- Joined
- Oct 29, 2002
- Messages
- 36,523
- Location
- East of Suez
It seems that no thread covers this interesting mystery, which thanks to the distance of time and the Official Secrets Act never got cleaned up to anyone's satisfaction. Spies on board? Sunk by the Soviets? Royal Navy accident? Seized and Scuttled? Some families believed that survivors may have been languishing in Siberia...
Interesting analysis here:
http://www.mediaworldnews.co.uk/html/gaul/index.php
This bit in particular intrigues:
Latest updates here with all earlier speculations linked in the 'See Also' section to the right (goes back a long way):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/3787673.stm
The Hull-based stern trawler F.V. Gaul was lost with all of her 36 crewmembers in very bad weather conditions in Arctic waters, north of Norway, in February 1974. No distress call was made, and apart from a lifebuoy, recovered from the sea in May 1974, a part of one of the Gaul's liferaft containers and part of the plastic cover of the Gaul's boat, both trawled up in 1977, no wreckage was found or positively identified until 1997.
A Formal Investigation (FI) was convened in Hull in 1974 to investigate the circumstances of her loss. The then Wreck Commisioner, Mr Justice Barry Sheen concluded “that Gaul capsized and foundered due to being overwhelmed by a succession of heavy seas”... http://www.fv-gaul.org.uk/
Interesting analysis here:
http://www.mediaworldnews.co.uk/html/gaul/index.php
This bit in particular intrigues:
Does the British Government know
more than it will tell?
In 1974 this man went to sea as the radio operator on The Gaul, a Hull factory trawler, which disappeared in the Barents Sea. At some point around February 9th the ship sank and it has always been assumed that all 36 hands were lost.
No distress signal was heard. The man, John Doone, left behind a wife, Sheila, and three children.
In October 2001 the British Government refuses to allow Sheila Doone to officially become a widow and marry the partner she has had in her life for the last 10 years. Why?
This is a picture of John Doone as a young man wearing the uniform of The Royal Naval Reserve. His wife never knew anything of his time with them. The picture was taken at HMS Pembroke, a training establishment in Chatham. We are told it was a training establishment for stewards and cooks. John Doone was a radio operator on board The Gaul, and employed by Marconi Marine.
He used to go by train from Preston to the Naval reserve training establishment. He was never a cook and never a steward.
A fresh faced, young John Doone, with no hint of the mystery to unfold. One of many snapshots his family still have. But they have something more. An unquiet grave and a memory which cannot rest in peace because the British Government insists that before Sheila Doone can re-marry she must either divorce her husband of the past or go through a lengthy and expensive court procedure to acquire a death certificate.
What makes them believe there is doubt that John Doone died in 1974?
Has Sheila Doone been married to a ghost?
In 1982 a remarkable story emerged from a man who was a friend and workmate of John Doone in their younger days. He said he had seen his old friend in a South African bar four years after he was supposed to have gone down with The Gaul.
A mistake? He was sure not. A hoax? Why? It would seem the British Government gives great credence to the sighting. It is their reason for denying Sheila Doone the right to re-marry. They have said so officially and, it would seem, unequivocally. John Prescott refuses to help, David Blunkett has rubber stamped the objection to Sheila's marriage...
http://www.mediaworldnews.co.uk/html/gaul/page23.php
Latest updates here with all earlier speculations linked in the 'See Also' section to the right (goes back a long way):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/3787673.stm