Several new members were brought in, including Richie Kohler, a member of the notorious 'Atlantic Wreck Divers' club that had the reputation of being pirate-like and reckless in their diving philosophy. Over the length of the quest several members of the original dive team quit, either because their lives lead them elsewhere or over concerns for their safety. It took six years of dives to retrieve artifacts from the submarine plus research to confirm the boat's identity as U-869.

The book chronicles the quest to learn the identity of the mysterious wreck, dubbed U-Who by the dive team, the identities of the men aboard her, and how she came to rest on the ocean floor near New Jersey.

Historical records claim the closest U-boat wreck to be hundreds of miles away. Consulting both the United States Navy and the German Navy yields denials of the possibility of a World War II-era U-boat wreck in that area. Unfortunately, this pact is broken almost immediately by team members who tell close friends, and the secret is let out. This is to prevent 'wreck-jumping' (wherein another person claims credit and/or removes objects from the wreck). Amazed at this discovery, Chatterton and his fellow divers make a pact to keep the U-boat a secret until they can discover its identity and claim credit for its discovery. In 1991, a group of divers, including John Chatterton, set out on Seeker to explore an unknown object lying 230 feet (70 m) below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean and discover a World War II German U-boat off the coast of New Jersey. Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II is a 2004 non-fiction book by Robert Kurson recounting of the discovery of a World War II German U-boat 60 miles (97 km) off the coast of New Jersey, United States in 1991, exploration dives, and its eventual identification as U-869 lost on 11 February 1945.

Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson