ARLA/CLUSTER: Radio Caroline

[Tiago Santos]

Ouvi um colega contar uma historia de uma radio que custumava ouvir em onda
curta, em que a emissão para a inglaterra era feita a partir de um barco em
aguas internacionais. Este colega e amigo financiou a radio durante 20 anos
para que fosse possivel continuar em emissão. Aqui vai a historia e o link
no final para lerem mais se quiserem. Vão ainda umas fotos dos barcos onde
operaram.     August 19th, the day the music (almost) died.
In 1967 a law had been passed, attempting to silence the station, but this
law was not regularly or strenuously applied.

Certainly, in the early days, some over zealous officials did prosecute
supporters for wearing Radio Caroline T shirts. A tender, bringing staff
ashore, was intercepted and DJs were taken to court, but presenter Johnny
Jason pleaded not quilty and the case collapsed. One boatman, Howard Beer
was sentenced to a year in prison for supplying fuel to the Ross Revenge.

However, for the most part there was a truce as staff and goods were taken
out from UK ports and officials either did not know or chose not to notice.
A broad view formed within Caroline that the station was almost accepted by
the establishment, with the law still being in place to prevent Caroline
getting too complacent or cheeky.

Of course, the factor that allowed all Radio Ships to function was that they
were in International Waters, where the laws of the surrounding states did
not apply and where their officials had no powers. Therefore while
governments could pass any law they wished, all were confident that they
could never act directly against the ships or the broadcasts coming from
them.

In late summer 1989 though, staff on the Ross Revenge began to notice that
they were getting more attention than normal from official and Naval
vessels. Then, on August 18th 1989, the chartered launch Landward drew close
to Ross Revenge and on board were members of the Dutch and UK Radio
Authorities. They attempted to negotiate with the crew to switch off the
various radio signals coming from the ship. This of course was refused.

What the crew did not know was that early that day, many arrests had been
made in Holland of people who were thought to be working for Radio Caroline
or her sister station on board, the Dutch language station Radio 819. The
major amount of the required supplies for the ship came from Holland,
Belgium and France and now this lifeline was cut.

In the UK, no land staff were arrested, but calls were made inviting them to
give themselves up. Again, these offers were refused. The people on the
Landward, while becoming ever more insistent, still took great care not to
attempt to board Ross Revenge or even to let the two vessels touch.

What was thought then, with the information available at the time, was that
perhaps a blockade was intended, but the Landward was not a big ship, it
could not remain on station for long or at all, in bad weather. The crew
thought that they just had to stand firm since the action could not be
escalated beyond what had already happened, but the officials warned that
non compliance would cause them to use more extreme methods.

In the early afternoon of the 19th, the Landward moved away from Ross
Revenge, but then a massive Dutch vessel, the Volans appeared and quickly
came alongside the radio ship without permission and without announcing
their intentions, other than to suggest that they wanted to take
photographs. Armed men from the Volans boarded the radio ship by force and
in considerable numbers. In a very short time the ship was under their
control, but since it took a while to storm the studios and silence the
transmitters, dramatic broadcasts continued for about twenty minutes.

Thereafter, the boarders stripped the vessel of all broadcast equipment or
smashed items that were too large to remove. By the end of the afternoon the
Ross Revenge was, in broadcast terms, just a shell as all her records,
studios and transmitters were swung on to the Volans to be taken to Holland.

British officials came on board, even though their presence was denied by
the UK government and they attempted to interrogate staff under threat of
arrest.

In the early evening Caroline's own tender arrived, carrying members of the
press and on the arrival of this vessel all boarders on both ships ceased
their actions and departed, leaving the disabled Ross Revenge with her crew
still on board.

The repercussions from this unsatisfactory day were widespread. In the short
term, the Radio 819 operation that had provided so much required material on
the ship, was destroyed and never reformed. The crew, with great defiance,
began to rebuild what they could and indeed a signal issued from the Ross
Revenge only weeks after the raid.

The legality of the whole operation was soon challenged. Being in
International Waters, none of the boarders had any official powers, to
board, confiscate or interrogate and they achieved their aims mainly by
bluff and force of numbers and of course by being armed, in the case of the
Dutch.

In real terms, the raid crippled Radio Caroline. A spirited and expensive
legal action was started by Caroline against the UK government, but was not
successful. On the ship, conditions deteriorated until broadcasts could no
longer be made and finally Ross Revenge was shipwrecked on the Goodwin Sands
and brought in to Dover Harbour in a ruined condition.

This was very nearly the end of the Radio Caroline story had not a few
individuals banded together to see if anything at all could be rescued from
the disaster. This commenced a very slow path to recovery and the emergence
of a very different incarnation of Caroline.

In summary, it does seem that in our case and no doubt in many other
instances, governments will do anything they wish in order to achieve their
required result even to the extent of breaking the law when they know they
can do so with impunity.

In human terms, the British Policeman in charge of the UK side of the
action, Jim Murphy, later became a good friend to Radio Caroline. In the
same way, Marten Roumen, the unusual Dutch Policeman heading the raid on
behalf of the Netherlands, later went to great pains to return every single
item taken from the ship on that unfortunate day. It can be assumed that on
a personal level both men later regretted what they had done to a harmless
organisation doing nothing other than providing pleasure and entertainment.
Our History section on this site provides additional information.

If you are moved by the events of August 19th 1989, we invite you to join
our Supporters Club <http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/supportgroup.asp>, to
help continue our recovery and expansion.

Peter Moore,
August 2006



-- 
Tiago Santos
CT2HCQ Setúbal Portugal