Jim has been a certified scuba diver since 1976 and has made over 120 dives. He has managed to combine his computer skills with scuba diving to produce a computer database of 1,394 Shipwrecks from New Jersey to South Carolina. He gathered information from dive boat captains, dive shop owners, fellow scuba divers, N.O.A.A., books, magazines, newspapers archives and old maps. The effort was extensive. He has worked on it since January 1983. A copy was given to Jacques Cousteau for his 75th birthday. The list was mentioned by Ellsworth Boyd of Skin Diver Magazine. Jim's list contains Loran W,X,Y,Z latitude, longitude, date sunk, manner sunk, name of ship, cargo and depth. He also made a computer generated map of the east coast with each wreck shown as a dot on the map. Jim used his research to find the "David Atwater", a freighter sunk off the Virginia coast on April 2, 1942 by German submarine U-552. The ship is in 80' of water.
"We chartered a private boat out of Ocean City, Maryland to find the David Atwater". "The boat left the dock at 7:00 A.M. and when we returned at 7:00 P.M., we had located and dived on 5 ships." "David Atwater was the first wreck to be located from my computer research." "As the captain set the loran from my list and we went south in the early morning, I thought how foolish I would feel if all my work failed to find the ship." "You can imagine my relief when the captain's sonar showed the ship sitting upright at exactly the co-ordinates I reported." "As we descended the anchor line to the ship, the sea was tossing the dive boat and the anchor line tangled under the thumb screw of my regulator hose on the tank." "This was not good." "I was being pulled up and down like a toy with every rise and fall of the boat." "My first thought was to take my knife and cut the anchor line but my buddy was below me and would be in trouble if the boat drifted away." "I regained my composure, came out of my tank, removed the line, put the tank back on and continued the dive." "Later that day, we dived on a ship that was regularly used by deep sea fishing boats or head boats." "On the sonar, we could see thousands of fish on this wreck." "As I went down the line, I had an uneasy feeling that dogs were watching me." "I could see my buddies below and above me and thought that I would feel better if only I could see the bottom." "However, the uneasy feeling that dogs were watching me would not go away and I lost my courage and went back up to the boat." "As I sat there dejectedly, I heard a cry of SHARKS from a buddy who had made an open water ascent and was swimming toward the boat at full speed." "He was covered with 80 pound monofilament fishing line with stainless steel fish hooks in his gear." "He could not get in the boat for all the monofilament." "I leaned over the boat's side and used my knife to cut the line off him." "As the other divers returned, they told of hiding in the wreck from a shark feeding frenzy that looked like Star Wars with the fish flashing past them." "When we got back to the dock, I looked in a trash can and saw a shark head that a fisherman had thrown away." "My only regret was that I did not take the shark's head home with me to remember that day on the ocean."
The David Atwater was a 253' long collier that was attacked by the U-552 off the Eastern Shore of Virginia, 2 April 1942. The U-boat pummeled the unarmed ship while men attempted to abandon ship; many were killed by the ensuing gunfire. The Atwater eventually sunk in 70' of water, coming to rest on her port side. Later, I corresponded by email with Volker Kummrow whose godfather, Admiral Erich Topp, was U-552's commander(the Red Devil Boat). Volker sent me the German language version, "Fackeln �ber dem Atlantik" autographed by Admiral Topp. His website can be seen at http://www.u552.de/internat/main/home.htm