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

List Price: $14.95
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0375760989
Publisher: Random House

Robert Kurson earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, then a law degree from Harvard Law School. After working as a features reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago magazine, he moved to Esquire as as a contributing editor. His award-winning stories have also appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications. He lives in the Chicago suburbs.

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An Interview with Richie Kholer and John Chatterton by Robert Kurson

Kurson: Let's start with the topic of Bill Nagle. He was a very important figure in the early part of the book and, I know, a very important person to both of you. I wonder now, nearly ten years after his death, if you guys miss Bill Nagle.

Kohler: I'd have to say absolutely, Rob. To me, Bill epitomized what I loved about wreck diving. He knew how to party, he had a good time on the boat. And not only that, he embraced the challenges of pushing beyond. He wasn't happy with the mediocre, with the day trips. He was always looking beyond the horizon. As a matter of fact, in the wheelhouse of his boat he actually had a plaque that said, "Set course for the heart of the sun," and that pretty much wrapped up who he was. I miss him.

Chatterton: I missed Bill Nagle while he was still alive. I mean, here's a guy who I knew as a diver and had a fantastic relationship with. The disease of alcoholism progressed to the point where the last couple of years he was alive I could hardly recognize him. Bill would have really appreciated the eventual identification of the U-boat, how difficult it was. This was exactly the kind of thing that Bill Nagle was all about. Richie, when you talk about Bill Nagle and the wheelhouse - he did have, "Set course for the heart of the sun," which was a line from Pink Floyd, but of course he misspelled "course". It was "C-O-A-R-S-E"-

Kohler: You touched on something earlier - that he so much wanted to identify this wreck. You recall how every dive he was just hoping that we were going to have the answer. He was literally hanging over the side of the boat, waiting for us to get up. And remember how angry he got whenever we headed back and we were empty handed...

Chatterton: Everything that Bill Nagle was about in diving is epitomized by what happened with the U-869.

Kurson: I still can't get over the amount of risk you guys took in pushing toward the solution to this mystery. In hindsight, does either of you regret any of the risks you took in solving this mystery?

Chatterton: You know, risk is a huge part of diving. It's the challenge, and challenge somehow, some way, comes down to managing a certain amount of risk. And you definitely arrive at the point where you say, "Well, I learned something from that. Let me not do that again." But you also arrive at things where you say, "This is really the way to go." So it really is about experimenting, about trying new things out, developing new techniques. And you're going to find stuff that works really great, and then you're going to find stuff where you say, "I want to remember this as the textbook definiton of what not to do."

Kohler: I would say that John was always more apt to take a chance and put his butt on the line, whereas I took a more pragmatic view. In hindsight, I'd have to say that my dives on air were probably the most dangerous thing that I did on that wreck. Although I would be nervous and my heart would be in my throat making penetrations, I always knew I could close my eyes and literally find my way out. And I held comfort in that belief. I never, ever felt that I would be lost. John has always applied himself to the new technology - "how can I do this better?" I've always said, "This is what's working, it's been working. I'm safe; I'm going to stay here. I'll let other people take the risks and pave new paths, and then I'll follow in their footsteps."

Chatterton: That's exactly the point. We all sort of work within some sort of comfort zone. It's just that how we set the parameters for that comfort zone is what makes the difference.

Kurson: You know, John, I write about how you were an early adopter of breathing trimix, the so-called voodoo gas of the time, and how Richie was more conservative and waited a while before he embraced it. Now, today I find out, John, that you're using a device called a rebreather to be even more productive in the water, while Richie is refraining from embracing the re-breather. Can you tell me what a re-breather is and why it has been so dangerous? There have been a lot of fatalities with the rebreather lately, haven't there?

Chatterton: Well, sure. A rebreather is a device that recycles your exhaust gases. In other words, instead of exhaling bubbles into the underwater environment, those gases go back through a closed-loop system. You breathe in and you breathe out, but there's no bubbles coming out of the diver. There are, of course, highly technical, automatic versions of rebreathers, and also very basic, manual ones. But typically, either the diver adds or the computer adds small amounts of oxygen to compensate for the oxygen your body is metabolizing, and somewhere else in the loop there is an absorbent that removes the carbon dioxide that your body's creating. You can consume very small amounts of gas as opposed to the really large amounts of gas in open circuit. So, from a logistical perspective, this gives you a huge advantage.

Kurson: But if a lot of guys are dying using it, why are you using it?

Chatterton: Well, a lot of guys die on trimix too. It's the change. It's the road to learning about new technology, so the challenge is definitely there. If you're careless with rebreather technology, it will kill you in a heartbeat.

Kohler: I don't want to interrupt here. You said that a lot of guys die diving trimix. They didn't die because of the trimix. They died because they died of a diving accident. A lot of the rebreather fatalities were because of an operator or a mechanical error. It's a very complicated piece of plumbing and the more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to stop it up. When I dive open circuit - that is, basic scuba tanks - whatever I put into that tank is what I am going to breath. That cannot be said about a re-breather. There are too many variables. There could be diver error. There could be an operator error in regard to what gas you're putting in. If anything stops up that plumbing, you don't know what you're breathing anymore. You could try to monitor it, but as the high rate of fatalities has shown, not all the bugs have been worked out. So I'm still shying away from that technology.

Chatterton: As are a lot of other people. And it reminds me of the villagers gathering in the square with torches, about to burn the heretic.

Kurson: One of the big surprises in the book is your discovery that written history had been wrong and that written history could be fallible. Does either of you view written history differently now because of this experience?

Kohler: Absolutely, especially in regard to U-boat warfare. At the end of the war the assessors really just wanted to go home, and for all those U-boats that were still missing at sea, they just as quickly as possible, willy-nilly, tried to attach a fate to them. And we're not just talking about World War II. We're talking about since the 1990s and prior. But I'm referring mostly to steam ships and metal hold vessels where there will be some remains on the sea floor. There are literally thousands of wreck sights that are just waiting to be discovered, that are unknown. Each discovery will in some way rewrite history.

Chatterton: I think the thing that was most enlightening for me about the entire project was that history is a work in progress. The thing I've come to realize since identifying the submarine is that there are people who really try to control and direct history. Certainly the assessors, as much as they might have wanted to complete their job and go home, didn't have all the cards. The governments that belonged to the Allied front didn't want them to have the information about the Enigma decrypts, so essentially the writing of history was being manipulated by the powers of the time. So now, more than half a century later, we're looking at certain aspects of history and seeing them for the first time.

Kurson: Does either one of you still dive the U-boat wreck? And if not, why not?

Chatterton: I was on the U-boat once since we identified it and that was to put a wreath on the wreck. I feel I've done everything. There's nothing there for me right now. While we were working on it, I wished we could identify it so I didn't have to go back there again. So now that we have identified it, I don't have to.

Kohler: I still make an annual pilgrimage to the wreck. It's like an old friend. I usually muck about in the debris field. I'm kind of hoping that one day I can find and photograph the torpedo. I still like to dive the wreck. It's still a challenging dive. As far as having fun on it and going inside, I don't go inside, I don't look to collect artifacts. I just appreciate aesthetically and appreciate searching around in the sand.

Kurson: John, we talked a lot about your experience in Vietnam as a young man, some of which, I think, was difficult for you to talk about. Was it tough for you to go over that ground, and is it still tough for you to think about those days?

Chatterton: Yeah. I don't wear Vietnam on my sleeve. There was a time when I thought about Vietnam every day, and then I passed that time. I'm glad that I don't have to address it every day. It is difficult for me to separate Vietnam from my personal philosophy on politics, and when I look at where America is today, I do reflect back, not just on my experience in Vietnam, but on our nation's experience in Vietnam. The experience I had being interviewed by you was the first time I really sat down and talked about it. Difficult? Yes. But I think that somehow, some way, I survived Vietnam and I came out of it much better than a lot of guys did. I'm sure a lot of guys would just kick me in the ass and say, "Move on, get on with it."

Kurson: Are there still rivalries between dive boats and dive boat captains? That's one of the things that amazed me the most, and I wonder if those feuds still survive to this day?

Kohler: Absolutely. Not only are the old ones still glowing brightly, but some new ones pop up. I think in a small community it's just bound to happen. There are petty rivalries. There are business issues that get challenged. Out with the old, in with the new. As soon as Bill Nagle was dead, I'm positive that Steve Bielenda found someone new divers to turn his ire against. There are definitely some very hot issues in the Northeast wreck community. When I speak to people from all over the world, I find that this is something that only seems to happen here. Although there are some issues in Europe - in England - and there are some issues in California, there is nothing that matches these blood feuds that are legendary in the wreck diving communities here in the Northeast.

Chatterton: I think it's more important that you are feuding, as opposed to what you're feuding over! That's secondary, really. Yeah, I think there's a lot of that that stills goes on. I don't listen to it much anymore, but I'm sure it's still there. I hear about "This guy's mad at that guy" or "Billy put my pigtail in the inkwell," that kind of stuff.

Kurson: Was either one of you surprised by anything you read about the other in the book?

Chatterton: Reading the book, I got a lot of insight into Richie's heritage and how he perceived his link with other Germans. In his mind, no small thing.

Kohler: I came away from reading the book thinking to myself, "This guy's one heroic son of a bitch." I've known John a long time and I knew he was in Nam. I've watched him work futilely, trying to resuscitate Chris Rouse. I watched him with a stethoscope around his neck, monitoring the progress of Lew Kohl on the boat after his dirt-dart dive. I knew that he had been a medic in Nam. I knew that he had a medical background, and I could see a guy who could be goofy as heck one second turn dead serious about the well-being of another human being. But I had no idea until I read about his time in Vietnam- it's not something he ever talked about. And we're talking about a guy who, to my surprise, when he was in a dark part of his life, when his marriage was failing and he reached out for me that I never thought he would have, you think that sometimes people don't have secrets. But that was something that I was- I won't say shocked- but I was surprised by, because that obviously had to have a great impact on his life.

Kurson: Richie, It's always been important to you to solve this mystery and identify these men, to give them their names and to give closure to these families in Germany. Are you still in touch with the families, or did you just wrap up your business once the diving was done?

Kohler: I'm going to start back at the beginning. I started diving the boat because I wanted a dish. I wanted an artifact. And what happened was a change that happened so gradually. You never see human remains in any of the shipwrecks. When you go into the inner compartments of the submarine, you cannot avoid them. They are everywhere. And this started to have an effect on me and somehow, like a shadow in the past, my German heritage started to come in and I felt like I owed these guys something. Once we identified the submarine, we located one person here in the United States - the sister of a crewman. Her name is Barbara Bowling, and her brother, Otto Britzius, was aboard the U-869. I met with her and that was the first time I could physically touch someone alive who had a connection to this boat. And with her we went to Germany and met other family members. To this day I'm still in contact with almost every one of them. I gave every one of them a photograph of the memorial wreath that we put on the wreck. And the survivor, Herbert Guschewski, I still maintain contact with him as well.

Kurson: Is there anything that is still a mystery to you about the U-Boat?

Chatterton: Sure. I think you'd have a hard time disputing that it was a T-5 acoustic torpedo that sent it to the bottom. But if she fired a T-5 acoustic torpedo at a target, what was that target?

Kohler: There are a couple of things that haunt me, to which I don't think we'll ever have the answer. The first thing that comes to mind is that, on the upper deck, there was a life raft canister that was partially opened. And if you looked at this thing you could see that it had butterfly nuts on it and it's not the sort of thing that could have been wrenched open. To me, it implied that there might possibly have been someone who tried to open it. There were other artifacts that were found by John Yurga that were outside on top of the wreck. All these things are mysteries. Was the boat on the surface? Did someone get out? Did someone try to launch a liferaft?

Chatterton: Which is why history is a work in progress. You know, maybe some of these things there will be answers to. But the preponderance of them I doubt anyone in our lifetime will answer.

Kurson: What's going to become of this wreck? Will it last forever? Do wrecks deteriorate and how fast do they deteriorate?

Kohler: Everyone knows the story of Titanic, and have been amazed by the footage that came back from Dr. Ballard, of this somewhat intact bow section sitting on the sea floor. People are amazed by that and think these wrecks will just remain forever like a tomb. But that's not the case. The U-boat is a lot shallower and subjected to storms and conditions and high salinity, and all of that adds up to the fact that the steel hull is rusting at an incredible pace. Not only that, fishing boats are still inadvertently getting their nets and cables on it and are ripping the boat to pieces and dragging off chunks of it. Eventually, it will be nothing more than a rust stain on the sea floor. All wrecks will be reclaimed - and I hate to get all Biblical - but dust to dust. I would say in maybe a hundred to two hundred years, there will be nothing but glass and ceramics.

Chatterton: The wreck has changed significantly over the last decade since we first started diving it. The original drawing that Danny Crowell did of the wreck in 1991 is nothing like the way the wreck looks today.

Kurson: John, at one point in the book, at the height of your frustration at not being able to solve the mystery, you went out and almost, in an explosion of creative energy, discovered and/or identified four major shipwrecks. Are you still in pursuit of the missing, and if so, can you and Richie clue us in to the type of thing you might be looking for?

Chatterton: At that time, I was like the guy who was having trouble with his girlfriend and starts dating a whole bunch of other women. I was looking for distractions from diving the U-869. I think that whole experience has taught me how small the planet is, and there are projects that I have been involved with that weren't successful. One was looking for the wreck of the Struma in the Black Sea. But also, I kind of think that maybe the time wasn't right for it when I went there in 2000. I certainly haven't forgotten about that but I don't have the feeling for any shipwreck like I had with U-869.

Kohler: Once we identified the U-869, I was contacted by friends who had moved back to England and was invited to form an American contingent and dive on U-boat wrecks in the English Channel in an effort to try to identify them. Since that time, I've also applied my energies to finding some of the other boats that John and I thought the U-869 could have been, namely the U-857 and the U-879. They're out there somewhere; they say one might be in the Gulf of Maine. I've also invested some energy into trying to put together a trip to find the U-215, which would be quite a challenging technical dive. I've done some other work here close to home. Back in 2000, a dive-boat captain located the forward half of an American destroyer, and through some creative work, and with the help of a friend, Christina Young, I actually was able to nail the identification of that wreck as the USS Murphy. I'm quite proud of that effort. Other than that, I just keep on diving. I dive with my family. I dive with my wife. My son is going to start diving soon. And I'm looking to do a little of my own work and share my passion with my family.

Kurson: Did your experience on the U-boat change the way you dive now in any way?

Kohler: I'd say absolutely. The way that the Atlantic wreck divers took this Florida spear-fishing kid and shook him around! The Atlantic wreck divers said, You'll do this and you'll do this because of this reason. John, on the other hand, leads by example. He doesn't try to encourage anybody. Just like the rebreather. But if you rub shoulders with people and you see that they're doing something and it's working better, well you'd be a fool not to change. During the course of our work on the U-boat I changed almost everything about the way I dive, short of the dry suit and the mask and fins. But basically, everything from the way my tanks were strapped to my body, the regulators that I breathed out of, what I was breathing, the size of tanks that I was carrying- changed. At the time I was diving double aluminum 80s, which gave me a bottom gas capacity of about 160 cubic feet of gas. When I changed to these larger capacity gas tanks, it gave me 240 cubic feet of gas to have on the bottom. That's a major difference and a big safety factor. I would have to say that not only did I change equipment, but I changed breathing medium and I changed technique.

Chatterton: I think everything changes. The equipment changes, but that's like a snapshot. The thing that evolves is your philosophy, your approach. I think the U-boat was about being open to new ideas and new techniques, and understanding that time marches on. Understanding the concept of progress is what will make you successful and productive in the water. My experience on the U-boat really reinforced my philosophy of being open to new ideas.

Kohler: I've got a personal motto that I'd like to share with you. During the course of our research I got to meet many German U-boat commanders in their homes, and one of them was an ace. His name is Erich Topp, and he was one of the most highly decorated U-boat commanders of the war. In getting to know him, I did some research on him and I had a translation of a comment that he made, a quote actually, from 1943 when he was in his heyday, when he was one of the most lauded U-boat commanders in Germany: "Life is a matter of luck and the odds in favor of success are in no way enhanced by extreme caution." That stayed with me throughout this entire time, and I still think that's a great way to live your life.

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Excerpted from Shadow Divers © Copyright 2009 by Robert Kurson. Reprinted with permission by Random House. All rights reserved.

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