THE heartbroken families of 36 tragic trawler men who died 50 years ago in mysterious circumstances are demanding answers.
The Gaul was lost during a fierce storm in the Barents Sea half a century ago.
MEN MediaSome of the crew members who went missing near North Cape Bank, Nordkapp, Norway, on 8 February 1974[/caption]
PABeryl Betts lost her brother Billy Jones on the trawler[/caption]
AlamyThe anchor wreath dedicated to the Gaul is placed on the memorial flower bed on Hessle Road[/caption]
The families of the missing seamen from the Hull area endured an agonised wait for news on the morning of February 9 1974.
At one point a cruel hoaxer walked into a working mens’ club and announced that the crew were safe and well. But the fake news was soon exposed as a sick joke.
The wreckage was not discovered until 1997 by filmmaker Norman Fenton.
The fact that it took 23 years to find the trawler fuelled speculation about the disaster which claimed so many lives.
The families of the victims spent years trying to establish why the trawler sank.
The Gaul sank during the height of the Cold War and it was common knowledge that the security services had used trawlers to carry out spying missions in the 1960s.
This led to conspiracy theories around alleged Soviet involvement in the tragedy.
There were claims that the trawler could have collided with a Soviet submarine or that its nets could have become entangled in a sub.
Expert Dr Brian Lavery, author of The Headscarf Revolutionaries and The Luckiest Thirteen, told the Mirror: “Once the Gaul was reported missing, a search involving the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and Norwegian air and sea forces began – but they found no trace of the missing vessel.
“A perfect storm for decades of conspiracy theories was created almost immediately. Some were credible, some crazy. They included the crew being captured by the Soviet Navy while spying, nets being dragged under by a submarine, and the vessel being sunk by the Russians after hitting an undersea ‘listening cable’.
“For years, some relatives held on to the belief that their men were being held in a Soviet labour camp – or that both ship and crew were being held. It had been known for trawlers to be tracked by the Russians, so this didn’t entirely lack credibility.”
The Hull Daily Mail reported heavily on the disaster, speaking to family members and others who were touched by the tragedy.
The Rev Tony Cotson, vicar at St John’s Church, in St George’s Road, known as the fishermen’s church, was working for British United Trawlers at the time the Gaul went down.
Speaking to the Mail in 2014, he said: “I remember going into work on the Monday morning and we knew something wasn’t right. When it was confirmed the Gaul was missing, it is the incredulity of it all I remember. There was a heavy feeling around the building.”
In 1996, campaigner Beryl Betts, whose 26-year-old brother Billy Jones was lost when it sank, said she finally accepted that Gaul had probably been taken by huge seas, adding that she no longer thought there was “anything sinister”.
The reopened public inquiry in 2004 concluded that the Gaul succumbed to stormy weather exacerbated by the open hatches, resulting in its capsizing.
The report dismissed the notion of deliberate sabotage or sinking of the vessel.
AlamyA mural of the Gaul stands on Hessle Road in Hull[/caption]
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