At the end of World War II, Nazi scientist Ernst Kruger creates a biological weapon they call Weißer Hai (White Shark) White Shark. He is a genetically transformed male whose body has been adapted through genetic changes to permanently stay underwater including breathing oxygen from the water through his gills. The Third Reich, however, collapses before the experiment is transformed into Hitler’s army of murderers and the only specimen created is exported by U-boat to South America. During the escape, the U-boat is bombed and sinks. All trace of the white shark locked in a bronze box is lost. Years later, a scientist and National Geographic photographer discovers a bronze box near the wreck of a U-boat while taking photographs on the ocean floor. Next to the U-boat (which builds up the right atmosphere, of course), they discover lots of shells of eaten creatures. After the chest is brought out to the research ship, the photographer opens the chest and the freed monster kills him and escapes into the ocean himself.
A monster (white shark) begins murdering sea birds, and other creatures and random people in the Long Island area. The described Sea Monster appears in the area where one of the book’s protagonists, a scientist whose son has just visited, conducts research on sharks and is accompanied by a marine biologist who studies the whale by filming them with the help of trained sea lions. The book is quite old so the idea of filming whales using trained sea lions appears there quite naturally. Nowadays, such animal abuse would probably be considered animal abuse.
The monster, according to its programmed abilities, comes ashore from the water, learns to breathe with its lungs instead of its gills, and attacks people in a nearby town. He then escapes by getting back to the island.
The monster kills a biologist friend, who comes up with the idea to lure it into a decompression chamber he has at his facility. He then compresses the monster to kill it, violently expanding it.
The novel “White Shark” is not in the same class as “Jaws”, but nevertheless better than other books by Benchley that is, for example, “The Depths” or “The Island”. “White Shark” is a bit of a psychedelic story about an underwater and then operating on the border between the shore and the water, a monster-“shark”-that preys on people. A powerful partly animal, partly human, or an intelligent animal created through genetic manipulation from a human whose imperative is to murder others.
The book “White Shark” by Peter Benchley by its name may allude or give the impression that it is related to the book “Jaws” but it is, as they say, a completely different tale.
“White Shark” is a book for people who love sensations and some script shortcomings or lack of connection with reality are not a problem for them. What matters is action and further sensational events. The White Shark is an offbeat tale of a secret weapon created by Nazi madmen in the form of half man half shark to form the start of Hitler’s army of murderers.
The book has a lot of references to diving because its plot is related to people who dive. A decompression chamber also appears. At the same time, mixed in all these descriptions, as is very common in sensation-diving books, is caeson disease with embolism, sometimes even with nitrogen narcosis. Just as diving cylinders are called oxygen cylinders every now and then even though, on the whole, divers are known to breathe air from them.
The book also features a shark cage and going down into it is one of the very risky activities described.
As you spend from these descriptions the action of the book is strongly sensational and strongly linked to what can be called science fiction however with an indication of fiction and then it is only even stronger.
The author, who in every other sentence mixes oxygen cylinders with air cylinders decompression sickness with barotrauma, of course reminds us of the most important rule in diving, that is, not to hold your breath, adding that you can get congestion already at a depth of half a meter.
Peter Benchley’s books, as well as many other books where diving is a certain part of the adventure, should not be treated as diving manuals. The information provided is mixed together in a frightening way. This, of course, is compounded by the translator’s misunderstanding of the problems being described, further muddying the picture.
Of course, shark cage adventures couldn’t do without the shark cage breaking and the rapid descent of the father and son locked in it towards the bottom with a powerful monster hiding somewhere outside the cage. After a while, however, the father with his unconscious son begins to flee the cage toward the surface and the description is, as usual, mixed with the risk of barotrauma, vascular embolism or caeson disease.
It turns out that the white shark created by the Nazis is able to come out of the water in certain situations and, by rearranging its physiology, learn to breathe with the lungs it had previously flooded with liquid and become a monster somewhat connected to the water but able to attack people on shore as well.
Also appearing here is the familiar theme of liquid breathing from many other (mostly movie sensations), which would prevent any problems associated with decompression or barotrauma of air spaces. Of course, the very idea of liquid breathing would solve all such problems except, of course, the problem with breathing itself. When we breathe a gas, it must be a mixture of specific gases with the right ratio of oxygen to inert gases. If we could breathe liquid one can imagine that only oxygen would be dissolved in this liquid and all the problems associated with, for example, decompression would disappear
According to the most classic rules, the decompression chamber described in the first half of the book (which the scientist has on his island) must at the end become the ultimate weapon with which the white shark will be defeated. The scientist, with the help of a mirror, lures the monster inside the chamber there, slams it shut and then treats it with powerful compression and then a strong decompression sickness by expanding it “in an explosive” way
The term “in an explosive” way is most appropriate because at the very end the gas bubbles that form in huge quantities tear the monster to pieces.
Cruise of a German u-boat
Secret weapon
Nazis
South America
Can you ask for more from a book…..
