CURIOSITY, gossip and intrigue abounded in Southampton exactly 50 years ago and at the centre of it all was the 14,300-ton liner, Batory, considered by many to have been the most controversial vessel ever to use the docks.

The Iron Curtain ship was always viewed with some suspicion but now the town, as it was then, was buzzing with talk of a security clampdown in the docks, a mysterious aviator and the secret arrival of the FBI.

A year earlier, in May 1949, the ship had sparked off the biggest international sensation of the time when a leading East German communist jumped bail in America and made a successful bid for freedom by stowing-away on the ship in New York.

When the ship arrived in Cowes Roads, off South-ampton, the world news spotlight fell on the liner as the Cold War froze all contacts between the West and countries behind the Iron Curtain.

Batory, owned by the Gdynia American Line was forever making the news, with hardly a visit to Southampton going by without at least one member of the crew or passenger jumping ship to seek political asylum in the UK.

Exactly half a century ago in August, 1950 the Polish ship was again making headlines after a bizarre incident 100 miles off the American coast as the vessel made its way to Southampton.

As the ship cut through the waves, out of the sky came a small blue and yellow seaplane flying low over the water.

The pilot, who said he was William L Newton and who was, mysteriously, of no fixed address, circled the ship and shouted to the crew that he was lost and was out of fuel.

After landing the aircraft close to the ship the pilot and plane were taken on board and the ship continued to Southampton where a tight security screen was thrown around the vessel.

According to the Daily Echo of the time, the ship, which was met by Special Branch officers, was completely sealed off as the pilot was taken away in a Black Maria to Winchester Prison.

A week or so later, again in strict secrecy, members of the American FBI arrived in Great Britain and Newton was flown back to America and nothing was heard of the man again.

At one time Batory was classed as such a bad security risk the American authorities banned her from entering New York and eventually she was switched to a completely new route from Southampton to Karachi and Bombay.

During the Second World War Batory was in the Allied fleet, taking evacuee children to Australia and moved £40 million of Britain's gold reserves to Canada for safe-keeping. She also landed troops in North Africa and Sicily and became known as the "assault and Batory'' ship.

The ship was finally with drawn from service in 1968 and broken up for scrap.

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