While not quite in that class the following story is certainly a remarkable long shot.
Back in 1988 I sent a bunch of letters to all the Crabbe addressees in Swansea, South Wales obtained from the local phone book. Most did not produce a reply even though I enclosed stamped addressed envelopes (sadly very typical) but one or two produced some useful information. One of the "no reply" letters was to M E Crabbe. I’m sure that you can imagine my surprise a couple of months ago when I opened a letter from the USA and out fell a photocopy of my letter to Swansea. Even more surprising was that the letter was from a Crabb descendant with no known British connections.
The writer, Joy Ann Crabb Morton of Bartlett Tennessee, asked if I had any information related to her family. I didn’t myself but referred her to Richard Prall in Albuquerque, New Mexico who I’m pleased to say has connected her to a line of Crabbs currently starting with Joseph Crabb born circa 1743 in Virginia.
Apparently Joy’s daughter’s mother-in-law found my letter in a drawer of a desk bought in an auction in Hernando organised by a Mr. Meeks who has since said that he gets a lot of his auction goods from the U.K.
It’s a strange series of coincidences indeed that links a letter from a Crabbe in England to another in Wales to a Crabb in the USA also interested in genealogy, and then back through one of the few Crabbes in England who would know about Richard Prall in the USA to make the final link in the chain helping Joy to trace her ancestry back a few generations further.
An only child, Buster (who hated his nickname) was born on the 28th January 1909 at 4 Greyswood Street in Streatham, South West London, the son of Hugh and Beatrice Crabb. During the Second World War he served in Gibraltar where Italian divers were attacking British shipping bersthed in the area. He acted as a mine and bomb disposal officer and pioneered the use of specialised underwater equipment. His exploits became known to the public at this time (they were also portrayed in the 1958 film ‘The Silent Enemy’ in which Lawrence Harvey starred as Crabb) and he was awarded the George Medal ‘for gallantry and undaunted devotion to duty’. Following Italy’s surrender to the Allies in 1943, he was transferred to Italy where his anti-frogmen activities helped to keep the northern ports clear for British warships and landing craft. For this work he was made an OBE.
After the war he was involved in anti-terrorist activities in Palestine - where militant Jews were trying to expel the British in order to establish their own homeland - but was demobbed in 1948. However, because of his considerable experience, the Royal Navy continued to make use of Crabb’s services both officially and, it is thought, unofficially.
Crabb married Margaret Elaine Player (nee Williamson) on the 13th March 1952. They had no children - although she already had a son from a previous marriage - and they were divorced after only a few years.
His name came to prominence again in April 1956 when he vanished during a ‘dive’ near Portsmouth. The Admiralty stated that he ahd been testing new underwater apparatus but there was considerable speculation at the time that there was a more sinister reason for his ‘disappearance’ - a modern Russian cruiser, the ‘Ordzhonikidze’, which had carried Premier Kruschev to Britain on a goodwill visit, had been moored in Portsmouth at the time! So had Crabb, in the process of making an underwater inspection of the ship, been detected and then killed by the Russians or had he got into difficulties during his mission and died as a result? Or had he, as has been suggested, deliberately presented himself for capture (at the CIA’s or MI5’s request) in order to infiltrate the Russian Navy - who would undoubtedly have wanted to make good use of a diver with Crabb’s experience - and later pass on information back to the Western intelligence services? If so, was he betrayed?
The answer is that nobody knows. A body - without hands or a head! - was found in Chichester harbour in June 1957 and accepted, by the Admiralty at least, as Crabb’s. A formal death certificate was issued and the body was buried in Milton Cemetary, Portsmouth.
However, doubts about what actually happened still persist.
