Shadow Divers

Robert Kurson

£10.99

In 1991, 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey, at the incredible depth of 230 feet underwater, two amateur divers, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, find what divers dream about: an undisturbed wreck that they soon identify as a German U-boat. But there is no official record of this warship, and no historian or government can solve the puzzle. So this unlikely duo and their team of daredevil divers embark on a perilous quest: to identify the shadowy vessel who they’ve nicknamed ‘U-Who’. But plunging into the murky depths raises its own questions, and not everybody will make it back to the surface. After years of increasingly risky diving, painstaking archival research, and gaining the trust of retired U-boat crew, the team finally identify it as U-869 and work out what on earth it’s doing there. But Chatterton and Kohler, whose rivalry has turned to friendship won’t stop there – they decide to trace the families of the men who died on

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Publish Date: 13/08/2026

Description

A true adventure in which two amateur scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery – and make history themselves

'This book is a work of art' RYAN HOLIDAY
'A pulse-quickening real-life thriller' New York Times
'A memorable story, beautifully told' The Times

For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. But in 1991, not even these courageous divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid waters of the Atlantic: a Second World War German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wasteland of twisted metal, tangled wires and human bones.

No identifying marks were visible. No historian, expert or government had a clue as to which U-boat the men had found, and the official records all agreed that there simply could not be a sunken U-boat and crew there.

Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest of increasingly perilous diving and painstaking archival research 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.

Bestselling author Robert Kurson’s account of this quest is thrilling, vivid and emotionally complex. It’s a story of persistence, ingenuity and a shared obsession.

Additional information

Weight 244 g
Dimensions 197 × 128 × 26 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

416

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

940.5451 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K