''Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II'' is a 2004 non-fiction book by Robert Kurson recounting of the discovery of a World War II German

U-boat U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...

off the coast of

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

, United States in 1991, exploration dives, and its eventual identification as '' U-869'' lost on 11 February 1945.

Overview

In 1991, a group of divers, including

John Chatterton John Chatterton (born 1951) is an American wreck diver. Together with Richie Kohler, he was one of the co-hosts for the History Channel’s '' Deep Sea Detectives'', for 57 episodes of the series. He is also a consultant to the film and telev ...

, set out on ''Seeker'' to explore an unknown object lying below the surface of the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

and discover a

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

German

off the coast of New Jersey. Amazed at this discovery, Chatterton and his fellow divers make a pact to keep the U-boat a secret until they can discover its identity and claim credit for its discovery. This is to prevent "wreck-jumping" (wherein another person claims credit and/or removes objects from the wreck). Unfortunately, this pact is broken almost immediately by team members who tell close friends, and the secret is let out. Consulting both the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

and the

German Navy The German Navy (, ) is part of the unified (Federal Defense), the German Armed Forces. The German Navy was originally known as the ''Bundesmarine'' (Federal Navy) from 1956 to 1995, when ''Deutsche Marine'' (German Navy) became the official ...

yields denials of the possibility of a World War II-era U-boat wreck in that area. Historical records claim the closest U-boat wreck to be hundreds of miles away. The book chronicles the quest to learn the identity of the mysterious wreck, dubbed ''U-Who'' by the dive team, the identities of the men aboard her, and how she came to rest on the ocean floor near New Jersey. It took six years of dives to retrieve artifacts from the submarine plus research to confirm the boat's identity as '' U-869''. Over the length of the quest several members of the original dive team quit, either because their lives lead them elsewhere or over concerns for their safety. Several new members were brought in, including

Richie Kohler Richie Kohler is an American technical wreck diver and shipwreck historian who has been diving and exploring shipwrecks since 1980. Together with John Chatterton, Kohler was one of the co-hosts of the television series '' Deep Sea Detectives'' on ...

, a member of the notorious "Atlantic Wreck Divers" club that had the reputation of being pirate-like and reckless in their diving philosophy. This philosophy is the complete opposite of Chatterton's, and Chatterton initially dislikes Kohler. However, during the course of the quest the two men discover qualities in each other they both admire and respect. Kohler himself is driven not by monetary desires but the history behind the wreck, and the personal connection he feels as his family is of

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

descent. He and Chatterton ultimately become close friends. The quest for the identity of the U-boat and its occupants pushes the dive team to the limits, ultimately ending Chatterton's and Kohler's marriages, and the lives of three divers, including Steve Feldman, and the father-son team Chris Rouse, Sr. and Chris "Chrisy" Rouse, Jr.

In media

Books

Gary Gentile Gary Gentile (born 1946) is an American author and pioneering technical diver. Diving Gary Gentile is a wreck diver. It has been suggested that Gary Gentile may be the most experienced wreck diver in the world. He has dived on the wreck of the ...

's self-published, non-fiction book ''Shadow Divers Exposed: the Real Saga of the U-869'' (2006) challenges some of the facts about the sinking of . Gentile, a noted wreck diver, researcher, and author, sharply refutes Chatterton and Kohler's theory of how ''U-869'' sank. Gentile cites attack logs and eyewitness accounts from the crew of two

destroyer escort Destroyer escort (DE) was the United States Navy mid-20th-century classification for a warship designed with the endurance necessary to escort mid-ocean convoys of merchant marine ships. Development of the destroyer escort was promoted by th ...

s that suggest the U-boat was initially damaged with a

hedgehog A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are 17 species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introduction. The ...

launched by and then subsequently damaged with a depth charge by the accompanying . Gentile also contradicts the events on deck after the Rouses' fatal dive.

Television

The PBS ''NOVA'' episode, "Hitler's Lost Sub" (November 14, 2000), followed Chatterton and Kohler in their quest to identify the sub.

Music

Musician Adam Young of the group

Owl City Owl City is an American electronic music project created in 2007 in Owatonna, Minnesota. It is one of several projects by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Adam Young (American musician), Adam Young, who created the project while exp ...

wrote the song "Brielle" after having read ''Shadow Divers'': "

Brielle Brielle (), also called Den Briel in Dutch and Brill in English, is a town and historic seaport in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland, on the north side of the island of Voorne-Putten, at the mouth of the New Maas. The for ...

is a little town on the coast of New Jersey. I wrote the song after reading ''Shadow Divers'' by Robert Kurson in which he recounts the discovery of a World War II German U-boat sixty miles off the U.S. coast in 1991. The song describes a sailor who is about to leave on a long trip and wonders whether he will ever see the girl he loves again."

Reception

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the book received a 88 out of 100 based on 14 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Honors

American Booksellers Association The American Booksellers Association (ABA) is a non-profit trade association founded in 1900 that promotes independent bookstores in the United States. ABA's core members are key participants in their communities' local economy and culture, and to ...

's Non-fiction 2005 Book Sense Book of the Year Award *

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world. History 19th century ...

Alex Award The Alex Awards annually recognize "ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults ages 12 through 18". Since 2002, the Alex Awards have been administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of th ...

, 2005 *

New York Times Best Seller list ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

Notes

External links

Interview
with Robert Kurson on ''Shadow Divers'' at the

Pritzker Military Library The Pritzker Military Museum & Library (formerly Pritzker Military Library) is a non-profit museum and research library for the study of military history located in a state-of-the art facility in Kenosha, WI. The institution was founded in 2003, ...

''Booknotes'' interview with Kurson on ''Shadow Divers'', July 11, 2004.
{{Authority control Books of maritime history 2004 non-fiction books Alfred A. Knopf books Underwater diving books U-boats