Product Description

The true story behind the cataclysmic World War II naval battle that took place just off American shores.

1941. America had just entered World War II, but terrifying unseen weapons were stalking US targets, sinking over 400 ships just miles from American shores in the worst naval defeat in United States history. The stealthy predators were German U-boats, Hitler’s deadly warships of the deep. It was cataclysmic—with bodies and wreckage washed ashore on the eastern seaboard. But the Allies ultimately triumphed, sinking over 700 enemy submarines.

Fifty years later, the personal drama behind this wartime state of siege resurfaced when a team of divers discovered an unidentified German U-boat deep in the waters off the New Jersey coast. What boat was it? And what secret mission brought it there? The divers embarked on a dangerous, six-year quest to uncover the secret of the mysterious wreck. Three divers lost their lives in the search, but the clues uncovered have shed remarkable new light on the struggles and triumphs from this undersea war.

There’s more in this spectacular two-hour video journey. Trace the history of submarines and undersea warfare from the American Revolution through World War II, and tour the sophisticated—and cramped—interior of a captured U-boat. Dive in dangerous waters with deep sea detectives as they attempt to retrieve clues that will reveal the decaying U-boat’s identity. See how the breaking of secret Nazi codes by the Allies altered the outcome of the war—and helped unravel the mystery behind this German U-boat. And finally, travel to Germany with the divers as they rewrite a part of World War II history, bring closure to families of the lost crew and discover how one man’s life was spared.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25844 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-11-09
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 120 minutes

Customer Reviews

GRIM STORY OF THE U-869
This two hour DVD traces the history of submersibles through WWII and details the dramatic U-Boat campaign off the US.

It follows the story of wreck divers Ritchie Kohler and John Chatterton as they spend years identifying the wreck of a German U-Boat they were put onto by Capt. Bill Nagle of the dive boat "Seeker". Three divers, including a father and son team, were lost in this quest.

It travels from archives in the US to Germany where poignant stories of the U-869's crew are revealed.

Nice tour of a Type 9 U-Boat in a museum as well as amazing high quality underwater footage taken by veteran wreck diver Bill Delmonico of the U-869 in spectacularly clear water conditions long before the submarine wreck was actually identified.

As a wreck diver and charter boat skipper who has dived on U-Boat and other submarine wrecks for many years this video was doubly interesting to me. It should fascinate any diver or historian. Really does bring out enough stuff to scare you.

It is a must have companion to Robert Kurson's superb "Shadow Divers" and Bernie Chowdhury's sad account of the fate of Chris and Chrissy Rouse, "The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths".

WOW! IT FEELS GREAT TO HAVE BEEN WRONG!
I was not feeling up to doing anything, so I put this DVD on since I had not seen it. I expected a morbid dive into the past and some U-boat trivia. I can now say it feels great to have been wrong. What a sensational film!

Instead of a slow, tedious film about a slow, tedious journey to uncover what U-Boat was actually down there off the coast of New Jersey in 230 feet of water, I experienced a time capsule that contrasted present time and people against events which occurred over a half century ago. It was a unique look at the "then and now" in detail.

We would see the divers in the present struggle through a six-year odyssey to find some form of identification for the mystery U-boat and, almost simultaneously, we were seeing why and how this submarine might have gotten here, though history said it did not belong there. In the end, the historical records and I were both wrong. The German naval archives believed and, in fact, insisted that U-869 had been sunk off the coast of Gibraltar so I believed I was in for a two hour snooze. I guess sometimes it can feel great to be wrong.

Hitler's lost sub
I was in the process of reading the Shadow Divers and came accrosed the Nova DVD "Hitler's Lost Sub". This is an excellent account of the book version of the story. It was very informative to view, almost as being there, the persise story of the book I was reading, on film. How, Why and Where the Nazi War effort came so close to our homeland and what could have happened. The book is more detailed, but to actually see the side by side comparison of reading the story was very fasinating and enjoyable.