Titanic's Last Secrets: The Further Adventures of Shadow Divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler

Guess I'm not alone. Tens of thousands of people across the country, millions around the world, consider themselves "Titaniacs", fascinated by the disaster of 1912 that claimed the lives of over 1500 souls. My fascinated did not start with the blockbuster movie, but much earlier. As a child, I poured over tabloids since they were a mainstay in my house. One little story, about a person who claimed to be a Titanic survivor reincarnated, fascinated me. The next day, I was at the library checking out Walter Lord's "A Night to Remember", and I was hooked. I've spent most of my life reading and enjoying Titanic knowledge. I've read a couple different books, was fascinated by Ballard's mid-80's discoveries, and fell in love with the movie. I have to say that my knowledge bank of the ship has increased, with this intriguing tome, "Titanic's Last Secrets". This latest book of Titanic intelligence claims a new discovery of the possible sinking of the Titanic. Going off a phone call, divers John Chatteron and Richie Kohler visit the fabled wreck to truly discover the reason the mammoth ship sank so quickly and took her final plunge. Plagued by ninety years of decay and sediment, the task is not an easy one. However, on the final day of the exploration, the group finds a significant discovery; plates from the Titanic's keel scattered on a previously unexplored area of wreckage. The book then transports you back nearly a hundred years to the making of the ship, and the people and personalities behind the construction project. You'll meet familiar characters (people with a working knowledge of the movie would know J. Bruce Ismay and Thomas Andrews), and some not so familiar, as in William Pirrie, who was in charge of the shipbuilding company Harland and Wolff. The politics and dynamics between these people intrigues and explains much behind the building of the boat. Normally, books like this aren't that interesting to read, due to a dearth of technical explanation that bypasses most laypeople not involved in construction. Brad Matsen's writing style is a careful balance between having to explain the intricacies of metal works, and telling a compelling story. I never once felt "lost" in the technical aspects of the book, but compelled to read, and read quickly. This book is a must for any Titanic fan in your family, and anyone else wanting to read an interesting nonfiction exploration of greed and failure. Whether or not you agree with the book's findings, you'll find yourself entertained and enlightened. "Titanic's Last Secrets" is simply a book you won't want to put down.

Brad Matsen's book, "Titanic's Last Secrets" is one of the most engrossing versions of that disaster that has been written since Walter Lord's seminal work in 1955: "A Night to Remember." The startling new information about why Titanic sank so quickly after striking an iceberg on the night of April 14-15, 1911 is almost overshadowed by Matsen's masterful narrative of the final hours of both the ship and its 1,490 victims. Like many others, as a young man I became fascinated by the Titanic story after reading "A Night to Remember." The wild coincidences, the occult-like confluence of events that were necessary for the disaster to occur fired my imagination as they have others for generations. The question of why this collision at sea resulted in so monumental a tragedy has never been fully answered. Basically, Matsen's book examines the theory that grievous mistakes were made in the design and cost-cutting measures of both Titanic and her sister, Olympic by Harland and Wolff's chief marine architect, Thomas Andrews and White Star's J. Bruce Ismay; mistakes which made the disaster inevitable, with or without an iceberg. Because of these mistakes, Titanic split apart at an angle of only about 11 degrees rather than the dramatic 45 degree angle depicted in James Cameron's motion picture and in most of the paintings and drawings of her "final plunge." Consequently, according to Matsen's book, the ship's death was far more sudden and unexpected than has been previously believed. "Titanic's Last Secrets" frankly starts rather slow, with an initial section introducing a crew of divers who would go down and inspect Titanic's hull to see if the theory might be true. The dialogue between the principal divers, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, tends to be trite and often pointless. Chatterton comes across as a prima donna who loses his temper when he doesn't get his way and must be appeased by Kohler. Their dives in Russian submersibles to inspect Titanic's hull are interesting but nothing to win a Pulitzer with. Then, with the beginning of section II, "Dreams," the reader is treated to one of the finest and most gripping accounts ever written of Titanic's conception and tragic life. Almost all books about the sinking follow Lord's work: a chronological account of Titanic's voyage, the sinking, interviews with survivors and the aftermath. Fortunately, Matsen assumes that the readers of his book are already familiar with the basic details. Zooming off in an original direction, he uses the much-reviled president of White Star Lines, J.Bruce Ismay, as his eyes in the ship in addition to the doomed Captain Smith and Andrews. The result is an entirely new perspective on the disaster. "Titanic's Last Secrets" is full of technical details but doesn't leave out the human element. In fact, it is Matsen's fresh approach to this oft-told story that brings to life the tragedy in all of its original vividness. This is not a book that is

As a history buff and a diver, this book kept my rapt attention from the first page. Matsen's words made the reading of technical jargon flow like water from a spout. As each detail was revealed, it was put precisely into context. Each rivet of the massive ship had a purpose as does determining each detail of its sinking. Details, recollections and insights never before disclosed. I felt like part of the team as Chatterton and Kohler did what others scoffed at and said "It hit an Iceberg and it sank. Get over it." Matsen carefully describes how a few dedicated people would never, ever just get over it. Yes, the Titanic did hit an iceberg and claimed the lives of over 1500 souls, but John and Riche would not get over it. They would instead place a huge wager on little information. They did what we have come to know they would. They would investigate and tell us more. Exposed are the back rooms deals, massive egos and long held secrets. Now, with more precision and context than previously disclosed, Matsen will tell not just how the historic ship sank, but why. How boardroom decisions would effect something people on a doomed ship needed most, time. Matsen takes us on the dives with Chatterton and Kohler. While we don't get to clean our gear afterwards, we none the less get the sense that we were with them on the dives that only a few people alive will ever experience much less survive. We feel the same frustration of a carefully planed dive trip gets derailed by, weather, politics and even the police. Matsen also cracks open another water tight door that J.C. and Red are certain to open in the future. This book will change forever our notion of what happened on that infamous night in 1912.

I found this book thoroughly researched and historically important; it brings out details about the Titanic saga which have previously been unknown or ignored, and it places the entire story within the larger context of the cutthroat turn-of-the-century shipping industry. It's a well-told story that's a great read. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a documentary filmmaker who has worked with John Chatterton and Richie Kohler for over 11 years on multiple projects, including the 2005 Titanic expedition described in this book. I wrote and produced two television documentaries about their discoveries at the Titanic wreck site and subsequent investigations. During that time, I had extensive contact with many of the protagonists in Brad Matsen's account, including former Harland & Wolff employee Tom McCluskie and naval architect Roger Long. I take issue with a previous review by Daniel Allen Butler, and note that in his review he fails to divulge that he is not exactly a disinterested party, but rather an author with a competing book about Titanic. Mr. Butler also recently panned Jennifer McCarty's book as "yet another book where the authors attempt to attach themselves to the Titanic story..." I have not read Ms. McCarty's book. But it appears that Mr. Butler, whose own Titanic book was published in 1998 (just as the James Cameron film was appearing in theaters), believes he should be the last writer allowed "to cash in on the disaster and the public's apparently insatiable appetite for all things Titanic" (his snide first-line dig at Matsen). I might be tempted to agree - if there were no new evidence. But new evidence is precisely what Matsen's book is all about. And it delivers a whopper. While Butler's chief complaint is that Matsen's story lacks "supporting evidence," he completely ignores the two massive pieces of Titanic's double bottom hull that Chatterton and Kohler discovered (and extensively documented) in their final dive to the wreck site in August 2005. I have spoken to a number of Titanic experts who have scrutinized Chatterton and Kohler's underwater video footage, and they unanimously agree that the 2005 double bottom find is the most significant new evidence since Robert Ballard found the wreck in 1985. This is physical evidence, previously never analyzed, that we now know comes from the exact point where the ship broke. As Matsen explains, to someone who can read the signs, the edges where the steel fractured tell the tale of how the ship came apart. This leads Roger Long and others to the conclusion that Titanic did not rise high in the air (as shown in the famous scene in the Cameron film), but rather broke apart while still relatively horizontal. To experts, a low-angle breakup raised an ominous question: should a ship built for service on the stormy North Atlantic have been able to withstand the angle at which Titanic broke? In other words: was the ship strong enough? To me, Matsen makes a convincing

Titanic. All one has to do is utter the name of the world's most infamous unsinkable ship and imagery, myth, and legend-sans James Cameron-pops into mind. The world was mesmerized when Dr. Robert Ballard and his team located the wreckage in 1985. And not since Charles Pellegrino's 1990 classic, Her Name Titanic: The Untold Story of the Sinking and Finding of the Unsinkable Ship, has there been a great book about the Olympic-class ship. On the other hand, since Ballard et al., first glimpsed the rusting wreckage there had been nothing thing new to report. Until now. Get ready to unearth one of the greatest historical cover-ups of the twentieth century. It's not clear how author Brad Matsen came to be involved with writing a completely absorbing narrative of the divers' adventures and findings. Regardless, Matsen's new book, Titanic's Last Secrets: The Further Adventures of Shadow Divers John Chatteron and Richie Kohler can take its place as the definitive answer to the world's most unanswerable question: Why did Titanic sink as quickly as she did? In 2005, Deep Sea Detectives John Chatteron and Richie Kohler stacked their finances and reputations on the report of one man who claimed to have seen new evidence that the majestic ship's last hours were not at all what we had imagined and that it did not sink exactly as we have come to believe. David Concannon had seen "ribbons of steel that looked like they had been peeled from the ship" in Titan's debris field. He had no real proof, only what he had seen. Chatteron and Kohler took a plunge (no pun intended) in an effort to discover, once and for all, how and why Titanic sunk. The book's subtitle is a little misleading. Chatteron and Kohler almost take a back seat to Titanic's mesmerizing personality. The book is divided into three sections: "Shipwreck," "Dreams," and "Secrets." From what Chatteron and Kohler discover, Martsen weaves the mystery effortlessly that results in an amazing work. I'm dying to tell you what they learned, but I hate reviewers who spoil an ending. A little hint though: the biggest scene in the movie is wrong. Armchair Interviews says: If the Titanic has always intrigued you, this is a must-read.