In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm comes a true tale of riveting adventure in which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery–and make history themselves. For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents, braving depths … treacherous currents, braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, navigating through wreckage as perilous as a minefield, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than once in the rusting hulks of sunken ships.
But in the fall of 1991, not even these courageous divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey: a World War II German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wasteland of twisted metal, tangled wires, and human bones–all buried under decades of accumulated sediment.
No identifying marks were visible on the submarine or the few artifacts brought to the surface. No historian, expert, or government had a clue as to which U-boat the men had found. In fact, the official records all agreed that there simply could not be a sunken U-boat and crew at that location.
Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest to solve the mystery. Some of them would not live to see its end. Chatterton and Kohler, at first bitter rivals, would be drawn into a friendship that deepened to an almost mystical sense of brotherhood with each other and with the drowned U-boat sailors–former enemies of their country. As the men’s marriages frayed under the pressure of a shared obsession, their dives grew more daring, and each realized that he was hunting more than the identities of a lost U-boat and its nameless crew.
Author Robert Kurson’s account of this quest is at once thrilling and emotionally complex, and it is written with a vivid sense of what divers actually experience when they meet the dangers of the ocean’s underworld. The story of Shadow Divers often seems too amazing to be true, but it all happened, two hundred thirty feet down, in the deep blue sea.
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Robert Kurson’s Pirate Hunters.
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Riveting! Couldn’t put it down!
Loved the story about this previous unknown German U-boat in American waters.
This is one of my favorite books, and that’s not just because I’m a diver. It gives the non-diver a view of a magical world only a relatively few people ever see, 200 feet deep in the Atlantic Ocean. The two main characters are quite different but they share a respect for people that causes them to risk everything, even their lives, to show their …
This is easily one of the most engrossing, exciting books I’ve ever read. A friend lent it to me just before my summer beach vacation, and I told him later it had ruined my vacation. I never looked up from the book for days. In addition to deep wreck diving the book chronicles terrific characters, unravels a WWII mystery, and takes unexpected …
One of the best books i’ve read in a long time.
I had this book from a local library used book sale. It sat on my shelf for months and one day I decided to read it. I don’t know why I waited so long. Great book I will now keep in my collection.
Both men and woman love the book. It’s a great gift also. If you have never scuba dived you fell like you did after reading this book. One of my favorites.
A well researched piece of nonfiction. In my opinion, the reader would have been better served if the author was a little more dispassionate observer and a little less unabashed fanboy.
With editing it would make an Interesting magazine article. It tended towards redundancy.
Great real life story about living out an inspiration to uncover history.
History as is was lived.
Great story with never give up characters seeking the truth and acting on findings to solve the mystery un der significant adversity of internal and outside forces.
Learned about historical event close to home that I was not aware of.
Extremely slow, and ponderous. Have not been able to continue.
Read this years ago and couldn’t put it down. There is a video about this true event. I even had to have that!
have read this book twice. recommended this book to a friend who is a diver he downloaded it that night and next time we spoke he said this was a good read.
As an ex-submariner and amateur scuba diver, this book will open your eyes to subs and especially open water diving. Excellent telling of a fascinating story.