ABOUT

Rod Macdonald: Tek Diver, Author of shipwreck & military history books

Check out my YouTube channel here!

After a lifetime as a lawyer in private practice in Scotland, Rod now writes professionally full time and has made many TV appearances as an expert on shipwrecks and the sea.

Rod took up diving whilst still a young lawyer in the early 1980s – developing an interest in shipwrecks after his first dive trip to Scapa Flow in Orkney where the remains of the German High Seas Fleet from Word War I still lie on the seabed – 4 cruisers, 3 gigantic battleships along with many other shipwrecks.

At the time there was virtually no information on the wrecks available for divers – and this led to the idea of writing a Dive Guide to the Scapa wrecks. The 1st Edition of Dive Scapa Flow was published in 1990 and soon became the essential and ever present guide to diving in Scapa Flow. It was totally rewritten and given a 21st century make over for its centenary 6th edition, published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet on 21 June 2019.

Dive Scotland’s Greatest Wrecks  followed in 1992 covering the histories and condition of many classic Scottish wreck dives – and this was followed by a complimentary book about the top 10 wrecks south of the border, Dive England’s Greatest Wrecks

The Diving Trilogy

1. Into the Abyss – Diving to Adventure in the Liquid World is a collection of all the incidents, hilarious and serious, that crammed themselves into his early diving career from novice diver, through the dangers of the ‘deep air’ days until the arrival of open circuit Trimix diving which opened up vast areas of the sea previously out of reach for standard air divers. It covers his panic stricken first sea dives and subsequent forays into increasingly deeper water in search of virgin wrecks – with a dive into the Corryvreckan Whirlpool, one of the largest in the world, thrown in as well
2. The Darkness Below, released in October 2011, covered his transition from deep air diving to trimix diving – where helium gas mixes make deeper diving safe – and on to trimix rebreather diving. Along the way we dive shipwrecks in Scapa Flow, the South China Seas, Norway, Truk Lagoon, Palau and other fabulous locations.
3. Deeper into the Darkness, published in 2018, carries the story through to the present day with daring penetrations deep into vast shipwrecks on the bottom of Truk Lagoon, Palau and Guadalcanal as well as dives on some of the famous WWI shipwrecks around the UK such as HMS Pathfinder, HMS Audacious, HMS Hampshire and HMS Vanguard.

Great British Shipwrecks – A Personal Adventure focusses on 37 of the most famous shipwrecks around the UK. In a coffee table style format, the history of each wreck is recounted and the wreck itself is beautifully illustrated with topside and underwater photographs – and stunning illustrations of the wreck on the seabed today.

Force Z Shipwrecks of the South China Sea – HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse was released at OZTeK 2013 and covers the careers of these two famous British capital ships and their subsequent demise to a massed attack by 85 Japanese bombers – the sinking of the band new battleship Prince of Wales heralded the end of the era of the battleship.

Dive Truk Lagoon – the Japanese WWII Pacific shipwrecks covers the 40+ major shipwrecks and aircraft wrecks of the world’s greatest wreck diving location; the legacy of the U.S. Operation HAILSTONE  of 17/18 February 1944. A fully rewritten and expanded 2nd edition published in late 2023.

Dive Palau – the Shipwrecks covers the 20 major shipwrecks of the U.S. Operation DESCECRATE 1 – that followed just 6 weeks after Truk Lagoon was neutralised in Operation HAILSTONE.

Shipwrecks of Truk Lagoon is a slim booklet covering 21 of Truk Lagoon’s most famous wrecks in a easy to read, visual format filled with illustrations of the wrecks as they lie at the bottom of the lagoon today.

Task Force 58: the U.S. Navy’s Fast Carrier Strike Force that Won the War in the Pacific. Published in 2022, this book covers the history of naval aviation from carrier concept to the creation of the legendary U.S. fast carrier strike that swept across the Pacific towards Japan. TF 58 neutralised the Japanese bastions at Truk and Palau and fought iconic carriers battles in the Philippine Sea such as the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot – as the Allies closed in on the Japanese home islands.

Pearl Harbor’s Revenge: How the Devastated U.S. Battleships Returned to War. Published in 2023, this book explores the shock Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 – and how of the 8 U.S. standard type battleships sunk or damaged, 6 were reflected, repairs and returned to the war to wreak a terrible revenge with devastating pre-invasion bombardments of landing beaches.

Many thanks to Bob Anderson skipper of the MV Clasina dive boat and to Ewan Rowell for use of their fine photographs