FORTRESS AUBIN THE UNDERGROUND FORT AND THE SECRET TESTS

[Music] and now one of the things i wanted to do when i set out to come out here was to go over some of the myths and the stories of how the belgians and the french fought during world war two and i wanted to visit some of the fort to show you the difference between world war one and world war two what i found here is something a lot more than i had expected i found two things i found a built-in officer and his men that fought while they had their fort literally dismantled by explosives from under them and they kept fighting and there had their weapons destroyed and they kept fighting and they repaired them and they had their domes exploded and they repaired them and they kept fighting all the way up until they had no more offensive firepower then they finally agreed to surrender honorably and the germans lined up outside this fort to show their respect as they left and that's telling but there's more to this fort something i did not expect we all know that i've been working on programs and shows on what the germans were actually working on with special weapons well in this little fort in belgium that none of you have yet heard of but you will now they tested some of the most super secret weaponry of the war and those both the army and the air force and we know who was in charge of these special weapons programs firing some of these things there are impacts of top secret german weapons in this fort that you'll not see anywhere else this is a first in my life where i have seen the impacts of german special weapons and this is the fort where you can still go and see how these ground bunker buster bombs that the germans were making during the war in top secrecy the villages were all sent away when they were tested they tested them here and they penetrated 30 meters down and hit the tunnels what happened here that this is a new entrance uh yeah i mean basically beforehand before the battle this was a wall all the way along so you had that small entrance we've seen earlier but towards the end the germans managed to blast a hole through a very well-placed bomb the wall collapsed they stormed through into point-blank machine gun and canister fire and they managed to place a shaped charge uh over there and basically blew their way into the block c2 and this is not far from the collapsed tunnel when this was stormed that's when they decided to blow the tunnel that's right the survivors belgian survivors within this block evacuated down the stairwell which is the only access to this attempts were made to retake it but the germans were dropping grenades down the stairs and the commander made a decision to blow the tunnel which we've seen and underground so that sealed the block off the problem with that is once you've lost this block you've lost protection on two sides of the dry moat and when you lose this they could come down the other yeah yeah so they could then access the massif and we actually don't know if german soldiers had come after them when it was blown so there could be the bodies of dead germans down here well we believe there are remains still down there but anybody who was inside that block when the explosion happened would have been killed anybody going down the stairs anybody in the block and the force of the explosion was so great that it's actually twisted the top of the shaft and bent uh a giant hook that's used to hoist stuff and the base of the stairway went bang straight up hit the ceiling and then the whole lot just went crunch down to the base underneath this is where it blew that's right just about where we're standing the tunnel was sealed and this is where the germans stormed through under fire and we can see the butler strikes on the collapsed sections of wall under far along there to c2 this is amazing and so here you have literally this is rubble from the wall and that is pieces of the wall great big sections of it did they hit this with an aerial bomb we believe so uh right up against the edge of it and whilst all the bunkers and the positions are reinforced concrete unfortunately the outer wall is just poured concrete so it didn't have the reinforcement so if you get a strike at the correct place it comes down i mean a 500 kilo bomb right in the place would blow this in and it looks like it did and you see the moat down there and what remains of the wall and then they were under fire from both sides from this fort and down there now some of this was a very serious testing on behalf of the germans after the war because you take somebody else's fort it's a great place to test your munition and this was one of the what did they fire at this thing how'd they find the russian shell that caused this so they stuck it in an artillery piece here very close range wow so this must have penetrated all the way through practically yeah at that level though that is above the rooms inside yes and that's straight into reinforced concrete [Music] and this what part what do we know what are this is damaged from well all this is all testing i mean you've got the smaller impacts would probably be from the battle itself the uh the large impacts um would be from the russian shells uh at the end of the battle this unit uh this casement was pretty much complete this is all practically all from testing yeah so they placed a charge under this window here or this is not a window obviously they placed a charge this was a firing position that's right i mean the charge was placed further along there and they basically blew through i think it was the 47 millimeter gun position one of the gunners was killed instantly and another died of his wings later so that would have been the one over here in behind all this and the barbed wire yes unfortunately so it's uh yeah well obstructed now that was where it was blown through just the the damage is just staggering watch your head coming in wow yeah so of course we have a little drop here let's put the shell casings with drop oh do you need my head touch your shoulders yeah yeah this looks good wow so this was and of course there was no door there this was not this was there was never a door here no the only access was that 30 meter shaft here was a 47 millimeter cannon yep the 47 millimeter gun that's in the entrance to the ford yeah that was the one that was sitting here that's the one oh so this must have been what a heavy satchel charge we believe it's a shape charge they could have used the ship charge wow that would that would be a whole new interesting story so what happened up here is that from the same charge now this would be rushing damage this is from this okay that's from the testing yeah but if this was a shape charge then we can honestly say that shape charges might have been used other places than ford having them all on that not on that day but in those days careful underfoot yeah and this is what having the the projector would have been here do you think ah see a steel plate on top there i believe yes because the next one we've probably got the machine gun a little step up yeah whoa damn not the barbed wire but this rustling shell or yes wow so they came back and tested some of their most advanced secret technologies something that we are still using today i was tested here and that would be the machine gun yeah definitely and now there's the what is that let the tunnel all the way down no no that that just goes to a lower level where the shell casings would drop from the 47 mil gun so that you could go down there get the casings out if you're going to re-uh reuse them walls cracked here see the mesh inside nice detail wow this is something else and here you can clearly see the shape of the block as it's sort of it's like an inverted u isn't it wow they fired cannons on this as well testing regular artillery or was it just i believe it was just [Music] there's something quite strange about the design here because this would probably have been the munitions storage but you'd think if you're being sensible ammunition storage should be that side yeah so so you think this would have been well i guess behind us on this side too it's nothing there's earth and rock yeah but when constructing it you think it'd be more sensible to have the munitions that side rather than facing the uh the enemy if you want a better phrase um in storage where you've got much less protection over there [Applause] damage and that's part of the uh ear ventilation system isn't it yes what's left of it it's just this damage is and this is where we were we were down here we were 30 meters down but a little bit further along the other side of the break yeah but if you look at the ceiling the interesting feature the force of the explosion was so great those are steps those are steps from the staircase those are steps in the staircase and the force explosion was so much it's embedded them in the roof of the shaft wow and you can see the banisters how twisted they are yeah and you feel my thick galvanized iron how much explosives would they use it 500 kilogram or more i i don't know exactly but it would be at least 200. it must have been it almost must have been more another feature that's quite interesting if you look just behind the embedded stair uh stairs look at that hook it's been twisted like plasticine yes wow i don't know if you want to stick your camera over the edge but you might be able to see the very bottom of the shaft and there's a and this was another firing position or now i believe that's how it is from russian it does have that diameter well i guess it was would be easier to develop some sort of um develop firing ports by shooting shells through them instead of having to actually kill the holes they literally fired one through every one of these i mean some of them must no that's that's a square that must have been a fire position there's a square metal frame on it isn't it where am i just seeing i mean when things are mangled to this degree now here you've got a wrestling hit and you've got the gun position well i guess that will give us a good option to compare and we have something that came we must have had two two heads from one from up here and one from there that's right i mean the one above this could be one if we look from the outside we might see a big hit just above this position yeah and there's a kinetic energy we're just blowing it so that's the firing position and this is the hit from the shell i mean if you can penetrate 30 meters of earth and still go through rebar shooting it straight on through a bunker like this would be no problem imagine if they had the if they had them at the time of the invasion they could just line them up and just shoot straight through every bunker every one hat what a horrifying weapon well that we recognize 47mm composition and here we can actually see well if there wasn't a piece of a mound of dirt right there you have some very large molds here you know who kicked up that one but you could see it theoretically without the bush you could see all the way down to the other end that's right and by losing this block the defense of that entire mode was gone as well on two sides yeah yes because there's nothing down at the other end pointing this way no you have to position c1 but it covers just one side i see something shining back at me that's where the sessions was that the one you rescued to put down there yeah that's the one yay and since they're identical on both sides you have for the shell casings down down there and the germans had the same thing in their east wall in the west wall bunkers they had room for the larger shells underneath the bunkers if you go to the west wall you see the cannon positions you have little holes they would dump them into but the difference between the belgians the french and the germans is the belgian of the french had a way to funnel out their spent casings the germans didn't in any of the bunkers there was no way of machine gun casings so they would literally stood in them yeah and then you dump the casings down in this hole and honestly we've been to a lot of artillery ranges and firing ranges where they fired regular munitions to see how they tested these rustling shells how they would just penetrate the bunkers is absolutely staggering to see they would just cut through these things like butter and cut through 30 meters above and still go through the roof of these into the underground hallways that's amazing to see that really really is an absolutely terrifying thought for infantry knowing that you're sitting in the best forts you could build and with these new shells the germans could have shot straight through them and with the explosive shells inside these were just tested without explosives mind you this is just the kinetic energy punching through these that is something but you're right there's no trace of shrapnel damage very little um so it's the i i think that it is the the inert ones for interpreter phrases so with a little look out here we'll then see the corresponding hits yeah there's the big one up there and then there's now how would they hit this wall where would they petition the drive out and also they positioned guns on the massif and literally just point blank from this center yeah i mean the full length of one side of the dry moat is 300 meters so they're within 50 meters 100 meters when they're firing them but certainly hit it they did all right they're definitely aria is that a vent hole up here and you've got one above yeah up there as well was there an upstairs no so this this was just armor or i mean when we were in there ceiling was this height yeah the thing about that is reinforced concrete so we're just looking at three meters of reinforced concrete at least yeah and that's where the 47 mil would have been so yeah you've got the machine gun searchlight 47 mil or pointing down there so the this position was that that was destroyed in the fighting 247 millimeter guns by the uh transmitter outside the walls get your seats off [Music] beams in the sandbags oh god yes i know just a guy i love this this is rustic it's not the work this is what i do whenever i am uh i'm not pretending to have a day job but this is pretty much the explanation why i'm single turn right and be careful [Music] sounds like my ex-wife and i still married her to the game look there's a german kitchen imagine this with steel doors here going to an airlock so you'd come here we'll flap on the door uh you can only open this door when the other doors closed your squad of troops if we walk in this door here will be closed before the other one can be opened why is there an airlock all the way down here this is an embarrassing area purified air if there's a gas attack is pumped into this area under the floors from the filtration area so what's only the fighting positions under overpressure or the whole fork helpful especially over pressure where you've got the air coming in and at some point you might get a contaminated air apparently the filtration there it was only used once that's when it does kind of say hi let's imagine where we were the position if you look at the plan where block o where one of the air intakes is and where block appears that those the dust cloud was so high and so extensive that was very thick dust was being sucked in and then they used the filtration areas for that time yeah there's a good shot if you've got the attackers coming through from block p save block p has fallen you've got gun position here and if you look through there there is no way anybody is going to get up that corridor if this place is manned because it's just a straight line with no cover whatsoever and again you have your great tube that is a very straight shot there's other things in here this is basically a note saying you cannot open fire without uh the authority of an officer of the fort um remember at the very beginning of the battle we had a friendly fire incident where a soldier was killed maybe this was scratched on the wall after that that you have to have permission to fire uh from this position um from an opposite of the fort now if you turn around to that bit of the wall um there's some scratched notes of flames to the people who uh manned this position this is very faint but quite funny um but basically who is dead drunk for my country or for patriotism but don't get drunk i am if you look at that very quickly you think i know there's some script scribbled on there because one of their friends has been killed but it's basically again pierre is dead drunk for patriotism so i'm wondering if they had a little still hiding in here or some extra alcohol hiding but let's scratch that on the wall so again human touches yes right so this is the barracks area it doesn't have the capacity for 550 people so they're more beds in the above ground and they stack them along here so that's why we've got a few old metal bundles just to give you a slight idea [Music] and they did that when they heard they were under attack what gets me is they had time to do this because they had the warning at 10 to 1 in the morning of may the 10th that an attack was very very likely uh and the commander here instantly gets every all the equipment in here gets everything prepared sends out patrols that same warning was sent to every single fort so why were certain ones not so well prepared there are reasons i guess i don't know we will investigate that's what we're here for now what we'll do chamber chamber if we come through here i think if you want to go first [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] so this is 30 meters below ground yeah [Music] [Music] wow and this is um [Music] [Music] something you might notice we just come out of that first row on the right and the walls you know it's been pushed outwards it looks a little pregnant yeah that's a good few months um now there's very likely another russian shell just the other side of that wall pushing it out i mean but that's quite minor we're gonna see much more i'm just conflicted if we should start hacking away to get it but i guess we shouldn't it's not digging in the fields i'm not sure all right come here [Music] in the first couple of rooms we saw that the ventilation points were concreted up and now here just here you see two big concrete blocks there's one there and one over there now originally there were vents here for clean air to come in it's pumped through under the floor and then comes in here now it's been completed up this is concreted up by the germans and this is to keep pressure in here for when these shells were being tested because they didn't want the pressure to go out into other parts of the fort they wanted to see what the effect would be so that's why that's concreted up and that's why that's concreted up so the germans did it germans did it [Music] here unfortunately it's very poor condition but you've got in black you've got the the squads that would be in different rooms um you've got it on that side [Music] so you've got the second chamber that's for the 75 mil crew um and so on you've got different allocations and then lots of graffiti as well um there's a let's wander down here yeah i think i'm i think i have sensed what is you find uh would you say [Music] that's the smaller airlock for people with no friends right officers rooms now these are good because again each one is different we've got different stenciling on the walls every officer's room here has a different design inside [Applause] this is quite similar to the artwork the final one is the officers [Music] yes it is it really is 1920s we're getting into places where the explosive ones have come through so you've got no damage on the wall one's come through here uh another one's come through here another one over there uh it's gone through the floor geez how many do this fire hundreds it feels like um i'm just shocked how how the the false ceiling is reinforced and then the throat is a false floor as well so you've got the floor's raised and it's gone through here so this was a complete oval no not at the bottom but it was for the ventilation okay for the air to come through so that's one and that's another now the germans took away practically all the shells to study them [Music] and you imagine that has come through all that london rock through a reinforced uh concrete scene as you can see just above you and you can always think imagine seeing the paint on it still you can still see traces of the fins look back wow how can that be in such a good condition having punched through all that so that came through right there and obviously not explosive or it wouldn't be there so that came through there and went straight down there and it's still all these layers of cement and rebar and that was in 43 and it's in perfect condition we could probably drop it once again yeah i never thought i'd pull you out and see what the tip looks like i'll just lower this people falling down the hell which is something i've managed to do almost um so unfortunately i can't get an idea about the uh stenciling in here maybe a bit on that wall but this has been done this is the commander's office [Music] so so this is office and next is his bedroom i know so this is his spectrum i better step in so much time in here now not from what i hear about this guy he seemed to be where he's supposed to be [Music] one of the americans came here after the war when they were working on their own deeper ammunition to just look at this this is just so impressive yeah that's great hunter concrete held on by bits of yeah 80 90 year old rusty metal that's usually i'm walking around [Music] more interesting spots go for it you've got access into the air um ventilation routes for the bad air because they basically have the fresh air in the corridors you had vents of the doors to each of the rooms and then the bad air went out at the back of the rooms and up into the networks of tunnels that went uh that fed back all the way through to the ventilation room underneath the chimneys so that's one access there and it is airtight because you can still see the rubber edge i keep noticing there's pieces of cement rubble sitting there ah [Music] holy so you've got russians come through here see where one came there i think there's there's one toe there sort of closed up i think this is probably just one on this point and it's caved in the roof um this room i have accessed it in the past um it's a bit of a scramble but if you look there's a total collapse inside there another rushing hit at least one probably more than one and this would have been an explosive shell at least the one in there would have been yeah every time you see shrapnel on the whole walls that's where the explosive ones have come through although i mean just the damage of the kinetic energy of the one when i guided people through i try and keep this available to come with the small kids i'll try and keep them entertained a bit as well so it's a nice touch as i mentioned in there you know i'm not done with this room yet [Music] jesus [Music] wow look at that it's good to have those kind of footage because this is what makes this fortress unique you've got little human touches which other forts have as well but you've got this kind of damage we haven't got the couplers in place we don't have the guns in place but we're unique for this hang on see if i can if i can do this this is just so impressive really i'm going down that corridor he says embedded just behind the bed yeah something he's doing missing it's a piece of wood there's a bit of water [Music] [Music] one of the medical offices there's a cat and even better when you look at the next door which is another medical officer see what animal is above that one no a mouse or a rat whichever way you want to look at it so the two medical officers one has a cat above his door and one has a right house so this is basically the chapel which was doubled as the peace bedroom something fiery happened there yeah i think someone had some slices [Music] so someone's vandalized this but basically uh painting on the names of the soldiers inside the fort as they fell so there's a date 10th of may it's practically scrubbed out but one two three four five five eleventh main another one and then there's gab and i think that's 20th of may and two more names but that's just we've done a pencil quite very quickly [Music] well he's lucky there's room for so many more names [Music] understand the mentality of people who would do that i'm guessing this is not a period which is about the only appropriate graffiti yeah [Music] all the names that could have been here [Music] i'm guessing there are no women's stations here ah no none unofficially anyway then if anyone really was smuggled in but it gets better i love when he says that [Music] and stuff in here from all these shells that have come through and people in the past tried to clear it a bit so a lot of it's been dumped at this end so we're getting up to the hospital right now but if your light shows we can go around the back of this so it gets better for you you mean i can get a better view than this oh yes i like this view wow somebody came through somewhere up there hmm actually the far end of that corridor which can get you from the other side there's another radio room you see this antenna just at the end so that's the third radio turner [Music] oh yes the destruction of these things and there's another thing they hit them they hit the tunnels yeah i mean i've some people tell me they're incredibly inaccurate i don't think they are accurate inaccurate um he says and then i'm the one that falls over there's a one come through here we can go around the back of that blockage and uh that's the perfect temperature of the nose of one of these shells [Music] none of the thoughts were blasted i mean just just the fact that they can 30 meters underground penetration is one thing but you also know that they hit these and the testing was look at the damage so you [Music] station so this is operations yeah that is a little pregnant and here on the floor is there you go once come through there and perfect round hole and it's nosed there blood i guess of course puddles in the kitchens so this is the damage we were off to the left and this is the damage from this side this really is impressive i'm still impressed that they actually managed to hit them i mean even even with the maps how how how from how what did what altitude were these delivered i don't know i know they were fired very very high and there's a special um steel special metal was used for the noses to be able to punch this was almost more than tungsten wasn't it [Music] i think that's metal flooring it's not it's not washing it's just some yeah metal pipework that's why you're under the concrete because remember in the hospital wings you'd have drains here for washing hotels you have tile floor and it's come from there and it's a beautiful beautiful [Music] may have been drilled yesterday it just drilled straight through everything and then i guess it hit that whatever it was it didn't go it didn't penetrate further than that did it because it's exploded this is an explosive one as soon as it's detected uh airspace it just the fact that the germans had a weapon that would penetrate 30 meters and detect airspace in 1943 is mind blowing and here we've got the wall yeah the uh ever so slightly broken wall there's got to be something inside this wall oh there's going to be something behind that i mean the fields are pockmarked yeah and if you look at that 1947 aerial photo i sent you if you look carefully it seems like it's like a pincushion i'm gonna have to have a little bit more of a enhanced look at that because now i'm looking for something that i did not know i was looking for before and here's the one from there i hit the four right there straight through the rebar nice little nose there actually knows sitting there there came through the roof right there and then there's this which is just i mean if this is how bunker buster bombs worked then you can imagine how they work today and you see this hanging by the rebar i'm curious where was this special secret technology actually used in battle and in combat because they were tested in 43 you knew they were implemented somewhere after that oh the whole wall there what's more like no no no what we could do we could go to the right i mean and just the pressure of this explosion would have killed anybody in any of the adjacent hallways the air pressure would have killed anything in here i am just so impressed with the destruction of such a relatively small and fairly cheap weapon actually i mean it was basically a cannon barrel wasn't it it was it was yeah it was a cannon wow and they hit it they hit the damn tunnels is that's the impressive part and some of these were fired at some distance oh this is the bathroom flush this is the same area wow oh yes this is oh this is part of the the wall who painted the red uh someone in the dim and distant past uh painting around the um with the impacts it wasn't the germans i don't know it would be interesting to see the paperwork for these tests well whoever got the paperwork at pennamonde now was that the russians uh actually the well the russians got penimenda however uh the good general kamla evacuated all the papers all the materials all the weaponry before the russians got there so when the russians got the opinion there was very very little for them to get he handed everything over to the americans with von braun and dawnberger and they they had brought the papers with them along with the 600 scientists that they that have worked on their art programs and they were all turned over to the americans and after a few days when dawn babylon on brown were secure that their deal they had done with the americans was secure they handed over all the papers i didn't know that there's a there's a very nice clear round hole in this in the rock at the side here so this one came in at an angle they're just there and it's taking out all this this making a big cradle how could it come into that yeah i guess i mean i guess it would have come in it's very steep angle it's sort of like that interesting it's not vertical you don't think it's in there no no no it's come through it's kind of taken out this whole area to talk to the curator or the painter in the museum see if he has any of this and then there would be helens which papers are probably in the german archives however this was probably one of the secret technologies that the americans really didn't want the russians to have and they really wanted so they probably took what they could that's a very interesting little research project that i guess i'm volunteering myself for none of us are as young as we used to be so 20 years ago did you think you were going to be crawling around underground in a german secret weapons test from world war ii i have to confess i didn't you know it's strange i i actually didn't think i would either i thought whatever i would be doing now it would have something to do with pretty girls however i guess this is somewhat safer probably is probably cheaper too we have to alive for a little guy humor soldier's humor is rather renowned or at least it used to be when it was allowed that was a support beam just like the others just like yes this one that god sorry so it was just pretty much peeled well at least now we know how much rebar was in the pillars from support so basically we've done this corridor that's the hospital wing and we'll finally see kinetic energy it is just staggering what that can do three hits come through very small area we can see the three um holes from before phrase come through one two three changes neat holes wow [Music] look at that it's the other one i mean let's go to each this is easily three this could even be four [Music] just took out you see the rebar uh well there's not really rebar this is the metal metal roof and the cement underneath wait there's no rebar there's no so that maybe that's why they were it took out so much of it because there's a little bit just to give perspective of this oh and there's a hole over the sink i see i believe that those two things were over at this second and the ones there were destroyed because this was an explosive shell that came through here and it destroyed everything at that end there's [Music] this side and this is pristine yeah there's no way i'm historically below well i came through and exploded you see the walls shrapnel everything in here do you think this was an explosive one i think so looking at damage but if you look at the damage in the other rooms this is not [Music] i mean yeah i would also imagine they were testing several different types of explosives and size of charges and there's always the chance that one didn't explode completely if you look at the back wall back there yeah that that must have been shot millennium going on in here this is when you see some of the damage in some of the other rooms that were completely torn apart this is still proportionately less damaged [Applause] for certain damage it is that's still impressive let's try out the hallways again more hallways another impact is the black in here it could be i mean it seems well actually it seems very uniform black so you tap on them through there you've had one come through here to take out the coil yeah and then behind you um there's three hits just in that little alcove on all firing ranges if you can hit the same area two three times you're not all bad which is very telling but they were actually pretty good at this yeah see the steel looks like all my steel girders sticking out there in the side holding up the roof and rebar and there's one it came in at an angle because it's come through the ceiling there and then [Music] so those impact there and then they will be sitting here and then they'll recover it yeah they would cover practically everything without having to have the two and the one that's in the museum that was in the corridor here that only partially exploded there's gonna be bunches of these out in the in the fields in here this is a nice one because [Music] um [Music] just stuck it up my experience and expose me and see what the uh [Music] imagine if they had these shows that uh getting them out they were just a real lovely show [Music] and it's only three years i see pockmark walls here this is the kitchen is but this is where they would salt the meat so if they had time which here they didn't but some thoughts they did they basically brought in all the uh livestock from all the farms nearby put you'd put them in the dry moat area and then as you needed meat you'd bring them in here and the kitchen and maybe you'd preserve the meat and salt for a new selector just like 1314 1500s for medieval forts bring the livestock being under siege we need whatever we have until we have no more of it exactly and in the diary of the soldiers they didn't have much bread because he complains that it's biscuits from day two i see damage in here but just here it's hiding one's come through right back next to that liver [Music] oh there it is interesting get to an area that hasn't been badly affected these are actually remnants of one of the things that's shut down really so this is what is left of the german plane yes not the complete wreckage but some of the recreational fitting unless it really shut it down but it's it's aluminium it's just disintegrating now yeah well except the engine block yeah the injured block usually you should that should go to the museum because at least you know shut down a plane here there were two shutdown one two crash landed in practically complete and another one sort of disintegrated and we did the more ancient vlogs you should you should probably put on this thing so somebody carried it down here for some reason keep it safe for me what i would do is stand in front of it and unhide it and then point look what look at that what made it and then i'd stand to one side and show them then the bomb disposal guys came i went oh there's powder in that little sample right we're taking it away put the broad back oh they did which was a pleasant surprise i wasn't expecting to get it back but they did minus the explosives that were in it but that one had partially exploded the end had got but very little damage to it here we've got the russian grenade very special weapon made by the germans in 1942 approximately fired in tests at oberlo chateau and batis in belgium between 1942-1943 approximately between 300 and 600 weapons fired on the fortress to test the russian grenade so you can have a look on the head of this weapon very special you can reach by the concrete the earth and everything the galleries down 30 meters down and to explode inside the galleries and this was in 1943 already yeah end of 1942 beginning of 1943. that's what were they fired from here in the area from railway uh gun or special gun um campaign gun simply because so these are non-calibrated yeah you have some two uh rings around the shelf at the end of the the tube of the decal the wings go back and this shelf go alone in the air and go directly down to reach the target so it goes it goes altitude and then comes down yeah from melted like a rocket and just when he climb and go down to reach the fortress the speed is very very very high that's the reason why he can reach the gallery 30 meters down and we still find remains of the russian grenades in the area here because the germans i said fired between 300 between three and six hundred shelves at oberlo chateau and this is something you will not find anywhere else on the planet you will not see these anywhere only in belgium at uber and in czech republic normally the americans brought the system to ameliorate the the shelf and still still in use now and these you dug out of the four those two inside the fortress and the the small remains are here around the fortress outside so what this is not tungsten what is it yeah is this top step yeah uh a mix of tungsten and other steel uh i don't know exactly it's very very special as you see yeah with concrete metal the head is uh very clean intact it's cut so it's a half version grenade but the head is very intact it's the end of the rushing that's the end yeah and normally we've got a small engine a smaller motor jet small jet in this part and often or quite always the the jets were recuperated by the germans so this was fired as a shell and then the rocket yeah wow when the germans tested the those shelves in inside the fortress around all the villages was evacuated the citizen couldn't stay here in the village because it was very secret and the fel genera marie came at the evening knock at the door nobody is here okay or is fine we can test the western grenade of course also getting people out of the village because if they missed and it's also the other thing the other thing yeah because at the beginning that wasn't uh the germans couldn't have a priesty uh precision precision precision with a wishing so we've got maybe many whistling around the fortress because it was complete we basically had this on the end that was very long handle and that was in the septic tank we managed to get it out and the only use sound could be is moving the solids around in there yeah definitely not a desert oh well that's where the cookbooks are yeah so yeah that makes sense and when you're emptying it everything's got to be scooped out of the label through the hole put in barrels and some punishment because trust the military to never run out of ways of punishing people i wonder if we still do that i i will say the national line force had an automatic potato peeler yes and i keep saying you had one so they had 300 soldiers at least 100 107 privates you'd have 170 people to peel potatoes so you have a machine for it that is just oculus this is a defensive point and that points uh on the corridor that goes towards block o yes it's a it's a little low this one is quite lovely compared to some of the others yeah and then for the grenade hinge to the top make sure it closes but together this is and what have we here we have another airlock so we have a much larger one at the other end of the underground barracks this is a much smaller one with some very significant damage it's just a ted but also because the ceiling has caved in you can see the separation but yes it seems to be taken this was the utility tunnels up there yes and if you look carefully i think that one has been up because you can see the other tunnels going left and right they just literally just built the two slabs in front of the ventilation systems just to preserve the over pressure yeah exactly if you're going there because you don't have the fan you can actually see where how how the air was pumped through underneath the floor [Music] so this is this is where the air would come in from exactly yeah that's what that will lead up to so you have a big fan here here you have a very large ventilator which is dragging filtered air through the walls it around and then forces it through this tube underneath the floors and into the barracks area which can be sealed off so that the barracks always has clean fresh air when all the equipment's in place [Music] nice and dark so we turn right here careful with your step and go through there where the other side it's exactly the same layout [Music] so the air where is the air intake down there or well the air intake is a block p and block o and there is about here but you have and we can see it better on the other one because it's quite difficult to get to but you've got two chambers exactly the same as a tanker fortress where the air goes in underneath the filters comes above it into there and then it's such through to that point and then underneath the uh until the bags and the same thing here exactly the same two changes [Music] except there's a little bit more damage here that uh tank you'd have the doors and then this is where you have the filters all the way along but if you can see further in horrendous damage something seems to have happened interesting it's fairly it's quite heavily reinforced this subfloor that i'm standing on where the filters were yeah i i mean why would you need such heavy rebar just to hold a row the whole place is over engineered no kidding this is and of course then here came the bomb through the uh i'm really oh let's just use the eucharist i'm blown away by the rebar holding this little subdivide this little there's no reason for this to be there's no reason for this to be this reinforced no it's it's just it holds little filters maybe the rebar held it yeah slowed it down could have yeah maybe it did yeah kind of came through there and that way and then well there's a chip off there that could have been from anything there's a lot of chips on a lot of things careful here on the right so this one let's have a look could well be this one i'm going to put my light on just to touch it yes i believe it is [Music] in here there's a lot there's a lot it's very very faint for every but there are names in here there's a diagram or drawing of a lady possibly green many many names written on the walls [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] and i'm sure there must be some uh lighting you can use to pick up the chalk so these can be red because they're so very faint [Music] you will forgive me for cutting out an hour's footage as i was walking through tunnels so some hundred meters down the hallway from the hospital we find the morick now having been built with world war one and mass casualties in mind this is a little less indeed i was told that when they were planning the falls were estimating maybe 50 they would need 50 spots but this is just off the main corridor to block p you're going to have soldiers marching to and fro if they see 50 slots there's roughly 500 people in here they're gonna that's ten percent that might be a little bit concerned it might affect morale so nine totally different it's gonna be someone else uh if needed they could be more than one person put in each slot but for appearances sake there are nine spaces it's not going to be me it's going to be someone else so in the battle you lost for seven people here yeah around about seven and this is where they they they ended they put them in the morgue then or was it all so fast yeah i mean they would have to go in here until it's possible to bury them and you're in a fortress in in battle situation and i can't help but you know so they're all prepared to be sealed with little scrooge bolts yeah lids of course here when someone occupies one of these there's metal plates that are locked into place yeah wonderful service dares exercise and we are [Music] where are we we're nearly at the surface level uh block p which is the wartime exit where you'd send people out from patrol although it was very rapidly surrounded but this is a long way outside the combat area of the fort but this would get sporting fire from the fort if it was under attack so this is where patrols went in and out exactly and there was a blue one blue accident up here so i'll talk about that when we get up there we're going to go into the decontamination area if someone's affected by gas they'll be brought in upstairs uniform would be stripped off them uh they'll be treated basic treatment there before they were taken through to the hospital yeah couldn't bring the gas or anything except so i'll just turn this off it's very dark up here [Music] so this is where the uniforms we've got this will be full of liquid these bars are to hold the uniform below the surface so it doesn't contaminate the air and you have metal beams here these are ones lower down but you'd have other ones on the top that would help hold the uniform clothing underneath the surface of water liquid whatever it was up to that position and the uniform under here lessons learned from world war one yeah the bars that were here have been taken and i've never been a water foster coming down here in the middle i'm guessing i guess so yeah i don't think it's not raining i think it is raining i think we're in the best place what is that what it is oh oh my goodness it's absolutely sliding down outside somewhere well there you go so this is the back end and this is where the search light would have been on a little roller exactly i would have popped it out and uh okay i don't know i've got boots this would open we've got a rail coming through there the searchlight was remote controlled we would go through and have a quick look before they could be shot out you'd pull it back in when everybody was an alert and they were nervous and they knew the germans were out there they sent patrols out and something went horribly wrong with one of the patrols came back yeah the patrol came back through here this is the entrance they'd go to um they either in the pressure at the moment they forgot the password or they were whispering it because they didn't want the germans to hit because the germans are all around here and they were basically shot by their own side um one was killed and one was seriously injured um right right where we're standing now and that was actually the first cache of the year before wasn't it you had casualties before that but not from people actually in the fort yeah because patrols went house and they were lost yeah i didn't come back or any half of them came back as the fort was gradually surrounded the patrols started having a harder hard time coming back that's right and when the headquarters uh requested war patrols to be sent out the commander here said i'm sorry that's not possible we're totally surrounded basically it's a suicide mission there's the other machine gun this was there there were a light there there was a statue statue yeah i thought that now for a light and they have another machine gun there so in order to get to the main door you had to get past that and you had to get past that out there pointing out the slope so there was that was where the machine gun was and that's the grenade slide up there i believe it's all this this would be the grenade slide we've got power cables coming through now it looks staged hinged at the top and it's looked all black and it's quartz inside look at the view through that straight to the anti-tank up here you have tank obstacles blocking the road so you could just drive in here have a little fun with the moving ladders down here in the secret tunnels leading from the firing position up there to down here [Music] to the other frame position come from down there this is the other frame position what do we have over here yes you do i guess that would have been a little down time to draw these i don't think i need to draw it's not like it was a surprise who the enemy was so it is something that could have been done by the guy stationed here but it's a very nice little detail i'm surprised he doesn't have a mustache and this is to look this is where he would fire to the germans outside the gate hit the gates it's kind of hard to miss at this distance if anybody's out there here it was an automatic rifle yeah we have got a name in chalk behind there but it's basically legible [Music] we basically need to heat this whole place up to keep the nice warm one of the first days of battle there were german soldiers killed outside and the belgium from inside the fort advanced out and retrieved the body of one of the germans and buried him and we're looking at day one or two of the battle and yet there was this civility amongst enemies that absolutely did not like each other they already fought world war one and liasia had been under siege there was no love lost as such between the the french the belgiums and the germans certainly there are scores to be settled and in the middle of all of that they took time to stop fighting and bury each other's dead that took time to bear the enemy dead in the middle of the battle and i think that is just a stunning sample of how there were small hints of chivalry still in the middle of the opening of world war ii [Music] heroics and history is not confined to those who won the battle but to those who stood the bravest and one can say about this fortress obam here in belgium they stood and they fought bravely gallantly and valiantly as cited by the german commander if you have any interest in military history whatsoever you really must visit this place and see it for yourself with your own eyes and walk these hallways and this ground certainly i will never tire of visiting and keep coming back behind me is van of unbound's first test stand down the road is deepness nuclear reactor over there is the maginot line in all its amazing forts i'm visiting them all and i'm bringing them to you so i really appreciate you like follow and share what i'm doing trying to document all these important historical locations and if you feel like you want to watch more pictures or documents that are used for these go to lostbattlefields.com and if you feel like helping me out with my travels because gasoline and travel and air for you is expensive uh my paypal is there protectionservicent.com you are more than welcome but you don't have to i appreciate all your support and all your help and i love seeing these locations and i love bringing them to you

Channel: Lost Battlefields w Tino Struckmann

Views: 11,545

Keywords: aubin, belgian, belgium, tino, struckmann, fort, fortress, invasion, german, 1940, ww2, secret, testing, weapons, underground, penetrating, gpr, hidden, forgotten, tunnels, testsite, rucheling, shell, v3, eben, emael, army, fight, battle

Id: RyovtnIdj40

Length: 91min 21sec (5481 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 13 2022