Welcome to the "OPERATION IVY BELLS" Blog Tour! @RGWilliscroft @4WillsPub
OPERATION IVY BELLS: A MAC MCDOWELL MISSION
Robert G. Williscroft here. This is an updated version of my bestselling, semi-autobiographical Cold War Novel. Operation Ivy Bells is a first-person account of a team of saturation divers locking out of the nuclear submarine USS Halibut on the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk. Fearlessly risking death, these dare-devil divers tapped Soviet underwater communication cables and retrieved Soviet spent missile parts from the seafloor. The intel they gathered tipped the scales to win the Cold War. This story is based upon real events���I led one of the teams depicted in this book.
Am I Mac McDowell? Some folks think so, but even though I based his character on my own experiences, there are many differences between us. I was an excellent submarine and diving officer, but Mac is more capable and smarter than I. I would welcome you to visit my website: https://robertwilliscroft.com/ to check out my background. Then compare the real me with Mac and let me know what you think.
A warm thank you to my host for sharing this blog.
Recognition for Operation Ivy Bells
Here���s what Tom Bowman, NPR Pentagon reporter, had to say about Operation Ivy Bells:
Robert Williscroft has produced quite a sea story, a colorful and enjoyable work that explains one of the little-known successes of the Cold War, with plenty of fascinating detail about submarine and diving operations.
Excerpt from Operation Ivy Bells
���Dive, Sonar,��� the phone talker sounded excited over the circuit. ���Something���s going on with the Whiskey. We think he���s getting ready to start his screws!���
I grabbed the mike. ���Red Diver, evacuate now! Evacuate now!��� I ordered, putting a bit of urgency into my voice.
���Dive, Red Diver, I���ve got a little problem,��� Ski said. ���It seems that I wrapped the antenna wire around a section of my umbilical. I can���t evacuate until I unwrap the wire and loosen my umbilical.���
This presented a real, immediate problem. If Sonar was correct, and the Whiskey was about to get underway, Ski was in real trouble, and we had no spare umbilical to send out another diver to help.
���Dive, Sonar, there���s no doubt, the Whiskey will shortly lift off the bottom.���
We had no choice now. ���Red Diver, the Whiskey is starting up. You need to cut your umbilical and get back here on your come-home bottle immediately. Right now, Ski. Do it right now!��� I ordered.
���Roger, Dive. We���re going to lose comms in a moment.��� And suddenly, the circuit went silent.
Bobby had been following the conversation closely. He focused the Basketball on Ski���s moving shadow. And then we saw him. He had cut his umbilical on our side of the problem and then pulled his end from under the antenna wire. He was pulling himself hand over hand along the umbilical, trailing about ten feet of umbilical behind him. Bubbles furiously flowed from the cut end on our side. Five-hundred feet was a long way to go, but Ski had about a minute of breathing gas available in his come-home bottle.
I told the Can to cut the gas and hot water to the umbilical, and I watched as Ski continued to pull himself toward safety. Nearly a minute had passed already, and Ski was still pulling himself through the water. It was going to be close. Ski was burning oxygen faster because of his exertion.
A minute and fifteen seconds had passed. I looked at the Outer Lock monitor. Jimmy was furiously hauling umbilical, doing what he could to hasten Ski���s return. A minute and a half���and then the Basketball tumbled away as Ski pushed it aside to scramble into the outer lock, gasping for air.
The first words out of his mouth: ���Sheeit! Did that sonofabitch try to lift off yet?���
Watch the one-minute trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQuQc6nPxec
Author Bio
Dr. Williscroft is a retired submarine officer, deep-sea and saturation diver, scientist, author of numerous books and hundreds of articles, and a lifelong adventurer. He spent 22 months underwater, a year in the equatorial Pacific, three years in the Arctic ice pack, and a year at the Geographic South Pole. He holds degrees in Marine Physics and Meteorology, and a doctorate for developing a system to protect SCUBA divers in contaminated water. A prolific author of both non-fiction and fiction, he lives in Centennial, Colorado, with his family.
Links
Website: https://robertwilliscroft.com/
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