PART 10 - RNI GOES "BOOM!"
At approximately 1945 hrs, on May 15, under the cover of darkness, three shadowy figures (Tom van den Linden and two others) set sail in a small inflatable rubber dingy from Scheveningen. Some three hours later, at 2240 hrs, they reached their destination - the radio ship Mebo II. Silently, like a scene from a James Bond movie, they climbed aboard. Van de Linden was quite familiar with the Mebo II, having done various jobs on board, the most recent being just a couple of days before the attack.

Tom van der Linden

The DJs and crew, unaware of their uninvited visitors, watched a football match on television. Two of the men made their way down to the engine room where they started a fire. Moments later, as the intruders left in their dingy, there was an explosion, and within a matter of minutes, the whole of the stern end of the Mebo II was ablaze.

 

In the main studio, Alan West was on the air, playing “Melting Pot” by Blue Mink. Fellow DJ Dave Rogers had just brought in a cup of tea when there was the enormous bang.  As Alan West subsequently recalls: “I was on the air at the time and Dave I think had just come into the studio, brought me a mug of tea or something and then there as this enormous bang and the ship shuddered, you could feel it
move. It must have come out of the water for a few seconds before it dropped back in and my first thought was we've been rammed or hit by something. A fishing boat or an oil tanker in distress, although we'd have probably been turned over if that was the case. Dave sort of looked at me with very glazed eyes and rushed out of the studio and came back a few seconds later and said 'we're on fire'. In the few moments that he'd been away, it had sunk into me what had happened. Some intuitive thing told me that we'd been blow up, couldn't explain why, and I said 'Yes Dave, I know'. From there on, until the moment when the ‘Trip’ came alongside and took us off, my memory of the whole thing is total confusion”.

Alan West immediately relayed news of the incident over the airwaves: You're listening to a transmission from the radio ship Mebo II. This is Radio Northsea International, still broadcasting in the medium wave, short wave and FM bands. Please stay tuned to these frequencies for further information. The fire which we reported just now had started in the engine-room has now reached the bridge and we will soon have to abandon ship. The last abandon ship call was a false one. We may have to abandon ship soon. We need help. S.O.S. S.O.S. This is Radio Northsea International. Mebo II, anchored four and a half miles from the coast of Sch, Sch, Scheveningen, Holland and at a time like this, I can't even say Scheveningen. Four and a half miles from the coast, one mile from the radio ship ‘Noordenay’ of Veronica. We are on fire due to a bomb thrown onboard from a motor launch, whose identity we do not know. We didn't see the launch. We need help immediately. We need help immediately. S.O.S. S.O.S. Mayday Mayday Mayday Mayday Mayday. We may have to abandon ship. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. We may have to abandon ship. The fire has now reached the bridge. We do not know when we shall have to abandon ship, but it may be within the next few minutes. We are on fire in the engine-room. The fire has now reached the bridge. Position: 52 degs, 11 mins North latitude, four degrees, 16 mins east longitude.

Hans Ten Hooge (pictured right) put out distress messages in Dutch and one of the technicians on board put out messages in German and Swiss.

Alan recalls: “I sat there and did the Mayday calls because it seemed the only thing to do. There was no other contribution I could make, other than chucking buckets of water on the fire, so I just stayed in the studio and got on with it. I've been told several times by various times since that on the tape of those couple of hours I sound very calm and collected. In actual fact, I wasn't. I was scared shitless for the entire two hours and if I'd realised, as I later discovered, the fuel tanks for the generators were packed around the studios, I wouldn't have been anywhere near that bloody place”.

“We are having to abandon ship very soon. The entire stern area of the ship is on fire. Please call this telephone number Zurich 54247, 54247. S.O.S. The Mebo II is being abandoned. The engine-room and the bridge are on fire. The fire was caused by a bomb thrown onboard from a small motor launch, with an outboard motor. We don't know who it belongs to. We don't know where it came from or where it's going to, but it certainly bombed us while it was here”.

Within seconds of the S.O.S. messages, telephone switchboards all over Europe were jammed by anxious callers, wanting to alert the authorities, and the ships owners to the plight of those on board the stricken radio ship. By 2350 hrs the tug Eurotrip had taken onboard ten crew and DJs from the blazing ship, three men were left on board to help fight the fire. Several other ships came to assist, including the salvage tug Smithbank, the tug Titan, the Dutch Royal Navy frigate Gelderland and the fire fighting tug Volans.

The police in Scheveningen had meanwhile received a telephone call from a person, working locally in catering, who had heard that a person might have died in the attack and who knew who the offenders were. 

Alan West again: “We abandoned ship about five times. Clambered over the side first time and got into the rubber dingy and I got my feet wet. I remember thinking I was very annoyed because I had new shoes on. I'd just bought them a couple of weeks before. Then we clambered back up on the ship again when they said it was OK and then we got down to the rubber dingy again and then eventually we got back up onto the ship, went across to the other side and by that time the ‘Trip’ had arrived and we got into that and we sailed away to watch the fire raging from afar and it was really a sad sight. The whole stern end of the ship was ablaze. The flames must have been leaping about 20 feet into the sky. It was a nauseating sight. There was a Dutch Government ship out there, I think it was something to do with oil rigging. That was out there and turned it's hoses onto the fire and a couple of tugs came along and helped to fight the fire and I think that went on for about two hours and in the end they got it down so that it was just smouldering rather than burning”.

The fire was finally brought under control at approximately 0220 hrs on the morning of May 16 and the crew were allowed back onto the Mebo II.

Alan West again - "It was about three o'clock when we discovered it was safe to go back on board. The first ones on where Chris St. John and myself. I went straight down to the transmitter room with Kurt Bear. We climbed underneath the transmitter, and with a bit of wire from my razor we managed to get the transmitter back on the air. Apparently it wasn't damaged, but something had shorted out. We got the transmitter back on and we went on the air for about three minutes, a little while after 3 o'clock. But the transmitters were putting out so much power that the Dutch rigging ship alongside, their antenna was starting to burn. Collecting so much R.F. It was shorting and sparking - we thought we'd set them alight as well!"

Within a matter of hours, parts of a rubber dingy and frogmen's suits had been found on a deserted beach near the Hague, and shortly afterwards, Dutch police announced that three men had been arrested in connection with the attack on the ship. They refused to name them, or who they were working for, but confirmed that the raid had been carried out for money. Erwin Meister said: " We have enemies in the pop music business, but I can't believe that a rival made this murderous attack ".

Over the next few hours, details began to emerge. UK newspaper, The Daily Mirror reported that once on board the Mebo 2, the raiders placed an ounce of dynamite on a pipeline leading to a 250 gallon oil tank. They then lit a fuse made of rags dipped in petrol. The explosion that followed threw two of the men over the side of the ship, the paper added. A tip-off came when someone living close to the beach, saw the men from his window, trying to destroy the dingy, and called the police.

The BBC, reported the incident the next day thus. The item (complete with several wild inaccuracies) was read by newsreader Roger Cook and it started with ‘Man of Action’: “The signature tune of Radio Northsea International. It’s called ‘Man of Action’ which is certainly what disk jockey Alan West became at ten to eleven last night “S.O.S., mayday, mayday, this is the Mebo 2. We are having to abandon ship very soon“. Fire engulfed the stern of the ship and after broadcasting it’s position, incorrectly as it happens, the 13 man crew waited for help. It came in the form of a number of Dutch salvage tugs and a frigate from the Dutch navy. Shortly afterwards the fire was out and at half past two Mebo 2, named in a piratical jibe after the marine broadcasting offences act, was back on the air again, on full power, on all transmitters. But Mebo had never been a happy ship as pirate radio expert David Morbay points out: “The station has had a very unhappy history. The owners first anchored the boat off the Dutch coast, hoping for a good audience there, but they soon found that the English audience was waiting for them. They moved to just off Walton-on-the-Naze, where they started interfering with maritime communications. They were then chased around the wavelengths by the G.P.O. jammers and they hoped for a change in policy when the Conservative Government took office in June. No such luck for them as the jamming continued so they moved back to their old position, four miles off the Dutch coast. Then followed a legal wrangle and there were threats to put the station off the air by force. The station finally went off the air in August, heavily in debt because it couldn’t get sufficient advertising revenue. But only this February it came back in full force broadcasting in Dutch which didn’t please rival Radio Veronica”, which because Mebo had never broadcast in Dutch before had had Holland all to itself. Anyway earlier this morning, Mebo was telling the world how things stood: (Spangles Muldoon) “A quick report on the condition of the ship. The whole of the after-end is a write-off, construction-wise, but we are still afloat and far from unsafe. The whole of the forward end, including the disk jockeys quarters, the studios, newsroom and transmission hall and AC generators, is intact and undamaged. The Mebo 2 is in no danger of sinking. We shall continue to broadcast as normal”. So now the question: whodunit? That’s what I put to Hugo van Wren of Hilversum Radio: “It’s too difficult to say that. Radio Northsea has of course, let’s say, enemies in Holland, but whether anyone of them did anything against Radio Northsea last night is of course, very difficult to say at this stage of the police investigation”. But the fire was very selective. It was very good publicity for Radio Northsea International. That is not something a rival would have done. “That’s right, although I’m not sure whether Radio Northsea needed publicity that much. Actually, a listeners poll published in Holland last week, showed that Radio Northsea Intenational was really gaining popularity and that of course, at the cost of Veronica”. Never-the-less, the fire was very selective wasn’t it. It only damaged parts of the ship which were no practical use anyway. “That’s right, but actually, at this very moment, police are not saying very much more”.
Here’s the full extract from Spangles Muldoon’s news report, date-line: May 16: “Following the fire on board the radio ship Mebo 2 last night, three men have been arrested in Amsterdam. The men have been charged with planting a bomb on board the ship which started an intense fire which has burned out most of the after-ship’s structure. The bomb exploded last night at 2250 hours and started a fire instantly. After a few minutes it was believed the fire was under control, but suddenly, it worsened. Members of the crew and broadcasting staff attempted to put it out. A Mayday call was put out in English & Dutch and for a while, members of the crew left the ship for life-rafts. Eventually the tugboat ‘Eurotrip’ came alongside….. (sorry, but at this point the recording faded and I cannot make out what was said) …  
the captain remained on board. Within an hour of the explosion, two fire-fighting vessels were alongside and putting out the fire which was, by that time, raging throughout the whole of the stern of the ship. Other ships, tugs, lifeboats and naval vessels also joined in the fire-fighting. We would now like to thank all aboard those vessels for their efforts and also our thanks to all those on land who might have heard us last night. We shall not forget what you have done. A quick report on the condition of the ship. The whole of the after-end is a write-off, construction-wise, but we are still afloat and far from unsafe. The whole of the forward end, including the disk jockeys quarters, the studios, newsroom and transmission hall and AC generators, is intact and undamaged. The Mebo II is in no danger of sinking. We shall continue to broadcast as normal”.
Alan West again: “After the incident itself, the spirit on board the Mebo had never been higher. It was fantastic and of course, we'd got such tremendous TV and news coverage and front pages and press all over the world, well the western world at any rate, that we were totally elated by this and the listenership must have shot up by 100 percent that day and we'd never felt happier. You know, we were all alive, the ship was OK, we were still on the air and we'd defeated whoever the opposition was”.  The following was broadcast by Alan the day after the bomb: “If anybody's coming out to have a good look at the spectacle tonight or tomorrow morning, I expect a few people will be, perhaps you'd like to bring us some milk and sugar, because that's one of the few things we don't have, apart from a bridge!!”
In an article which appeared in a Dutch newspaper published on May 17, RNI's Dutch manager John de Mol (pictured right) expressed doubts as to whether rival station Radio Veronica was involved. It was inferred that RNI had more opponents than just Veronica. These thoughts, it was reported, were also shared by the ships Swiss owners.

However, also on 17th May, 48 year old Norbert Jurgens, the Advertising Manager at Radio Veronica was arrested and questioned by Dutch Police, and the following day Veronca director Bull Verweij was also held. Verweij appeared on Dutch TV and told how he had paid a man some 12,000 guilders, (approximately £1,100) to force the Mebo II into territorial waters. The idea being that once inside the three mile limit, the ship would have been liable to arrest or confiscation by creditors. The report, on AVRO, was by Ria Bremer and Jaap van Meekren and went thus:

"Bremer: One of your employees has been arrested, one of your principal employees has confirmed to have spent money to bring the MEBOII to the coast"

Verweij: That's possible, but it cannot be an action as we have seen now with explosives, that could have led to blowing up the boat, because that for a start we would have been insane if we would have eehh.. agreed with this, because we always have said that if one would like, for example bring a ship to the coast, and there's people who have been offered by this employee, that you refer to, we always stated that whatever would happen, no life was to be endangered."

"Bremer: When we started the interview you claimed to have no connection to this attack. Now you admit that there's attempts and even that one of your employees has received a sum of money to plan an attack. I do not assume that he paid for this himself, I'm sure this was paid by you.

Verweij: Yes

Bremer: This means that Veronica is connected to the attack

Verweij: To a certain extent, eehh…. If there's an asset that has been taken away from us and a person approached us, claiming that he's able to bring the asset back under our control or in this case within the territorial zone without risk for any person, then I don't see any problem, no.

Bremer: Has Mr Jurgens approached you and has he stated that he had plans, that he needed your money?

Verweij: No, he's had various conversations and eehh… we have kept asking whether this would be possible danger for any people involved. His response was : No, of course not

Bremer: What then was his plan?

Verweij: I suspect that either he wanted to release the anchor under water or any other way to bring the ship within the territorial zone, but never by making use of explosives where there could have been any danger or any person could have died.

Bremer: Do you think that things have escalated?

Verweij : I'm indeed under the impression that things have escalated

Bremer: Are you not afraid that this kind of "piracy" could lead to the end of the offshore stations?

Verweij: Of course there's a chance that this is going to cause repercussions and I have to admit that this is the kind of publicity that no-one is waiting for. I can only tell you that I was extremely relieved, and this might sound somewhat cruel or strange coming from me, to hear that the transmitter was back in the air the next day and everything else was ok, after I'd heard about the fire on the MEBOII the night before.

Bremer: Did you give money to Mr Jurgens?

Verweij: Yes

Bremer: How much?

Verweij: If I'm not mistaken 10 or 12 thousand guilders, around those amounts
Bremer: And the men who would perform the attack, did they get money?

Verweij: We had agreed that the ship would be brought in without, as I stated before, under the agreed upon conditions and that ….

Bremer: Could you repeat the conditions once more?

Verweij: Well, without any risk for human life and if an asset has been taken away in spite of all contracts can be returned in such a way of course I'm willing to pay for that

Bremer: How much?

Verweij: I'm not able to determine

Bremer: I'm hearing about 25,000 guilders per person

Verweij: Listen, if this is the way to get an asset back, worth one, why not?”

The interview was given after the management of Radio Veronica issued a statement denying it was involved in the bomb attack.
The UK magazine Record Mirror dated 22 May 1971, quoted RNI station manager Vic Pelli as saying: " RNI intends to stay on the air while repairs are carried out at sea. We do not want to risk taking the ship into port, and we hope the repairs will start this week".

On 22 May 1971 John de Mol told UK magazine Disc & Music Echo: "There is no damage to the transmitting or generating equipment, nor to the studios or the DJs quarters. So we will remain on the air and any repairs will be carried out on the high seas". Then, in the same magazine the following week, John de Mol was again quoted: "Plans are being drawn up for the repairs, and we may take advantage of the damage to re-design much of the superstructure and make it more functional for our purpose".

Quoting "Pirate Expert" Paul Harris, UK Magazine Disc & Music Echo the same week (presumably unaware of events in Holland), offered three possible explanations:

Ø         "It could have been the work of sympathisers of another rival station ".

Ø         "It could have been the work of the Dutch Underworld ".

Ø         "Or it could be connected with recent espionage rumours ".

Mr Harris added: "It is certain that the MEBO would never return to harbour for repairs. The chances of it being allowed to leave again are very slim. The danger is still, that because of these unsavoury events, the Dutch Government will turn against the pirate stations and ban both RNI and Veronica ".

On the 20th May 1971, Verweij, Jurgens and the three frogmen appeared before the Public Prosecutor in The Hague, to answer charges relating to the attack on the Mebo2.

After hearing the evidence, Mr H. van 't Veer, the Hagues’ Officer of Justice told the accused: "It was like something out of the seventeenth century". The court concluded that Radio Veronica had financed the raid, by paying the men approximately £10,000 to get the Mebo II inside Dutch waters. But conceded that Veronica intended the men to tow the ship without damage. It was accepted that the fire was not ordered by Veronica and that they had no intention of endangering life. The case was adjourned until September. 

Meanwhile, it took a couple of weeks to repair all the damage on the MEBO II. The people who worked on repairing the MEBO II slept on the MEBO I, anchored next to the MEBO II, which served as a “hotel”. Repairs cost around £28,000.

In September all five suspects re-appeared in court, where  it became clear how the plan had been developed and implemented. According to one of the three frogmen, Jan P, their motivation was money and adventure. Besides they had heard that RNI was involved with espionage for the eastern block, which of course wasn't true. Judge Mr van 't Veer ruled : "These are gangster methods, totally inadmissable". Although Meister and Bollier didn't want to prosecute the offenders, all five were sentenced to spend one year in prison