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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 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.
(front flap)
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
World War II Military History, Excavations (Archaeology), Underwater archaeology, Deep diving, History, Shipwrecks, Submarine, Nonfiction, World War, 1939-1945, Naval operations, German, Naval operations, U-869 (Submarine), German Naval operations, Submarines (ships), Excavations (archaeology), north america, World war, 1939-1945, naval operations, submarine, World war, 1939-1945, naval operations, german, Large type books, German, Naval Military operations, nyt:expeditions-disasters-and-adventures=2015-09-13, New York Times bestsellerPlaces
New Jersey, Atlantic OceanShowing 10 featured editions. View all 21 editions?
Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references and index.
US/CAN
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Source records
Collingswood Public Library recordInternet Archive item record
marc_openlibraries_sanfranciscopubliclibrary MARC record
Internet Archive item record
Better World Books record
Library of Congress MARC record
Promise Item
First Sentence
"BILL NAGLE'S LIFE CHANGED the day a fisherman sat beside him in a ramshackle bar and told him about a mystery he had found lying at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean."
Work Description
Shadow Divers is a riveting true 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 that induced hallucination, navigating through a minefield of perilous wreckage, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death often in the rusting hulks of sunken ships.
But in 1991, not even these bold divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the New Jersey coast: 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 sediment.
Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest to solve the mystery. Some 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 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.
Shadow Divers spent 24 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list, peaking at #2. The book was awarded the American Booksellers Association’s 2005 “Book of the Year Award,” and has been translated into 22 languages.
(source)
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Feedback?April 3, 2022 | Edited by Lisa | added details from linked copy |
October 3, 2021 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
September 26, 2021 | Edited by Lisa | Added edition. |
August 6, 2021 | Edited by New York Times Bestsellers Bot | Add NYT bestseller tag |
December 9, 2009 | Created by WorkBot | add works page |