When my father-in-law gave me this book I wasn’t too sure about it. The subject matter, a true story of wreck diving in the deep sea, was something I knew nothing about and I had never had any interest in. But I needed something to read and started the book, at the very least to be polite.

What can I say but “Wow!” Every chapter was a thrill.

Here is an overview.

A team of divers discover a mysterious sunken u-boat of the shores of New Jersey. The boat has no known history. It sank so deep that it is almost impossible to dive to. Three divers die while trying to figure out the identity of the u-boat.

The drama is high and the subject matter is interesting. I was taken to a new world I knew nothing about. The book was good just for the story.

What makes this book stand out for me is the moral story that underlies it. The author, Robert Kurson, writes about what the submariners were about. I found the perspective of the German soldiers with respect to Nazi Germany and their sense of duty as fascinating as the diving story.

Many of the submariners found the Nazi’s abhorrent. They sailed anyway and they did so with the knowledge that they would probably die. Why? For some it was a sense of duty. Some were harassed into it. Some did so because they believed deeply in the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler.

Kurson draws a subtle parallel between the wreck divers and submariners, all drawn by duty. It is a story about values, morality and honor.

I don’t take the time to write many book reviews. This one is worth writing about, and certainly worth reading. I recommend it for anyone interested in true adventure and values.

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. Random House, 2004.

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

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