Books by Robert G. Williscroft

Lieutenant Commander Jerry Pait’s semi-autobiographical collection of sixty stories recounts his thirty years in and around the U.S. Navy’s submarine fleet. Ranging from light-hearted to wrenching, all are poignant inside looks at naval operations rarely seen by outsiders. Topics include the real story behind the shuttle Challenger tragedy, risking his own life underwater, discovering a Soviet spy living across the street, surviving when a DELTA Rocket engine ignites, critical missions, and the everyday lives of men and women of the fleet. Dive into Sŭbmarine-ër for hijinks and breathtaking adventure with this poignant memoir by a true American hero. 

Written by Jerry Pait, edited and compiled by Robert G. Williscroft.

Mac McDowell is the Officer-in-Charge of the Test Operations Group (TOG), a Top Secret Navy saturation diving team. He and his team of daredevil divers take on the might of the Soviet Union during the Cold War in harrowing underwater missions that challenge his team's abilities to their limit and beyond.

Each book stands on its own, but the books follow each other in sequence, each challenging Mac and his team to accomplish what appears to be an impossible mission.

Operation Ivy Bells is a first-person account of the nuclear submarine USS Halibut and a team of saturation divers led by Mac McDowell fearlessly facing death on the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk while tapping Soviet underwater communication cables and retrieving missile parts from the seafloor, gathering intel that tipped the scales to win the Cold War. The story is reality-based — the author led a team that accomplished much of what is depicted in the book. 

Operation Ice Breaker is the second Mac McDowell Mission. It is a first-person account of the nuclear submarine USS Teuthis and a team of saturation divers led by Mac McDowell facing death under the Arctic ice pack while laying SOSUS arrays off Carey Øer west of Northern Greenland and Point Hope, north of Bering Strait. They face polar bears, Greenland sharks, Orcas and other hungry marine critters, extreme weather and heavy ice supplied by Mother Nature, and the efforts of two ultra-modern Soviet nuclear submarines attempting to thwart their mission. 

While Mac McDowell is with his sweetheart, Kate, in Kodiak, Alaska, they are attacked by a Soviet sleeper cell and nearly killed because of Mac’s involvement in the take-over of the stranded Soviet Alfa sub off Pt. Barrow, Alaska. Mac and his team return to the stricken Alfa on the nuclear sub USS Teuthis. Using the DSRV Mystic, they board and assume control of the Soviet sub. For the next 31 days, they drive the nearly automated sub through the Arctic ice pack, harassed by Soviet subs whose mission is to retake or sink the Alfa. With a non-functional reactor, they are forced to recharge the Alfa’s batteries daily while submerged under the ice pack, using divers from Teuthis. They confront determined Soviet sub skippers, Soviet Spetsnaz divers, hostile marine life—Orcas, Polar Bears, Greenland Sharks, and a harsh Arctic winter under the ice pack.

Their survival depends on overcoming all these obstacles, and making it out alive is not guaranteed. 

Mac McDowell recovers from injuries he received in Operation Arctic Sting and is assigned as Executive Officer on USS Teuthis. Teuthis is tasked with laying SOSUS arrays in the southern Atlantic and off Thurston Island, Western Antarctica. Teuthis tangles with Argentine subs while laying arrays in the south Atlantic, and encounters a ChiCom sub while installing another off Thurston Island. Mac with his team experience serious setbacks at the hands of the ChiComs while installing a relay transmitter on a nearby mountain peak. Teuthis discovers a Taiwanese underwater oil operation off Thurston Island and is tasked with escorting a Taiwanese sub and an underwater tanker to Taiwan under the cover of the largest military marine exercise since World War II--PacEx89. During the transit, Teuthis is attacked by a Chinese Han-class sub and a previously unknown North Korean AIP sub despite the protection provided by three U.S. fast attack subs.

Will Mac and Teuthis complete their mission, or will they finally meet their watery graves on the Pacific Ocean abyssal plain?  

A very wealthy entrepreneur in today's world dies of cancer and his head is cryonically preserved. He awakens about a century later inside an electronic matrix. He discovers an existential threat to humanity and organizes its defense against an invader operating under the Dark Forest Theory: Like hunters in a "dark forest," a civilization can never be certain of an alien civilization's true intentions. The extreme distances between stars creates an insurmountable "chain of suspicion," where any two civilizations cannot communicate well enough to dissipate mistrust, making conflict inevitable. This is the first of three books in The Oort Chronicles. 

A very wealthy entrepreneur in today's world dies of cancer and his head is cryonically preserved. He awakens about a century later inside an electronic matrix. He discovers an existential threat to humanity and organizes its defense against an invader operating under the Dark Forest Theory: Like hunters in a "dark forest," a civilization can never be certain of an alien civilization's true intentions. The extreme distances between stars creates an insurmountable "chain of suspicion," where any two civilizations cannot communicate well enough to dissipate mistrust, making conflict inevitable. This is the first of three books in The Oort Chronicles. 

As the Oort Federation becomes a major force in the Solar System, Braxton Thorpe passes the Federation chairmanship to former US President John Butler. Thorpe’s group offers humanity virtual immortality, but Isidor Orlov and his Udachny Enterprises oppose their every move. While terraforming Mars for more living space, the Mars Reds prove formidable as resisters. If the Asterian starship fighter pilots are released, will they align with Phoenix or Udachny, and who will develop the right FTL technology? In this tense space adventure, Thorpe, his team, and Max the tabby cat travel to Proxima Centauri and beyond to the Aster system, 84 lightyears distant. Will Thorpe bring together humans and Asterians in their quest for intergalactic travel? Will long life prove more than mere humans can handle? 

Building the largest machine in history, enabling cheap access to space, followed by the U.S. Navy SEALS developing a hardshell wingsuit to enable them to drop from Low Earth Orbit into combat. 

Discovering that Saturn’s moon Iapetus is a starship; forming a compact with the builders to advance their technology; using artificial wormholes to rescue millions from a global Jihad; developing FTL starships, and pushing out into the Galaxy. 

Constructing the first space launch-loop stretching 2,000 km between Baker and Jarvis Islands in the Equatorial Pacific. Slingshot’s characters loom larger than life as they work, play, and love from Seattle’s world financial district, to the ocean bottom off Baker Island, to the edge of space 80 km above.  

The Daedalus Files is published. The book contains the four Daedalus novellas: Daedalus, Daedalus LEO, Daedalus Squad, and Daedalus Combat. The four stories are about the development and deployment of a hard-shell wingsuit called the Gryphon. The wingsuit is first tested from 80,000 meters, then from Low Earth Orbit by one individual, then by six together, and then it is deployed in a combat venue.   

 Jon Stock and crew travel to Saturn’s moon, Iapetus. While underway they deal with a Jihadist stowaway. They discover Iapetus to be a derelict starship and meet the Founders, descendants of the starship builders. Their revelations impact the entire Solar System with momentous implications going backward and forward in time, paving the way for a joint push to the distant reaches of the Galaxy. 

The Iapetus Federation expands Solar Systemwide, while the Caliphate sweeps Earth. The Starchild Institute creates wormhole portals, using them to rescue groups not yet overrun by the Caliphate. Earth sinks into medievalism, while human activity shifts to the Iapetus Federation. Humans settle every potentially habitable spot in the Solar System and begin expanding into the rest of the Galaxy.  

THE STARCHILD TRILOGY: SLINGSHOT, THE STARCHILD COMPACT, THE IAPETUS FEDERATION. 

Building the largest machine in history, enabling cheap access to space; discovering that Saturn’s moon Iapetus is a starship; forming a compact with the builders to advance their technology; using artificial wormholes to rescue millions from a global Jihad; developing FTL starships, and pushing out into the Galaxy.

Using a new Gryphon hard-shell wingsuit, Tiger Baily, irreverent member of the Navy SEALS Winged Insertion Command, makes a harrowing first experimental base jump from the edge of Space, the Fred Noonan Skyport 80,000 meters above Jarvis Island in the Equatorial Pacific. Tiger’s target, which he must reach to survive, is Kiritimati Island, a tiny isolated atoll 379 km northeast of Jarvis over ever-threatening and oh-so-deep ocean waters. 

Following his successful base jump from Fred Noonan Skyport, Tiger Bailey undertakes the next step in the development process of the Gryphon hardshell wingsuit, a drop from Low Earth Orbit. In orbit, he encounters equipment problems that nearly kill him and doom the project, but ultimately, his skill and perseverance save the day.

After his successful proof-of-concept drop from Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Tiger Bailey's squad undertakes the next step in the development process of the Gryphon hardshell wingsuit, a coordinated drop from LEO by six team members. They tried to plan for every conceivable contingency, however, Mother Nature intervened with disastrous results. 

 SEALS Winged Insertion Command (SWIC) has based Tiger Bailey's operational SWIC-3 out of Howland Island near the Equator in the central Pacific, just a few kilometers away from Baker Island, location for the socket where Amelia Earhart Skytower terminates. Tiger Bailey's squad is tasked to drop from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to Mayotte Island, northwest of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, to rescue a U.S. Senator and his family who were taken hostage by pirates.  

About The Starman Jones Series:

Dr. Williscroft bases The Starman Jones Series on some of his son’s favorite stories when he was little, on unseen yet major phenomena – like the Theory of Special Relativity, nuclear and thermonuclear energy, gravity, radiation, the Solar System, weather, and SETI. He hopes to plant these concepts in your child’s mind, just like tales of fairies are planted by other children’s stories. He hopes that in the future, as your child encounters the subjects of this series in school, the memory of these enchanting tales will bubble to the surface, and your child will readily understand and cherish concepts that otherwise would be perplexing. This is an ingenious experiment that worked for Dr. Williscroft’s own son. I genuinely hope that it works for your child, too, and that each new story in this series will enrich your child as much as they did his son. In fact, I sincerely hope that this experiment will prove to be very successful for all children!

Dr. Frank Drake

Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe

SETI Institute, Mountain View, California

A story about using Special Relativity to your advantage. Baby Billy is born into the circle that includes Starman Jones and Space Pup. They want to take Billy with them on their journeys throughout the universe. But Baby Billy needs to be older. So Starman Jones and Space Pup journey to Sirius and back, traveling very, very fast. The result is that when they return, they arrive on Billy’s 9th birthday, although they, themselves, have barely aged. Thus, they become Billy’s Relativity Birthday Present. Endorsed by Dr. Frank Drake of SETI fame. 

Young readers learn what constellations are, and how their images relate to the real world, more about Relativity time and mass effects, and about the cosmic ramjet.

Starman Jones, Spacepup and Billy travel to the Dog Star, Sirius. Starman Jones explains to Billy and Spacepup what constellations are and how they relate to what we see in the sky today. They discuss the wonder of freefall and the apparent weight caused by the rocket ship’s acceleration. They learn about relativistic time dilation and the concept of the cosmic ram jet.

Anticipated Publication 2023

Robert G. Williscroft firmly establishes that the sky is not falling. By using scientific research and solid reasoning, he explains some of the most disturbing problems facing our nation including global warming, the safety of nuclear power, the politics of education, and the oxymoron of government efficiency. With a clear message, he discerns what is true from what is merely Chicken Little gibberish. 

From the secure life of a rural pastor in Montana to the shadow of the Iron Curtain, the life of Paul Williscroft reads like a novel. There is no fiction, however, in the fact that through personal risk and sacrifice he found ways to penetrate political and military barriers with the gospel of peace. Paul and Gladys Williscroft had a mission in life: to offer faith, hope and love to people who did not and could not know. Their mission was made possible by the ingenuity of those who persevere in love.