Wasn’t there some books that came out with photographs of Russian Naval Officers and one of them was identified as Crabb?

Blimey…a post about ‘Buster’ Crabb! Thank you sir! 🙂

I’ve got to say I’m always suspicious of ‘revelations’ that coincide with the publishing of a book or the showing of a TV documentary (and the making of money by somebody from the ‘success’ of either).

Of course it is very tempting to speculate about defection (or abduction) and a ‘new life’ as a Russian naval officer or (another story I’ve read) as a trainer of naval divers in East Germany but there are rather obvious problems with these versions.

Firstly, who is the body if it isn’t Crabb, and more importantly who is a planted body intended to deceive?

Surely if the Soviets wanted to hide the defection of Crabb a missing body is safer than risking a planted body being discovered as fake by the British.

Much has been made of the fact that Crabb’s ex-wife, girlfriend and former diving partner failed to identify the body as Crabb (after it had been in the sea for fourteen months) and that some were pressured by the British government into confirming it as Crabb despite this.

The conspiracy theorist would have us believe that the British government wanted to hide the ‘embarrassing’ defection of war-hero Crabb by saying the body was Crabb when it wasn’t. How would the British government have explained the embarrassment of a lunch meeting between Crabb and Khrushchev, televised for propaganda purposes, a few days, months or years after they confirmed Crabb was definitely the body found in the wetsuit?

Secondly, why no public information (or propaganda) about Crabb in the fifty years since he supposedly defected?

Thirdly, why do the only public accounts about Crabb to come from the former Soviet side both detail the circumstances surrounding his death?

Crabb would be about ninety-eight now, no piece of knowledge that he had in 1956 could be of any possible use to anybody in 2007 so there would be no point in concealing his defection now. Also there would surely have come a point in the last fifty years when all of the (limited) information Crabb could have divulged to the Soviets would be overshadowed by the propaganda value of such a high-profile defector.

To me, it just doesn’t stack up.

Have you a (German) source for that? Sounds to me like an example of British propaganda or myth. Certainly German W.W.I aircraft were noted to ‘sound different’ including having a ‘beat’ to them, as were W.W.II bombers; as to the Germans doing that ‘deliberately’ I can’t see it really, but it’s a good story to tell Grandma in the east end about the dastardly hun.

I’ve read somewhere that this was done to counter early ‘sound-locating’ anti-aircraft locators / directors?

Don’t think this is the last flying Jaguar as I believe ETPS still have XX145 at Boscombe Down in ‘raspberry ripple scheme?

Haven’t the Indian Air Force got one or two also? 😀

Interesting question…but surely it is just chance.

If two engines are running at roughly the same RPM the relative RPM between them must be low…

…and since at three points in every revolution the blades will adopt the same orientation they will ‘synchronise’ fairly often. And if the relative RPM is low they will tend to stay roughly synchronised for much of the time.

Just my guess. 🙂

Windscreen?

The camera contained a roll of film for about twelve exposures and was timed to expose them in ‘quick’ succession at approximately the same time as the photoflash would explode. The idea being that one exposure (at least) would coincide with the photoflash and give a good target photograph.

Don’t know what that means in terms of length-of-exposure…just my thoughts. 🙂

Jehovah

You’re only making it worse for yourself!

Making it worse? How can it be worse? Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!