Abandoned Engineering (2016–…): Season 3, Episode 5 - The Desert Ghost Fleet - full transcript

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A devastated ruin in a
pock-marked landscape

that turned the tide of
the second world war.

Many believe this
was a suicide mission.

An extraordinary tall building which
became known as the tower of death.

Ever since man has
been building things,

there's always with a contest
to see who can build the highest.

A concrete structure stranded at
sea that came to a gruesome end.

Well, it's creepy. There
was really no escape.

This is a tomb.

And a heavy metal monster in a
remote field in northern england.

It got an almost...
primitive, animalistic quality,



like some kind of
extinct dinosaur.

Once they were some of the most
advanced structures and facilities

on the planet at the cutting
edge of design and construction.

Today they stand abandoned,
contaminated and sometimes deadly.

But who built them and how?

And why were they abandoned?

On a headland in normandy
in north-western France

at the top of 30m-high cliffs,

there's a strange
and unexpected site.

Through the mist

a large concrete structure emerges,
set on the point of the peninsula.

And on top of the building
is a vast phallic-like structure

reaching up into the heavens
and entirely dominating the region.

Beneath the concrete,
corridors lead to empty rooms.



There's no feeling of
humanity about them.

These could almost be chambers
designed by machines for machines.

And the pock-marked
fields that surround it

serve only to
deepen its mystery.

Around it there are ominous
looking craters in the ground

as far as the eye can see.

The landscape is almost lunar.

This is a place where something
has gone dreadfully wrong.

But what has caused
such devastation?

The answer lies in a single day
that changed the course of history,

when the allies invaded
France to liberate Europe

from the Nazi scourge.

D-Day. It was the largest
seaborne invasion in history.

In all, 156,000 allied troops
were involved, carrying out a plan

that had been agreed

at the top-secret Quebec
conference between

the British, American and Canadian
governments in August 1943.

At its head were
two illustrious names.

Appointed as supreme commander
was the us general Dwight d eisenhower.

The man chosen to command
21st army group, which comprised

all the land forces,

was the British general
Bernard Montgomery.

Germany knew that it could
not win a war on two fronts.

It could not face both the
onslaught of the Soviet union

from the east and
an attack in the west.

The Germans were faced
with a strategic problem.

Coastal France had to
be fortified at all costs.

So they began work on
an extended defensive wall,

as tour guide Anthony
Lewis explains.

The Atlantic wall, which was
a system of defence measures,

which started in north Norway

and went along a
coastline of France

for some 1670 miles all the way
down to the Spanish coastline.

But how did the Germans decide
where to concentrate those defences?

Where did they expect the
allied invasion to be made?

German high command was split
as to where the attack would come.

Hitler was personally
convinced it would come across

the shortest route
from Dover to calais,

but more experienced minds
knew that actually there were better

attack sites that would also
have the element of surprise.

The most important
fortification along this critical

stretch of the normandy
coast was here at pointe du hoc.

It gave an unobstructed
view of the English channel

and a clear line of fire
onto the beaches below.

Perched on top of a high
cliff, it was the perfect position

for a coastal battering.

This was one of two
German covered casements

which housed one of
the six 155mm cannons,

and each one averaged
some 660 tonnes of concrete,

and at the same
time strengthening it

with some 50
tonnes of metal bars.

If incoming shells
impacted on the building,

then only a small part
of it would be destroyed.

These six guns
were going to pose

a serious threat to
the invasion plans.

They were sandwiched between
Utah beach and Omaha beach,

two of the five beaches on
which allied troops would land.

Utah beach was
8 miles to the west.

Omaha beach 5 miles to the east.

Now, these 155mm guns
had a range of 12 miles.

So, imagine the carnage that they
would have reaped on those beaches.

The allies had no choice
but to take them out.

The task of destroying the
guns fell to an elite combat unit,

the us army rangers.

The rangers were young,

immensely physically
fit and very bright,

motivated people who could be
given an immensely difficult task

and could be counted on to
perform it against overwhelming odds.

The rangers' mission was
very specifically to land,

scale the cliffs

and take out the German
position on pointe du hoc.

But those cliffs were 30m
high and almost vertical,

and the rangers would be
facing over 200 German troops.

What were their
chances of success?

Many believed this
was a suicide mission.

Early on June 6, 1944,
nearly 160,000 allied troops

set off from england towards
Nazi-occupied France.

D-Day had begun.

This was an armada
of 7,000 ships,

the largest amphibious
invasion in history,

and it was coming their way.

As those ships started to get
closer, the Germans were being

bombarded from the air,
bombarded from the sea.

The flashes from all of those
guns lit up the June morning.

The rangers' original plan

was to land at pointe du
hoc, but there was a problem.

Unfortunately, because of
the very high tide that day,

the very strong tide which
was running from west to east,

from left to right,

it dragged the boats down
beyond the pointe du hoc.

By the time rangers reached
pointe du hoc, they were 40 minutes

behind schedule and
the us bombardment

of the battery had stopped.

They've stopped bombarding
pointe du hoc to let the Americans land

without being blown up,

but there's so much
delay in landing

that the Germans are
able to come out of hiding,

get out of their bunkers and
man their defensive positions.

The rangers had to shoot
ropes and rope ladders,

heavy and drenched
with water, into the cliffs,

climb those ropes, themselves
wearing sopping clothing.

They were under constant
fire as they climbed the cliff.

It must have been
a terrifying prospect.

The Germans were throwing down
potato-masher grenades and those

are shock grenades. They're
designed to deafen and stun people.

And the Americans
were climbing up,

holding on with their fingertips
and toes to tiny rock outcroppings.

When one ranger fell,
another took his place.

When his rope was
cut, he found another.

They even used daggers
to claw their way up.

It's hard to envisage now.

The scene is so calm,

looking out over the
gentle waters of the channel.

But then the scene would
have been unimaginable,

climbing up a wet cliff face with
all of the noise and the incredible

chaos of warfare. It was
one of the most dangerous

and spectacular
missions of world war ii.

When they reached the top, there
was fierce, close-quarter fighting,

but the rangers were
totally unprepared

for what they found when they
finally made it into the bunkers.

Do they see 155mm French guns
with German sights ready to shoot down?

No. They see trees,
phone Poles painted black.

And they must instantly have been
concerned that the entire mission,

all of the death and effort
that they had been put in

to get on to pointe du hoc
had all been for nothing.

It must have been a huge blow.
Why were the guns not there?

The allies' aerial
bombardment of the region

had been so intense
in preparation for d-day

that the Germans had moved
the guns out of harm's way.

In fact, the guns were hidden
down a nearby dirt track.

The rangers hunted them
down and destroyed them.

The mission didn't end cleanly.

Reinforcements were supposed
to arrive, but they never came.

The rangers were left to
defend the position for days.

Eventually the
rangers were relieved,

but out of 225 men
only 90 had survived.

This battle-scarred area has
barely changed since the rangers

took pointe du hoc.

A statue of a dagger
commemorates

the men who, against all odds,

clawed their way up the cliffs.

The site is deeply
impressive for its vastness,

but underneath that there's a very
simple story and it's a very common

story in war about one
person facing another person

and the sheer courage
and determination

to see the mission through.

In the north of england,

just outside the city of Leeds,

there is a completely
unexpected site.

If you come on this thing

through the morning mist, it looks
like some kind of a giant factory

sitting on these two platforms

with a huge crane out front.

All of a sudden there's
metal everywhere, this huge,

gigantic bit of engineering.

What's it doing there?

And it's got an
almost primitive,

animalistic quality, like
some kind of extinct dinosaur.

Lying in a remote field
is a tangled confusion

of heavy-duty metal,
pullies and rusting wheels.

It's got this big, long arm

at the front of it for triangle bits
of steel, all composed together.

And it's got these
slightly strange-looking

features of either side and it
sort of leaves you wondering, well,

what was the machine
actually used for?

What's even stranger is that
this machine was built in america

before it somehow ended
up in the north of england.

But why was this
strange-looking industrial object

sent from its original
home in the usa to england?

And most importantly,

how is it connected to an
environmental disaster here

that changed the northern
landscape for ever?

The story begins in the dark days
following the second world war.

In 1945 a labour
government was returned

under the new prime
minister, clement attlee.

It was elected on a
platform of social reform,

but its plans were expensive
and britain's treasury

was practically bankrupt.

It was called the
age of austerity.

Wartime rationing continued
and was even extended.

Matters weren't helped when
one of the coldest winters on record

began in 1946.

Factories were closed,

the rail system was shut
down and coal supplies ran low.

Many people suffered
in the severe cold.

So, with britain struggling
to recover after the war,

its great ally, the United
States, came to its aid.

After world war ii, the economies
of Europe were really in shambles

and the us did something
really quite visionary.

We recognised that these
countries had to get back

on their feet economically,
so a lot of the investment

in helping build roads and Bridges
and railroads came from the us,

and so did a lot
of the equipment.

This leviathan was in integral
part of the us rescue plan.

It became known as oddball.

The colossal machine
arrived from the us in 1953.

At 1,200 tonnes, it was
the second-largest machine

of its kind anywhere
in the world.

It was intended
to help to kickstart

one of britain's
most vital industries.

Oddball is a piece of
machinery that's used in mining,

and what it does is that
it drags the layers of soil

off the top of coal reserves, so
it exposes the seams of the coal.

When you have
coal near the surface,

it's usually covered by some soil
and some rock that's uneconomic.

It's stuff you don't
want in your ore.

So, in order to get rid of that,
you use this dragline system.

While it might look like quite
a complex piece of machinery,

what it's doing is
actually really simple,

'cause in simple terms its using a
bucket to drag material up and then

using ropes and chains to then
dump that material in a different place.

Roy Lee is oddball's
only surviving driver.

Obviously you can see the
size - quite a big bucket, really.

When you're stood inside,
you can see how big it is.

Capable of holding

well 40, 50 tonnes of a burden.

While it might look cumbersome,
oddball was a very effective

piece of machinery.

It only took 30 seconds
to scoop up and dump

each bucket of soil and rock,

and it could move the equivalent
of its own weight in just half an hour.

It's a very efficient way of
mining, because you can drag away

the material, mine it and then
dump it behind as you go along.

So you can fill up the gap

that you're leaving as you excavate
the coal in your open-cast mine.

Such a huge machine required a
deft pair of hands to operate it safely.

So, you slew it with the
pedals on the floor, right and left.

You've got a drag lever
for pulling the bucket in

and a hoist lever
for lifting it up.

You're not using any brakes,
whatever, just balancing the pallet

and keeping control
of it as best as you can.

Oddball's bucket was
a dangerous thing,

particularly when it was full.

I don't think anybody could have
got my hands off of these levers

while I was in this seat.

You realise that you've got to
respect the machine all the time.

The challenge with these
massive cranes is, once they'd dug

all the coal that's in
reach of their boom

or their bucket, then what?

You've gotta be able to move them
every few hours or every few days

as things gotta move
to a new location.

You can see it's got these -
it looks like a couple of feet,

really.

And actually, these are the
key to how it moves around.

It actually lifts the whole of
the unit up on these flat feet

and then sort of shuffles back,
a little bit like you were trying

to move yourself back on the
ground if you were lying down.

Even though it moved
only backwards 2m at a time

and at a speed
of 0.3km per hour,

it was still difficult for the
driver to see what was going on.

We did have a wing
mirror position on here

so we could see the banksmen

and try to lean out as
much as we could to get

the instructions from him, when it
were safe to move, or to hold us up

if there were
anything in the way.

It's totally like nothing you've
seen before. It's like star wars

and thunderbirds meets coal
mining, that's how I would describe it.

But it's a very,
very elegant thing.

And it just lifts it up on these
little legs and shuffles around.

Very, very ingenious way of
being able to do open cast mining.

By 1988

oddball had been moved here to
st Aden's in the north of england.

But it wasn't a lake then.

It was the biggest
open-cast mine in Yorkshire,

which had produced 6 million tonnes
of coal over a period of ten years.

But what catastrophic event

caused such an enormous
site to become flooded?

And how did oddball manage
to escape a watery grave?

The mine was very close, probably
too close to a river, and so they

were digging this mine in a
lowland area, a wet area, and then,

as they dig out the coal, of course
they're making this massive pit.

They'd protected the riverbank
with a wall of interlocking steel.

But it wasn't enough.

As they were mining, water started
coming out of cracks in the side

of one of the coal seams,
and a river they'd actually

diverted then started to also
contribute to the water coming in.

It took just hours for the steel
wall to collapse completely.

It were just like
Niagara Falls in a way,

with water vapour and the
amount of water coming in.

It were a complete disaster
and everybody knew it. That were,

as far as we were concerned,

that looked like
the end of our jobs.

More than 15 billion litres
of water flooded the site.

Oddball survived,

but it was ten years before they
were able to mine the area again.

By the time the
flood had subsided

and the mine was actually
ready to be excavated again,

technology had moved on pretty
quickly, and so modern technology

basically replaced the dragline
and the dragline became redundant.

On a misty morning in January
1999, oddball took its final walk.

Today it sits here on the site
of the former st Aden's mine,

one of only a handful of
machines of its kind ever built.

I'm a big fan of preserving
the legacy of our industrial

technological history, especially
these massive pieces of equipment,

because I think so many of us,

we don't think about
all the hard work,

all the ingenuity, the technology
it took to build this modern world.

Out at sea in south-east
Asia, at the mouth of Manila bay

in the Philippines,

is an extraordinary structure
in the shape of a warship.

This military
behemoth is impressive,

immense and
completely mind-blowing.

This huge concrete structure

is pierced with slits and openings
that reveal incredibly thick walls.

And you can see it's all
reinforced with steel bars.

Why is this ancient warship that
looks like its carved from stone

sitting in the water at the
entrance to Manila bay?

Being inside this huge structure
only deepens the mystery.

Its dark interior is littered with
crumbling concrete and rusted steel.

And its charred walls hint

that something
catastrophic happened here.

You can see where the
wall's beginning to buckle.

And then over here you can see

where the entire floor
has just given way.

And the sea is just
starting to pour in.

There's twisted metal and rubble
everywhere. Whatever happened here,

you can't imagine that
much could have survived.

What was the purpose
of this concrete warship?

And what connection does it
have to one of the grizzliest events

of the second world war?

To find out, we need to
look to the imperial expansion

of the United States during
the early 20th century.

In 1898 Spain and the us fought
a brief war, which the us won.

Spain was forced to surrender

most of its empire,
including the Philippines.

They became the Jewel in American's
crown, and they had to be protected

at all costs.

And this concrete warship
was the key to doing just that.

Albert labrador
is a local historian.

When the Americans took
over the Philippines in 1898,

they basically sailed right in
and sank the Spanish fleet.

And so they realised that they
needed a defence system to prevent

the same thing that
they did to the Spanish.

A major part of the system
was this construction,

which was placed on
the tiny island of El fraile.

At the mouth of Manila
bay are a cluster of islands,

some of them fairly
large, like corregidor,

and some of them
actually quite small,

like El fraile.

And these make, at the entrance
to the bay, actually almost perfect

locations for this new art... New
development of coast artillery.

The plan was to construct
fortifications on each

of these five islands, and
this one was the toughest.

The heavily fortified of El
fraile, known as fort drum.

But would it work?
They took an island

and they essentially just levelled
the island down to the bedrock

and they built a massive
concrete structure

with two, what looked like,
essentially battleship turrets,

which are ship-killing guns.

You can see the huge,
wire-wound 14-inch batteries.

You can imagine the diameter
of the shell. Each shell weighed

more than a tonne and it
could be lobbed five miles out.

So you can imagine the reach

and cover of these guns
across the entire bay.

Fort drum was formidable.

It was packed with searchlights,
it had anti-aircraft batteries

and a fire control tower.

And hidden beneath the concrete
exterior were another three levels

which housed equipment
and up to 240 troops.

We're looking right now
at the third and fourth level.

This is where the living space
is and the mess would be.

Beneath this would be a further
level with generators and water.

These corridors were stocked
with everything that would be needed

in the event of an attack.

But who did the us think might
make the attack, and why is the fort

now in such terrible condition?

There was this
perception in america

in the early 20th century that the
Japanese were going to invade.

It was driven by a belief
that the peoples of east Asia

were a threat to
the western world.

It's inevitable that at some
point they're gonna collide.

And collide they did, infamously on
December 8, 1941, at Pearl harbor.

On the same day

that the Japanese attacked there,
they also invaded the Philippines.

There were several reasons
for the Japanese attack.

Japan was determined to
build an empire in the pacific

and the Philippines
were a vital gateway.

In effect, whoever controlled
them controlled the entire pacific.

As well as providing a direct route
to Australia and the oceana region,

the Philippines also connect
the north and south pacific.

But there was another reason -

the islands were under
the control of the Americans,

and the us was Japan's
main enemy in the pacific.

The area saw some of the
war's most bitter fighting.

When it began,
all the fortifications

around Manila bay came
under attack, including fort drum.

Somehow it had to be able
to hold out against the might

of the Japanese Navy.

Fort drum begins to play a part
at the very first day of the war.

And so, for the next
five months until 5 may,

fort drum will be both a
target of air and gun attacks

from the Japanese.

I'm sure, if you were inside
the Garrison of fort drum,

the shelling and other bombardment
would have been intense,

but perhaps you would have
felt safe in the fact that the walls

were so thick and strong that
you knew you weren't gonna die.

Despite being under siege,
the troops on fort drum were still

able to inflict heavy casualties
on the Japanese invasion fleet.

Nothing it did could
destroy the fort's guns.

The turrets are made
of armoured steel,

basically the same material that
you would make battleships out of,

since they're
battleship turrets.

And over here the roof is
steel-reinforced concrete,

so nothing the Japanese threw
at this was able to penetrate.

But on may 6, 1942, when the
battle for the Philippines was lost,

the American troops inside fort
drum were finally forced to surrender.

It was able to withstand

constant Japanese bombardment
without a single major casualty.

There were no deaths.
But this thing was so sturdy

that Japanese forces on either
side, lobbying heavy artillery

on to it for months,
did no real damage to it.

The island's fighting days,
however, were far from over.

For the next three years, fort
drum was under Japanese control.

That was until April 13, 1945,

when two us landing
craft arrived to take it back.

American combat engineers very
bravely approach this structure,

which is bristling with
guns, and they pipe a mixture

of diesel fuel and
gasoline into it.

And they then fire
tracer rounds into the fort.

Down below were Japanese
soldiers, who refused to surrender.

They must have
known what was coming.

The explosion was so powerful
that one of the hatches over here

that weighed about a tonne
was thrown 300 feet in the air.

Deep within the
fort, the charred walls

are a stark reminder of the
horrific fate of the Japanese troops.

So, we've now entered
the third level down.

When the Americans poured
gasoline down the hatches,

on the surface most of it
would have settled down here,

and that is the reason why
most of the dead Japanese,

60 of the 68 bodies, were
found charred in this area.

There was really no escape.

They couldn't have fought their
way out, and so this is a tomb.

But it's creepy...
Knowing that 60 people

burned to their deaths in here
with no chance of getting out.

It was four days before
the Americans could get in,

because the heat was unbearable.

Fort drum was abandoned.

Scarred by the horrors of war,

it still sits in these waters off
the coast of the Philippines.

It has been stripped bare by
looters, and few people today

even know of its existence - a
sad end to an extraordinary piece

of military history.

Defence of fort drum,
as impressive as it was,

has basically been forgotten
in the annals of military history.

This is a story that
really should be told.

In the heart of Russia lies
yekaterinburg, the country's

fourth largest city, and at its
centre is an astonishing site.

You see this very tall,
grey, concrete structure

towering over
the rest of the city,

and it's very, very distinct
because of its immense height.

What strikes you about it,
it's just impossibly thin and tall.

It's hard to believe that
something that seems that delicate

could actually stand up and
not be at risk of falling down.

At 220m tall, it
dominates the skyline.

Giant towers appeal to
the wonder in all of us.

Ever since man has
been building things,

there's always been a contest
to see who can build the highest.

It's hard to believe it
didn't have some kind

of symbolic intent behind it.
Now graffiti covers its walls,

the concrete is crumbling
and a gaping black hole hints

that something dreadful
once happened here.

And to the locals it
has a dark reputation.

Most of the people
in the city refer to the tower

as being a kind of
abandoned ghost site.

But what happened here to
make this tower so infamous?

And why is it known to
the people who live here

as the tower of death?

To discover why, we need to
go back to the cold war between

the west and what was then the
Soviet union during the last century.

Going back to the early
days of the Soviet union,

supremacy in science and
technology was vitally important then.

They wanted to
prove that their system

could produce better
scientists, better engineering.

The cold war era saw
huge investment by both

eastern and western governments
in technology and science research.

While much of it was aimed
at winning the space race

and developing nuclear weapons,
many other areas such as ecology,

biomedicine,

agriculture and computer science
also received huge state funding.

There was also intense
competition between east and west

to prove which side could
build the biggest and the best.

And that included the race to
build the world's tallest structures.

By the early 1980s, the
west was clearly winning,

but the Soviet union wanted
to show it was still in the game,

and this was one
of the ways it did it -

yekaterinburg's
television tower.

Propaganda was essential to
spreading the socialist message,

and television was its
most important medium.

TV is an enormously
effective way to communicate.

If you control the three or four
TV channels that are available

in your country, you really
dominate the conversation.

At 365m high,
the television tower

would be the tallest in Europe,
according to engineer danil krisky.

It was to
consist of two main parts -

a 720 foot reinforced
concrete column

and above that a 460
foot metal antenna.

The tower would
house television studios,

have a revolving
restaurant at the top

and it would be
visible for miles.

However, the builders
faced many challenges.

You would need to build
some scaffolding tower

in the right shape.

You would have had to
build what we call formwork,

which is bits of
timber that are shaped,

and it's the mould within which

the concrete is poured.

So you need to be agile in
thinking about the design of the tower

in different portions of it,
because it was so very tall.

And for the men who helped to build
the tower, there was always danger

and the potential for disaster.

They poured rings of concrete
one on top of each other,

gradually working their way up.

Each tier would be about 2.5m high
and they would have to, you know,

let one begin to cure and then
build the next one on top of it

and gradually work their way up
as they went, but you can imagine,

as they got high, the challenge
of moving all that liquid concrete

up to this enormously tall
structure must have been formidable.

Even a shortage of building
materials and extreme cold weather

didn't stop construction.

It wasn't just a tower designed
to broadcast propaganda,

but the tower itself was intended
to be a form of propaganda,

an actual physical
landmark that represented

the superiority of
the Soviet system.

But when so much had
been invested in the tower,

what could have happened
to cause such devastation?

Was there a
construction accident?

Or could the reasons be connected
to the volatile political situation

in the Soviet union
in the early 1990s?

Or could the tower have been
the target of a terrorist attack?

The reason was more prosaic.

So, they worked
on it for eight years.

They still only got about
two-thirds of it done,

and the money ran
out and the society was

no longer able to function in a
way to build this kind of project.

A great symbol of Soviet
prestige was now a stark reminder

of its failure.

But there is one more
question to be answered.

Why was it known
as the tower of death?

Shortly after construction

ground to a halt, the tower began to
be used for very different purposes.

And they were ones that
would have fatal consequences.

The tower became this magnet
for young people to gather

and express themselves. People
climbed it over and over again.

There was sort of a
non-stop party up at the top.

And then some daredevils
started climbing it blindfolded.

And of course, you know, there were
accidents and one young man died.

Others climbed the tower

as a way to commit suicide
in a very dramatic fashion.

The television tower had
now become the tower of death.

Soon it was barricaded up

so that no-one would
ever die here again.

On March 24, 2018, the
local authority decided

to demolish yekaterinburg's
most striking landmark.

Now there is nothing
left of the tower

that once dominated
the city's skyline.

In its place they're
building an ice rink.

I can understand why the
tower was such a landmark

and sort of beloved by
some people in the city.

On the other hand, I don't
think anyone wants the symbol

of their city to be something
that was a colossal failure,

a white elephant.

When it's not being used, when
the fact that it was unfinished

and the fact that you can actually
demolish that and then make way

for new cultural activities
is a positive step forward,

and I think it is important
to move on with the times

and provide the city with
what it needs in the modern era.

Now they lie abandoned,
but once they were

at the cutting edge
of engineering.

There are echoes from history
in these decaying structures.

They remind us of terror and war

but also of great innovation
and human endeavour.