My original manuscript has now been through the 1st edit process. Needs another edit brush up – before it then goes to my publisher’s designer to drop in all the photos and wreck illustrations and bring the book up to a proof stage for checking.
Exciting times – and still on track to publish on 30 March 2026
Orders available here:
Delighted to announce that my new book about the Operation CROSSROADS shipwrecks lying at the bottom of the remote Bikini Atoll lagoon will be released on 30 March 2026. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world knew what devastation an atomic bomb wrought upon cities – but how would the most important ships of a Navy stand up to an air burst and to an underwater burst? The U.S. Navy would find out at Bikini Atoll with the Test ABLE and Test BAKER devices in 1946 – and today the shipwreck legacy of those Tests lies silently on the bottom of the Bikini lagoon.
This new book features detailed new wreck illustrations by Rob Ward and underwater photography by Ewan Rowell and Mike & Becca Boring. Pre-orders are now available at major online bookshops
The 3rd video about the loss of HMS Prince of Wales & HMS Repulse in the South China Sea on 10 December 1941 to a mass attack by 85 Japanese torpedo-bombers and level-bombers has juste been posted.
Here’s a link to a local radio Desert Island Discs spot I did recently – covering my early days right through to Closed Circuit Rebreather mixed gas technical diving. It was great fun to do. Although the show was meant to be 1-hour long, it became immediately clear when I got to the studio that the tracks I chose amounted to 47 mins. Too much Prog Rock, much chopping of tracks ensued!
I’ve just published (on YouTube) Part 2 of my trilogy about the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, almost 200nm north of Singapore on 10 December 1941 – just days after the Pearl Harbor strike.
This video covers the battle from POW’s perspective, the complicated mechanics of why this modern battleship sunk – and the wreck today, before the illegal salvors starting having a go at this sensitive war grave. The next video will concentrate on HMS Repulse.
The link is below – many thanks to Dr Andrew Fock for his assistance with imagery, and his wise words.
I am saddened to report that despite these two famous K-boat wrecks in the Firth of Forth being designated as Protected Places under our Protection of Military Remains Act, between 2018 and our visit in 2022, there has been significant illegal salvage work carried out by unscrupulous salvors. The detached non-ferrous command bridge of K17 had for as long as I had dived it, been lying on the seabed beside the submarine. It is now gone.
The bow of K4 had been intact in 2018, but it has now had the 4 valuable non-ferrous torpedo tubes ripped out of it.
The illegal salvage of war graves is an increasing phenomenon. Locally, the Battle of Jutland wrecks in the North Sea have seen a lot of salvage work over the years, and some of our local shipwrecks around the north east of Scotland have also had attention from salvors. In the South China Sea, the wrecks of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse have been pillaged, whilst in the Java Sea, the wrecks of British and Dutch WWII warships, along with a US submarine and Japanese vessels have also been heavily salvaged. ,
The full Explorers Club report of our 2022 expedition to survey the two K-boats HMS K4 & HMS K17 in the Firth of Forth is now available in the Downloads section of this website
In 2001, I was invited on a Tri-Services exped to film the wrecks of the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse, both sunk in a mass attack by 85 Japanese high-level and torpedo NELL and BETTY bombers on 10 December 1941 in the South China Sea, just shy of 200 miles north of Singapore.
The loss in action of the virtually brand new battleship Prince of Wales (fresh from taking on the Bismarck in the Battle of the Denmark Strait), was the first time a modern battleship had been sunk by air attack in the open sea in action – and her loss is seen as defining the end of the era of the battleship.
We had a film crew aboard – and the resulting 1-hr Timewatch documentary, The Death of the Battleship, aired on BBC in 2002, and featured many survivors. In 2013I published my book Force Z Shipwrecks of the South China Sea: HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse.
I managed to return a few times in the coming years – before sadly, despite being war graves, these wrecks, along with Dutch, Japanese, U.S. and other British naval vessels in the area, became the focus of intensive illegal salvage work. It is an awful tragedy – and all for the precious pre-Hiroshima steel and valuable non-ferrous metals.
To make my contribution to posterity, to preserve the memory of what happened and the sacrifice made, I am now putting out a 3-part series of videos about the wrecks as they were before the salvage work started – in the hope that it might be useful to naval historians in the future.
I have just published Part 1, which deals with the build up to the deployment of Force Z, the fateful sortie from Singapore and the final battle that saw both ships end up on the bottom of the South China Sea. A further video will b published in time on each of the two wrecks. Here’s the link to Pt 1:
Just posted a new video tour of one of the most famous Japanese WW2 wrecks in the Truk lagoon – the Nippo Maru. Lying in 45-50msw, the top of her bridge rises to just 24msw, a lovely depth for today’s scuba divers. She has perhaps the most photogenic bridge in the lagoon, complete with helm and engine order telegraph. On the deck forward is a Type 95 Ha-Go light tank – whilst on the deck aft are a number of field howitzers. Here’s the link:
Rod Macdonald 