A mad diving friend who spends more time with his head under the water than above it, sent me this email from Cooktown: "Just started reading SHADOW DIVERS by Robert Kurson. True story about a German submarine found off the coast of New Jersey in 1991. Get It!"
Sounds interesting, but before I get my toes wet, I thought I w(h)et my appetite by looking for it on archive.org which had a copy of the book but since removed it. However, YouTube had the above two-hour clip of U-boat U869 that sank only sixty miles of the coast of New Jersey.
German submarine U-869 was a Type IXC/40 U-boat of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during World War II. It was commissioned on 26 January 1944 with Kapitänleutnant Hellmut Neuerburg in command. Neuerburg went down with his boat.
In 1991, Bill Nagle, a former wreck diver and the captain of Seeker, learned about a wreck off New Jersey and decided to mount a diving expedition to the site. On 2 September 1991, an unidentified U-boat wreck was discovered 73 meters (240 feet) deep (a hazardous depth for standard scuba diving) off the coast of New Jersey. Nicknamed U-Who, the exact identity of the wreck was a matter of frequent debate, and initially the wreck was thought to be either U-550 or U-521. The discoverers of U-Who, John Chatterton, Richie Kohler, and Kevin Brennan, continued to dive the wreck for the next several years. (Three divers, Steve Feldman, Chris Rouse and "Chrissy" Rouse, died exploring U-869.) Eventually, the team recovered a knife inscribed with "Horenburg", a crew member's name. However, they learned at the U-boat archives that U-869 was supposedly sent to Africa, so this piece of evidence was initially disregarded. A few years later, they found part of the UZO torpedo aiming device, and a spare parts box from the motor room engraved with serial and other identifying numbers. On 31 August 1997 they concluded that the boat they found was U-869.
Only one crew member survived by virtue of not having been aboard. Second Radio Officer Herbert Guschewski came down with pneumonia and pleurisy shortly before the boat's departure. Like the families of the crew, Guschewski did not know what happened to his fellow sailors until 1999. He watched a program which eventually became the PBS NOVA episode "Hitler's Lost Sub" and contacted the producers afterward, who interviewed him and placed a portion of it in the 2000 broadcast.
Maybe I will get more than just my toes wet!
