“If an undertaking was easy, someone else already would have done it”

One of the benefits of 12 hour alerts is the downtime between flights to escape into a book and be transported to a different time and place.

Shadow Divers transported me 240 feet underwater into the world of wreck divers. Diving reminds me of flying and the adventure that awaits at 240ft inside a German UBoat. Really well written with an intertwining story of the background of the divers and their families, to the famous dives that discovered and identified the wrecks, and to German in 1944 when the crew of the UBoat, mostly teenagers and men in their early 20s, left on a voyage they know they wouldn’t return from.

*Diving for history’s sake.*

"In contemplating the Doria's tilted grandness, he could glimpse shadows of the secrets great shipwrecks offer those who see with their minds."

This was my second Robert Kurson book after Rocket Men, and it’s clear he’s working from the same blue print.

Highlight event, then background on event, deeper history on individuals involved, minor related events, final analysis of main event ... more or less. Very formulaic, not necessarily in a bad way.

A very dear friend of mine lost her mother to a deep sea diving accident, so the life threatening aspect of the book was all the more vivid while reading.

Whether it’s rockets in space or submarines on the ocean floor—Kurson knows how to weave a thrilling true life adventure tale.

"In the course of two weeks he had contact with a U-boat ace, a blimp pilot, a historian, and the president of a U-boat club. Each gave accounts of history unavailable in books and sometimes at odds with books. To Chatterton, who had hungered since childhood for better explanations, for the chance to see for himself, this stretching of history's canvas was a revelation."

"Reading about men did not seem like book work to Kohler. Instead, he found himself transported; he could feel the inside of a U-boat not just as a machine but as the backdrop to a human being’s life. He could feel the grueling and claustrophobic conditions under which these soldiers waged war, the coldness of a live torpedo next to a man’s sleeping face, the smell of six-week-old underwear, the spittle in the expletives of men crammed too close to one another for too long, the splatter of a single icy condensation droplet on the neck of an enlisted man finishing a six-hour shift. Technical information interested him, yes, but technology did not make his heart pound—nothing did—like the idea of a U-boat man waiting helplessly while Allied depth charges tumbled through the water toward his submarine, the ominously dainty
ping
.
.
. ping
.
.
. ping
.
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.
of Allied sonar a prelude to imminent explosion."

n  "Life is a matter of luck, and the odds in favor of success are in no way enhanced by extreme caution."n
— WWII German U-Boat Commander Eric Topp

Wow! What a story!

I initially was going to pass on reading this local library book discussion choice, because I thought the subject uninteresting but changed my mind, and I’m certainly glad I did. This is an adventure story which reminded me a lot of Jon Krakauer’s “into Thin Air.” An extreme sport that requires a lot of training and dedication.

Robert Kurson educates us on the sport of deep-wreck diving and the dangers of the sport and what might drive people to the sport. He details this in great depth for the two main characters so we clearly understand their motivations. As the story progresses, you learn about the rise and fall of U-boats in WWII and the dangers of sailing an underwater sub and the motivations of some of the sailors.

So even though this story is laden with technical information, it is enough to give you an understanding of the dangers involved, but never was uninteresting. It’s one of those books I could not put down!

The novel tells of John Chatterton and Rich Kohler, two deep-sea wreck divers who in 1991 dove to a mysterious wreck lying at the perilous depth of 230 feet, off the coast of New Jersey. Both had a philosophy of excelling and pushing themselves to the limit; both needed all their philosophy and fitness to proceed once they had identified the wreck as a WWII U-boat. As Kurson, a writer for Esquire , narrates in this debut, the two divers next undertook a seven-year search for the U-boat's identity inside the wreck, in a multitude of archives and in a host of human memories. Along the way, Chatterton's diving cost him a marriage, and Kohler's love for his German heritage helped turn him into a serious U-boat scholar. The two lost three of their diving companions on the wreck and their mentor, Bill Nagle, to alcoholism. (Chowdhury's The Last Dive , from HarperPerennial in 2002, covers two of the divers' deaths.) The successful completion of their quest fills in a gap in WWII history—the fate of the Type IX U-boat U-869. Chatterton and Kohler's success satisfied them and a diminishing handful of U-boat survivors. While Kurson doesn't stint on technical detail, lovers of any sort of adventure tale will certainly absorb the author's excellent characterizations, and particularly his balance in describing the combat arm of the Third Reich. Felicitous cooperation between author and subject rings through every page of this rare insightful action narrative. If the publishers are dreaming of another Perfect Storm , they may get their wish. Agent, Heather Schroder .7-city author tour; first serial to Esquire; rights sold in Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the U.K. (On sale June 29)

As an ex-Navy dude and sports diver, I found this quite fascinating. The info about narcosis and the bends brought back found memories of my scuba training in my late teens. It also brought back the terrifying feeling during my cert dive with about a 2-foot visibility. Oh, the memories. The divers in this story possess amazing grit and guts. A truly amazing account of the search for the identity of U-Who. I had to keep reminding myself this was a non-fiction read.

This was scary and fascinating. i'm never going ship wreck diving ever.

Best book I've read in five years. The adventure of a lifetime. A mystery underwater? I was already hooked. Two guys who find a German U-Boat off the New Jersey coast? The entire crew still inside? That's a book with promise. And the author delivers. He weaves the right combination of non-fiction research and a fascinating tale of two men struggling for seven years--against incredible and unexpected odds--to figure out which U-Boat they had found. If you know anything about research, or simply believe in the value of an accurate historical record, you'll enjoy the subplot as much as the death-defying dives to the sub, forever submerged under 200 feet of cold, North Atlantic waters. This may be the best non-fiction I have ever read.

I was particularly struck by Kurson's tone. It is perfect: urgent, but not overstated (the way this review surely appears). The book moves quickly between narrative scenes and factual/historical context, and Kurson's voice is not sentimental. He plays the straight man throughout, but the straight man who is pressing relentlessly on toward the finish. The book is brisk.

When you finish the book and look at this story, the amount of material Kurson had to comprehend and then organize into a narrative, his work is astounding. But you won't think about that until you finish. The book is too good to stop and think about such things--you'll just want to read and read and read.

(This was my amazon.com review, titled: "BEST BOOK I'VE READ IN THREE YEARS.") Incidentally, I posted it on my blog and Kurson e-mailed me within the hour, thanking me. Nice man--we've corresponded twice since.

WOW. This book was absolutely incredible. What a way to break me out of a reading slump.

I’ve had this on my nightstand for a long while. I finally picked it up in light of the recent drama in which the submersible Titan imploded while on a trip to view the Titanic shipwreck (more than 12,000 feet below the surface).

I’ve always been fascinated by the ocean and all that lies beneath, most of which remains a mystery. This story not only has mystery, it has adventure and it has extreme danger and all of these factors make for an extraordinarily compelling read.

Robert Kurson has done absolute wonders with this story about deep shipwreck divers who discover a WWII U-boat 230 feet below the ocean’s surface off the coast of New Jersey. The divers are amazed by their find, and set out to learn more about the sub, the men who were in it, and what happened to them nearly 50 years before.

It would be no simple task— diving is fraught with peril and men often die in the pursuit of examining wrecks.

This book focuses on two divers— John Chatterton and Richie Kohler— in their obsession to get to the bottom of the mystery at all costs, as well as shines a humanizing light on the men who perished in that submarine.

Mad respect for the vast amount of research that Kurson did for this book, and the amazing way he put it all together. The story is amazing and the writing is just outstanding. Highly, highly recommend.

The diving! The mystery! The history! The submariners’ stories! A very dad-coded book that you should read, too.

Ich habe als Kind mit Begeisterung die Comic-Reihe um den Meeresforscher Jean-Jaques Cousteau verschlungen. Am besten haben mir dabei immer die Tauchgänge der Calypso-Crew gefallen.

Dieser Enthusiasmus hat leider mit meinem ersten eigenen Tauchgang vor Gili Trawangan (Indonesien) rapide nachgelassen. Diverse Umstände haben dazu geführt, dass ich vorerst keine Tauchausrüstung mehr anrühren werde.

Warum also ein Buch zu dem Thema lesen?

Ich bin ein Fan von Non-Fiction und eines meiner Lieblingswerke aus diesem Bereich ist "In eisigen Höhen" von John Krakauer über das tragische Everest-Unglück von 1996.

Kursons "Shadow divers" wird häufig als eine Art umgedrehte Unterwasser-Version dieses Tatsachenberichts beschrieben.

Meine Erwartungen waren also dementsprechend hoch.


Und darum geht’s: Im Herbst 1991 entdecken John Chatterton und Richie Kohler vor New Jersey ein deutsches U-Boot Wrack aus dem zweiten Weltkrieg. Das Boot wurde anscheinend durch einen Torpedo versenkt, die Knochen der toten Crew sind noch an Bord. Doch alle offiziellen Aufzeichnungen stimmen überein: ein deutsches U-Boot dürfte es an dieser Stelle gar nicht geben.
Sechs Jahre lang versucht ein Team von Tauchspezialisten das Rätsel um das mysteriöse Boot zu lösen. Doch nicht alle werden das Abenteuer überleben.

Wer hätte gedacht, dass Tauchen so mitreißend sein kann. Die Möglichkeiten beim Wracktauchen vor die Hunde zu gehen scheinen schier unbegrenzt zu sein.
Damit ist ein spannender Rahmen für die Geschichte etabliert.
Auch die Taucherszene bietet einen hohen Unterhaltungswert. Waghalsige Pioniere treffen hier auf Artefaktensammler mit Rocker-Attitüde. Konträre Philosophien prallen aufeinander und führen zu Rivalität. Bootskapitäne verheimlichen aus Wettbewerbsgründe ihre Koordinaten zu neuen Schiffwracks.

Zudem war das Tauchen Anfang der neunziger Tauchen noch um ein vielfaches gefährlicher. Gasgemische wie Trimix oder Heliox, die heutzutage verwendet werden um den Tiefenrausch zu unterbinden, waren Neuland.

Und so fordert die Tiefe und der Tiefenrausch schon bald die ersten Opfer. Packend erzählt Kurson von den dramatischen ersten Tauchgängen zum U-Boot, die mehrere erfahrene Taucher das Leben kosten.

Doch Kohler und Chatterton lassen sich davon nicht abbringen weiterzutauchen. Sie entwickeln eine Besessenheit, die sich auch außerhalb des Wassers fortsetzt.
So verbringen sie ihre gesamte Freizeit mit Nachforschungen zum mysteriösen Boot, das sie vorerst U-Who getauft haben. Sie führen Interviews mit Zeitzeugen, studieren Baupläne, wälzen historische Akten und Bücher und reisen sogar für Nachforschungen nach Deutschland.

Als Leser erfährt man so nebenbei eine ganze Menge faszinierender Details zum U-Boot Krieg und dem Soldaten-Alltag in den “eisernen Särgen”.

Doch das U-Who will seine Identität partout nicht preisgeben und mit der Zeit fällt der Aufklärungsjagd auch das Privatleben der beiden Taucher zum Opfer.

Am Ende scheint es nur noch einen Weg zur Lösung des Geheimnisses zu geben. Und so setzen die beiden Taucher in einer letzten waghalsigen Aktion alles auf eine Karte.

Fazit – Non-Fiction mit Tiefgang!
Robert Kurson liefert mit "Shadow Divers" einen dramatischen Unterwasserthriller, der packend ist, bis zum letzten Atemzug.

Aber die Geschichte hat auch abseits des Wassers Tiefgang. Hier geht es nicht nur ums Tauchen. Kurson beschreibt wie bei Chatterton und Kohler Rivalität zu Freundschaft wurde und wie sich die Leidenschaft für das Wrack in Besessenheit verwandelte.

Wie der Pioniergeist die Taucher dazu trieb, immer größere Risiken einzugehen bis sich schließlich Gegenwart und Geschichte in lebensfeindlicher Tiefe zu einem letzten Showdown gegenübertraten.

Wer Shadow Divers liest, sollte tief Luft holen. Denn ist man erstmal in die Geschichte eingetaucht, möchte man so schnell die letzte Seite erreichen, wie ein ein panischer Taucher die Oberfläche.

Wertung 4,5/5

Alle awesomatik Rezensionen auf einen Blick:
http://awesomatik.com/was-ich-lese/

Meine Lieblings-Non-Fiction-Abenteuerbücher gibt’s hier:
http://awesomatik.com/2012/10/05/awes...


awesomatik Kuriosum
Die Filmrechte an der Geschichte wurden schon verkauft, doch leider noch nicht verwirklicht.
Dafür gibt es schon die PBS Dokumentation "Hitler’s lost sub" über das U-Who.

Hier ein unterhaltsamer Tauchclip, in dem auch John Chatterton einen Auftritt hat:
http://vimeo.com/88443220

Und wer jetzt inspiriert wurde, kann sich hier die schönsten, tauchbaren Schiffswracks anschauen:
http://www.cntraveler.com/daily-trave...

Aktuell behauptet übrigens der umstrittene Barry Clifford, die Santa Maria (das Schiff von Christoph Columbus) gefunden zu haben:
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-...

Mehr Rezensionen und abenteuerlichen Content auf http://awesomatik.com

This is the fascinating true story of deep-sea wreck divers. Some are commercial divers while others come from all walks of life and share the love of discovery, the call of the unknown. Most are die-hard aficionados of the artifacts that can be pulled from underwater wrecks. Whatever their life calling, deep-sea divers are explorers; they are today’s frontiersmen and women, probing, sifting, and investigating. Sometimes the exploration turns inward to investigate what's inside of them answering this call to 'go forth.' What is it that compels a person to risk their life when the negative side can be a horrible, painful death? In this account, author Robert Kurson takes the reader below the ocean to a depth of 230 feet where an unknown wreck has been discovered in 1991 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey by Captain Bill Nagle.

While Kurson follows a formulaic approach to his novel’s format, the narrative is anything but. I read Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon by this author, published in 2018 and because of that novel, I wanted to backtrack and read this one, published in 2004. Both novels are similarly powerful and emotive, tracking strong, idealized men with deep core principles. While focusing on the thread of his main story, Kurson probes into each man’s past. What is he made of? What brings him to this moment? What principles does he live by? Are his principles put to the test? I can tell you that in this story they certainly are!

The deep-sea diver has many obstacles to overcome, but the main one is fear. Panic will cause a diver to breathe up his air more quickly, sending his air gauge into the red. Timing is everything. Because of the decompression time required for deep-sea dives, they only have around 25 minutes on the bottom to explore. If anything goes wrong and they don’t decompress properly, they can die from decompression sickness (the bends) as nitrogen dissolves into the body’s tissues causing a host of problems. A slow ascension allows the nitrogen to diffuse out of the tissues. One diver in the narrative becomes a “dirt dart.” Having improperly adjusted his buoyancy control device, he sinks rapidly to the ocean floor. This is a potentially life-threatening event. In this particular situation, the diver then overcorrected (panic?) his buoyancy device and rose rapidly to the ocean surface without decompressing. Did he survive? This is just one of many situations that had me holding my breath. The scenarios reminded me of the risks of extreme sports. However, there’s more meat to this story than just an adrenaline rush. It’s also about the mystery of solving this particular wreck’s identification.

Solving the wreck's identity kept me eagerly turning pages. A fascinating account that I recommend for all those who love adventure stories. However, this is a story that is appealing on many levels, to those who are interested in tales of a principled life, tales of the seeker explorer, or the mystery of remaining still in the death’s eye of panic, something which I think enthralls most of us.

3.5 Stars
This story had me hook line and sinker. I initially came to it with its comparison to Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air", which blew me away. There is no doubt for the comparison. Where Into Thin Air delves into the politics and risks of climbing Mt. Everest, Shadow Divers deals in the risk and politics of deep sea diving. High altitude sickness vs depth narcosis, and how they both intrude on your sanity while you are already risking your life. This is a true story of discovery. American divers find a Nazi sub on the bottom of the Atlantic off the coast of New Jersey. The mystery lies in identifying it. There is no historical record placing any u-boats at this location. Although I found the whole account very fascinating, I did find the writing a bit choppy and bogged down at parts. I do come away with a richer understanding of deep sea diving, u-boats and their role in World War Two. Now I think I should go watch Daas Boot or U-571. Books Inspire!