Shadow Divers

By: Terry Cornell

This book passed the wine test! Wine test? That’s when I have a little vino in the evening with my wife and talk about the extraordinary book I’m reading. Not many books ignite my passion for the story, causing it to erupt and emerge on the tip of my tongue during downtime.

Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson is a New York Times Bestseller, rumored to become a movie, and a classic guy-read. In 1991, weekend wreck-divers discover what appears to be a German U-boat 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey. Problem is, no one seems to know its identity or how it got there. Over the next six years, divers Ray Chatterton and Richie Kohler obsessively dive, research, and interview submarine experts around the world trying to solve the mystery.

Resting in sediment on the sea bottom, 230 feet below the ocean’s surface, the U-who is at the depth limits divers could safely reach with technology available at the time.

Kurson immerses neophyte divers into the perils and dangers of wreck-diving (particularly east coast wreck-diving), where the treacherous Atlantic Ocean can change from seemingly docile, sun-speckled swells to dive-boat-wrecking gales within a few hours.

Kurson’s descriptive narrative zips readers into a dry suit and sends them down the anchor line to help explore the wreck with Chatterton, Kohler and the other divers. Limited air, the bends, poor visibility, the potential of being trapped by a jungle of twisted steel and cables, and the ever-present drunk-like state of narcosis that can lead to deadly decisions — all are chilling. Fortunately, the reader survives the dives, but some divers do not.

Chatterton and Kohler begin as bitter rivals, each driven with his own motivation as well as approach to wreck-diving. As the dives and investigation continue, they form a bond that outlasts their marriages — a bond stronger than many lifelong friendships.

Their search for answers takes them to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, where a captured German U-boat is on display, the Naval Historical Center in Washington D.C., and to Germany to visit various U-boat archives and sources.

The wreckage itself provides the final clue to its identity but at the cost of human lives and relationships. Surviving family members in Germany are visited and notified, which helped the author give glimpses of the lives of entombed crewmen fated to spend eternity with their ship. A most important question remains: What caused the U-boat to sink? While Kurson presents Chatterton and Kohler’s theories, the real answer may never be known.

This is a book I found hard to put down. I call it a classic guy-read because women characters are rare and play a relatively minor role. But a surprising amount of space is given to the significance of women in Chatterton’s and Kohler’s lives. These relationships prompted some serious decisions. For a historical, true-life, male-bonding adventure, Shadow Divers can’t be beat.