![]() Meanwhile, armories, workshops, and supply depots sprang up by the start of 1942, the base was home to more than 5,000 German personnel and 4,300 French staff.Ĭonstruction on the first bunker, K1 (“K” stands for “Keroman”), began in February 1941, three months before K2’s foundation stone was laid. ![]() To construct the bunkers, the Germans brought in 15,000 civil engineers and laborers from Organization Todt (named after its founder, Fritz Todt) that since 1933 had built many and massive Nazi construction projects and whose ranks were swelled by the forced labor of men from occupied Europe. But Dönitz quickly realized it was imperative to build concrete bunkers to protect the U-boats against British air raids-the first major Royal Air Force attack came on August 22, 1940-and he decided to erect them above ground to avoid the time-consuming excavation work required for sea pens. U-30 was initially protected only by a camouflage net the Germans then erected two large sheds of concrete and wood, one on either side of the slipway ramp in the fishing harbor. By the end of June 1940, German workers, arms, and equipment began arriving in Lorient and, on July 7, U-30 became the first submarine to make the base its port of call. Cut off its supply line to North America, reckoned Dönitz, and Britain would be starved into surrender. (Bundesarchiv)ĭönitz believed-more so than Adolf Hitler or Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, the head of the German navy-that U-boats were key to winning the naval war against Britain. Germany constructed both massive wet-pen bunkers (header) and dry-pen bunkers (above) to house its U-boat fleet at Lorient, France. Consequently, at Lorient, the naval arsenal workshops were functioning the fact that the adjacent fishing harbor had a rail link north and south was an additional boon. Such was the speed of the spring 1940 German advance across France that Admiral François Darlan’s pledge to scuttle the French navy’s fleet and render all ports inoperable was not fulfilled. Of the five, Dönitz prioritized Lorient because it had avoided large-scale sabotage damage by the vanquished French military. Admiral Karl Dönitz, commander-in-chief of the U-boat fleet, arrived in Lorient on June 23 and chose the port as one of his five French bases, along with Brest, Saint-Nazaire, La Pallice, and Bordeaux. The Germans saw the potential of Lorient within days of occupying France in the summer of 1940. From a distance, their sheer size and the thickness of the concrete make them look like the gap-toothed grins of giants. It could be a scene from any of the myriad ports along the 2,130 miles of French coastline but for several incongruous intruders on Lorient’s Keroman Peninsula: three enormous concrete U-boat bunkers, built by the Germans as a base for submarine attacks on Allied shipping in the North Atlantic. Men and women busy themselves repairing sails, painting hulls, and swabbing decks, while on the quayside those feeling less energetic sit eating and drinking. The Atlantic Ocean sparkles under the sunshine, and in the marina an armada of yachts, dinghies, trimarans, and catamarans add their own bright colors. I AM BLESSED WITH FINE WEATHER when I visit the Lorient submarine base in Brittany on the northwestern coast of France. The U-boat pens at Lorient, France, are a silent yet striking tribute to every man and woman brave enough to take to sea in a submarine. France's U-Boat Bunkers Survived the War-And Thrive Today Close
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