12 Facts About Sydney Knowles

Sydney Knowles, BEM, was a British Royal Navy frogman during and after World War II.

Sydney Knowles joined the Navy at the start of World War II and served as a stoker aboard the destroyers Zulu and Lookout, taking part in trans-Atlantic convoys and in Operation Pedestal, the relief of Malta.

In 1942 Sydney Knowles joined the Underwater Working Party, under Lieutenant Commander Lionel Crabb, at Gibraltar.

Sydney Knowles was one of a group of underwater guard divers who checked for limpet mines in Gibraltar Harbour during the period of Italian frogman and manned torpedo attacks.

Sydney Knowles left the Navy in 1950, and worked as a self-employed haulier.

Sydney Knowles knew that Crabb had two prominent scars on his left leg; having failed to find any scars on the corpse he refused to identify it as Crabb's.

Sydney Knowles has suggested that MI5 set up the mission to the Ordzhonikidze specifically to murder Crabb, and supplied Crabb with a new diving partner ordered to kill him.

Sydney Knowles has alleged that his life was threatened in Torremolinos in 1989, at a time when Sydney Knowles was in discussions with a biographer.

Sydney Knowles stated on televised interview on that Crabb did not dive alone on his fatal last mission.

Sydney Knowles died in Coin, Spain, on 31 July 2012.

Sydney Knowles was buried in the English Cemetery in Malaga.

Sydney Knowles was played by Michael Craig in the fictionalised 1958 film The Silent Enemy about World War II divers in Gibraltar.