As an author, Robert Kurson is used to getting unsolicited story ideas from friends, family and acquaintances.
But one such story tip turned into one of the greatest successes of his career.
"Shadow Divers — The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of WWII" (Random House, 2004) is Kurson's account of the 1991 discovery of a sunken German U-boat 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey.
"It's a truly amazing story that changed my life," Kurson told the crowd at a Jan. 17 Downriver Town Hall lecture.
"The book isn't about U-boats — it's about two men and what they did to have their moment," he said. "It's about how if you're lucky, you get your moment."
Kurson, a former features writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, is a contributing editor for Esquire magazine and has had stories published in Rolling Stone and the New York Times Magazine, among other publications.
His story captured the attention of the sold-out Town Hall crowd, due in part to his natural storytelling style.
He credits his father with passing along his storytelling abilities to him.
"My Dad was the greatest storyteller," he said. "As a child, I would go on business trips with him, and he would tell me to listen to everything."
That advice came in handy when a friend mentioned the unique discovery that two divers had made off the New Jersey coast.
Deep-sea shipwreck divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler embarked on a six-year quest to solve the mystery of how the ship came to be where it was.
"Every expert said it was impossible," Kurson said.
The sunken sub's location was somewhere that wartime naval records indicated no German craft had sailed.
The story of German U-boats prowling up and down the American coast is a somewhat forgotten chapter from World War II.
American warships sank many of those boats, and experts believed — up until the discovery off the New Jersey coastline — that all the U-boats were accounted for.
But resting 230 feet beneath the Atlantic Ocean was one such boat that mysteriously had escaped U.S. warships. The bodies of 56 German soldiers were found aboard.
Chatterton and Kohler, once sworn enemies, worked together to bring the details to light and became best friends in the process.
A principled man who dove for the beauty of the endeavors, Chatterton at first refused to work with Kohler, a salvage diver whose goal was to take everything he could from a wreck.
"He hated Chatterton, and Chatterton hated him ... but Kohler was made part of the group," Kurson said.
Solving the mystery would cost three other divers their lives.
"Of the 10 million certified divers in the country, less than 200 do what they do," Kurson said.
He outlined several dangers faced by divers venturing into the kind of depths that Chatterton and Kohler dove to.
Chief among those is narcosis, a condition that develops when nitrogen accumulates in the bloodstream and causes hallucinations.
Another danger is the shipwreck itself, with its twisted metal and broken pipes splayed in every direction, just waiting to snare divers and their bulky gear.
"Often the ship is on its side or upside down," Kurson added.
Decompression sickness or "the bends" is another deadly condition faced by divers who don't ascend slowly to the surface to allow the nitrogen in their bloodstream to dissipate.
Chatterton and a group of other divers initially thought the wreck discovered by a fisherman's sonar was nothing more than a worthless pipe barge.
"He saw a hatch and put his head inside, then saw the unmistakable shape of a torpedo inside," Kurson said. "He knew he'd discovered the holy grail of deep-water diving."
The divers found that the sub's hull was torn open by an explosion that sank the U-boat, most likely caused by a malfunctioned torpedo.
The daring group of men was about to rewrite history, Kurson said, but faced another danger — rival divers known as pirates who might jump their claim.
"They swore each other to secrecy ... and the secret lasted about two hours," Kurson said.
The quest would bankrupt each of the divers and cost all of them their marriages.
And, the divers faced ethical challenges as well.
Nazi memorabilia collectors offered the divers money for skulls of the dead sailors, and the mystery could've been solved much quicker if the divers had searched the sailors.
"They weren't willing to disturb the remains of the dead," Kurson said.
"The U-boat was their one chance to do something great and not do it in an ugly way."
Kurson soon realized that the book was his chance to do something great, as well.
"I flew back to Chicago and set about writing," he said. "It occurred to me after about six weeks that this book was my U-boat.
"A writer could live many lifetimes and not get an opportunity like this."
With that realization, he decided to visit the submarine in the darkened depths himself.
"I believed if I didn't go inside and see what they saw that I wouldn't be able to tell the story," he said.
With self-deprecating humor, Kurson detailed how his lofty idea was quickly derailed.
A non-swimmer, he signed up for scuba lessons but was promptly removed from class after it was discovered he couldn't swim.
Nevertheless, he went on not only to tell the story, but also to enthrall millions of readers.
"Shadow Divers" reached No. 2 on the New York Times' bestseller list, and a big-screen adaptation by 20th Century Fox is in the works.
GO
Generalinfo
