Books

Title: A Corkhead's Chronicle - Experiences of a Royal Navy Clearance Diver 1955-76
Paperback: 304 pages
Author: David J. Lott BEM
Publisher: Woodfield (2005)
ISBN: 1 84683 001 X
Price: £15

Former FCPO(D) Dave 'Mona' Lott's career as a CD including mentions of MCDOs and CDOs Pat Dowland, Bill Filer, Franky Franklin, Bill Grady, Steve Gobey, Mike Harwood, David Hilton, Stuart Honour, Jumbo Jervis, Ken Kempsell, Cyril Lafferty, Hamish Loudon, Chris Massie-Taylor, Gerry 'Pincher' Martin, Les Maynard, Neil Merrick, Peter Messervy, John O'Driscoll, Harry Parker, Bob Pilling, Jon Riches, Norman Taylor, Ed Thompson, Julian Thomson, Harry Wardle, Jackie Warner and Bob White plus many other CDs of all ranks and rates although some names are spelled imaginatively.

Title: A Diver in the Dark: Experiences of a Pioneer Royal Navy Clearance Diver
Paperback: 180 pages
Author: Sydney Knowles BEM
Publisher: Woodfield (2009)
ISBN: 1 84683 082 6
Price: Various

Entertaining memoir of a pioneer Royal Navy Clearance Diver and diving partner of Commander Lionel 'Buster' Crabb OBE GM.
Sydney Knowles was born in Preston, Lancashire, where he grew up during the 1920s and 30s, volunteering to join the Royal Navy in 1939, aged 18. He served in the North Atlantic aboard RN destroyer HMS Zulu during the hunt for the Bismarck and in HMS Lookout (also a destroyer) on transatlantic convoy duty and later on 'Operation Pedestal', the famous Mediterranean convoy that broke the Siege of Malta in 1942 after withstanding intensive attacks by enemy aircraft and submarines, sustaining heavy losses.
On returning to the relative safety of Gibraltar after 'Pedestal', Sydney volunteered to join a small squad of Navy divers known as the Underwater Working Party, whose task was to protect Allied shipping at anchor in Gibraltar harbour against attack by Italian underwater saboteurs of the Gruppa Gamma. Equipped with nothing but swimming trunks, lead-weighted plimsolls and primitive underwater breathing apparatus, the British divers worked in all weathers to search, often in total darkness, beneath the hulls of ships at anchor for mines attached by enemy frogmen. If they located such a device they would have to try to cut it loose or call for the assistance of their commanding officer - Lieutenant (later Commander) Lionel `Buster' Crabb. Crabb's expertise at rendering safe explosive marine devices would earn him a considerable reputation and, as his diving partner and assistant, Sydney later accompanied him on many mine disposal tasks. His hair-raising stories about their remarkable escapades together in Italy are justification enough for reading this book.
But Sydney has much more to tell... In the postwar years he and Commander Crabb renewed their association and in 1950 they dived together in search of a Spanish galleon that had sunk in Tobermory Bay on the Isle of Mull in 1588, reputedly filled with treasure; an ultimately unsuccessful quest that nearly cost Sydney his life. In 1955 he would be invited to dive with the Commander again, but under very different circumstances. Crabb asked Sydney to accompany him on a clandestine mission to spy on the Russian warship Sverdlov while it was moored in Portsmouth harbour on a goodwill visit. They dived, discovered the secret of its remarkable manoeuvrability and returned undetected.
Crabb was by now a regular visitor to a house in Chelsea where Sir Anthony Blunt hosted soirées for a coterie of acquaintances, some of whom were later revealed to have been involved in the murky world of Cold War espionage. Sydney attended some of these gatherings but became increasingly confused by his ex-boss's behaviour and suspicious of the people he was associating with. Was Crabb a spy? Was he planning to defect? Sydney once again found himself in the dark, but this time it was regarding the Commander's intentions...
Sydney's memories of these meetings and of subsequent events that culminated in the disappearance of Commander Crabb in 1956, while on another clandestine dive at Portsmouth, this time to spy on the Russian cruiser Ordzhonikidze, provide a unique insight into a mystery.
Foreword written by Rob Hoole, Vice Chairman & Webmaster, Minewarfare & Clearance Diving Officers' Association (MCDOA).

Title: A Million Tears
Paperback: 544 pages
Author: Paul Henke
Publisher: Good Read Publishing Limited (May 1998)
ISBN: 1 9024 8300 6
Price: £9.99

The first in MCDOA member Paul Henke's fictional series about the powerful Griffiths dynasty which originates in humble circumstances in Wales.

Title: Above Us The Waves: The Story of Midget Submarines and Human Torpedoes
Hardback: 256 pages
Author: C E T Warren and James Benson
Publisher: Harrap (1953)
ISBN: ASIN: B0007KC73Q
Price: Various

It was the Italians who pioneered the use of two-man human torpedoes or 'chariots', and their attacks on ships of the Royal Navy in Alexandria Harbour in 1941 caused Winston Churchill to write to the Chief of Staffs committee to enquire what was being done to emulate these daring attacks. The result was the development of British 'chariots' which were regarded as stop-gaps until the X-craft or midget submarines could be deployed. The book is divided into five parts. The first covers the development, training, growing pains and the attempt on the Tirpitz, the second and third to Mediterranean and Norwegian operations, while the fourth deals with the coast of Fortress Europe and the Normandy Beaches. Part Five considers the special preparations for the Far East and the exploits achieved in the fight against the Japanese. There are several appendices and an index to complete an absorbing record of a novel and important innovation in warfare.