AN EVENING WITH JOHN CHATTERTON*
You can see John as co-host on 57 episodes of the History Channels Deep Sea Detectives television series. He is also a consultant to the film and television industries and has worked with 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and CBS. Prior to his career in television, John spent twenty years working as a commercial diver in and around New York City, and was actually working on a project in the water underneath the World Financial Center, across the street from World Trade Center Tower #1, on September 11, 2001.
His passion has always been researching, locating, and diving the worlds shipwrecks. The discovery in 1991, and subsequent identification, of the German submarine U-869, off the coast of New Jersey, was the subject of a television documentary, Hitlers Lost Sub, a two-hour special for the popular NOVA series on PBS. This same story was the subject of a Random House bestselling book by Robert Kurson entitled Shadow Divers. It is currently published in more than 21 languages and the movie rights to the international bestseller have been purchased by 20th Century Fox.
John was a member of the first technical diving expedition to Ireland and the legendary wreck of the RMS Lusitania, in 1994. A few years later, at a depth of 400 feet, he was the first diver to use rebreather diving technology on the wreck of HMHS Britannic,near the island of Kea in Greece. He was also the sole American on a British expedition, sponsored by the U.S. Holocaust Museum, looking for the historic shipwreck Struma, deep in the Black Sea near Istanbul. These dives in Turkey were chronicled on the HBO documentary Struma. John has also made over 150 dives to the well known wreck of the Andrea Doria.
In August of 2005, John and his partners put together an expedition to the most famous shipwreck in the world, Titanic. They dived the wreck to a depth of approximately 12,500 feet in the MIR submersibles from the Russian Research Ship, Keldysh. Their Titanic exploration has been featured in two History Channel specials, Titanics Final Moments Missing Pieces and Titanics Achilles Heel. The programs were co-produced by John, fellow Shadow Diver Richie Kohler and Emmy Award winner Kirk Wolfinger.
John returned to Britannic in 2006 with his partners for another production, this time on Titanics sister ship. Author Brad Matsen brought the story of these expeditions to bookshelves with his bestseller, Titanics Last Secrets.
John traveled to Hawaii in 2009, to work again with WGBH and NOVA where he participated in dives aboard the Pisces submersibles operated by the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory. This project documented the history behind the Japanese Midget Submarine I-16tou, from the infamous December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor. These dives, well in excess of 1000 feet of seawater, were part of the NOVA program, Killer Subs in Pearl Harbor.
Currently, John Chatterton and his partners are working from their research vessel, the Beacon, in an ongoing partnership with the government of the Dominican Republic. This multi-faceted commercial project involves locating, documenting, and salvaging colonial era wreck sites in the Dominican waters around Hispañola. At the same time, they are involved with Robert Kurson on another exciting book project.
John and SFDI share a mutual interest in supporting Soldiers Undertaking Disabled Scuba (SUDS). Johns wife Carla is the SUDS Advisory Council Chair, and John himself is a combat veteran of Viet Nam.
You will not want to miss this exciting evening with John Chatterton -*subject to change in Mr. Chatterton's South Florida schedule
South Florida Divers Inc. (SFDI) meets at 7:30pm the first Wednesday of each month at 2637 Whale Harbor Lane, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33312
Go to www.sfdi.com for directions.
