On May 25, 1901, in Folkestone, a coastal town on the English Channel, Major William Grover and Emily proudly welcomed their eldest child, Brian Montague Grover, into the world. Dad dreamed that his son would someday join the British Army, but Brian opted to follow a different path.
That’s because Brian had a love for adventure, and after obtaining his mechanical engineering degree from Cambridge in 1922, he secured a job as a rigger in the oilfields of Sarawak on the island of Borneo, which was under British rule at the time. Today, Sarawak is the largest of Malaysia’s thirteen states.
In Sarawak, Brian would become friends with American Frank Brown, a burly 40-year-old rigger who had gained tons of experience while working in the Texas oil fields.
Working the drilling platforms was arduous work, and eventually Brian decided to take a job with Shell Oil in California. Frank warned him that while the location may be more desirable, the work wouldn’t be much different. A search of the records shows that Brian was aboard the President Lincoln when it docked in Long Beach, California, on March 27, 1928.
A chance encounter while making the long journey there would come back to haunt Brian years later, but more on that later in the story.
The 1929 stock market crash abruptly ended Brian’s time in California. With the US economy in ruins, Shell Oil informed him of his transfer to Trinidad. After spending about a year there, Brian found himself back in Sarawak, reuniting with his old friend Frank Brown.
But even an isolated location like Borneo wasn’t immune to the world’s financial problems, and by the fall of 1930, Brian and Frank were unemployed.
Brian had no choice but to return home to England and spend that Christmas with his parents. Their relationship had always been rocky, so after just a few days there, with his parents begging him to settle down and get a well-paying desk job, Brian left a note telling his parents that he needed to go and to trust him that everything would be just fine.
Naturally, Brian needed an income to get by, but finding work was no easy task. A family lawyer kindly gave him a list of potential employers, but they were all proving to be dead ends.
Everything changed on January 28, 1931—the day Frank Brown arrived in London and stepped back into Brian’s life. Brian shared how tough the job hunt had been and mentioned that only one name remained on the list of potential employers.
That name belonged to a man named Stephen Talbot, who had been arranging contracts between British companies and Soviet government agencies. Though hesitant, they decided to pay him a visit and quickly sized him up as a somewhat shady character. Still, Talbot assured them he could get them work in Russia. The Soviets needed their skills, he said, and in return, they’d be well compensated.
Two days later, Brian, Frank, and Talbot boarded a train bound for Moscow. They arrived in February 1931, amidst the harsh Russian winter. True to his word, Talbot arranged for them to stay at Moscow’s most luxurious hotel, the Metropol.
But the one thing Talbot had promised never came to pass—at least not right away. Instead of landing jobs in the oil fields, Brian and Frank were stuck with the dull task of delivering contracts and packages to Talbot’s contacts around Moscow. They never asked what was inside the envelopes, but the work did help them to become familiar with the city.
Talbot must have picked up on their frustration at being little more than well-paid delivery boys, so he decided to offer them a rare treat. In March of that year, he told them to dress their best—they were going to the Bolshoi Ballet that evening.
When they arrived, they found themselves surrounded by the crème de la crème of Moscow society. Somehow, Brian and Frank—two rough-around-the-edges oil rig guys—had landed in the midst of the Communist Party elite.
What would happen next would forever change the course of Brian Grover’s life.
As they settled into the box reserved for them, Brian noticed two seats remained empty. Just as the orchestra began to play, the door behind them opened and a woman in a simple red dress hurried in. Brian stood to let her pass, and she slipped into one of the vacant seats. He couldn’t help but wonder who the final seat was for, but no one ever arrived.
Something about her captivated him—he couldn’t stop stealing glances in her direction. He sensed that his lingering gaze was making her uneasy. Suddenly, she stood up and rushed out of the theater.
Realizing what he had done, Brian felt it was best that he apologize to her. He ran outside into the freezing cold, which was nearly deserted. He looked around and finally spotted the woman in red standing in the dark over by a fountain.
His command of the Russian language wasn’t very good, but he called out to her. She began to move away, but after hearing his repeated pleas, she began to slow down. Having left her jacket behind in the theater, she was shivering, so Brian did the gentlemanly thing to do and draped his coat over her shoulders.
Brian managed to persuade her to return to the theater, but she only went back to retrieve her coat. She explained that her friend had never arrived and that being seen there alone—and with foreigners—could cost her her job. Brian told her they were staying at the Metropol and invited her to join them for the remainder of the performance, but she knew the risks were too great.
As she turned to leave the box, Brian asked for her name. “Ileana Petrovna,” she replied. He introduced himself in return. With a faint smile, she said, “Enjoy your stay,” and then disappeared into the night.
As Brian sat back down, Frank and Talbot, questioned him as to what had just happened. That’s when Talbot noticed that Brian’s jacket was missing.
Ileana Petrovna, if that was what her true name was, had just walked off with his coat. Material possessions can be replaced, but what was in the jacket’s pocket couldn’t. Inside were Brian’s wallet and all of his legal documents. Without those papers, finding work or even moving freely around Moscow would be nearly impossible. If stopped by the authorities, he risked being jailed or permanently expelled from the country.
While Frank and Talbot were certain that he had been robbed and would never see that coat again, Brian had this strange feeling that she would return it to him right away.
But the next day came and went, and no one showed up at the hotel with his jacket. The following morning was the same. Then, that afternoon, Brian received a call from the front desk—someone was there to see him. He hurried downstairs, and there stood Ileana, holding his coat. She explained that she’d gone to work and had tried to bring it by the night before, but by the time she arrived, the hotel staff wouldn’t let her in.
Brian persuaded Ileana to join him for a drink at the bar, and she agreed. As they shared their life stories, it became clear that Brian’s upbringing was one of privilege compared to Ileana’s. Known as Lena to her friends, she was the daughter of a postmaster & his wife, and had three sisters. Tragically, she also had a brother who died in childhood. The Russian Revolution had stripped her family of everything, prompting her to become a nurse during the civil war. After the war, she moved to Moscow and continued her nursing career, which provided just enough to make ends meet.
Lena was reluctant to get involved with Brian, well aware that foreigners always leave. At first, she avoided seeing Brian again, but he ultimately won her heart, and the two would spend nearly every possible moment together.
That was until May 1931. Talbot told Brian and Frank that he had finally found them jobs in the oil fields of Grozny, which is nearly 1,000 miles (~1,600 km) south of Moscow. He handed them envelopes containing their train tickets, the necessary permits, and some cash. However, there was a catch: the job started the very next day.
Brian begged Lena to move to Grozny with him, but she declined the offer. Just as she had predicted, he would eventually leave her. And his new job now forced him to do just that.
While in Grozny, Brian wrote letter after letter to Lena, but she never replied. He was heartbroken, but there was nothing that he could do about it.
In June of that year, Brian and Frank heard a gigantic explosion. Workers at a nearby rig had hit a gas pocket, and the derrick was blown to smithereens. The two raced to the scene to see if they could help.
By the time they got there, the injured men were already loaded on stretchers and were being carried away. The derrick was a mess of twisted steel, and oil was gushing into the sky at full force.
The two advised the party boss that they needed to use steam to get the well under control. While others suggested concrete, Brian explained that this approach was risky, as hitting another gas pocket could cause another explosion, leading to more deaths and injuries. Predictably, the boss chose concrete, and the well exploded again. Only then was he willing to consider Brian and Frank’s suggestion.
Six boilers were connected, and the steam extinguished the fire within minutes. It took Brian and Frank two hours to cut the main pipe with a giant hacksaw, but eventually they succeeded, and the well was capped.
Suddenly, Brian and Frank were heroes. Not just to the workers, but their story was front-page news in all of the Soviet newspapers.
A month later, they were invited to an award ceremony at the Grozny courthouse. Though they knew little about Soviet politics or its leaders, it was clear to both that the man delivering the speech about their heroism held significant influence. He pinned a simple red star on each of their lapels, handed them envelopes with cash rewards, and presented them with the customary bottle of fine Russian vodka.
They would later learn that this man of importance was none other than Comrade Lavrentiy Beria, who would become the head of the Soviet secret police, and later a notorious deputy prime minister under Stalin.
One would think that Brian would have been elated by the high honor bestowed upon him, but he was not. Instead, he was miserable. He finally received a letter from Lena, and it basically requested that he stop writing to her. He needed to move on with his life.
Definitely not the type of news anyone in love wants to hear.
Then, as the celebration was nearing its end, he heard someone coming into the courtroom. He turned and couldn’t believe what he saw: Lena was standing right in front of him.
Apparently, after reading about Brian’s feat of heroism in the papers, she went to see Stephen Talbot. Lena asked if he could help her get a nursing job in Grozny. Talbot worked his usual magic and somehow managed to secure the official transfer papers for her.
For a short while, Lena and Brian were enjoying their time together. The problem was that the party bosses who ran the oil operations in Grozny did not take kindly to Brian being a hero, particularly one who was a foreigner. While it couldn’t be proven, Brian felt they were behind the increasing amount of sabotage and theft at the well where he worked. In addition, Lena was being treated as if she were a call girl.
As things worsened, the two concluded they needed to get out of town. Brian purchased an old truck, resigned his position, and the two began their journey back to Moscow early the next morning.
With none of this being on the up-and-up, they immediately went to see Talbot to see if he could straighten everything out. And he did. He arranged for Lena to get her old job back and put Brian to work as a sort of salesman.
The anonymity of a large city like Moscow allowed the two to finally live happily together. Brian asked Lena to marry him, and the two were wed on June 12, 1933.
But there was a big surprise awaiting Brian, one that could be quite harmful to the lives of the newlyweds. A letter addressed to Brian arrived in the mail. Since Lena didn’t speak English, she was unable to read it.
The letter was from Brian’s first wife, Madeleine. She got his address by hiring a private investigator to track him down.
As you could probably guess, Brian never told Lena that he had been married before. Nor did he tell her that he was an absentee father to his young son Philip, who was born on October 10, 1931. And, perhaps worst of all, he never mentioned that he was still married to Madeleine.
Earlier in the story, I had mentioned that a chance encounter while Brian was traveling to California would forever change his life. While making the lengthy voyage, Madeleine’s mother introduced the two to one another, and they would remain inseparable for the remainder of the trip.
After arriving in the United States, they separated, Madeleine heading toward her family home in Alabama, Brian continuing on to his new job in California. They wrote to each other for about eighteen months, and when Brian was transferred to Trinidad, he convinced Madeleine that she should come with him. Along their way there, the couple married in The Hague on January 15, 1930. But Madeleine hated life in Trinidad, their marriage fell apart, and she went back home. The two would never reunite.
It should come as no surprise that Brian opted to continue keeping this a secret from Lena, but he also knew that the truth would eventually come out.
That time came while they were on their honeymoon in Sochi, a resort town on the Black Sea. Lena had a bad boating accident, which resulted in her getting a concussion. While recovering, she admitted that she had been married once before to a very successful doctor. Then, about a year after their wedding, he just disappeared. She later learned that he had been performing illegal abortions, and fearing he was about to be caught, he left.
Her husband took on a new identity, found a new wife, and had children together. It wasn’t until years later that he contacted Lena and arranged for the two to go to the Bolshoi Ballet. And thats why there was an empty seat in that balcony box that night. When he didn’t show up, she got nervous and felt it was best to leave.
With her secret now out of the bag, Brian told Lena about his marriage. He realized that he needed to return to England to divorce Madeleine, and he did just that. Although Madeleine made the process challenging, they were officially divorced on May 10, 1937, with adultery cited as the grounds for the divorce. (Sidenote: Madeleine married John Calvin Stallings on August 22, 1941. She was 81 years of age when she passed away on December 29, 1982.)
He was now free to live his life with Lena, whom he had married nearly four years prior. But this proved impossible. Not only did the Soviet Union deny his requests to return to Moscow, but they also denied Lena permission to leave the country to live with Brian. And with tensions between Hitler and Stalin heating up, it seemed less and less likely with each passing day that they would ever see one another again.
Adding to Brian’s concerns was the fact that he went nearly two years without hearing from Lena. That was until the arrival of a letter from her in October 1938. In it, she said that she had been transferred to a rural area about 330 miles (~530 km) northeast of Moscow, where people were starving and the living conditions were just plain awful. She expressed that she had loved every moment they had spent together, but that there was no chance of them ever seeing one another again, and it would be best if he moved on with his life.
Brian was distraught. As he later told a reporter, “I was so desperate after I twice had been refused a visa to enter the Soviet, that I decided to risk everything in order to join my wife. She is dearer to me than my parents, my brothers and sisters, and anything in the world.”
As the expression goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. But in Brian’s case, what he had in mind was downright crazy. His plan was to learn to fly, purchase an airplane, and then fly to Moscow to find Lena. And with winter approaching, he had little time to waste.
Brian was fully aware of the risks that he faced: the Soviets could shoot down his plane, he could experience engine trouble, or that by being an inexperienced pilot, he could crash anywhere along the way. And should he survive, he was certain to be arrested, charged with a host of crimes, and either spend many years in a Soviet prison or be expelled from the country permanently. The chance of him ever seeing Lena again was very small, but he felt it was a risk worth taking.
The first thing Brian did was head out to the Heston Aerodrome, which was located about 20 miles (~32.2 km) northwest of London, where he signed up for flying lessons. Realizing that he would have to devote every waking hour of every day to obtain his pilot’s license, he had no choice but to quit his engineering job. He was awarded his license on October 29, 1938, just three weeks after he had taken his first lesson. (Would you want to be a passenger in an airplane piloted by someone with just three weeks’ experience?)
Next, he purchased a used Klemm Swallow monoplane for £170 (Approximately £14,600 today, which is around $19,800 US.) This was everything you imagined an old 1930s airplane to be: dual cockpits – one right behind the other – and wide open to the cold, wind, and rain; a wooden frame; and a handspun propeller. With its flaking paint and rust around the engine, it wasn’t much to look at, but it did run. With an 80-hp engine, a top flying speed of 75 mph (120.7km/h), and an estimated 7 to 8 hour flying time, there was no way this airplane could fly straight to Russia. Stops would need to be made along the way, and Brian concluded that flying the last leg from Stockholm, Sweden, made the most sense.
Lastly, he advertised for an experienced pilot who would be willing to fly him to Stockholm. Percy H. Richmond responded, and Brian lied and said that he needed him to fly him there for a business trip.
They took off on November 4, 1938. After a stopover in Hamburg, Germany, they landed at Bromma Airport in Stockholm four days later. The two stayed in separate rooms at a hotel there, and Brian spent a few days sneaking around behind Richmond’s back. In addition to purchasing some essentials for the trip, Brian took the airplane out each day to practice maneuvers.
Early in the morning of Sunday, November 13th, Brian snuck out of his room. He placed an envelope under Richmond’s door with a note explaining what he was about to do. He also included enough money so that Richmond could get back to London.
At the airport, Brian wheeled the plane out of the hangar and swung the propeller to start the engine. Just as he was about to take off, the traffic controller rushed out to tell him that the weather was bad, so he couldn’t fly without a radio, which he did not have. But Brian did some smooth talking, explaining that he just wanted to take the plane up for a few minutes of practice. The controller reluctantly agreed. The reality was that Brian wanted to fly in the bad weather, knowing that once he got above the cloud cover, no one on the ground would be able to see his plane. In other words, he was far less likely to be shot down once he entered Soviet airspace.
And with only four hours of experience as a solo pilot, off he went…
Once he got the plane up to 10,000 ft (~3,000 m), he leveled the plane out. “I bought a map and drew a line between Stockholm and Moscow, took a compass bearing from the Meridian, so that all I had to do was to set the compass and keep going.”
As Brian flew over the Baltic Sea, the relentless cold began to take its toll. His fingers and toes became numb with frostbite, and his goggles had iced over completely. The only warmth he had came from the coffee in his Thermos.
For the next eight grueling hours, he pressed on. When his fuel gauge reached empty, he knew it was time to set the plane down.
The landing was anything but smooth. Around 3 PM, after having flown an estimated 650 miles (~1,050 km), he touched down in a snow-covered field about 100 miles (161 km) from Moscow. The locals patched him up, and he spent the night there. The following day, four police officers arrived. Without much explanation, they arrested him, loaded him into a truck, and began a grueling two-day journey that ended at the famed Lubyanka prison in Moscow.
Surprisingly, Brian had anticipated being arrested. He figured that once he told his story to the authorities, they would be sympathetic to his case and allow him to reunite with Lena.
But things quickly took an unexpected turn. The Soviets suspected he was a spy and launched a series of intense interrogations. Then came an even bigger shock: Brian learned that Stephen Talbot had been caught orchestrating a money laundering operation, exchanging rubles for U.S. dollars. Back when Brian and Frank first arrived in Russia, Talbot had them deliver packages and contracts—without realizing it, they had been used as couriers in his scheme.
Back in Britain, the Foreign Office informed Brian’s parents that their son was about to stand trial, and that the embassy was doing all that it could do to secure his release.
His dad told the press, “We will have to wait in suspense until well into the New Year, I’m afraid. It’s been an awful time. If they had only allowed him to write a message to us, it would’ve helped.”
Brian was up against some extremely serious charges, but he had one unexpected advantage: without even knowing it, his story—a man who risked everything for the woman he loved—had captured the hearts of newspaper readers around the globe. With the general public rallying behind Brian, the Russians saw an opportunity to spin the tale to their benefit. The far more serious accusations—espionage and racketeering—quietly vanished. Instead, Brian was charged with entering Soviet territory illegally.
At 3:50 PM on December 31, 1938, the trial of 37-year-old Brian Grover commenced in the Moscow Civil Court. The case was overseen by three judges: one woman and two men. Brian, unshaven and still clad in the leather greatcoat and flying helmet from his flight, was flanked by five armed guards. The judges extensively questioned Brian, and he pleaded guilty to the charges.
His lawyer, identified in the press only as M. Komodov, asked for leniency: “But the preliminary evidence established Grover’s sincerity and lack of counter-revolutionary designs. So, I ask for justice tempered with mercy, in consideration of Grover’s profound love for his wife, his loyalty and devotion, attributes which are highly encouraged here.”
Prior to judgement, Brian appealed to the court to permit him to stay with Lena, whether that be in the Soviet Union or elsewhere. He was willing to apply for Soviet citizenship, if necessary.
The judges fined him 1,500 rubles (£60, which is approximately £5,000 or $6,750 US), confiscated his airplane, and exiled him from the country for five years. Failure to pay the fine would result in an additional one month in jail. Worst of all was that he would not be allowed to see Lena. “It appeared I’d risked my life for nothing.”
On Tuesday, January 3, 1939, just one day before his scheduled deportation, a guard entered Brian’s cell and instructed him to get dressed. Brian was then escorted to an unfamiliar section of Lubyanka. Upon entering the room, he was taken aback to find Lavrentiy Beria, the same man who had awarded him the heroism medal years earlier.
After a bit of small talk, Beria told Brian that Lena would be allowed to leave Russia with him, but he only had three days to go get her and leave the country. He then handed Brian an envelope containing Lena’s current address, her exit visa, and enough money for the two to get back to London.
After 47 days in prison, Brian was once again a free man. He immediately boarded a train that would take him close to her home in Bolshevo, approximately 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Lubyanka. After that, he trekked through the deep snow, stopping to ask directions a couple of times.
Lena described what happened next:
“I was sitting by the fire when there was a knock at the door. A policeman was outside, saying that he was looking for the house of Ileana Petrovna, in other words, my own home. As mine was the only house with a light, he had come to ask me the way as he had an Englishman with him. Behind him stood my husband.”
The two fell into each other’s arms, but Brian waited until the following day to tell Lena that they needed to leave the country immediately. She didn’t hesitate for a moment, and at 11 PM on Thursday, January 5, 1939, the two were aboard a train that was going to take them to London.
When the train pulled into the station in Warsaw, Brian suddenly realized how big a celebrity he had become. Crowds gathered as newspaper photographers snapped pictures of the couple. A bystander commented, “It was worth flying to Moscow for a girl like that.”
Their next stop was Berlin, where they were met by curious crowds once again. Hitler requested a meeting with the couple, but Brian declined. He also rejected monetary offers for the exclusive rights to his story, as well as a suggestion that it would make a great movie. His response to that idea was, “Do I look like a film star?” The German press, aiming to discredit the Soviets, misrepresented Brian’s treatment. While he felt that he had been treated fairly well, German media implied that his treatment had been brutal. One paper went as far as printing his picture with the German caption “Escape from the Soviet Hell” printed beneath it.
The final leg of their journey was aboard a steamer that sailed from the Hook of Holland to Harwich in the UK. They arrived just before dawn on Sunday, January 8th. As they disembarked, the couple was greeted with a hero’s welcome. Banners fluttered, confetti filled the air, people shouted their greetings, and reporters swarmed around them. One reporter observed that Brian was still wearing the same clothes he had worn during his flight to the Soviet Union. Brian remarked, “I am even wearing the shirt I left in. But don’t misunderstand me. I have had it washed several times since.”
Lena was overwhelmed by the attention. She told a reporter in Russian, “I cannot very well speak of our love. That is too strong an emotion to express in mere words. I can only say that we are devoted to each other and nothing was too great to risk or sacrifice for the supreme happiness of being together once more.”
“Bob’s arrival, I call him Bob because it sounds so much softer to my Russian ears than Brian, was like the fulfillment of a dream. I had known him since 1931, and had not seen him for four years. Feeling that we were wasting the best years of our life apart, I tried hard for two years to get permission to join him, working all the while in my situation as a chemist’s assistant. The difficulty lay in obtaining permission to renounce my Soviet citizenship.
“My first task now will be to learn English. I was naturally rather frightened at the thought of arriving to spend my life in a new country, and had been warned that the English were a silent, sullen people. I see everything today that this is untrue.
“I have been told that the German newspapers emphasize my relief at escaping from Soviet Russia, and I know that they even made me kiss strangers to express my joy.
“This is exaggerated, as Russia has been my home all my life.”
They first went to Brian’s flat in London’s Sloane Square before heading to his parents’ house in Jordans. His parents were overjoyed to see their son and warmly welcomed Lena into the family. His father remarked, “You look a little thinner, my boy,” while his mother observed, “You look well, but tired.”
The couple still had one important matter to take care of: they needed to make sure that the marriage was legal under British law. So, on January 12, 1939, they went to Chelsea and once again took their vows.
Brian never did capitalize on his newfound fame. He gave a lecture detailing his experience at Her Majesty’s Theater on Sunday, February 26, 1939, but that was it. Afterward, the couple moved to Uganda, where Brian had accepted a job as a drilling engineer for an oil company.
There was a brief mention in the newspapers a couple of years later that Brian had become a RAF pilot-officer stationed in the Middle East, but the press lost track of him after that.
So, would the couple stay together, or would their flame eventually burn out, and they would go their separate ways?
The two eventually settled in South Africa and operated a farm there, raised two sons, and Brian was by Lena’s side when she took her last breath in 1989 at the age of 86. Brian was 92 when he passed away a few years later.
Useless? Useful? I’ll leave that for you to decide.
