Robert Kurson: Shadow Divers: The True Adventure Of Two Americans Who Risked Everything To Solve One Of The Last Mysteries Of World War II
During WWII, Americans feared no German weapon more than the Unterseeboot, or U-boat. Hundreds of the submarines prowled the Atlantic, striking without warning, disrupting passenger traffic, supply lines, and naval operations. For the first few years of its operation, the U-boat service inflicted massive casualties upon the Allies while suffering relatively few of its own. Authorities nervously contemplated the specter of an attack on the U.S. homeland, launched from a U-boat able to creep up to the coast in secret.
When, decades later, New Jersey charter captain Bill Nagle and expert wreck-diver John Chatterton identified a previously unknown wreck in 250-foot waters as a U-boat, the mystery, romance, and menace of the German submarine grabbed the attention of divers and history buffs alike. Divers were dying—some literally—for the chance to bring up an artifact identifying the U-boat, since none had ever been reported in the area. Historians anticipated rewriting the story of U-boat missions to the East Coast, as the divers' research uncovered extensive uncertainty and error in records long thought definitive.
In Shadow Divers, journalist Robert Kurson recounts the eight-year history of the quest to identify the submarine, focusing on the divers who went back year after year, diving at dangerous depths using improvised methods, hoping to recover any tag with the U-boat's number. He's got hold of great raw materials: death-defying feats, historical mysteries, even the laying to rest of unquiet corpses. Unfortunately, he can't help gilding the lily. Every interest is an obsession, every danger a test of manhood, every friend a soulmate, every goal a hero's quest. Chatterton, Nagle, and rival-turned-colleague Richie Kohler aren't just larger than life; they're IMAX-sized, and perversely, their humanity tends to drain away with every superlative. When their marriages dissolve, Kurson barely squeezes out a crocodile tear. When he alludes to their budget for transatlantic research jaunts and experimental equipment, he seems not to realize that his protagonists are slipping away from him.
However, such excesses can't derail an amazing tale. Kurson piles up details of diving technology and methodology with the breathless excitement of an enthusiast. As his characters search through historical records and the fading memories of participants for answers to their questions, Kurson rides the roller coaster of their disappointments and triumphs. Even his most eye-rolling conceit, a couple of chapters set in 1944 purporting to recount the experience of the doomed U-boat crew, works because of his meticulous documentation. Shadow Divers tells such a fantastic story that the storyteller's shortcomings prove forgivable.