A Tour Of WW2's Most Fortified Island | Alderney With Dan Snow

this is Albany tiny scrap of land in the English Channel part of the Channel Islands archipelago but its size belies its importance it's painter-based strategic part in British and French history because that's the French Coast just over there and yet these islands for well a thousand years or so have on and off mostly belonged to the English and British and that means that this island has a wealth of historical sites quite out of proportion to its small size I'm exploring the remnants of aldeny's military occupiers from Roman ramparts to the mega bunkers built by the Vermont [Music] nowhere gives a sense of the breadth of albany's History better than this place here because this actually takes us back well to some of the earliest recorded history in Albany it's Roman check out that wall that's actually a Roman remain it's got to be one of the best Roman Reigns I've ever seen in the British Isles you can see the herringbone formation there what's interesting is that the arch in the middle is 18th century when the British came to re-45 this Roman Fort against the French threat of the French Revolution the walls have been surrounded by sand over the centuries as they had to extend this arch up and if you look at the very top level here above that herringbone you can see the 18th century Edition but the most remarkable thing about this building is it wasn't just fortified by the British in the 18th century but by another occupier even later on so the Roman structure was used by the British it was sort of reoccupied re-45 by the British in the 18th century which gives it its sort of 18th century character inside here but there's some rather incongruous clues that show what happened during the second world war when this island became a vital German defensive stronghold look the closer you look the more concrete you see into these walls under the ground here the Germans borrowed bunkers machine gun positions and he's got the edel vice up here so there's very few places in the world that I've been where it shows military occupation by the Romans the British and then the Vermont [Music] the Germans used existing structures they built new structures and created a giant interconnected stronghold here on Albany this is fascinating this is the only example in existence in Europe a German machine gun position where the gun is braced on these little notches here and someone can stand in here and feed fresh ammunition and as you can see here this machine gun crew had a perfect Field of Fire along that Beach but this is just one of hundreds of military structures right across this tiny Island when France fell to the Germans in June 1940 the decision was made to demilitarize and abandon the Channel Islands the British government realized they couldn't put up any resistance against German forces now they were so close in occupied France in Albany the civilian population was evacuated they left on British ships and were taken either to other Channel Islands or to the British Mainland and that meant that when the Germans landed they found this place almost completely empty this is albany's Harbor and as a result it is incredibly strongly defended you can see fortification on the far side but look at the head and I'm on now everywhere as far as the eye can see dotted with bunkers gun positions Searchlight positions we know that in the immediate area here there were 11 artillery pieces including anti-tank guns that could have fired at ships or or troops Landing in this area here and also nine anti-aircraft guns which can actually be lowered so they can fire at Targets on the surface as well so this was an incredibly strong position it feels like aldeny had been turned into one gigantic static potent Battleship out here in the sea as the second world war progressed it became clear to the Germans that the Allies were planning a major invasion of Western Europe Gathering forces in Britain in response the Germans decide to fortify the Channel Islands turning them into a theoretically impregnable string of fortresses that would guard the stretch of French Coast to the west of the cottontown peninsula Now Albany might be one of the smallest the Channel Islands but it became the most heavily fortified gun platforms like this one here were built now right here in the middle they have mounted big Naval guns the kinds that were installed on German battleships and these would have allowed the Germans to close off this passage over there you can see Guernsey over they can see Jersey the guns here would overlap with guns fired over there forming a kind of invisible wall through which Allied Shipping wouldn't be allowed to pass over there is the coast of France so on the other side of Albany you'd have guns that would close off that Gap as well so this whole stretch of French coast and these Coastal Convoy routes that the Germans wanted to take would be protected Albany was covered in concrete the Germans burrowed into the Earth that's why I'm standing now you've got this huge gun platform each one was protected against Invasion there were three rings of barbed wire around this one there was a Minefield there were flamethrowers over there on those two little Hilux there was anti-aircraft guns in the middle there was a strong point dozens and dozens of these kind of features absolutely littered this tiny Island turning it into one massive Fortress barring the Roman Fort overlooking the Island's Harbor Albany was home to very few fortifications up until the 18th century in this period Britain France continued to compete for world domination and the threat of an amphibious invasion of Southern England was always on the cards magnifying the Strategic importance of the Channel Islands this is a particularly fascinating site this is what torji now we think well somewhere around here on this Headland there would have been an 18th century gun battery during the 18th century Britain and France were fighting basically for for control of the world global hegemony in the 19th century Britain and France again found themselves in competition it was a huge Naval arms race and the victorians built a lot of forts around the coast of the British Isles but nowhere more remarkable than this one here this protected uh the the coast here in Albany got Bray Harbor over there this was a place where where French troops could have landed so you've got these giant gun platforms here built by the victorians facing at sea but what's amazing about this place is basically on top of this Victorian site you have German defenses added on you literally can see on top of these Georgian foundations you've got the concrete here and there would have been German machine guns here larger caliber German weapons this Headland would have bristled with defensive Weaponry check out down here so this is wonderful you're coming through these thick Victorian walls now down this tunnel at the bottom you leave the red brick of the Victorian period behind and you have the concrete of wartime construction and down here you have German gun emplacements anti-tank weapons and machine gun positions look at that classic a beach there a hard Bray Harbor an ideal place where any troops might land and this gun is just able to sweep that entire area so this German fort built on top of the Victorian Fort would have had well up to 70 German soldiers in it and a Garrison of Olden it was something like three and a half thousand and then Plus four thousand so slave laborers remarkable so this is where the big German gun would have been as you can see sweeping that beach dealing with landing craft or attacking troops and there would have been about four big guns of this caliber in this German Fort and then numerous machine guns really took too many to have left an accurate record what really strikes me when I look around this place and seeing the sights in the scale is the thought that this was a huge complex really there would have been a crew here protected from Naval aerial bombardment or assault from the sea there would have been a generator there was a huge amount of ammunition here they've been cooking and facilities and sewerage and that all had been brought together and all been built here just to keep one gun in operation [Music] construction and maintenance of the fortifications on the island was not easy especially with the threat of Allied air attacks the RAF launched numerous bombing raids on the Channel Islands 22 in total throughout the war aiming to destroy German bunkers and disable gun emplacements the Germans had to be prepared so it wasn't just guns that were positioned all over the coast here in Albany they needed searchlights because many of the giant Allied air formations that struck Targets in Europe would do so at night so this is a great example of a Searchlight position these were in huge Searchlight 60 centimeters in diameter they had to be moved on these tracks and they'd been here on the coast looking to pick out these giant Allied air armadas they're heading over to bomb targets particularly in July and August 1944 in the great battle for Normandy and then once they've been picked up then the German anti-aircraft positions could try and shoot them down there were 37 searchlights of 60 centimeters in diameter and above on Old knee alone [Music] foreign [Music] just driving around Albany you get a sense of the concentration of military architecture on this island going right back to the Romans then a lot of course the Victorian stuff still remaining but the second world war features are everywhere across this island it's impossible to go more than a few meters without seeing a little bunker little piece of concrete sticking out of the undergrowth it's one of the most remarkable places [Music] next I would be traveling to the northern tip of Albany to see one of those impressive World War II fortifications at bibbit head it's a remarkable bun cutting I've ever really seen anything like this one they've they've implied it with a rock that they've picked up from the beach around and about and they've disguised the outside of this bunker to make it try and blend in with this Rocky Headland that I'm on so inside here it's just another giant complex to house big beach defense guns artillery pieces then there would have been machine guns so the loopholes in the wall and then places for the crew to live as well apparently it's a long tunnel yeah here we go a long tunnel connecting us with another wow you can actually ask with another artillery position it's on the headland let's go the scale of this construction effort is extraordinary and come constantly getting surprised every time I go to a new bunker you think you've seen it all wow and this bit's very badly flooded oh yeah that chain or Beyond as well I think I might at this point turn back rather than have wet feet for the rest of my expedition in Albany [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign German concrete emplacements also crisscrossing this island are these trenches now it might think you'd be more like to find trenches like this on the battlefields of the first world we're on the Western Front Flanders Etc but actually they were used during the second world war particularly here on Albany to link different German positions together and you can see this one is hewn out of the living Rock stretches all the way up behind me up to that fortress on the hill there's another stretch of trench now allows the German Defenders German Garrison to move between different positions always staying low staying below ground level and this is a mortar position of an immortal here this trench system actually joins a couple of different motor positions together our mortar is a gun basically that fires bombs high up in the land then on the heads of your enemy after a long tour of the Island's defensive structures tunnels and trenches it was time to head to aldeny's most iconic World War II landmark [Music] I'm on the Eastern tip of Albany now and you get a fantastic View From Here across the Narrows to France that's the tip of the at the cottontan peninsula in Normandy and look how close we are to France only about nine kilometers away and look at that tide ripping through there one of the most infamous tidal race in the world now this was the Gap that the Germans wanted to protect and so this artillery here would work with this gigantic building here this was effectively kind of a range finder an observation tower each of those three layers had German observers looking out to sea and then each of the three layers talked to a different battery underground telephone cables went out to a battery with big heavy guns that could then work to bring down gigantic weight of fire on enemy ships spotted through their enemy ships foolish enough to try and get through this Gap because there's another set of giant artillery pieces on the French Coast as well so between Albany and the guns over there this Gap this route along the coast of France was shot to Allied Shipping not the most accessible bunker in the world but worth it because look at this this is well painting murals from the 1940s and what's fascinating is that the German crew down here obviously tried to create well make it sort of comfortable try to beautify it slightly because I didn't particularly enjoy living in a concrete box on the ground look at this oh yeah look this is fantastic still chipboard so providing a a sort of inner wall covering up the concrete just making the room feel a bit warmer feel a bit less barren and these there would have been I think beds that would have hung down from here you've still got some of the fittings up there so they would have had chained bunks along here wow look at it check this out incredibly beautiful painting here then you've got some some German words here I think say danger of death if you don't close that valve funny joke to position warning people of our mortal danger right next door to this rather beautiful sort of Flowery and leafy Motif here [Music] and those that were in Mortal danger were the thousands of slave laborers brought over to Albany from Europe and North Africa as part of Nazi construction programs the workforce also included natives of the Channel Islands the gigantic scale of military building here on Albany required a huge Army of workers to finish it and those workers were found from around Hitler's Nazi Empire and moved here by force they were forced laborers they were housed in a number of camps around Albany of which very little remains they were deconstructed after the war and they were housed in such flimsy and miserable conditions that little of it is still upstanding unlike the huge concrete structures that they built but here you can see the remains of some of the accommodation in one of the camps the hard standing down there which would have been covered with a flimsy shelter the conditions under which those laborers were held were pretty brutal they were denied access to health care and proper food and many of them died whilst being forced to work on this island on the 700 Camp inmates lost their lives before the camps were closed and the remaining inmates transferred to France in 1944. Channel Islands were liberated in 1945 following the German surrender and the horrors of the only concentration camp to be built on British soil were exposed little Islands remained in German hands almost till the very last hours of the second world war the Allies bypass them they liberated France they moved into low countries into Germany and brought the second world war in Europe to a close leaving these islands in German hands so all of the work that had been done to fortify them protect them from an Allied amphibious assault work that cost the lives of so many of the thousands of slave laborers that were brought here was in vain when the people of Albany returned they found an island that was much change tens of thousands of land mines trench systems bunkers concrete fortifications criss-crossing their home and those have been built by slave laborers many of whom had been worked to death and the Islanders immediately responded by building this rather moving Memorial to those slave laborers the French language Hebrew polish reflects on different nationalities of people that were brought here by the Nazis in order to turn this into one Mighty Fortress I hope you've enjoyed this tour of albany's fascinating historical sites if you did make sure to check out these other great World War II videos on the channel don't forget to like And subscribe

Channel: History Hit

Views: 478,121

Keywords: history hit, history hit youtube, alderney channel islands, alderney camp, concentration camp britain, alderney concentration camp, channel island bunkers, channel island ww2, world war two channel islands, channel islands atlantic wall, ww2 alderney, ww2 channel islands, dan snow documentary, dan snow history hit, dan snow history, ww2 bunkers uk, odeon bunker, the odeon alderney, roman wall alderney, history of channel islands, channel islands history, alderney history

Id: pI2LUI3TRPM

Length: 19min 58sec (1198 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 07 2022