Shadow Divers

by Robert Kurson

  “The best part of you was the stain I left on the mattress,” Chris would say in front of a boat full of divers.

  “You old fucking man, you can’t keep up with me,” Chrissy would reply.

  “You’re lucky you got my good looks or you wouldn’t get anywhere with women,” Chris would say.

  “Ah, you just got lucky with Mom, you old douche,” Chrissy would answer.

  And on and on, until the Rouses came to be known as the Bickers. Some divers were horrified by the exchanges. Many more were entertained. Chatterton and Kohler watched in amazement.

  Yet the Rouses were excellent divers. They had made their bones as cave divers, a branch of scuba known for its meticulous and unrelenting safety training. Cavers often shunned wreck diving because of its unpredictability and harsh conditions, but the Rouses were drawn to wrecks for the history to be uncovered and the artifacts to be taken. Cavers who challenged shipwrecks often did so stubbornly, refusing to warehouse their long-held mantras and techniques. The Rouses had no such issues. They were ravenous in seeking new skills and burned to apply them. Like many cavers, they had experience with technical diving and breathing trimix, and were eager to discuss theory and ideas.

  When the Rouses hit water it was clear they were blood. They dove as a team and had developed a sixth sense between them, the kind of anticipation born of a lifetime of living under the same roof. Underwater they remained absolutely loyal, each willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the other. This single-mindedness—this love—made the Rouses perhaps the most formidable team in diving.

  When Nagle invited the Rouses to join the U-Who expedition, Chrissy vowed to solve the mystery. He told Chatterton that by identifying the wreck he would immortalize the Rouse name and contribute a page of history to the world. His father did not bicker with him about this.

  “They’re more than talented and capable enough to do it,” Chatterton told Kohler. “They may be the ones who get this done.”

  The weather for the June trip was not nearly as perfect as it had been in May, but the divers’ plans remained the same. Chatterton would search the forward torpedo tubes for numbered tags. Kohler would hunt for identifying artifacts. Crowell would measure the wreck. Yurga would determine if the U-Who had been built with a deck gun. As for the Rouses, they would penetrate the wreck and begin to learn the U-boat.

  As before, Chatterton and Kohler dove together and set the hook. This time, Kohler swam forward with Chatterton, his eyes scanning the areas where crewmen kept records and personal belongings. Chatterton moved through the forward section of the U-boat, into the torpedo room, and up against the torpedo-tube hatches. Where he had once seen nothing in this spot, he now saw a white, tag-shaped patch of encrustation on the hatch. He grabbed his knife and pried the blade under the encrustation. White flakes fell away, revealing the perfect outline of a tag. Except no tag remained. Corrosion had eaten away the metal so that only the imprint of the tag had survived. Chatterton’s heart sank. He inspected the other three torpedo-tube hatches. Same story. A half century of salt water and storms had gnawed away the answer. As Chatterton turned to end his dive he felt profoundly disappointed. He had developed concrete evidence for the tags’ existence and had designed a well-researched plan for their retrieval, only to find them eaten by nature.

  Just behind Chatterton, Kohler was having better luck. While in the noncommissioned officers’ quarters he discovered a closetful of boots and shoes, still lined up neatly—left-right, left-right—just as the crewmen had left them. He took one of the boots, believing a crewman might have written his name inside. “It doesn’t look like you guys were wearing these, so I’m going to take one,” he explained to the roomful of remains around him.

  Kohler moved next to the conning tower lying broken in the sand beside the U-boat. Inside, he discovered a bicycle-type seat. At once, he recognized the piece as the chair on which the commander sat while manning the attack periscope. “This might be where the commander died,” he told himself. “If this U-boat was attacking when it was sunk, this is where the guy would have been sitting.” The chair, however, bore no identifying marks, so Kohler left it alone. He met Chatterton on the anchor line. Each man shook his head. Neither had solved the mystery.

  While Chatterton and Kohler decompressed, Crowell and Yurga set about their missions. To measure the wreck, Crowell attached one end of a surveyor’s tape measure to the U-boat’s bow, then swam aft, allowing the tape to unspool from its reel as he moved. He had affixed a tag to the tape at the 250-foot mark before leaving on this trip, the length of the typical Type IX. If this U-boat was any longer than that, it would be powerful evidence that the wreck was U-851, the rare Type IXD U-cruiser commanded by Merten’s rebel colleague Weingärtner.

  Crowell allowed the line to unspool slowly as he began his journey along the wreck’s top. Line spun free of the reel. As the tip of the U-boat came into view, the reel hiccuped. Crowell looked down. His marker had come up. The wreck was about 250 feet long. U-cruisers were 287 feet long. This could not be U-851.

  While Crowell prepared to ascend, Yurga settled in just forward of the damaged control-room area. He had made a careful study of Type IX deck plans and knew exactly where to look for the deck gun mount, a known feature of U-158, the submarine commanded by the daring Erwin Rostin. Yurga crab-walked along the top of the wreck and envisioned the blueprints he had devoured like pulp-fiction novels during the off-season. He surveyed the relevant area. The evidence was plain as day: this U-boat had been built without a deck gun mount. This wreck could not be U-158. In the course of twenty minutes, the divers’ two leading theories had been sunk.

  The men regrouped topside. Each seemed more shell-shocked than the next. A winter of intense research had come to naught. None of them could fathom any viable contenders other than the two they had just eliminated. They halfheartedly inspected the inside of the boot Kohler had recovered. As befitting the day, it contained no information. The Rouses surfaced soon after. Neither father nor son had found much of significance. Chatterton and Kohler made another dive but found little. As the boat headed back to Brielle, the divers knew that summer was upon them, meaning that Nagle would begin running the Seeker to the Andrea Doria, his money trips. None of them knew when the boat might again be available to take them to the U-Who.

  The day after returning from the U-Who, Chatterton wrote a letter to Karl-Friedrich Merten. He explained that divers had measured the wreck and determined that it could not be U-851, the boat Merten believed his colleague Weingärtner had commandeered to New York. Merten wrote back expressing gratitude for Chatterton’s efforts and acceptance of his conclusion. Chatterton did not phone Major Gregory Weidenfeld of the Civil Air Patrol; though the divers had ruled out U-158, they still allowed that the wreck might have fallen to the CAP.

  For the next three months, Nagle ran to the Doria, and even when he had an open date for the U-Who, the weather interfered. Chatterton still could not believe that the sub’s torpedo-tube hatch tags, which he had thought were made of resilient brass, had been eaten away. He tracked down an elderly U-boat veteran in South Carolina who had also built U-boats in Germany’s naval yards. The man explained that as brass had become scarce, tags had been made of leftover materials, a metal stew that could not survive long in the marine environment. Chatterton thanked him for the information and began to say good-bye.

  “One other thing, if I might,” the old U-boat man said.

  “Of course. What is it?” Chatterton asked.

  “Thank you for what you are doing. Thank you for caring about those boys down there. They don’t have anyone else.”

  Caring for the fallen crewmen had figured into much of Chatterton’s and Kohler’s thinking since the last U-Who trip. Though neither spoke of it, a truth had begun pounding at their awareness: they would stand a far better chance of identifying the wreck by digging through the human remains. Many of the bones were still dressed in clothes, the pockets of which might contain
wallets, coins, a personalized money clip, love letters, an engraved pocket watch, anything. Items like these survived for decades on shipwrecks. Frustrated and with no promising leads, Chatterton and Kohler fantasized about the answers that lay mixed among these bones.

  Chatterton called Kohler and set up a meeting at Scotty’s Steakhouse, a popular nearby restaurant.

  “You want to talk about the men, right?” Kohler asked.

  “Right,” Chatterton said. “It’s time.”

  The next evening, the divers sat down for rib eyes and baked potatoes. They discussed the prospect of digging through the crewmen’s remains. The bones appeared to be well preserved. Personal belongings were likely still among the bones. The only question was how to deal with those remains. Each man announced his decision.

  “I say we leave the remains undisturbed no matter what,” Kohler said.

  “I agree,” Chatterton said. “We don’t touch them. Even if it means we never solve the mystery.”

  For a moment, the divers sat in silence, startled by the finality and similarity of their thinking. Slowly, each explained his reasoning until it became clear that they had arrived at their conclusions for identical reasons. Their discussion lasted for hours. Their resolve pivoted around five principles:

  1. Respect for the crewmen. The U-boat men were sailors. They had risked their lives to serve their country. By doing that, they had earned a respect that entitled them to rest undisturbed.

  2. Respect for the families in Germany. Neither diver could bring himself to tell a crewman’s family that he had solved the mystery by rummaging through the pockets of their loved one’s corpse. Nor were they willing to lie to a man’s family and say that they had not done so if in fact they had.

  3. Honoring the brotherhood of the deep. As submariners, the U-boat men had embraced the risks of living below the ocean’s surface. The divers existed in the same place, abided by the same laws, and faced many of the same perils, all of which generated a feeling of brotherhood and a sense of protectiveness toward the remains.

  4. Protecting the image of wreck divers. The U-Who had become international news, Chatterton and Kohler emissaries of wreck diving. Their behavior would reflect on the sport for years.

  5. Doing the right thing. The commitment to solve the mystery had originated in the instinct to do right by the crewmen. To violate their remains in order to find an answer would defeat the dedication to dignity with which the project had been undertaken.

  Chatterton and Kohler agreed on a simple guideline. If they saw a piece of identification lying behind, say, a skull, they could move that skull to retrieve the tag. But they would not search remains for evidence, even if they believed such a search would be productive. Moreover, they would create an environment of peer pressure to urge—even coerce—other divers to behave similarly.

  Driving home that night, Chatterton contemplated a final reason why he had determined to leave the remains undisturbed, a reason that seemed too personal to share with Kohler. More than ever, diving had become a reflection of life to Chatterton. The principles by which he had made himself a great diver were the same principles by which he lived. If he were to lower the bar now because he was frustrated, who would he be?

  Kohler, too, had kept a reason to himself. His German heritage, so much a part of his identity since childhood, had been reawakened in these brushes with the fallen crewmen. He never kidded himself about the U-boat’s purpose or about the madman who had sent it. As an American, he would have attacked the U-boat himself had he been patrolling the Atlantic. But he also recognized these fallen men as Germans. “These men,” Kohler thought to himself, “came from where I’m from.”

  It took three months for the Seeker to set sail again for the U-Who. In September, the divers had to make the most of their opportunity; the weather would be unpredictable come fall, and this might be the last U-boat dive of the season.

  Optimism aboard the boat was muted this time around. Chatterton and Kohler had exhausted their leading theories and had whiffed in their hunt for an identifying artifact. Their disappointment, however, did not extend to the Rouses. From the moment father and son boarded the Seeker they began their high-octane bickering, sniping at each other’s equipment, sexual prowess, age, diving ability, sandwich choice, and—particularly odd to eavesdroppers—family ancestry. As before, Chris said little about what he hoped to accomplish on the U-boat. Chrissy was more forthcoming.

  “I’m going to identify the wreck,” the junior Rouse told Chatterton. “I’m going to be the one to do it.”

  As before, Chatterton and Kohler splashed together and tied in the anchor. This time, Chatterton swam toward the stern and dropped into the blown-out deck section that led to the aft torpedo room. His off-season research had revealed that this room contained an auxiliary steering station possibly marked by a brass tag. But when he began to look around, he saw a boot, then a life jacket, then several skulls, femurs, and other remains, a boneyard before him. It was possible that the answer to the mystery lay within the remains. Chatterton turned and swam out.

  Kohler, in the meantime, had chosen to explore forward. As he entered the noncommissioned officers’ quarters, he spotted the cuff of a dark blue shirt that appeared to have spilled from a cabinet. Since it lay far from the human remains in the compartment, Kohler felt comfortable tugging at the shirt. Black silt billowed from the cuff. When the cloud cleared, he saw an arm bone in the sleeve. He let go of the shirt and apologized aloud, saying, “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” He replaced the shirt where he had found it and began to leave. A few feet later, as he neared the galley, he shined his flashlight under a piece of wood. The eye sockets from a skull stared back into his. Kohler’s heart pounded. This was a bad day. He apologized again and made his way from the wreck.

  Chatterton and Kohler’s second dive was equally unproductive. The Rouses, however, had better luck. In the galley, Chrissy had discovered a canvaslike fabric imprinted with German writing.

  “I don’t know what the words mean,” Chrissy told Chatterton and the other divers topside. “All I know is I gotta dig the thing out. It’s stuck in there. But it looks important. I think I can get it on the next trip. This could be the thing.”

  The Rouses, however, would have to hope that the weather held. Rough seas and violent storms could mess with anyone’s project over the course of a long off-season. As Nagle fired the diesels and turned the Seeker back toward Brielle, every diver on the boat wished for just one more trip before winter.

  In early October 1992, Nagle booked the Seeker for the season’s final journey to the U-Who. It would be a two-day venture, held over the Columbus Day weekend. The divers would have a final shot.

  The day before the trip, Nagle called Chatterton and begged out of the trip.

  “I just don’t feel like it,” Nagle grunted.

  “Bill, this could be the time. We need you,” Chatterton said.

  “Don’t you get it?” Nagle exploded. “After I’m dead nothing matters! Fuck the U-boat!”

  Chatterton tried to reassure his friend, but he had seen this transformation building all summer. Nagle had begun the season reflectively, taking comfort in the idea that even if he were unable to sober up and rebuild himself for diving, the Seeker’s legacy would outlive him. Now jaundiced and sicker than ever, a failure at countless rehabs, he could not bring himself to take his own boat to one of the biggest dives ever.

  DAN CROWELL

  Bill Nagle in 1991, with a major score from the second-class area of the Andrea Doria.

  DAN CROWELL

  The Seeker was built for a single purpose: to take scuba divers to the most dangerous shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean.

  JOHN CHATTERTON

  “It was the salt water that gave John his feeling.”

  JOHN CHATTERTON

  John Chatterton, preparing for one of his first wreck dives, West Long Branch, New Jersey, summer 1983.

  RICHIE KOHLER

  “Ric
hie never stopped wondering how people could be left in the water when they had loved ones at home who needed to know where they were.”

  RICHIE KOHLER

  Richie Kohler, “tonnage king” and Atlantic Wreck Diver.

  JOHN CHATTERTON

  The torpedo (upper left) discovered by John Chatterton inside a wreck he and others had believed was probably just a pipe barge.

  BILL DELMONICO

  Topside view of the wreck’s antiaircraft gun mount.

  STEVE BIELENDA

  Steve Bielenda, “King of the Deep.”

  TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES

  Karl Dönitz and the U-boat terror, Time magazine, May 10, 1943.

  RICHIE KOHLER

  Richie Kohler gears up on the Seeker’s dressing table. Note the German-style lettering on his tank, a Kohler trademark even before the discovery of the mystery U-boat.

  RUBY MILLER

  Steve Feldman

  KEVIN BRENNAN

  The first clue: a dish recovered by Chatterton, marked with the eagle and swastika, dated 1942.

  DAN CROWELL

  Richie Kohler after bagging up on the mystery U-boat wreck.

  RICHIE KOHLER

  John Chatterton and Richie Kohler with two excellent U-Who artifacts. Neither piece, however, revealed anything about the wreck’s identity.

  JOHN CHATTERTON AND RICHIE KOHLER

  John Yurga, left, and John Chatterton aboard the Seeker.

  JOHN CHATTERTON

  The U-boat’s periscope, which lies on the ocean floor beside the wreck.

  NOVA / WGBH-TV BOSTON