Shadow Divers (23 page)

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Chatterton and Yurga called out from the couch. “Are you saying Hitler might be on our U-boat?”

“I’m not saying anything definitive,” Kohler replied. “What I am saying is that we need to expand our thinking. We need to start conceiving of scenarios that might explain why no one in the world has a clue that this U-boat and these dead crewmen are in New Jersey. If we don’t consider every possibility, even ones that sound outrageous, the answer might slip right past us. Because I gotta tell you fellas, this mystery is already pretty damned outrageous.”

For a moment no one spoke. Kohler’s eyebrows twitched at the corners with possibility—he was ready to see this thing through no matter what. Chatterton, who had returned from Germany deflated, basked in the innocence and single-mindedness of Kohler’s resolve. Kohler stood his ground and kept his eyes locked on Chatterton’s, nodding ever so slightly, as if to say, “We can do this.” Chatterton found himself nodding back. He had last seen this kind of spirit in Vietnam, a place where a person could run through bullets for no other reason than that it was the right thing to do.

“Okay, it’s about scenarios,” Chatterton said, getting up from the couch and allowing Kohler the seat he had vacated. “I propose we start painting them.”

Chatterton reminded the divers that two theories remained strong. First, that the U-boat had been sunk by the Civil Air Patrol on July 11, 1942. Second, that the wreck was
U-851,
the submarine Merten believed his maverick friend had taken to New York in violation of orders. Chatterton laid out his plan. Two months remained until dive season began. The divers would use that time to return to D.C. and research these two theories.

Near ten
P.M.,
the divers called it quits. As they were pulling on their jackets at the door, someone said, “Do you think there really might be gold on board?” Another said, “Can you imagine if Hitler is aboard?” The third said, “Heck, at this point, I wonder if the
Weekly World News
was right—maybe our U-boat sailed in a time warp from Germany.” Everyone laughed at that one. Then Chatterton said, “Whatever the answer is, it’s going to be amazing.” No one laughed this time because they all knew that it was true.

A few days after the caucus at his house, Chatterton returned to the NHC in Washington. On his first visit, he had searched the historical records for any activity that might have occurred within a fifteen-mile radius of the wreck site. He had come up empty. This time, he would expand that search to a thirty-mile radius, then to a sixty-mile radius if necessary. The research lasted four days.

He found nothing. Not a single event or observation had been recorded within sixty miles of the wreck site.

On his next trip, made with Yurga, Chatterton focused on
U-851,
the boat Merten believed his colleague Weingärtner had commandeered to New Jersey in an effort to more actively hunt enemy ships. Chatterton shared Merten’s theory with Cavalcante, the head of the archives, who took an immediate interest in the idea and began his own bit of research.

While Chatterton waited for Cavalcante’s findings, he turned his attention to the Civil Air Patrol theory. He posited a basic question: Had Germany sent any U-boats to the American East Coast during early July 1942, when the CAP claimed to have sunk one off New Jersey? The answer would lie in the BdU KTBs, the diaries kept by German U-boat headquarters. Chatterton requested those diaries from the research room.

Bingo. Several U-boats, it turned out, had been hunting in American waters then. According to the diaries, all but two of those U-boats
—U-157
and
U-158—
had returned safely to Germany. Both
U-157
and
U-158
were Type IXs, just like the U-boat the divers had found. Chatterton requested the attack reports associated with the sinkings of
U-157
and
U-158.

According to the navy,
U-157
had been sunk northeast of Havana on June 13, 1942, by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, killing all fifty-two men on board. The incident had happened nearly two thousand miles from the divers’ wreck site. The attack report was ironclad—there were several witnesses, and debris had been recovered from the wreck, indicating that the sub sank where it was attacked. Chatterton therefore determined it impossible that
U-157
was the mystery U-boat. He next checked the attack report for
U-158.
That proved more interesting. On June 30, 1942, an American amphibious airplane spotted
U-158
off Bermuda, with perhaps fifteen of its crew suntanning on deck. As the submarine crash-dived, the pilot dropped two depth charges, one of which lodged inside the U-boat’s conning tower—a nearly impossible bull’s-eye. As the U-boat submerged, the bomb detonated and, according to the report, destroyed the submarine, killing all fifty-four men on board. According to the attack report, there was just one witness—the attacking airplane—and no debris had been spotted or recovered. That left room for the possibility that
U-158
had not been sunk where it had been attacked. The archive was closing for the weekend. Chatterton copied the documents and placed them in a manila envelope marked
RICHIE.
Kohler would be the perfect man to investigate the last days of
U-158.

Chatterton and Yurga had been in Washington for three days. As they were packing to return to New Jersey, Cavalcante stopped by the research room and dropped a bombshell.

“As you know, I’ve been doing some research on
U-851,
the one that belonged to Merten’s friend,” Cavalcante said. “During the war, our spy network in Germany produced some very precise intelligence on what that U-boat had in cargo.”

The divers held their breath. Just days ago they had speculated about hidden gold stored aboard U-boats.

“Turns out
U-851
was loaded with many tons of mercury to be delivered to Japan,” Cavalcante said. “They did a cost analysis at the time. At 1945 prices, that mercury was worth several million dollars.”

Chatterton and Yurga nearly collapsed. They were both commercial divers. They began envisioning plans to pump the mercury from the wreck. They thanked Cavalcante and practically sprinted to their car. Before Chatterton could put the key in the ignition both divers exclaimed, “We’re rich!” During the drive home, they formulated a plan. Yurga would research the current price of mercury. Chatterton would contact an attorney to work out the legalities of salvage. They discussed the challenges of being new millionaires. Hours later, they looked up and saw a sign welcoming them to Pennsylvania. Their new status as tycoons had caused them to miss the exit for New Jersey.

The next morning, Yurga called his father, who dealt with scrap-metal dealers, and asked if he might research mercury’s current value. An hour later, his father called back. Mercury was now considered a toxic waste. You had to pay others to get rid of it. Chatterton and Yurga had been millionaires for exactly twelve hours.

Armed with the attack report for the sinking of
U-158,
Kohler set out for Washington to do his own research. Rather than duplicate Chatterton’s work at the NHC, Kohler went instead to the National Archives and Records Administration, storehouse for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the majority of America’s most important records, including many naval documents. He had learned that many of the captured German records resided with the N.A., and he hungered to examine whatever information had survived about this U-boat and its commander.

At the sign-in desks, in various research rooms, Kohler recognized the names of several authors and historians whose work he had admired since childhood—unbelievable for a Brooklyn kid who’d never spent a day in college. He requested information on
U-158.
Staff members brought stacks of files and boxes of microfilm, and asked that Kohler wear white gloves while inspecting photographs. Much of the information was in German, causing Kohler to tap other researchers on the shoulder to ask, “Does this word mean ‘machine gun’?” to which they might reply, “No, that word means ‘parakeet.’” He kept at it, copying reconstructed logs from
U-158’
s doomed mission and diaries from its earlier patrols in hopes of seeing into the mind of Erwin Rostin, its commander. On the way out, he was forced to wait while officials stamped his research
DECLASSIFIED—
a touch of cloak-and-dagger that made Kohler think, “I’m back in the game.”

A few nights later, Kohler called a meeting for Chatterton’s house. With Chatterton and Yurga settled on the couch, he proceeded to weave a singular tale from his research. On June 30, 1942, as they knew, an American amphibious airplane patrolling off Bermuda had dropped a depth charge directly into the conning tower of
U-158.
According to the pilot, when the U-boat dove to escape, the bomb detonated and sank the submarine, killing everyone aboard.

“But what if,” Kohler asked, whirling on his heels, “
U-158
is only injured? Or she escaped damage completely? Let’s say her conning tower is damaged but she still is able to move. What would she do?”

“She’d try to make it back to Germany,” Yurga said.

“Exactly,” Kohler agreed. “Especially since she was at the end of her patrol and out of torpedoes. But in this case, she has an even better option. My research says she was scheduled to rendezvous with a ‘milk cow’—one of those resupply U-boats—in the open Atlantic. So you’d expect
U-158
to head northeast to the milk cow for fuel and supplies, right?”

“Right,” Chatterton said.

“Are you ready for this?” Kohler asked. “I say she never headed for Germany or for the milk cow. I say Commander Rostin thought to himself, ‘I’m within striking range of New York City. I’m going to New York to sink American ships with my deck gun.’ So he takes the U-boat north toward New York. He gets as far as New Jersey when the Civil Air Patrol spots him and lets him have it. Now
U-158
is really wounded. She hobbles a few dozen miles before the conning tower finally separates and she sinks—right at our wreck site. The Civil Air Patrol never gets credit because the first airplane claimed the kill.”

“Hold everything,” Chatterton said. “What commander in his right mind is going to take an injured U-boat without torpedoes and head north to New York when he has the chance for repair or escape to the east?”

“I’m going to tell you about that commander,” Kohler said. “I’ve learned a lot about him. His name was Erwin Rostin. A few months before this, on his first war patrol, he sank four ships. On this patrol, the guy sank thirteen ships. No U-boat commander in history had a deadlier two-patrol total. This guy Rostin, he’s a certified bounty hunter. He’s killing Allied ships like it’s target practice. He machine-gunned a Spanish vessel and took the captain prisoner! I’ve read about the great U-boat commanders, how they never gave up, how this generation was all piss and vinegar. Rostin is so unstoppable they award him the Knight’s Cross by radio while the U-boat is still at sea! Rostin is not limping home, no way. He’s only a thousand miles from New York. He’s still got enemies to kill.”

Chatterton and Yurga argued against Kohler’s scenario. They insisted that a commander so low on fuel would never risk his ship and his men to fire his deck gun at enemy ships. They called him Tom Clancy for suggesting that this U-boat had been injured twice before finally dying at the mystery wreck site. Kohler never wavered. He asked them to imagine a time in which the world considered U-boats invincible. He asked them to envision an era in which U-boat commanders were the subjects of legend-making books, stories, radio programs, memoirs, newsreels, and parades. Chatterton did not necessarily agree with Kohler’s scenario, but he found himself swept up in the man’s enthusiasm, and as he watched Kohler wave his arms and clench his fists, it occurred to him that Kohler’s overarching instinct was dead-on, that if one did not accept written history as gospel, worlds of possibility opened.

It was Chatterton’s turn to speak. He acknowledged that Kohler had made an intriguing case for the wreck being
U-158
and for the Civil Air Patrol dealing the death blow. Now it was time for him to make the case for the wreck being
U-851,
the boat commanded by Merten’s colleague Weingärtner.

“Merten knows his man,” Chatterton said. “He knows the guy still was a hunter in his heart. Richie, you talked about the importance of knowing the man. Well, we are personally being told by one of the great U-boat aces that he knows the man—and he is convinced that the man came to New York. That’s why there’s no record of
U-851
in our wreck area—the boat was ordered to the Indian Ocean. Weingärtner disobeyed the orders. When he disappears, Germany presumes he sank where they’d sent him.”

“I don’t believe it,” Kohler shot back. “No commander is going to go against orders like that. They’d be shot for that. Taking a U-boat to New York when you’re ordered to the Indian Ocean? It’s too egregious. I’ve read about a lot of U-boat commanders. I never heard of one who’d disobey like that.”

Now it was Yurga’s turn. He specialized in the technical end. That’s what he delivered.

“We’ve got two favorites,” Yurga said. “Richie likes
U-158.
John likes
U-851.
It sure looks like it’s gotta be one or the other. I know how to settle it. According to my research,
U-158
was built with a deck gun. But some Type IXs were not. Next time we hit the water, we look for evidence of a deck gun. If our U-boat was built without one, it can’t be
U-158.
Period.

“Now, as to
U-851.
It was a Type IXD, a special model they called a U-cruiser. U-cruisers were about thirty feet longer than typical Type IXs. All we need to do is drag a tape measure across the wreck. If it’s two hundred and eighty-seven feet, it’s a U-cruiser. If it’s shorter, it ain’t
U-851.
Next time we splash, we do a little looking, a little measuring, and we’ll know where we stand with both these theories.”