Shadow Divers
Shadow Divers is a riveting true 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 hallucination, navigating through a minefield of perilous wreckage, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death often in the rusting hulks of sunken ships. But in 1991, not even these bold divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the New Jersey coast: 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 sediment. Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest to solve the mystery. Some 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 the drowned U-boat sailors–former enemies of their country. As the men’s marria
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In 1991, off the coast of New Jersey, charter divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler find a German U-boat 230 feet down with no record of being there. Identifying it takes them six dangerous years.
Yes. Shadow Divers is Robert Kurson's 2004 nonfiction account of two American divers who discovered a sunken WWII U-boat off New Jersey in 1991 and spent six years identifying it. Three divers died during the project.
A film adaptation has been in development since 2008 with Peter Weir attached at one point. As of 2025 the project remains in limbo.
Shadow Divers was written by Robert Kurson, published in 2004 by Random House Trade Paperbacks.
Shadow Divers is 400 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Shadow Divers takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
Shadow Divers is a standalone novel by Robert Kurson, not part of a series.
Shadow Divers is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
