Where Divers Dare: The Hunt for the Last U-Boat

Description

On April 16, 1944, the tanker SS Pan Pennsylvania was torpedoed and sunk by the U-550. In return the sub was sent to the bottom by three destroyer escorts which were guarding the convoy. For more than 60 years the location of the U-boat's wreck eluded divers. In 2012, a team found it. This was the last undiscovered U-boat in diveable waters, more than three hundred feet below the surface. This is the story of their 20 year quest to find the 'Holy Grail' of deep sea diving and the tenacious efforts to dive on this treacherous wreck.

Randall Peffer is the author of eight nonfiction books, most with a nautical angle, as well as nine crime/suspense novels. His first book, Watermen, is a documentary of the lives of the Chesapeake's fishermen. It won the Baltimore Sun's Critic's Choice Award and was Maryland Book of the Year. His novel Provincetown Follies, Bangkok Blues was a Lambda Award finalist and has been optioned for film by producer Barr Potter of Tripod Entertainment. The son of a career naval officer, Peffer holds a 100-ton masters license and has logged over one hundred thousand miles at sea, mostly in traditional working vessels. Peffer teaches writing and literature at Phillips Academy, Andover.

"Peffer ably conveys the lures and danger of the sport of deep-wreck diving... tempers the excitement of coming upon a "virgin wreck" with the dreaded responsibility of learning what happened to the lost crewmen...A nicely handled work that moves back and forth between the two narratives and provides suspense and also a sense of compassion for the victims."-Kirkus Reviews "In this well-told tale of real adventure at sea, Peffer...deftly combines WWII military history with an exciting account of a group of deep wreck divers searching for one of the most elusive and sought-after prizes: the sunken remains of the German submarine U-550...[A] true story of bravery compassion."-Publishers Weekly