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John Chatterton | |
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| Born | 1951 |
John Chatterton (born 1951) is an Americanwreck diver. Together withRichie Kohler, he was one of the co-hosts for theHistory Channel’sDeep Sea Detectives, for 57 episodes of the series. He is also a consultant to the film and television industries and has worked with20th Century Fox,Paramount Pictures, andCBS.
Before his career in television, Chatterton spent twenty years working as a commercial diver in and aroundNew York City. His first co-host and diving partner fromDeep Sea Detectives, Michael Norwood, died in a diving accident during an expedition toPalau in December 2003.
The 1991 discovery and subsequent identification of the German submarineU-869, off the coast ofNew Jersey, has been the subject of several television documentaries includingHitler’s Lost Sub, a two-hour special for the popularNova series onPBS. The same story was the subject of a book byRobert Kurson calledShadow Divers. The movie rights have been purchased by20th Century Fox.
Chatterton was a member of the firsttechnical diving expedition toIreland andRMSLusitania, in 1994. A few years later, at a depth of 400 feet (120 m), he was the first diver to use rebreather diving technology on the wreck ofHMHS Britannic, near the island ofKea inGreece. In 2006, Chatterton re-visited the wreck ofBritannic in the History Channel documentaryTitanic's Tragic Sister, to try to find out what sank the thirdOlympic-class ocean liner. He was also the sole American on a British expedition, sponsored by theUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum, seeking the historic shipwreckMV Struma in theBlack Sea offIstanbul. These dives inTurkey were chronicled on theHBO documentaryStruma. In addition, Chatterton has managed to make over 160 dives to the wreck of theSS Andrea Doria.
In August 2005, Chatterton and his partners put together an expedition to the wreck ofRMS Titanic. They dived the wreck to a depth of approximately 12,500 feet (3,800 m) in the MIR submersible from the Russian research shipAkademik Mstislav Keldysh. Their exploration was featured on the History Channel special,Titanic's Final Moments – Missing Pieces. For the first time Chatterton and Kohler were both in front of, and behind the camera, and produced the program with Kirk Wolfinger.
In 2008, Chatterton and his partnerJohn Mattera discovered and identified the wreck of theGolden Fleece off of the North coast of theDominican Republic. The ship was that ofJoseph Bannister, a pirate captain of the late 17th century. The discovery of theGolden Fleece was chronicled byRobert Kurson in his 2015 bookPirate Hunters.
In the fall of 2015, Chatterton was featured on the TV seriesThe Curse of Oak Island in an exploratory dive to the bottom ofBorehole 10-x, aborehole with a depth of more than 200 feet.
In 1970–71, John Chatterton served one twelve-month tour of duty in theVietnam War as acombat medic in the 4th Battalion,31st Infantry Regiment,23rd Infantry Division (Americal Division).
In November 2000, John Chatterton was diagnosed withmetastasizedsquamous cell carcinoma of thetonsil, which was thought to be likely a result of his exposure toAgent Orange in Vietnam. By May 2003, after he underwentchemotherapy, the cancer was inremission.
Chatterton is a member of theboard of directors for Nanologix Inc., a biotech firm located in Hubbard, Ohio.[1]
