I picked up Shadow Divers with very low expectations. The story
of the U-Who had already been told in numerous media and the fact that the book
was a best seller just convinced me that it would turn out to be so much
schlock. I was wrong.
Shadow Divers is the story of two men, John Chatterton and Richie
Kohler, who find themselves thrust together while diving the wreck of an
unidentified U-boat off the coast of New Jersey. The motives and methodologies
of the two men, both in life and in diving, seem polar opposites. Chatterton lives
a tenaciously disciplined life in which he consistently strives to do the
honorable thing. Kohler prefers to keep things a bit looser, drinking to
excess, mooning families on passing boats and pulling up as many artifacts as
he can from the wrecks he dives. Not surprisingly, the two start off not liking
each other.
Equally unsurprising is the fact that they turn out to have a lot more in
common than they initially believe. Both have more than a passing interest in
U-boats. Both are able to look past the subs' Nazi origins to see the
characters of the men who manned them. And both are committed to doing whatever
it takes to discover the identity of this particular one -- which lies in a
place where no U-boat is supposed to be.
To the uninitiated, it would seem a simple matter to discover the identity of a
wreck. Someone must have reported a sinking. Somewhere a name must be engraved
or stenciled in. At the very least, there must be some mention of a crewman.
Well, not in this case. Whatever secrets the U-Who has, it doesn't give them up
easily. It lies in 230 feet of water and its interior is a nightmare
combination of silt, skeletons, hanging cables and caved-in pieces of
machinery. Of the first six divers who enter it, three lose their lives. Still,
dive after dive, year after year, Chatterton and Kohler devise new plans to
find some marking, carry those plans out perfectly and then come up empty.
I get the feeling that the author, Robert Kurson, is not a diver. If this is
the case, then his ability to describe the dangers and claustrophobia of deep
wreck diving is remarkable. And the human side of this story is nothing to
sneeze at either. I actually got a little verklempt near the end -- that's the
first time that's happened while reading a wreck diving book!
Despite my original misgivings, Shadow Divers is a very good book.
It was published by Random House in 2004.
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