Abandoned military bases

War History Online has an article about some interesting abandoned places:

10. Fort Ord 

Fort Ord, California has some really cool stuff, like an abandoned Olympic-sized swimming pool. Also rows and rows of abandoned barracks and larger buildings, all with an ocean view. The coolest thing about this place, and what makes it so impressive, is that it is an example of beautiful decay, placed in the middle of the natural beauty of the California central coast, off of Highway 1. It is such a weird place and yet somehow it works so nicely where it is. I hope they never tear it down.

9. Duga-3, the Ukraine 

Nicknamed the Russian Woodpecker, this massive antenna was part of the USSR's extremely powerful over-the-horizon radar (OTH) system. It also happened to generate a sound that could be heard on the shortwave radio bands worldwide between July of 1976 and December of 1989. The repetitive tapping noise at 10 Hertz gave it the Woodpecker name, but NATO referred to it as the Steel Yard. Since it’s located next to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it’s been radioactive since 1986.

8. Hethel Air Base, England 

While Hethel was just one of the RAF’s many air bases, it also happens to be the place where Lotus cars are born (photo). The world’s best handling cars are tuned on Hethel’s historic tarmac. When it comes to repurposed air bases, Silverstone, Sebring, or the Dunsfold Aerodrome are not bad either. 

 

7. Saint Nazaire submarine base, France 

The Nazis built quite a few of these massive submarine bases in France. Saint Nazaire was completely carpeted by Allied bombers, only the base survived. Since demolishing it was somewhere between too difficult and too damned expensive, it has since been reconverted as a cultural site, with museums (including a former French submarine) and bars inside it. The former flak platform offers quite a nice view of the docks.

6. Johnston Atoll in the Pacific

Johnston Atoll might belong to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service today but, before that, it was the Army’s playground for seventy years. It was covered in radioactive debris for a while, thanks to test launch failures in 1962, and this is where they stored all the Agent Orange and mustard gas after the Vietnam War. It’s a nicer place today.

5. Flak towers, Austria and Germany 

The Nazis built eight of these massive above-ground, anti-aircraft gun blockhouse towers (called Flakturm in German) in Hamburg, Berlin, and Vienna. Good luck trying to demolish them; repurposing them is also rather difficult. 

4. Greenbrier Bunker was originally called Project Green Island and designed as a full scale bunker complex, located under a luxury hotel, the Greenbrier. The bunker was a secret, and remained fully serviced and operational from 1959 to 1992, when a Washington Post reporter exposed it. The bunker was large enough to hold both houses of Congress and staff for over a year or more. It was chosen for its proximity to Washington and the fact that Eisenhower liked to play the golf course...

3. Maginot Line, France 

The French remembered the First World War so, before the Second started, they build a line of fortified bunkers along the Belgian and German border. If your boots hit some concrete or steel in the middle of a French field, you found one of them.

2. Zeljava Underground Airbase, Croatia 

Started in 1948 and finished twenty years later, this underground base was one of the largest and most expensive military construction projects in Europe. Problem is, thanks to the Yugoslav Wars in the early nineties, the area is still full of mines and bombs , so you can’t really go there to be amazed.

1. Maunsell Sea Forts, North SeaBuild during the Second World War in the Thames and Mersey estuaries to help defend the United Kingdom from Nazi submarines, this remains the best abandoned military base in the universe. Also: Sealand. The Principality of Sealand is a micronation, located on HM Fort Roughs, a former Maunsell Sea Fort in the North Sea, thirteen kilometers off the coast of Suffolk, England. They even had their own money and stamps for a while.

Rico says they're all places he's not likely to see, except for Fort Ord, which he saw when he lived in California.