OPERATION IVY BELLS: A MAC MCDOWELL MISSION
I am Robert G. Williscroft. I am presenting you with an updated version of my bestselling, semi-autobiographical Cold War Novel. Operation Ivy Bells is my first-person account of how a team of saturation divers locked out of the nuclear submarine USS Halibut to fearlessly risk death on the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk while tapping Soviet underwater communication cables and retrieving spent missile parts from the seafloor. The intel they gathered tipped the scales to win the Cold War. This story is based on real events—I led a team like that depicted in this book.
Is Mac McDowell my alter ego? Yes, some would say, but in all honesty I would have to decline the honor. I was a competent and capable submarine and diving officer, but Mac is smarter, more capable, and better than I was. I would welcome your visiting my website so you can get to know me better, and then compare the real me with Mac. Let me know what you think.
A warm thank you to my host for sharing this blog.
Recognition for Operation Ivy Bells
This is what Ed Offley, author of Scorpion Down, The Burning Shore & Turning the Tide, had to say about Operation Ivy Bells when he read it:
A great story…the author has done the essential, crafting a narrative that yanked me out of my seat like the big squid! I was grabbed!!! This is what they call a break-out book…
Excerpt from Operation Ivy Bells
“Fer Chrissake,” Whitey yelled in his high-pitched helium speech. “Give us a vent! I’m gonna choke to death.” He glowered at Jimmy, whom he suspected of being the culprit.
“Roger that.” Chief Struthers was back on duty.
Our gas mix at 150 feet normally would be just under five percent oxygen. Do the math; it works out to the same amount of oxygen as twenty-one percent on the surface. I know it sounds screwy, but that’s how it works. Anyway, we were on an enriched oxygen mix to facilitate flushing helium from our systems. Chief Struthers opened two valves, one to add gas to the chamber and one to vent gas from the chamber. His job was to make sure the pressure remained the same, and to ensure that our breathing mix percentages didn’t change either.
The process was pretty noisy and was supposed to take about ten minutes. Whitey lay down on the deck by the inlet pipe, breathed deeply and smiled with a sigh of relief.
“That’s more like it,” he squeaked.
At this depth we had removed our mikes and ear plugs since, with a bit of effort, we could understand each other without the descrambling that was necessary at a thousand feet.
Bill was standing in the middle of the sleeping area, elbows on the two upper racks supporting himself. The surveillance camera was aimed at the back of his head, but Struthers wasn’t worried since we were about to sit down to watch a movie. Jimmy was sitting on the deck leaning against the bulkhead across from me to my right, and as I said, Harry was brushing his teeth in the outer lock; Whitey was on the deck enjoying the fresh air.
Five minutes passed. That was when I began to notice something funny. I don’t mean ha-ha funny, either. The oxygen gauge which had been hovering near twenty percent ever since we reached 150 feet (oxygen enriched – remember), looked like it was near zero. Which explains why I didn’t react immediately. I was about to pass out for lack of oxygen.
I got up and crossed over to the gauge and peered at it intensely. Sure ‘nough, it read near zero. I stumbled back to my territory, alarms going off in my befuddled brain. Then it hit me. The other guys were unconscious. Struthers couldn’t see us because Bill was wedged between the bunks, and his head still blocked the camera. I tried to reach the emergency alarm button, but it seemed to recede away as I reached for it.
The last thing I remember is yelling “Petty Officer Blackwell!” Blackwell was Harry’s last name. “This is an order! Hit the emergency alarm!”
I barely heard the raucous Claxton as I slipped into oblivion.
Watch the one-minute trailer
<emb>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQuQc6nPxec</emb>
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
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author’s tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE.
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Sounds like quite a life you’ve lived, Robert. Thanks for your service and keep on writing.
I have lived a fortunate life filled with extreme adventure. I’m happy to be here to share parts of it with my readers.
Another great excerpt, Robert! I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog tour. Karl, thanks so much for hosting!!
My pleasure, Mar.
Always a pleasure to help out a wonderful writer.
You sure are well-traveled! When your bio says that you spent 22 months underwater, I assume that means the total of all your underwater time on submarines? How many missions does that include? What was the scariest experience you had, and did you include that in your novel?
That’s 8 missions plus the events in Operation Ivy Bells. When you spend that much time underwater on a war footing, there will be numerous scary incidents. Perhaps my scariest incident appears in Ch 6. We nearly lost the sub to a unique underwater event. I won’t relate it here, but you can read it in the book, if you wish. 🙂
Mr. Williscroft,
I am enjoying the excerpts. I just received the book (the hardcover, which looks way cool, one day with Prime), but am holding off reading any more until after this tour so I don’t spoil the excerpts. Besides, I’m going to read Daedalus first. As an old-head scuba diver, I’m especially fascinated by them leaving the sub–especially at great depth. I’ve only ever seen a Humboldt once, and I sure wouldn’t have wanted to wrestle it at depth. Do you still have opportunities to strap on a BC and slide into the water?
Occasional diving–it’s always nice to leave gravity behind. Using locks underwater to enter and leave chambers and habitats seems entirely normal to me now, but it was strangely exciting the first few times. Humboldt squid–best to leave them alone. Had I not been equipped as I was, I could not have survived the assault.
This sounds like an amazing book! I love the realistic dialogue shown in the excerpt. Thanks for hosting, Karl.