Motivating audiences to explore and excel

Rod’s legendary presentations about famous shipwrecks around the world are full of wonderful imagery and video – and have been captivating audiences at major events for many years.

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E: info@rod-macdonald.co.uk T:(+44) 07769 711617

Presentations available:

Shipwrecks of Scapa Flow – explore the eerie remains of the scuttled German WWI High Seas Fleet lying on the bottom of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands of northern Scotland. Three WWI dreadnoughts, 4 cruisers and many more casualties of both world wars await exploration.

Shipwrecks of Truk Lagoon – explore more than 40 Japanese WWII shipwrecks and aircraft lying on the bottom of Truk Lagoon, in Micronesia in the Pacific. On 17/18 February 1944 the nine fast carriers of U.S. Task Force 58 approached the Japanese lagoon fortress of Truk in complete secrecy – able to field more than 500 combat aircraft. A surprise pre-dawn fighter sweep by 74 U.S.Navy Hellcat fighters knocked out Japanese air cover in one of the greatest aerial dogfights of WWII – leaving some 50 major Japanese ships filled with war supplies at the mercy of waves of U.S. dive- and torpedo-bombers in the famous 2-day raid codenamed Operation Hailstone.

Shipwrecks of Palau – just 6 weeks after the Truk raid, U.S. Task Force 58 reformed for a 2-day air raid on the great Japanese WWII naval and air base of Palau – with similar devastating effects. Some 30 Japanese ships and countless aircraft were sent to the bottom.

Force Z Shipwrecks of the South China Sea – in the days leadings up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, fearing the invasion of modern day Thailand and Malaysia and an assault on Singapore, Churchill sent a powerful naval squadron, codename Force Z, to Singapore to deter Japanese aggression. As the Japanese invasion began, Force Z, comprising the new fast battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse along with a screen of destroyers sortied from Singapore to confront the invasion. The force was spotted and attacked by 85 Japanese high altitude and torpedo bombers – and was decimated with the loss of 840 men. The sinking of HMS Prince of Wales was the first time a modern battleship had been sunk in action to air attacks and heralded the end of the era of the battleship. Singapore fell 2 months later in February 1942.

The loss of HMS Hampshire and Lord Kitchener – on 5 June 1916 the armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire departed Scapa Flow on a secret mission carrying British Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener and his staff 1,649 nautical miles to Archangel in the White Sea of northern Russia. Off the northwest coast of Orkney, Hampshire struck a German mine laid by a U-boat two weeks earlier during preparations for the Battle of Jutland. 737 men were lost – including Lord Kitchener. There were only 12 survivors and the sinking stirred a controversy that has lasted to this day.

North East U-boat losses of World War I – explore the U-boat war around Scotland’s northeast coast and its legacy today.

Technical diving, the ‘bends’, diving diseases – and why we do it! A glimpse into the diving diseases that come with deep diving – and the lure of the deep that keeps us going back!

Explore the greatest shipwrecks around the UK – dive on the most famous shipwrecks around the UK, from Scapa Flow to Malin Head, the English Channel, Firth of Clyde and the Sound of Mull.

Rod Macdonald – a lifetime diving shipwrecks. A moving talk filled with stories of shipwrecks around the world, contact with survivors and their families.