U-869 and the ongoing arguments

[Rhone Man]

Excerpt from Gary Gentile's latest e-mail circular:

"To Chuck Wine goes the credit for making the discovery dive on the U-869 - a full three years prior to the events that are related in the greatest literary hoax of the century: Shadow Divers. Bill Nagle, owner and skipper of the Seeker, put Chuck and Bart Malone on a "hang" in order to confirm its existence. Bart got entangled in monofilament on the way down the anchor line, but Chuck continued to the seabed alone, where he became the first person in history to see the lost U-boat since its untimely demise.

It is all part of a story that will be told in full in Shipwreck Heresies.
Stay tuned, folks . . ."

I don't know the personalities in the various stories (although I am sure others on the board do) - are Chuck and Bart Malone still alive?

 

[ReefHound]

Maybe Chuck Wine dived it first (wanna bet he's not available for comment?) but the question would be, did he know what he was diving?

 

[mike_s]

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

I'll see your and raise you another.

And in the grand tradition of sleazy "string" raises, I'll pour caramel on top of one and shake cheese onto the other. Lots of cheese.

 

[mike_s]

I personally think it's highly possible that the person reffered to, Chuck Wine, might have been the first to dive the U-869.

But heck, if I found a new wreck and it was a WWII UBOAT, I'd be all excited about it.

You don't keep stuff like that a secret.... He would have told someone, bragged to someone, taken a pic for proof, picked up an item,etc... So that makes his supposive earlier discovery as being very suspect. (in my opinion).


As for who did the positive ID of the U-869, I think that's already pretty clear to everyone.

 

[novicediver]

It has been some time since I read Shadow Divers, but I thought there was some mention that they were trying to keep what they found a secret but that plan failed miserably. Is there some sort of feud between Gary Gentile and John Chatterton? I am not in the wreck community so I have no clue.

 

[mike_s]

It has been some time since I read Shadow Divers, but I thought there was some mention that they were trying to keep what they found a secret but that plan failed miserably. Is there some sort of feud between Gary Gentile and John Chatterton? I am not in the wreck community so I have no clue.

I don't really know what ignited their disagreement, but yes there appears to be some issue with them.

Chatterton took the high road and pretty much doesn't sling mud in public about the issues....

Gentile took the "low road" and sents out email updates about how he's going dis-prove what Chatterton found.

he even went to far as to author a book to try to dis-prove how the U-869 was found.

see Amazon.com: Shadow Divers Exposed: the Real Saga of the U-869: Gary Gentile: Books

and http://www.ggentile.com/sdexposed.html

 

[novicediver]

I will give some benefit of doubt about who saw it first, but from what I remember Chatterton and Kohler had to do considerable research to identify the sub. Is there verifiable evidence of a similar amount of research on the part of Mr Gentile? I'm not trying to fan flames, just saying that if Gentile could get independent confirmation of doing his own investigation then maybe there would be more credibility to his argument.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I can see both sides. There is a tradition of the discovers of a wreck keeping the loran, and now GPS, numbers secret. It works with a small close knit team of individuals one of whom also owns the boat, but it does not work so hot on a regular charter where you drop on an unknown set of numbers and find something great as any one of the divers aboard will probably spill the beans as they will often have more to gain by blabbing about it than they do keeping it quiet.

So I can see a situation here where the U-869 was discovered a few years earlier and kept quiet and then was rediscovered independently by another group that really sucked at keeping it secret - but consequently got the credit for the "discovery".

Identifying the wreck is a separate issue entirely.

 

[novicediver]

I can buy that argument. One peculiar trait that I read about Mr Gentile when I was reading other books about the Andria Doria, etc was that he only did interviews if you paid a "consulting" fee. I understand thats how he makes his living, but I can also see how that would rub people wrong.