Fort Drum: America's Unsinkable 'Concrete Battleship'

if you were to arrive by sea to manila the capital city of the philippines you may spot a strange blocky silhouette as you approach guarding the entrance to the vast natural harbour of manila bay you may at first think it's the hulk of some grand old warships sitting at anchor with its sharp angular lines and two massive distinctive rusted gun turrets sitting on deck still pointing menacingly out towards the south china sea however on closer inspection you'd probably realize that this ship is in fact entirely stationary and it's hull made from thick concrete that extends down beneath the waves this is in fact fort drum a huge now ruinous complex of concrete and steel that once guarded these southern entrance to manila bay despite being overlooked and neglected for most of its operational career its construction in the early 1900s was a massive undertaking and both the fort and its garrison would mount a formidable and dogged defense during the japanese invasion of the philippines in 1942 its strong defensive position would also later see it become a holdout for japanese forces when the philippines were retaken in 1945 fort drum's final dramatic last stand would see it stormed by american forces and concluded in a grisly explosive end for the fort and its japanese garrison since then it has fallen back into its relative obscurity but why was this incredible feat of defensive engineering undertaken in the first place and what is the history of the incredible concrete battleship of fort drum what would become known as fort drum started out initially as the small island known as el frail which sat at the entrance to manila bay along with the much larger corregidor and caballo islands these islands especially corregidor offered important strategic value through their control of the entrance to manila bay the spanish who took possession of the philippine islands in the late 1500s utilized corregidor and the smaller islands as a lookout for hostile ships and defensive fortifications as well as what were essentially custom stations to extract taxes and tolls for ships entering and leaving the bay elfrale's first notable moment in history would come much later however and during the spanish-american war of 1898 on the lead up to the battle of manila bay an infamous moment in which an american squadron of ships led by commodore george dewey soundly defeated a force of spanish warships in the bay the americans would quickly go on to capture manila itself eventually taking control of the entirety of the philippine islands the night before the pivotal battle jewish squadron approached manila from the south sneaking into the bay and passing between cabalo and alfreley island under the cover of darkness suddenly however as the last ships had just passed the islands and entered the bay itself a suit flare-up from one of the funnels of the american ships the uss mcculloch briefly illuminated her as she passed el faralli island exposing her and the squadron and allowing herself to be spotted by a small garrison that had been established on the island three 120 millimeter guns had been mounted on the island requisitioned from two spanish ships and they began to open fire on the american squadron soon the uss boston rally and concord were all exchanging fire with the small island battery no damage was inflicted on the american ships but it would serve to the americans as a powerful reminder of the strong defensive position that this small island presented following the battle of manila and the capture of the philippines by the americans the positioning and potential of al frahle island had clearly made an impression on them in their review and improvement of defenses around the bay following its takeover the u.s army corps of engineers initially designated alpharalia island to serve as a small naval mine control station but the coastal artillery headquarters the group responsible for manning the variety of fortifications and defenses around manila objected arguing that the current system of forts spread along the opening of manila bay was not enough to cover the eight mile wide channel at night they argued that a warship could much like commodore dewey had come close to achieving sneak past the current farts without detection on a rain swept or cloudy night the best solution it seemed to them was some kind of defensive position near or on ilfralee island with a view to closing this gap various ideas were drafted including the construction of an artificial island south of elf rally first lieutenant john kingman of the corps of engineers however had a different idea in a letter to the us army kingman proposed a dramatic transformation of the island itself in a letter to major gp howell the district engineer in manila kingman laid out his proposal in connection with reports to the construction of an artificial island just south of alfrali i beg to submit the following plan as an alternative which i believe would prove vastly cheaper and no less effective kingman's proposal while perhaps less intensive than building an entirely new island was no less dramatic he proposed cutting the island down to the height of eight feet above the waterline and building upon it a huge reinforced concrete fortress at this now level foundation in his proposal he argued for two 12-inch guns mounted on naval type carriages enclosed in mushroom-shaped turrets made of 21-inch cast nickel steel the guns would be positioned at either end of the concrete structure to cover both the approach to manila and the interior of the bay itself along with an observation station positioned between them inside the protective interior of this bunker would contain everything from gun rooms and machine shops to kitchens mess halls and offices for the garrison kingman's particular proposal was ultimately rejected but his idea of a heavy defensive platform on alfreley island was taken to heart and the final iteration of fort drum would not be far off from kingman's original ideas in fact as early as february 1909 not even a year after his initial proposal the war department reports showed just how much of kingman's original ideas had been adopted in the final plan the original idea of four 12-inch guns had been upgraded to four 14-inch guns now both facing in the same direction and out of the bay where kingman's original plan had been more rounded and elliptical in shape the final design of the fort would employ more straight and angular lines to better follow the shape of the foundations of the island itself 25 feet of reinforced concrete would be utilized in the thick defensive walls of the fort intended to protect against direct 12-inch naval guns along with 10 feet of similarly reinforced concrete overhead two six-inch batteries were also to be in place on either side of the fort providing cover and protection with the guns arranged in two tiers over each other to accommodate an intended garrison of 300 enlisted men and 20 officers during a time of war fort drum would comprise of almost three and a half thousand feet of floor space spread out over three levels the first floor would be made up of the large open plan barracks area with the hospital and magazines for the six inch batteries arranged around it the huge turrets of the 14-inch battery extended down through the first floor and into the second where the magazines and infrastructure for them were located on this floor the mess halls and kitchens were also located as well as storerooms and the top of the engine room finally in the lowest deck the fuel laundry rooms machine shop and main engine room was located which would provide the power required for keeping the fort running the name fort drum had no apparent connection to the philippines records from 1909 state that the fort would be named in honor of richard general culture drum who served with distinction during the mexican and civil war and who had died in october of 1909 with the plans decided in april 1909 the dramatic deconstruction and reconstruction of alfrel island began hundreds upon hundreds of tons of rock was removed from the island as well as further additions to the design extra reinforcement was added and the decision was made to extend the concrete break water and foundations below the water line for better protection to the fort for the construction of the fort itself much of the equipment and machinery was ordered manufactured and delivered from the us mainland this included the main battery which were to be manufactured at the water village arsenal in new york the guns were 14-inch m1909s which were most often employed as single guns mounted on disappearing carriages and typically used as single coastal artillery pieces to defend seaports and towns the four guns that would make up drums main battery would be the only four of their kind ever produced in this configuration and would be the only steel turrets used in the defensive forts around manila bay the turrets themselves were faced with 18 inches of armor with the size being built from 6-inch armor plates much like naval ships the turrets were mounted on heavy steel barbettes which sunk down several levels beneath the top deck of the fort the turret could rotate by means of electrically operated tracks as well as by hand should the electrical systems fail these multi-storey turrets were divided vertically into several compartments on the surface was the armored gun compartment itself with the upper handling room beneath this contained motors and gearing for the traversal mechanisms and transferred ammunition from the lower compartments on the turret the electrical compartment was beneath this and then the lower handling room which is where ammunition would be loaded and retrieved from the magazine the gun turrets were also split horizontally into two compartments one for each gun and each operating as its own complete unit for firing aiming and sighting this acted as a means of protection should any of the guns malfunction or explosive material detonate in one side of the turret the upper handling room was similarly divided and acted as a form of buffer to the lower handling room and the magazines deep in the base of the fort manufactured between 1911 and 1912 the guns were first assembled at the us army naval grounds in sandy hook new jersey for test firing following this they were then completely disassembled and shipped the eight and a half thousand miles east to fort drum where in 1916 the massive gun turrets and guns were carefully fitted into their final home once commissioned the lore of the two turrets was named battery william t marshall and had a field of fire of around 230 degrees while the upper battery named battery john m wilson had a full traversal of 360 degrees similarly unique were the four 6-inch m1910 guns fitted to the port and starboard of fort drum further adding to the battleship-like appearance of the fort these guns were vertically stacked on top of each other in order to conserve space and also increased traversal range and were also manufactured with special carriages at the waterville at arsenal before being shipped to the fort and fitted into specially reinforced casemates made up of six feet of reinforced concrete and backed by six inches of armored steel plate these secondary batteries were named battery benjamin k roberts and battery tully b mccree finally in 1918 after almost a decade of construction what was once the small rocky outcrop of alfreley island had been transformed into one of the most impenetrable defensive forts in the pacific and joined the perimeter of forts that guarded manila bay fort mills and fort hughes and corregidor and caballo islands in the north and fort frank on carabao island to the south looking at fort drum from the sea aero land the resemblance to a huge battleship was not hard to miss her two huge 14-inch gun turrets were positioned forward with an 88-foot tall cage mast for spotlights antennas and range finders similar to those used on contemporary american dreadnoughts located towards the stern of the fort the accompanying barracks water tank and radio room arranged around the mast further added to the impression of a ship bridge and superstructure the manning of this new and impressive fort was handed to battery e of the 59th coastal artillery regiment however timing was everything and the newly commissioned fort drum was heading for some rough waters the end of world war one and the shrinking military budgets meant that almost immediately the funds and manpower for the fort began to dry up so much so that after their test firing in 1918 after being fitted the main batteries on fort drum would remain silent until 1923 by this time the guns themselves were also becoming somewhat outdated and outclassed by larger caliber longer distance guns that were starting to appear on more modern battleships but the post-war washington naval treaty signed in 1922 amongst the five major world powers the british americans french italians and japanese meant that the americans were unable to impose upgrades on gun emplacements in any naval bases in the pacific west of the hawaii islands to compound these problems the great depression of the 1930s meant that necessary upgrades to the power plant of fort drum which was still utilizing its original seven 225 horsepower engines were delayed or cancelled as a final nail in the coffin in 1934 a congressional act was signed that would give independence to the philippines in 1944 with such legislation on the books the us army was not going to fund any expensive upgrades to a fortification that a new country would take ownership of in only a decade's time as a result of these years of neglect by the 1930s the mighty fort drum had become a huge expensive and now somewhat obsolete white elephant aside from a few fighting drills the small caretaker garrison lived a relatively sleepy existence on the immovable concrete battleship that her crew nicknamed the uss no-go however what no one could have predicted would be the chaos that the world was soon about to plunge into and the dramatic role that fort drum was to play by the end of the 1930s the realization that war between the empire of japan and the united states was becoming a more apparent concern and the philippines were one of the first lines of defense against further japanese expansion the ageing defenses of manila bay sprung to life once more and major general george f murray commander of all harbor defenses in manila ordered the garrison of fort drama to be brought up to 200 men along with ammunition and provisions to withstand a prolonged six-month siege lieutenant colonel lewis s kirkpatrick was in command of the fort while captain samuel a manson was in charge of both batteries by the summer of 1941 the fort was considered ready for action as it presented a potential target the peacetime wooden barracks was demolished and pushed over the side and the garrison moved below decks thirteen marines from the fourth marine regiment were also assigned to the fort to man two 50-caliber anti-aircraft guns this meant that now over 250 men were living and working inside the fort as well as a number of civilian workers in charge of keeping fort drum's antiquated power plant in operation by december 1941 the combined defence forces in the philippines were organized into the us army forces in the far east headed by general douglas macarthur it was recognized that the huge areas to be defended as well as the lack of experienced troops and equipment would make the defense of the philippines incredibly challenging so defence measures were to focus as much as possible on delaying actions to hold off any potential japanese invasion force until a more friendly reinforcements could arrive this made the farts around manila bay a key area of defense as fort drum and the surrounding bases would soon realize the attack on pearl harbor marked the beginning of the philippine invasion on the 8th of december 1941 at 2 a.m local time asiatic fleet headquarters in manila received word of a catastrophic surprise attack on american naval forces at anchor in pearl harbor hawaii general macarthur ordered the defensive forces of the philippines on alert but the attack had come months earlier than many had predicted leaving both american and filipino troops desperately short on necessary supplies munitions and training the japanese struck fast with aircraft attacking us airfields in the philippines as american bombers and fighters waited for their own instructions to take off and retaliate japanese troops began landing that same morning establishing beach heads almost unopposed and quickly capturing air bases that gave them air superiority in the opening hours of the invasion the combined forces of american and filipino troops mounted a brave defense in their delaying actions but eventually were pushed back by the experienced and well-supplied japanese troops by christmas day 1941 macarthur had declared manila an open city and committed his forces to the final strongholds on the bataan peninsula along with corregidor island and supported by fort drum and the other small island forts surrounding the bay fort drum was one of the few fortifications anywhere in the philippines with protection from aerial attacks and while japanese air attacks were primarily concentrated elsewhere the fort soon attracted increasing attention in late december dr julian goodman arrived at fort drum to cover for their doctor he described the relatively safe surroundings of fort drum certainly compared to the increasingly dire situations being felt elsewhere fort drum had several layers of decks which made us all feel quite secure from harm during these bombing attacks which occurred at least three times daily we would all retreat to the lower levels where the dispensary was located and feel the shock waves reflected by the explosive missiles we had some injuries which were minor usually from the top deck anti-aircraft crews whose excellent firepower kept the japanese aircraft from low-level bombing runs despite the safety of fort drum the situation in manila bay was becoming increasingly desperate for the combined american and filipino troops that remained as well as the thousands of civilians stuck without anywhere to go shortened supplies hemmed into the bataan peninsula and worn down by ceaseless japanese attacks the defense of the peninsula was becoming weaker each day the troops were still supported by the powerful island batteries however slowing the japanese progress and as a result they began to increase their attention on silencing them as the japanese closed in towards the end of january fort drama and fort frank started to come under fire from the southern shore of manila bay as 105 millimeter siege guns had been set up to try and silence the two stubborn smaller island forts for the next two months fort drum would be bombarded almost constantly but the japanese failed to silence her guns the garrison of fort drum now saw fit to tear down the large cage mass tipping it over the side of the fort and into the sea both because they suspected the japanese may be using it as a target marker but also because it would allow the 360 degree traversal of the topmost battery wilson with the fort still fighting bravely on the japanese upped their efforts once more now moving 10 240 millimeter howitzers into range of fort drum and fort frank the massive shells caused devastating damage to the exposed batteries and facilities on fort frank but still failed to breach the thick walls of fort drum an inspection in 1945 concluded that drum had been hit with no less than 3 000 japanese shells during her siege the shells left massive craters in the concrete deck including destroying many of the anti-aircraft gun emplacements and shaking the fort to its very foundations nonetheless the japanese still failed to silence drums stubborn gun batteries a direct hit on the port side of one of the gun turret barbettes also failed to do any lasting damage and it was soon repaired with no loss of any efficacy to the turret eventually the relentless bombardment of fort frank and fort crumb lessened but it was soon discovered why the japanese were repositioning and reinforcing to finally put an end to resistance on the batan peninsula the allied forces had fought bravely but with almost no food ammunition manpower or medicine left the defenders of the bataan peninsula eventually capitulated on april 9 1942. the japanese now had command of air sea and land and all that remained was the final battered and isolated island forts of corregidor caballo carabao and fort drum despite everything they still presented themselves as considerable strongholds and would continue to deny strategic value to the japanese so long as they were in american hands the japanese therefore turned their attention to the largest stronghold in the area headquarters of the island of corregidor launching massive devastating bombardments at the beginning of april the allied forts replied in kind but they were being gradually worn down especially in placements on corregidor that had no protection from above like that of fort drum in fact fort drum was to become even more of a pain to the japanese the intense heat inside the fort at this time often exceeding 100 degrees fahrenheit was actually producing higher than normal muzzle velocities which in turn was increasing the range of her 14-inch gun batteries as april progressed however corregidor's ability to defend itself was reduced to the point where the garrison was relying on fort drum and the surrounding force to supply artillery fire numerous times japanese guns bombarding corregidor were silenced and interrupted through accurate fire from fort drum and the surrounding island forts by the beginning of may however the writing was on the wall for corregidor on the 5th of may following intense bombardments that obliterated much of the remaining mortars and gun emplacements on the island japanese forces staged a surprise night landing on the north east of corregidor the stubborn fort drum once again raged into action dropping over 100 rounds into the masses of japanese landing craft and barges that were approaching the island it's estimated over half of the japanese landing craft leaving the bataan peninsula that night for corregidor were put out of action by fort drum reportedly throwing general homa commander of the japanese forces into an agony of the mind over these ceaseless failed attempts to silence drums batteries a later attempt to silence the battery with repeated air attacks also resulted in a japanese bomber being shot down by fort drum's marine anti-aircraft gun crew however despite the brave defense the garrisons were under no illusions of what the eventual outcome was to be on the 6th of may with their position untenable the garrison and headquarters and corrector surrendered and at 11 40 am came the order from general wainwright who had taken charge of the defense of the philippines following macarthur's evacuation for all allied forces to stand down by noon fort drum complied but not before a discussion was held by the fort's officers commander colonel kirkpatrick laid out the option to his officers that fort trump could continue the fight after all the gaddison had been stalked originally for a six-month siege the batteries had a surplus of ammunition and the garrison now totaling 428 was still completely intact aside from a few injuries jack cole who served on fort drum during the war later recalled however why this was decided against if we'd had water we could have lasted three or four years we had the food see all the water that came in was brought in on water tenders from caballo island without water we were done for we had water all around us but none we could drink fort drum had originally been fitted with lilly reversible octuple effect distilling plants that could remove salt from seawater in theory producing 5000 gallons of fresh water per day but possibly owing to battle damage or a lack of upgrades made to the fort over the years this equipment was for whatever reason inoperable or unable to produce water for the gadison by the end of the battle therefore with further resistance impossible the men set out to ensure that fort drum's capabilities were at least denied to the japanese forces with the official surrender at noon the battery remained in a constant bombardment until the minute of surrender meanwhile sprinklers were turned on to flood the magazines electrical equipment and small arms were destroyed and finally as the clock struck noon sandbags were forced into the guns and fire damaging them beyond repair fort drum the resilient concrete battleship that had been so overlooked and outdated by the outbreak of the war had held out and bravely delayed the relentless japanese invasion the guns fell silent for the final time the japanese would never return the fort to its operational status the crew of fort drum would not be well treated by the japanese possibly out of retribution for the fort's success and defense hundreds of americans and thousands of filipino pows would die in both forced marches two camps and in their captivity there including colonel kirkpatrick who on the 27th of april 1943 died of pneumonia in captivity on corregidor island the aforementioned jack cole who served in the fort and was captured with the gaddison survived grueling conditions in pow camps and forced labour in the japanese home islands before he was liberated he estimated in an interview perhaps only 28 of the garrison actually survived the war it was a valiant end to fort dram and the loss of the philippines would be one of the worst defeats in american military history however it was not the final chapter for fort drum in 1945 the americans finally retook the philippines it was one of the largest and most destructive operations of the entire war the fighting to recapture the city of manila was particularly destructive with almost the entire city being completely leveled and over one hundred thousand civilians dying over the course of the battle alone many of the original american defenses had been remanded by the japanese but fort drum however had remained silent throughout the campaign the scarred concrete fort sitting seemingly unchanged since its surrender years earlier in february 1945 a pt boat thinking the place abandoned made an unscheduled reconnaissance of the fort as the seven personnel began to make their way through the quiet abandoned remains of the once busy fort drum they may have spotted what looked to be more recent evidence of life it seems the japanese had re-garrisoned the fort after all in the years after its surrender what the americans didn't know however was that the japanese had in fact never left a crew of 68 naval personnel apparently former crew from the japanese battleship musashi which had been sunk a few months previously were lying in weight when the americans got far enough into fort drum a machine gun suddenly opened up killing at least one of the men and injuring another the crew beat a hasty retreat and after reporting their encounter a plan was formed to put an end to the impenetrable fort once and for all first an air attack was launched with us bombers dropping massive 2 000 pound bombs on the structure much like the japanese had found out in 1942 however fort trum was too strong the only effect being one of the former 14-inch gun battles breaking loose after a direct hit next on april 11th the cruiser uss phoenix bombarded this six-inch gun batteries again doing little damage but ensuring they were at least out of action for the final attack this would not be the only case of entrenched japanese holdouts and the task of silencing fort drum fell to the us army's 151st infantry regiment f company and a platoon of demolition men from the 113th engineers bee company who had been recently carrying out similar operations against a holdout mortar pit on caballo island and using a plan developed by lieutenant colonel fred c dyer friday the 13th of april at 10 am was designated drum d-day the men were loaded onto a series of boats the lead being a specially adapted lsm or landing ship medium designated the trojan horse that a special wooden landing ramp attached to the top of a bridge tower that could allow men to disembark on the top deck of the fort some 40 feet above the waterline they were backed up by a smaller adapted lcm or landing craft medium nicknamed the rube goldberg that had taken part in action against the previous holdouts on caballo the men had been rigorously drilled for a week beforehand at the neighboring corregidor island using plans of fort drum to identify air vents and entrances and creating dummy guns to mimic the layout of the fort's top deck the task of the boarding party was to quickly storm the fort's top deck and not allow any japanese garrison to surface the men were assigned posts and positions and as the landing ship made contact with the battered concrete hull of fort drum they raced ashore with guns trained on any opening or gun turrets the next stage of the plan began the smaller lcm the rube goldberg had been adapted to carry a mixture of two parts diesel fuel and one part gasoline as well as a series of pumps when the infantry had secured the deck the engineers began running fuel lines from the boats and feeding them down into the bowels of the fort thousands of gallons of liquid fuel began to pour down into the structure as the engineers then planted explosives at strategic areas around the decking all under the watchful eye of their guards only one source of gunfire during the entire operation emerged from one of the six-inch former gun turrets as a japanese sniper opened fire on the larger boarding ship three men were hit one seriously with shrapnel in the neck but following a barrage of fire from the landing ship no more activity emerged from the depths of the battered fort in just 15 minutes over 3 000 gallons of the petrol diesel mixture had been poured into fort drum and 30 minute fuses had been set on the hundreds of pounds of explosives embedded around the top deck with a frantic disembarkation from the former american fortress the ships and men retreated to watch the spectacle from afar the first explosion was muted and many worried that the fuses had perhaps failed but before they could react a second catastrophic explosion suddenly ripped through fort drum huge chunks of concrete debris and metal plate roared into the sky with more explosions shaking through the various levels of the fort fires blossomed and smoke billowed from every opening of the concrete battleship as the soldiers watched on with grim satisfaction it was a dramatic final end to fort drum and the unimaginable horror of what must have happened to the japanese holdouts would only be revealed when the fires finally came down days later the first return to the fort confirmed eight dead on the first two levels suffocated by the fumes a second visit days later when the rest of the fort could be accessed revealed the remaining sixty men burned to death in the boiler room in the lowest level of the fort so what remains of fort drum today well in many ways the exterior of fort drum probably doesn't look far from how it would have looked at the end of 1945 a squat impervious concrete bunker guarding the entrance to manila bay still littered with the results of months of sustained bombardment from japanese and later american guns the top deck remains a messy lunar surface of shell craters and concrete down below the top deck the walls that remain are still blackened from terrible fires that engulfed it all those decades ago while it is officially off limits some sanction visits as well as some unofficial tours still take place either by sea or via helicopter the majority of modern damage to the fort was the result of scrap salvagers in the 1970s who gutted the interior of almost all metal fittings most interior walls had been removed to reclaim rebar as well as the majority of the fittings to the interiors of the batteries themselves in recent years battery wilson's gun battles have also disappeared and it seems both have now fallen backwards into the gutted interior of the turret in the basement levels some of the original 14-inch shells apparently still remain in the magazine rooms as well as mounting points for various machinery and generators these areas are all now but flooded at high tide as nature begins to slowly reclaim one of the most unique battlements ever constructed fort drum today is still regarded much like it was during its heyday a strange unique oddity on the horizon of manila bay but for a brief few months during the desperate defense of the philippines it more than proved its mettle well thank you very much for watching my video on the concrete battleship i'm actually in my van right now i'm actually editing this video i forgot to record an outro um and i was up here editing and enjoying the sunset and i thought well this would be a good place to set up for a couple of reasons and before i get into that uh this book the concrete battleship by francis j allen um is really the definitive history of elf rally probably mispronouncing that and fort drum goes into all of the pre-history all of the quotes a lot of the quotes that i got for this video came from this book um and it's a few years at a date now i think it was written in the early 2000s um but you know the the modern condition of the the fort isn't as detailed in this but a really really fascinating history and just a really interesting topic i found this through scrolling through google earth i'm that kind of guy i spend a lot of time just mindlessly scrolling through google earth looking at places i was in manila bay for some reason and i found this odd shape on the map tried to figure out what it was ended up stumbling across the unique concrete battleship what was it they called it the ss uss nogo which i thought was really good and the the the life of those guys and that garrison on there must have been so strange you know they talk about it essentially being like on a ship it was all referred to in the same way as a ship that kind of norman clutcher on the on the boat um but it was stationed completely stationary so a really really bizarre history and a really unique place and it gets me thinking a lot of the time of this and this is a book called the world without us it's very famous um it also was adapted into a television show with i think a slightly different title which i loved and that came out in like 2010 and um i always think about this book when i'm talking about subjects like this because i always think in a hundred thousand years time um what will be left of humanity if we all suddenly disappeared and that's what this book's about and i always think that the concrete battleship s uss nogo fort drum it's one of those things that you know if it's left undisturbed which i imagine it would be i can't imagine anyone wanting to take that place over there's lots of other much nicer seaforts to take over um yeah it's full of asbestos it's falling apart but it's probably going to sit and remain there for the next you know thousand years if it's not really disturbed in any significant way and it reminds me somewhat as well of the building behind us and we're on rasay right now where i live and the building back there is the extractor house for the old mayans we've got about two miles of mine shafts underneath that hill over there and the actual main entrance is just down the road from us and this place reminds me somewhat of fort drum it was built in the early 1900s a little bit before fort drum and it was commissioned and came online before world war one but it kind of came online very fancy the company bought the entire island turned it into this massive mining operation and then essentially went out of business because the quality of the iron ore was not very good turned out but in world war one it was reactivated and the island rassy the isle of rasa this small island and the inner hebrides wedged between the isle of skye and mainland scotland about 14 miles long became a prisoner of war camp and german prisoners of war were made to work in the mines here on russia and it just kind of reminds me of a you know a place that was built and commissioned hundreds of thousands of pounds you know spent on it um quickly kind of went out of date and became obsolete and then was brought back online in a somewhat dramatic um fashion in this case on rashi and world war one and fort drum world war ii but anyway uh that's about it really i'm hoping to get more videos uh produced and made i'm actually like to say i've been working on this van primarily if you guys haven't seen i made a video about my old camper van i've been working on my new camper van and i've been traveling a lot and my plan is hopefully to make more videos on the road maybe on subjects like mines and brocks and other stuff around scotland that i find very interesting but as always thank you very much for watching my video thank you for putting up with my mispronunciations and stumbling over my words and all that kind of stuff and yeah we'll see you next time bye

Channel: Calum

Views: 1,252,947

Keywords: Fort Drum, El Fraile, el fraile island, fort drum philippines, fort drum el fraile island, fort drum explosion, Fort Drum WW2, Philippines campaign, Philippines WW2, abandoned places, abandoned ww2 places, Corregidor island, corregidor ww2, bataan philippines, Bataan WW2, manila bay, Fort Drum Manila, battle of manila spanish american war, spanish american war, Documentary, Naval Battle, fort drum

Id: 2RYoK0zmUM0

Length: 36min 7sec (2167 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 09 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/LitZippo]

Thanks for posting this! It was a facinating subject to research, and I've always felt the Philippine theatre has been a very under-reported part of WWII history.

Appologies if I got anything mispronounced!

[u/acidcitrate]

Shame it fell into disrepair and neglect. Would have been a good tourist spot had it been maintained. Tours at Corregidor would often point out this "island", still distinguishable but too far away for the naked eye to appreciate.

[u/sansotero]

The unsinkable

[u/Beneficial-Opinion-7]

This is incredible. I am an American ExPat (37M) living in Manila and on Oct 25th 2021 while taking a flight back to Manila from Amanpulo island I noticed this structure out of the plane window and was immediately intrigued. I took a photo of it for the geolocation and looked it up on Google Maps a few days later when I got back in front of a computer, was able to find it but could not find any real details and had not thought about it again. Now while scrolling Reddit stumbled upon this post and immediately recognized it. Such an amazing story!!

Thank you for solving my curiosity OP!