![]() ![]() In 1943 he became Principal Diving Officer for Northern Italy, and was assigned to clear mines in the ports of Livorno and Venice he was later created an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for these services. Awards Ĭrabb was awarded the George Medal for his efforts and was promoted to lieutenant commander. Their bodies were recovered, and their swimfins and Scuba sets were taken and from then on used by Sydney Knowles and Crabb. ![]() On 8 December 1942, during one such attack, two of the Italian frogmen, Lieutenant Visintini and Petty Officer Magro, died, probably killed by small explosive charges thrown from harbour-defence patrol boats, a tactic said to have been introduced by Crabb. At first they swam by breaststroke without swimfins. They dived with oxygen rebreathers, Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus, which until then had not been used much if at all for swimming down from the surface. He was one of a group of underwater clearance divers who checked for limpet mines in Gibraltar harbour during the period of Italian frogman and manned torpedo attacks by the Decima Flottiglia MAS. Initially, Crabb's job was to disarm mines that British divers removed, but eventually he decided to learn to dive. The next year he was sent to Gibraltar where he worked in a mine and bomb disposal unit to remove the Italian limpet mines that enemy divers had attached to the hulls of Allied ships. Second World War Īt the outbreak of the Second World War, Crabb was first an army gunner. In his youth Crabb held many jobs but after two years training for a career at sea in the school ship HMS Conway he joined the merchant navy and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve before the Second World War. They were a poor family Hugh Crabb was a commercial traveller for a firm of photographic merchants. Lionel Crabb was born in 1909 to Hugh Alexander Crabb and Beatrice (née Goodall) of Streatham, south-west London. Lieutenant-Commander Lionel Kenneth Phillip Crabb, OBE, GM (28 January 1909 – presumed dead 19 April 1956), known as Buster Crabb, was a Royal Navy frogman and diver who vanished during a reconnaissance mission for MI6 around a Soviet cruiser berthed at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1956. He retired to Scottsdale, Arizona, and died there of a heart attack in 1983.Officer of the Order of the British Empire He developed several business interests including Buster Crabbe Swim Pools. His debts were paid, but his acting skills grew less in demand. He was the host a children's series in New York City and starred in an NBC adventure series called Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion. He got into debt and looked for ways to make money. In the late 1940s, Crabbe left movies to put together his own water show. He played the heroes in 103 feature length jungle, crime, drama, and western B-movies as well as the heroes in nine movie serials. Īfter the 1932 Olympics, he went to Hollywood. He won 16 world and 35 national records during his swimming career. ![]() He trained as an Olympics swimmer, and won a bronze medal in the 1928 Summer Olympics and a gold medal in the 1932 Summer Olympics. He went to the University of Southern California, and was a member of its first swim team. 1933 –1983 ) (his death)Ĭrabbe started swimming as a boy. ![]()
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