Shadow divers: the true adventure of two Americans who risked everything to solve one of the last mysteries of World War II

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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.

BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Robert Kurson's Pirate Hunters.
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ISBN:
9781588362490
9780739349953
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Grouped Work ID599ba1c3-34c8-9d49-f4bd-9a4fdcd9cc5d
Grouping Titleshadow divers the true adventure of two americans who risked everything to solve one of the last mysteries of world war ii
Grouping Authorrobert kurson
Grouping Categorybook
Grouping LanguageEnglish (eng)
Last Grouping Update2023-03-23 03:51:40AM
Last Indexed2023-03-23 04:17:51AM

Solr Fields

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author
Kurson, Robert
author2-role
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Kurson, Robert
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display_description
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.
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Robert Kurson's Pirate Hunters.
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eAudiobook
eBook
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Audio Books
eBook
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9781588362490
last_indexed
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literary_form
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literary_form_full
Non Fiction
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Online OverDrive
owning_library_addison
Addison Public Library Online
owning_location_addison
Online OverDrive Collection
primary_isbn
9781588362490
publishDate
2004
2006
publisher
Books on Tape
Random House Digital
Random House Publishing Group
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Chatterton, John
Deep diving
Deep diving -- New Jersey
Electronic books
Excavations (Archaeology)
Excavations (Archaeology) -- New Jersey
HISTORY -- Europe -- Western
HISTORY / Military / Naval
HISTORY / Military / World War II
Military operations, Naval -- German
Military operations, Naval -- Submarine
Nagle, Bill, -- 1952-1993
Naval
New Jersey
Other
Shipwrecks
Shipwrecks -- New Jersey
U-869 (Submarine)
Underwater archaeology
Underwater archaeology -- New Jersey
World War (1939-1945)
World War II
World War, 1939-1945 -- Naval operations -- Submarine
World War, 1939-1945 -- Naval operations, German
title_display
Shadow divers : the true adventure of two Americans who risked everything to solve one of the last mysteries of World War II
title_full
Shadow Divers The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II
Shadow divers : the true adventure of two Americans who risked everything to solve one of the last mysteries of World War II / Robert Kurson
title_short
Shadow divers
title_sub
the true adventure of two Americans who risked everything to solve one of the last mysteries of World War II
topic_facet
Chatterton, John
Deep diving
Excavations (Archaeology)
German
HISTORY
HISTORY / Military / Naval
HISTORY / Military / World War II
History
Military
Military operations, Naval
Nagle, Bill
Naval
Naval operations
Naval operations, German
Nonfiction
Other
Shipwrecks
Submarine
Underwater archaeology
Western
World War II
World War, 1939-1945

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