Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II

He gained a reputation as one of the best shipwreck divers on the East Coast; some said he might be among the best in the world. One day Nagle paid him the highest compliment by saying, “When you die no one will ever find your body.”

A great diver learns to stand down his emotions. At the moment he becomes lost or blinded or tangled or trapped, that instant when millions of years of evolution demand fight or flight and narcosis carves order from his brain, he dials down his fear and contracts into the moment until his breathing slows and his narcosis lightens and his reason ret

Most divers stay exclusively outside the wreck. They come to touch the ship or search for loose artifacts or snap photographs. Their work is steady and conservative. The spirit of the ship, however, lies inside. That is where the stories have settled, where one uncovers the freeze-frames of final human experience.

“I think we all know from our research that the stuff you hear about U-boats coming up on the beaches and the crewmen attending costume balls and buying bread at the local market are bullshit fantasy,” Kohler said, pacing the room and using his triangular pepperoni slice like a professor’s pointer. “But I’m going to confess something. You know the

As the Seeker steamed home and many of the divers retired to the salon to sleep, Chatterton and Kohler found themselves sitting together atop a cooler. The trip had overwhelmed Kohler; it had brought together, in a single day, his passions for naval history, submarines, exploration, and artifacts. It had made him feel a part of history. For a while

He imagined a time when he could run out for pizza or take his car for a spin without seeing the U-Who’s crushed control room before him, a time when he no longer wondered if he was who he hoped he was. The fantasy always felt good for a minute, but it always ended with Chatterton thinking, “When things are easy a person doesn’t really learn about

Life’s splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. —Franz Kafka, Diaries

While the other divers intended to pick a spot and search for a tag or other piece of identification, Chatterton planned to swim the wreck, orienting himself according to his Chicago memories, looking for nothing but impressions. Only when he understood a wreck did he believe he could formulate a plan to approach it. The strategy made it likely tha

Narcosis and decompression sickness are the patriarchs on the family tree of deep-wreck diving dangers. A diver does not dare board a charter boat bound for a deep wreck unless he honors these perils.