ninth January 2025
Fifty-one years in the past this February, the Hull trawler Gaul and her 36 crew had been misplaced with out hint, a tragedy that impressed many years of hypothesis and campaigning.
By BRIAN W LAVERY
Within the years after the Gaul H 243 vanished off the North Cape of Norway, her identify was not often talked about with out ‘spyship’ previous it. It was finally accepted that the vessel had merely been overwhelmed by atrocious climate – however the years of campaigning within the wake of the tragedy would assist to reveal how the federal government had coated up the British fishing fleet’s involvement in Chilly Struggle espionage for many years.
The Gaul initially fished from North Shields because the Ranger Castor, and had been purchased by British United Trawlers of Hull and renamed solely the earlier autumn. She was an excellent[1]fashionable, 1,100t freezer stern trawler.
Gaul left Hull on 22 January, 1974 for the North Cape commanded by reduction skipper Peter Nellist rather than her typical skipper Ernie Suddaby.
On the best way, Gaul stopped at Bridlington to choose up crewman Invoice Treacy, and later signed up ‘stowaway’ John Heywood, who had fallen asleep after lacking the ‘all passengers ashore’ announcement after he obtained drunk saying farewell to friends.
On 26 January, she referred to as into Tromsø in Norway to land mate George Petty, who had suffered a rupture damage onboard. His substitute Maurice Spurgeon flew out subsequent day.
The trawler arrived at North Cape Financial institution on 29 January with 36 males aboard. All had been from Hull and North Shields, together with the reduction skipper and mate.
On 7 February, an autopilot system fault was reported. Subsequent morning, Invoice Brayshaw, mate of the Hull trawler Swanella, spoke along with his buddy Maurice Spurgeon by radio.
Blizzards made visibility virtually unattainable, and waves of as much as 50ft battered vessels in drive 10 gales. Swanella later reported a derrick ‘bent like a pin’ when a large wave clattered it.
Different trawlers reported storm harm, and fought to keep away from capsizing. The Gaul reported through radio that she was ‘laid and dodging close to North Cape Financial institution’.
At 10.45am on Friday, 8 February, Invoice Brayshaw turned the Swanella head to wind. He noticed the Gaul six miles astern on his radar. Two non-public telegrams had been despatched from the Gaul between 11.06am and 11.09am. These had been the final communications from the vessel.
In Hull, employees failed to lift an alarm regardless of a weekend of radio silence. The following inquiry heard that supervisor Tony Hudson had gone to a soccer sport and didn’t instruct the junior left in cost. He was later fired. This negligence wouldn’t have made a fabric distinction, however would have began the search earlier, the inquiry court docket heard.
As soon as the Gaul was reported lacking, a search involving the Royal Air Pressure, Royal Navy and Norwegian air and sea forces started – however they discovered no hint of the lacking vessel.
An ideal storm for many years of conspiracy theories was created virtually instantly. Some had been credible, some loopy. They included the crew being captured by the Soviet Navy whereas spying, nets being dragged underneath by a submarine, and the vessel being sunk by the Russians after hitting an undersea ‘listening cable’.
For years, some kinfolk held on to the idea that their males had been being held in a Soviet labour camp – or that each ship and crew had been being held.
It had been recognized for trawlers to be tracked by the Russians, so this didn’t fully lack credibility. In 1959, Hull trawler Arnold Bennett was held from 25 November to fifteen December after an armed Soviet boarding social gathering took her hostage. Again house, households had been frantic.
Later, Skipper Eddie Gibbins instructed his native paper: “That they had a fancy about cameras. All they saved saying was ‘cameras, stowaways’. They had been armed. They searched in every single place.”
Eddie Gibbins was later tried in Murmansk and fined for ‘unlawful fishing’. The British Embassy paid the wonderful, and Arnold Bennett and her crew had been house by New Yr’s Day.
So not all suspicions had been baseless, and there have been actual questions.
Why did the three-day, 177,000 sq. mile air-sea search discover nothing, when it included plane that would spot a periscope from a mile above? Certainly the Royal Navy search fleet, led by HMS Hermes and assisted by many UK trawlers, would have discovered one thing? And why, after a lightweight was noticed by the Hermes, was nothing discovered when spotter planes went to its supply?
There have been a minimum of 17 UK fishing vessels within the space on the time. There was additionally a NATO train underway, being noticed by the Soviets, whose submarines had been based mostly close by. But nobody noticed the Gaul go.
How might this contemporary vessel, with computerized Mayday misery indicators, disappear with out an SOS? Gaul additionally had life-saving gear for 50 in addition to lifejackets, a lifeboat, six inflatable rafts and 4 lifebuoys – two of which had been designed to drift immediately if the vessel had been to sink abruptly. And if a mine had been struck, there would have been an oil slick – but no flotsam was discovered.
Many individuals refused to consider that the Gaul might have disappeared with neither hint nor communication. The gossip mill spun in Hull’s fishing neighborhood and past, aided and abetted by the media. The preliminary inquiry into the tragedy was solely the start of a 30- 12 months seek for solutions.
The 1974 inquiry at Hull Metropolis Corridor, led by wreck commissioner Barry Sheen QC, had solely been going 10 minutes when the spying claims started dramatically.
A lady shouted: “You already know the Russians did it! Cease overlaying up!” Others joined in earlier than all of the kinfolk stormed out in protest. The following day’s papers had been stuffed with ‘spyship’ headlines.
That inquiry finally discovered that the Gaul foundered and capsized, in all probability whereas turning head to wind whereas a ‘succession of heavy seas’ hit her aspect on.
Claims that Gaul was a spyship, or that the British fishing fleet was concerned in espionage, had been dismissed by the court docket with what one newspaper described as a ‘judicial wave of the hand’.
A QC, summing up for the vessel homeowners, referred to the spy narrative as ‘Gaul nonsense’. Skipper Ernie Suddaby agreed, supported by George Petty, the mate who was flown house earlier than the vessel’s disappearance. The court docket added that there was no proof that might justify an additional search.
However kinfolk clung to hopes that their males had been within the Soviet Union, and calls for for one more search continued. Native MPs, led by John Prescott, lobbied defence secretary Will Rodgers for a response.
Will Rodgers’ reply was aimed toward closing down conspiracy theories for good. He admitted that naval personnel had been ‘sometimes carried on trawlers to additional seagoing and navigational expertise’, however mentioned: “Britain’s fishing fleet just isn’t being, has not been, and won’t be used for the gathering of intelligence.”
His assertion was straight to the purpose. It was additionally unfaithful. However it might be one other 20 years earlier than the by then Lord Rodgers admitted to being ‘misled’.
Two decided Hull ladies, Beryl Betts and Betty Parker, who misplaced kinfolk on the Gaul, had been the driving drive behind a marketing campaign to get to the reality in regards to the vanished ship, forming the Gaul Households’ Affiliation.
In Might 1974, a Norwegian trawler discovered a life belt from the Gaul, and one other unsuccessful name was made for a search to get to the reality. The 2 ladies wrote myriad letters, made numerous TV and radio appearances, and lobbied MPs, trawler homeowners and anybody else who might hold the story alive.
A self-styled Irish marine investigator referred to as Leo Sheridan raised cash for an expedition that by no means got here off. He was later found to haven’t any maritime {qualifications}.
For many years Gaul lay undiscovered on the seabed – regardless of a number of trawlers reporting snagging their nets on wreckage within the space. There was an obvious reluctance by the British institution to search out her, the argument being that the waters had been too deep and the fee can be prohibitive.
One story that might not go away was about Gaul’s radio operator John Doone. There was proof that he was educated in intelligence gathering, in accordance with his widow Sheila, who added that he ‘went lacking for 10 days’ earlier than Gaul sailed. An extra puzzling element was that the daddy of three had signed on as having no subsequent of kin.
In 1978, 4 years after the tragedy, one in every of John Doone’s closest associates, Allan Waterworth, allegedly noticed him in a bar in Durban, South Africa, and adopted him to a Greek ship, which he boarded. Allan Waterworth went to his grave swearing he had seen John Doone that day.
Hull campaigner Betty Parker later obtained seeming affirmation of his declare from a Durban delivery agent, who mentioned a person named John Doone was on a ship there that day, however had ‘since left their make use of’.
In a Kafkaesque twist, widow Sheila Doone discovered herself unable to remarry years later as a result of registrars in Lancashire mentioned her husband’s destiny couldn’t be verified. She was instructed to ‘divorce’ him. The Day by day Categorical featured the story on 6 August, 2002 with the headline ‘Why this widow must unlock the secrets and techniques of the Gaul’.
Allan Waterworth died in 1990 earlier than he might testify to the second Gaul inquiry, however his household swore affidavits in help of his assertion, as did the household buddy who had introduced the information of the sighting to Sheila Doone.
On the finish of the Nineties, a brand new investigation into the tragedy by the Marine Accident Investigation Board was ordered by John Prescott, now Labour deputy prime minister.
This adopted the 1997 Channel 4 Dispatches documentary Secrets and techniques of the Gaul, which not solely positioned the trawler however despatched a submersible to movie her – one thing the federal government had repeatedly mentioned can be ‘prohibitively costly’.
With a finances of simply £50,000, Scottish investigative journalists Norman Fenton and Callum Macrae put paid to the federal government claims, filming the vessel on the seabed utilizing a employed submersible unit launched from a transformed ferry they’d rented.
They took with them Mason Redfearn and Walter ‘Gentleman Walt’ Lewis, two of Hull’s most revered skippers. There have been additionally a few Gaul kinfolk aboard the ferry throughout the search.
Skipper Redfearn, now aged 88, instructed me: “It was so transferring when the digital camera centered on the ship’s nameplate – it learn Ranger Castor – the Gaul’s earlier identify. I bear in mind pondering how vivid it appeared, as if it had been cleaned specifically for us.”
Skippers Lewis and Redfearn each admitted on the documentary that they’d been concerned in espionage. What they didn’t know was that journalist Callum Macrae had a photograph of a person the documentary crew suspected was a spy recruiter.
“This was the large second for the documentary,” Callum Macrae recalled. “In the event that they didn’t establish the person within the picture, we’d have appeared moderately silly. Happily they each recognised him.”
The person was Commander John Brookes, a naval intelligence officer who for years hid in plain sight in a dockside workplace on Hull’s fish quay, recruiting trawlermen as intelligence gatherers for many years as a part of what grew to become revealed as ‘Operation Hornbeam’.
In his ebook MI6: Contained in the covert world of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, Stephen Dorril confirmed John Brookes’ involvement in Operation Hornbeam and cited Mason Redfearn’s spy work.
Stephen Dorril wrote: “Fishing fleets of Aberdeen and Hull had been used to spy on the Soviet North Atlantic Fleet in Arctic waters. Operation Hornbeam was run by a senior NID [Naval Intelligence Department] officer Commander John G Brookes, from the basement of the dockside premises of a fishing firm in Hull; throughout the mid-Nineteen Sixties he reported to the top of NID Rear Admiral Michael Kyrie-Pope, who has confirmed Hornbeam was the brainchild of MI6. Mason Redfearn was recruited in March 1963.”
Stephen Dorril went on to say that Mason Redfearn instructed him he had been educated easy methods to use a spy digital camera, and that he would ahead his findings to a Joint Intelligence Part inside MI6.
Skipper Redfearn instructed FN: “There was no query of me or any of the others doing it for cash. We did it for our nation. My spouse and I had been as soon as invited to London for the Trooping of the Color by Brookie as a thank-you.”
Amongst his souvenirs, Mason Redfearn has a Christmas card signed by John Brookes and Michael Kyrie-Pope.
Skipper Redfearn and the opposite recruits got Robotic Star cameras, which took 48 frames a second, telescopes and books of silhouettes to assist them establish Russian vessels. They had been educated in London.
“We had been instructed if ever a Soviet social gathering boarded our ship, we had been to place the gear in a white canvas sack offered and throw it within the sea,” recalled Mason Redfearn.
“None of us spoke of what we did. We wished to serve our nation as greatest we might.” Nonetheless, the truth that the ‘Navy males’ had been repeatedly seen on trawlers was widespread information amongst Hull’s fishermen.
The Dispatches documentary crew filmed a cable close to the wreck which specialists mentioned was a SOSUS wire – used for tracing submarines. SOSUS is the acronym for the US sonar and surveillance system.
When the MAIB did its survey a 12 months later, that cable was not there, and it was formally claimed that what the TV crew had seen should have been trawl wires. However Mason Redfearn mentioned: “I do know trawling wires after I see them, and that cable was nothing to do with fishing.”
Skipper Redfearn gathered affidavits from skippers nationwide admitting to spying for Britain, with a view to utilizing them to marketing campaign for compensation for former trawlermen.
He felt it unfair that patriots who had performed a lot for his or her nation may very well be handled so badly. Trawlermen had been classed as ‘informal staff’, so the trawler homeowners – which obtained thousands and thousands for decommissioning vessels – weren’t compelled to compensate the lads.
Dozens of skippers got here ahead, and Mason Redfearn saved all their testimonies.
The participation of Skippers Redfearn and Lewis within the Dispatches documentary raised that marketing campaign’s profile, and uncovered the lie that the fishing fleet was not concerned in spying. A couple of years later, the marketing campaign for compensation for former trawlermen was lastly profitable.
In 2004, a second Gaul inquiry was held. This reiterated that the vessel was overwhelmed by big waves, and took water on from the strict.
The MAIB survey solely resulted within the stays of 4 of the crew being recognized – however by this time, the narrative of the Gaul being held by the Russians and the lads being imprisoned had light, and attitudes had modified with the proof.
After many years of refusing to have his identify on a memorial plaque, the household of 27-year-old Hull deckhand James O’Brien lastly allowed him to affix the commemorated.
In 1996, campaigner Beryl Betts had mentioned she accepted that Gaul had in all probability been taken by enormous seas, including that she not thought there was ‘something sinister’.
The ultimate inquiry additionally reiterated that Gaul was by no means a spyship. However the vessel’s story and the centered campaigning that adopted had been instrumental in ending a 30-year authorities cover-up, and recognising the function of a bunch of patriotic British fishermen throughout the Chilly Struggle.
Due to retired marine architect Alan Hooper and former Hull Day by day Mail editor Jamie Macaskill for offering among the paperwork and pictures on this article.
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