so I apologies for that. Perhaps one day we’ll know though, or at least our grandchildren might. At the very least, I do think if you managed to read and digest everything up to this point (and I suppose I should add, if you believe it) it adds another level of understanding to the mystery. I think it provides a little more detail and dimension to the type people that were involved with and influencing the politics of the day and by default influenced and shaped the world in which you and I are living in today.


Food for Thought
As far as we are aware there are only really two unresolved mysteries from the 1940s and 50s and both of them involve Crabb. The first, directly, which is the Crabb Affair itself. The second event involves Crabb but it also involves Lord Mountbatten and at least Philby from 'The Cambridge Five', it’s just not possible to untangle them all from each other. That event was the Death, or as most people believe, assassination, of the Polish Allied General Sikorski in Gibraltar 1943.


Additional
I wanted to add that I did hesitate to quote Di Stefano the ‘Devil’s advocate’ with regard to Paddy Holland and his version of the McMahons revelation regarding the Mountbatten Assassination Cover-up. He is known to be a liar but then perhaps in this instance he’s telling the truth. Perhaps his character is under assassination itself through disinformation because he’s telling the truth. So I decided to include it anyway, at least that way you have the choice to make your own minds up.


SOURCE LINKS

The Venona Project
en.wikipedia.org...

The Cambridge Five
en.wikipedia.org...

Anthony Blunt
deeppoliticsforum.com...
www.whale.to...
www.dailymail.co.uk...

Lord Mountbatten
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
www.thefamouspeople.com...
books.google.co.uk... 3M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KvFAUeOGLIyo0wW_yoGQBg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=mountbatten%20crabb%20friends&f=false

edit on 19-3-2013 by region331 because: spelling

Operation Claret
books.google.co.uk... hbez6wQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TpFIUf-zFoeZ0AW4toHADQ&ved=0CEgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=constable%20ronald%20williams%201957&f=false

Morris “Two Guns” Cohen (adventurer)
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

Dribergh
en.wikipedia.org...

The Sixth Man
paranoidsonline.blogspot.co.uk...

Mountbattens Assassination
www.onlinepublishingcompany.info...
www.politics.ie...
wais.stanford.edu...
www.independent.ie...

If anyone is interested, Dr. John Bevan from the Historical Diving Society has made a Freedom of Information request to the MOD for any information on "Operation Claret". It looks like the MOD has to respond by April 3rd 2013.www.whatdotheyknow.com...

I think the MOD initially said in 2006 that they couldn't release its files on Crabbs mission because they are among hundreds suspected of being contaminated with asbestos dust in storage.

I wonder if they'll use the same excuse for any papers on the other mission 'claret'? Acknowledging it would be a start though.

Ministry of Defence response via The Royal Navywww.whatdotheyknow.com...


Naval Service FOI Coordination Cell
Navy Command Headquarters
MP 1-4, Leach Building
Navy Command
Whale Island
Portsmouth
PO2 8BY

Telephone: 02392 625081
Our Reference: 01-03-2013-134040-005
Fax: 02392 625279

20 March 2013

Dear Mr Bevan

Request for Information – Final Response

We are now able to make a substantive response to the Freedom of Information
request of 1 March 2013 requesting the following information:

“sight of documents referring to RN diving operations under Soviet
warships berthed in Portsmouth Harbour in April 1956, possibly under
the code name 'Operation Claret'. I believe the diving team was
based at HMS Vernon and attached to the Admiralty Experimental
Diving Unit.”

Your inquiry has been passed to Navy Command for a final response and is being
treated as a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

The information you have requested has been previously published and is available
at the following National Archives link:
webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk...:/www.mod.uk/Defe
nceInternet/FreedomOfInformation/DisclosureLog/SearchDisclosureLog/RussianWar
shipsVisitingPortsmouthInApril1956.htm

You might also wish to be aware that there is further information on this subject at
The National Archives as indicated by the TNA Catalogue entry available via:
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk...
&CATID=6077525&SearchInit=4&SearchType=6&CATREF=ADM+1%2F29240

Thank you for the further information region331. Your writing style reminds me of Fortean Times, where the material is presented and the reader, for the most part, is allowed to draw their own conclusions. I wish more people would take a page out of your book.

Sydney Knowles wrote what The Telegraph described as "a particularly colourful theory" in his book Diver in the Dark (2009).

Sydney Knowles Obituary - The Telegraph

he wrote that Crabb was a member of a dining club known as “The Last Supper”, a coterie of hard-drinking young men, all, to Knowles’s mind “obviously homosexual”. The club was presided over by the traitor Anthony Blunt who, Knowles wrote, was known by all as “Queen Mother”. Other guests whom Knowles claimed to have met included the bandleader Ray Noble, the Labour MP Bernard Floud, the head of MI5 Roger Hollis, and the American Left-wing author Lillian Hellman. It was, Knowles claimed, in this company that Crabb began to talk of defecting to the Soviets. Knowles suggested that the potential embarrassment of this prompted MI5 itself to kill Crabb, an execution carried out by the new “dive buddy” who replaced Knowles on the dive on Ordzhonikidze. Crabb, Knowles insisted, did not dive alone on his last mission.

Originally posted by zigguratvertigo
Thank you for the further information region331. Your writing style reminds me of Fortean Times, where the material is presented and the reader, for the most part, is allowed to draw their own conclusions. I wish more people would take a page out of your book.

Sydney Knowles wrote what The Telegraph described as "a particularly colourful theory" in his book Diver in the Dark (2009).

Sydney Knowles Obituary - The Telegraph

he wrote that Crabb was a member of a dining club known as “The Last Supper”, a coterie of hard-drinking young men, all, to Knowles’s mind “obviously homosexual”. The club was presided over by the traitor Anthony Blunt who, Knowles wrote, was known by all as “Queen Mother”. Other guests whom Knowles claimed to have met included the bandleader Ray Noble, the Labour MP Bernard Floud, the head of MI5 Roger Hollis, and the American Left-wing author Lillian Hellman. It was, Knowles claimed, in this company that Crabb began to talk of defecting to the Soviets. Knowles suggested that the potential embarrassment of this prompted MI5 itself to kill Crabb, an execution carried out by the new “dive buddy” who replaced Knowles on the dive on Ordzhonikidze. Crabb, Knowles insisted, did not dive alone on his last mission.

Thanks Zigguratvertigo, I can't take credit. I'm just editing the information together.

The late Sydney Knowles is a very interesting character. His story, at pretty much every turn, reinforces the idea that there was a cover-up. Which in itself we know. It's accepted by everyone that MI6 tried to cover it up.

The problem is Sydney Knowles is adamant that the body was not Crabb. In his version of events, Knowles points out that he was asked by CID if Crabb had any scars or distinguishing features. He informs them of the left knee scar and days later the body is re-examined and a scar is found. A photograph of the scar is taken but for some reason the tissue showing the scar was not attached to the body. It had been cut away.

There's more but the point is that he knows that the body was not Crabb and he admits that he was part of that cover-up. Even if he's lying (assuming he wasn't mentally ill), why is he lying.

Which does beg the line of questions. Who does the body belong to and what happened to Crabb.

Originally posted by region331

There’s no way that Margaret Thatcher could have exposed Mountbatten along with Blunt in 1979 or even just 7 years later in 1986 when the Crabb Affair papers came under review. It was too close to his death

This sounds very well possible.
Great work - and this goes not only for your compelling collection of facts/reports/statements, but also for the way you drew up the whole thing.
The conclusion you draw seems not unlikely, especially when bearing in mind the "internals" Britain had to struggle with in the Thatcher-years. In addition to this, one should remember the warlike state of affairs in Northern Ireland. In a climate like this, any topic like a potential "Mountbatten-story" would have certainly had firm and solid chance for many more decades under the "veil of secrecy".

reply to post by region331


Hi,
About 25 years ago I read a "novel", written by a former British intel officer about the Crabb affair.
The scenario was that Crabb was doing Intel work during krueschev's visit to England and caught a Russian diver planting a mine, just as in one of your scenarios, and was killed in a struggle with the Russian diver, who was taken into custody, and spilled the beans. He was part of KGB plot to kill krueschev,while in Britain and blame it on the British.
At one point British intelligence, was able to pull the KGB chief aside and tell him "I know what you did", and made him am offer, give us info or we tell your boss.
So the KGB chief supplied high level Intel for several years, until he was discovered, and suffered from a fatal case of the "9mm" flu.
The west had such a handle on what the soviets were doing, from the information that was being passed, that the whole Cuban missle crisis was an engineered incident, we knew those missles were going to Cuba before they were ever loaded on a ship.
In the book it was implied that this whole affair was tied in with the Kennedy assasination, which was a revenge killing by the soviets, and they used thier influence to get others to do the job" namely the mob , and extreme right-wingers within government, without realizing they were being played.
Lord Mountbattens killing in the 80's was the last high profile incident stemming from the original Crabb affair.
It was a very good book, and the author wrote it when he was the last living person involved.

reply to post by punkinworks10


What was Mountbatten's involvement in the novel?