What's up at home today...?

Yesterday, in Rennes, capital city of Brittany, took place the operations of neutralization of an English bomb of WW2, discovered on the subway constructon site, Saint-Germain square, right in the center of the city.



This bomb (250 kg with 85kg of explosive) necessited the evacuation of 3000 inhabitants. Of course, all the concerned services (police, fire department, red cross, SAMU emergency medical rescue) were ready to get down the work.




Lot of persons, mostly aged, were taken care during this operation which lasted more than 6 hours.





This time, the work was done not by the Navy mine clearance experts but by those from the Civilian Security center of Nantes.




" If we had heavy dresses of protection? With a bomb containing 75 kg of explosives it's useless. If it explodes... "

According to Christian Robert, teamleader of the mine clearance experts, this was not a routine mission because this bomb was a difficult one. Indeed, as explained in the video, the detonator was broken, its threading had been deformed and the bomb presented a shocked girdle, so the goal was to extract the detonator without any heating which should have caused the total explosion of the bomb. A work "with a margin of error close to the absolute zero".

However, these guys also did a good job.




Credits : Philippe Renault / Pascale Frétigné / Ouest-France

Well, it's not for today, it's for thursday 27, but i already talk about it.

So, on November 27, it's the "Submarine day" in France. This event does exist since 2003 and this year it's going to take place here at the Lorient-Keroman submarine base.

I'm just cleaning my photographic gear, will try to do my best to post a report about it.


More info here (in French of course, so let's make Google translator heating a bit... )

Would be very nice to see your photographs of this day Nikita. You may or may not know I also play Silent Hunter 3 with the GWX mod and I usually choose Lorient as my base in that game as soon as the war makes it available

And you're damn right to do so, NL, it's not for nothing that Keroman was called during WW2 "The ace's base". Well, let's make it half-chauvinist half-serious. You know, it's just reality, once you have seen Keroman, other bases of German U-boot on the French coast seem pretty small. And also, after the war, when the French Navy took back the complex, other aces came here. I'll tell you, it will please me to go on a tour there. I had the opportunity to work a bit in this base, for a few months in the 80's. It's true that there were some good-for-nothing, but there were mostly excellent professionals, both civilian and military, people always working together with the idea of the well done job, and even very well done.
The best always belonged to Lorient, man but this book talks about all that much better than me.


PS: I think that Maquisard from Toulon will forget it on this one . Anyway, he doesn't give a damn, he served on gray boats...






Foreword,


Any war aims at conquering a geographical space or populations by putting out of action the opponent as fast as possible and by all means. Among these means the one exists which consists in destroying the vital organs of the enemy, in annulling his own means by cutting his supply. To surround him to starve him and deprive him the war material is one of the oldest principles and until now no war escaped it.

The chivalrous acts intended to give a civilized character in the wars served only to mask the horrors committed in these wild races the purpose of which is to hit hard at the right time.

By virtue of these warlike principles, for the needs for a war without mercy, Lorient entered the history books because an admiral, Karl Dönitz, applied literally the strategies written by Clausewitz.

So that U-Boot of Kriegsmarine is more quickly operational in the Atlantic Ocean, he decided, since 1940, to base them in the French ports, in particular in the one of Lorient.

There, on a small peninsula called Keroman, with Fritz Todt then with Albert Speer, he made build, in three gigantic concrete blocks and a good half-dozen of bunkers, the biggest base of submarines. It is, by its dimension, the most important construction of the IIIth Reich. ^*

This base cost to Lorient to be one of the last German bastions to capitulate, on May 10th, 1945.

The peace returned in Europe, Keroman stopped being the den of the " grey wolves " of Dönitz to be transformed into a "village" sheltering the submarines of the squadron of the Atlantic Ocean.

All its activities stopped in 1997.

However, these immense concrete blocks are printed by a history of which a large number of actors are still alive. It is these men who made this history, whatever the side they belonged. We cannot thus tell the story of the base of Keroman without telling that of the men.





* As far as i know, understand the most important construction outside the German territory




Et la tanière devint le village (And the den became the village)
The submarine base of Lorient-Keroman
1940-1997

ISBN 978-2-9511948-0-9

I am sure, as a u-boot lover, I will one day visit Lorient. I have already seen many ww2 German complexes and important war sights in Europe. Maybe one day you would welcome me as a guest and be my guide (?)

"Jo's vacation" Episode 1