The detritus of history is all around us, as
War History Online explains:
10. RAF Hethel, England
Royal Air Force Station Hethel or, more simply,
RAF Hethel, is a former
RAF station which was used by both the
US Army Air Force and the
RAF during the
Second World War. The airfield is located seven miles southwest of
Norwich in Norfolk, England and is now owned by
Lotus Cars., which moved into a purpose-built factory on the site of the airfield in 1966 and developed portions of the runways and taxiways as a test track for their cars. The factory and engineering centers cover 55 acres of the former airfield, and use two and a half miles of the former runways. Much of the remaining runways have been removed and returned to agricultural use. Today the company also acts as an engineering consultancy, providing engineering development within the automotive industry. The company’s racing arm,
Lotus Racing, and the
Lotus Driving Academy are also located at
Hethel.
9.
Balaklava Submarine Base, Crimea
Naval museum complex Balaklava is an underground submarine base in Balaklava, in the Crimea, a disputed area between Russia and the Ukraine. It was a top-secret military facility during the Cold War, located in Balaklava Bay.
Joseph Stalin made a secret directive: to find a place where they could base submarines for a retaliatory nuclear strike. After several years of research, the choice fell on quiet Balaklava, a city immediately classified. Balaklava sits on a narrow winding inlet with a width of only two to four hundred meters. The small inlet harbors the city not only from storms, but also from prying eyes; from the open sea, it is not visible under any angle. Additionally, the site is close to Sevastopol, a major naval base still used by the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet.
In 1957 it established a special building department, number 528, which engaged in the construction of underground facilities. The construction of the underground complex lasted for four years, from 1957 to 1961.
After closing in 1993, most of the complex was left unguarded. In 2000, the abandoned facility was handed over to the naval branch of the armed forces of the Ukraine.
The museum was founded according to the order of the State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence of the Ukraine on 30 December 2002 as the establishment of a branch of the Central Museum of Armed Forces of the Ukraine: naval museum complex Balaklava.
8.
Fort Ord,
Monterey, California
Fort Ord was opened in 1940 and closed in 1994. The fort was the largest US military base to be closed at the time. While much of the old military buildings and infrastructure remain abandoned, many structures have been torn down for anticipated development.
On 20 April 2012, President Barack Obama signed a proclamation designating a fifteen-thousand-acre portion of the former post as the Fort Ord National Monument. In his proclamation, the President stated that, “The protection of the Fort Ord area will maintain its historical and cultural significance, attract tourists from near and far, and enhance its unique natural resources, for the enjoyment of all Americans.”
7.
Johnston Atoll, Hawai'i
Johnston Atoll is an unincorporated territory of the United States, currently administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Public entry is only by special-use permit, and is generally restricted to scientists and educators. For nearly seventy years, the atoll was under the control of the American military. During that time it was used as a bird sanctuary, a naval refueling depot, an airbase, the site for nuclear and biological weapons testing, a site for space recovery, as a secret missile base, and as a chemical weapon and Agent Orange storage and disposal site. These activities left the area environmentally contaminated, and remediation and monitoring continue. In 2004, the military base was closed and control was handed over to civilian authorities.
6.
Željava Air Base, Croatia
Željava airbase, on the border between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, was the largest underground airport and military airbase in the former Yugoslavia, and one of the largest in Europe.
Construction of the airbase, code-named Objekat 505, began in 1948 and was completed in 1968. During those two decades, SFRJ spent approximately six billion dollars on its construction, three times the combined current annual military budgets of Serbia and Croatia. It was one of the largest and most expensive military construction projects in Europe.
The airbase was used intensively in 1991, during the Yugoslav Wars. During its withdrawal, the Yugoslav People’s Army destroyed the runway by filling pre-built spaces (explicitly designed for the purpose) with explosives and detonating them. To prevent any possible further use of the complex by opposing forces, the Military of Serbian Krajina completed the destruction in 1992 by setting off an additional fifty tons of explosives. The ensuing explosion was so powerful that it shook the nearby city of Bihać. Villagers claimed that smoke continued to rise from the tunnels for six months after the explosion.
The toll of the destruction on base buildings and equipment is incalculable and caused great environmental damage. Potential reconstruction endeavors are limited by a lack of financial resources. An international border cuts the base area in two, and the entire area is heavily mined. The barracks in the nearby village of Ličko Petrovo Selo are operated by the Croatian Army.
5.
Duga 3 in the Ukraine
Duga-3 was a former Soviet over-the-horizon radar system used as part of the Soviet ABM early-warning network. The system operated from July of 1976 to December of 1989. Two Duga-3 radars were deployed, one near Chernobyl and Chernihiv, the other in eastern Siberia.
It was deactivated in the late 1980s, and lies within the thirty-kilometer Zone of Alienation around the Chernobyl power plant
4.
Saint Nazaire Submarine Base, France
Before the Second World War, Saint-Nazaire (photo) was one of the largest harbours of the Atlantic coast of France. During the Battle of France, the German army arrived in Saint Nazaire in June of 1940. The harbor was immediately used for submarine operations, with U-46 arriving as soon as 29 September 1940.
In December of 1940, a mission of the Organisation Todt inspected the harbor to study the possibilities of building a submarine base invulnerable to air bombing by England.
Building began in February of 1941 with pens 6, 7, and 8, completed in June of 1941. From July of 1941 to January of 1942, pens 9 through 14 were built; and between February and June of 1942, pens 1 through 5. Work was eventually completed by the building of a tower.
Between late 1943 and early 1944, a fortified lock was built to protect submarines during their transfer from the Loire river and the pens. The lock is over a hundred meters long, twenty-five meters wide, and fourteen meters high; the roof features anti-aircraft armament.
3. Flak Towers in Austria and Germany
Flak towers were complexes of large, above-ground, anti-aircraft gun blockhouse towers constructed in the cities of Berlin, Hamburg, and Vienna from 1940 onwards.
Other cities that used flak towers included Stuttgart and Frankfurt. Smaller single-purpose flak towers were built at key outlying German strongpoints such as Angers, France and Helgoland, Germany.
They were used by the Luftwaffe to defend against Allied air raids on these cities during World War Two. They also served as air-raid shelters for tens of thousands of people, and to coordinate air defense.
2. The Maginot Line in France
The Maginot Line was a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles, and weapons installations that France constructed just before the border with Switzerland and the borders with Germany and Luxembourg during the 1930s. The Line did not extend through to the English Channel because the French military did not want to compromise Belgium’s neutrality. The line was a response to France’s experience in World War One and was constructed during the run-up to World War Two.
The French established the fortification to provide time for their army to mobilize in the event of attack, allowing French forces to move into Belgium for a decisive confrontation with Germany. The success of static, defensive combat in World War One was a key influence on French thinking. French military experts extolled the Maginot Line as a work of genius, believing it would prevent any further invasions from the East.
While the fortification system did prevent a direct attack, it was strategically ineffective, as the Germans invaded through Belgium, going around the Maginot Line and attacked it from the rear.
In late 1944 and early 1945 the Germans defended the line from the onrushing Allies, which again attacked it from the rear.
1. Maunsell Sea Forts, North Sea
The Maunsell Forts were small fortified towers built in the Thames and Mersey estuaries during World War Two to help defend the United Kingdom. They were operated as army and navy forts, and named after their designer, Guy Maunsell.
The forts were decommissioned in the late 1950s and later used for other activities, including pirate radio broadcasting. One of the forts is managed by the unrecognized Principality of Sealand; boats visit the remaining forts occasionally, and a consortium called Project Redsands is planning to conserve the fort situated at Red Sands.
In the summers of 2007 and 2008, Red Sands Radio, a station commemorating the pirate radio stations of the 1960s, operated from the Red Sands fort on 28-day Restricted Service Licences. The fort was subsequently declared unsafe, and Red Sands Radio has moved its operations ashore to Whitstable.
