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Shadow Divers—By Robert Kurson

Random House, 2004
Reviewed by Nita Curry
July 17, 2006

“A deep-shipwreck diver breathing air confronts two primary dangers. First, at depths greater than about 66 feet, his judgment and motor skills can become impaired, a condition known as nitrogen narcosis. As he descends farther, the effects of narcosis become more pronounced. Beyond 100 feet, where some of the best shipwrecks lie, he can be significantly handicapped, yet he must perform feats and make decisions upon which his life depends.

“Second, should something go wrong, he cannot simply swim to the surface. A diver who has spent time in deep water must ascend gradually, stopping at predetermined intervals to allow his body to readjust to decreasing pressures. (p. 23)” 

So begins the story of Shadow Divers. It’s a true story about fearless men who deep-sea dive as a hobby and who came together through a mutual interest. Ultimately they changed history.

Death-defying Snobs
It was this type of deep-sea diving information that just sucked me into the book. To be honest, I knew almost nothing about scuba diving and didn’t realize that people plumbed the depths of the ocean in order to capture treasures from eras gone by—but they do.  It’s a sport in and of itself. Those who adhere to this particular sport are snobs. They look down their noses at novices who dive only warm waters and go only deep enough to say that they have been scuba diving.

Those who are deep-sea divers are explorers, they are adventurers, and they are risk-takers; yet they are not the typical risk-taker. The risks they take are risks only to the bystander. However, for these divers, they are not taking chances; each move is calculated, each piece of equipment is inspected because their life depends on it. Without proper equipment, there is no chance for survival.

Incredible, Yet True
It isn’t too often that one can say, “I changed what the history books had written.” Yet divers John Chatterton and Rich Kohler can. In 1991 on a tip from a fisherman, Bill Nagle, the captain and owner of a boat called The Seeker, sped out from the dock on an adventure to find a wreck, one that no one knew about and, more importantly to deep-sea divers, one that had never been explored before. For the novice to deep-sea diving, the idea of diving such a wreck is tantalizing, but to the expert, it’s a dream come true.

So it was that The Seeker carried a group of men hoping to score an exciting find. To some divers the motivation to dive was to collect artifacts. To others their driving force was to be the first to “identify” a wreck. This established a diver’s reputation like nothing else. Most knew that all it would probably turn out to be was a garbage barge sunk off the coast of New Jersey—such barges were sunk from time to time and proved to be fertile fishing venues. Nonetheless, those on this dive hoped beyond reason that it would prove to be a real find.

The 12 divers on this day in 1991 were excited to be diving a virgin wreck, but the excitement reached new levels once they realized that what they were dealing with was not a garbage barge, but a U-boat, most likely a submarine from World War II. They knew there was no way of knowing for sure where the ship came from until an item with an identification number, a name, or some other unquestionable artifact that could positively identify the boat was found.

An Overnight Sensation, Except…
It took six years of sleuthing, patience, and just plain old perseverance to finally get the answers to the boat’s identity. The divers took on new roles as historians as they delved into the history of U-boats and World War II. Trips were made to Chicago, to Germany, and to national war archives.

With all their research and digging, it all boiled down to their recovering an artifact from the ship that positively named it. It was then that history was rewritten—nowhere in the history books was there any mention of this particular U-boat in this vicinity!

Only 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey lay the skeleton of a German submarine, along with the skeletons of its crew. Why was it so close to the shore? Why didn’t the Germans know about it? There were many questions posed, and some were answered. And in the end, Chatterton and Kohler were able to unravel the mystery of this U-boat.

The Storyteller and the Story
Author Kurson does something that I especially liked. He tells the story of the men on the submarine. Extensive research unearthed many personal details of the men who died on this boat. It helps the reader understand how the obsession became as much a labor of love as a mystery to solve for Chatterton and Kohler because they wished to identify those who perished in that boat and to tell their loved ones.

If you like adventure, history, and a true story, you’ll love this book. It almost made me want to take up deep-sea diving!

ninetyandnine.com

© 2006, Nita Curry

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Nita Curry is Letter’s Page Editor for ninetyandnine.com.