U boat bunker waffenamt

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For you U Boat afficionados. Picures of the Keroman, Lorient, France U Boat Bunkers.
The visit is well worth it. To my amazement, the young lady guide knew quite a bit more statistics, productions numbers, history facts than the average military history buff.

Enjoy. Torpedo Loss!

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earlier bunker

earlier bunker

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earlier bunker

inside mooring

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projected " parking elevator"

The wall of the projected parking elevator which, if ever finished was to be able to house 24 U boats parked "car style" in a elevated bunker garage!!

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back entrance

entrance

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Das Boot shot

The inside facing out to sea shot. You can just imagine the base workers reffiting, re equiping, smell the
diesel and hear the sea gulls...

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double roof

one level up from my last shot. Here we are under the 3,5 meter reinforced concrete roof. The walk space is actally a detonation corridor, its purpose to channel the blast outwards...overhead beams, are independent so as to minimize structural damage...

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iron door

iron door

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Waffenamt !!!

Everything gets Waffenamted with these guys.... Amazing

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Look mom I'm on the roof!...

By now were on the roof, it feels a little "verboten" up here...
You can make out the flak towers in the background. The have their ammo storage pre moulded into the sides of the concrete. Deutsche design bitte.

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U boat Bunker Model

1/35 scale. very nice....

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Immersion escape "cape" device

Very rare bra.
After an incident, early in the war, in which a dozen submariners were trapped in their sunken U boat, having been straffed by an allied aircraft on their way back to base ( after having against regulations broken radio silence to report a missed rendez vous with a supply vessel) these men attempted the impossible... Amazingly they were able to immerge, by escaping through the escape hatch at the loss of one man, who suffered the bends and died.
This escape prompted the KM to develop a training tower to simulate and practice escape procedures. The men were equiped with a vest of this type. The tower is also on site and you can visit it. They lock you in
and flood the chamber. ( this is better than the over detailed physics lesson given during the visit that put me to sleep on account of the 30 c degree heat and heavy lunch I just had, no, just kidding about the flooding chamber...)

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Please close the light on your way out.

Thats all folks.
Hope you enjoyed my little reportage. It is dedicated to the youth of the submarine force of whom 8 out of 10 perished. They were fighting for a better world, or so they were told....

[IchHattEinenKameraden]

Very impressive, thank you for posting these photos.

[pzrwest]

FESTUNGBREST my uboot vet friend Edgar told me about that training tower thing. he said you entered the bottom then they flooded the chamber and they had to wait till the tower was completely filled with water before they could open the escape hatch at the top. Edgar said it was frightning treading water then have to wait for the water to cover your head