Abandoned Engineering (2016–…): Season 3, Episode 7 - A Ghost Town in Spain - full transcript

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A ruined village

pitted and scarred
by its wartime past.

You see a warzone
kind of frozen in Amber.

A ghostly fleet of ships
lost in the wilderness,

doomed to destruction.

There's something really
quite spooky about it.

A bridge to nowhere,

hidden in the forest
that came to a grisly end.

It has this other
worldly quality to it,

and it doesn't really
feel like it should be,

you know, in our world.



And strange metal structures
concealed in dense woodland.

It's deep in the
Maine wilderness

far from anything,

what is it and what
is it doing here?

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 the arid plains
of northern Spain,

265km from its capital,
Madrid, lies a ghost town.

Although the town
has a strange beauty,

the ruins of hollowed-out
buildings are everywhere,



and rubble is piled
up in the empty streets.

The story goes that if
you listen hard enough,

you can hear
voices from the past.

You see the ruins of a city

that clearly suffered
some kind of disaster.

Was it an earthquake, you know?

Was it some kind of
rushed evacuation?

What knocked
down these buildings

and why were they never rebuilt?

Its name is belchite.

To add to the strangeness,
there's another town

with the same
name right next to it.

Why are there two
belchites side by side?

And what happened to cause
such devastation to one of them?

And then you look closer
and you see something

odd about some of these ruins.

They're not just eroded
by weather and gravity,

they're chipped away.

Look closer and you
can see bullet holes,

damage from mortar fire.

This is a unique
form of erosion.

This is the erosion of war.

Which army was responsible
for destroying the town

and why was it never rebuilt?

For the reasons,

we need to look to
the bloody civil war

that ripped Spain
apart in the last century.

In 1936,

Spain was a deeply
divided country

that was politically torn
between the extreme right and left.

The nationalist fascists and
the anti-fascist Republicans.

Leading the nationalist side
was general Francisco Franco,

a man who would
eventually rule Spain

with an iron fist until
his death in 1975.

Franco was supported
by other fascist countries,

notably Mussolini's Italy
and Hitler's Nazi Germany.

The Republicans drew their
support from the Soviet union

and from the famous
international brigades,

the paramilitary units

who fought in support of
the popular front government

of the second Spanish
republic, during the civil war.

The Spanish civil war
started as a conflict

within Spain itself, you had
a very left-wing government

and then right-wing
forces in the military,

basically staged a coup

against their own
elected government.

By the following year,

these right-wing nationalist
forces under general Franco

were controlling a
large part of Spain.

In an attempt to slow
down their advance,

in August 1937,

republican forces
decided to attack zaragoza.

The city was the regional capital
and the communication centre

for the important aragon front.

It isn't so
strategically important,

but it was an
important enough city

that it would have been a
real blow to nationalist morale.

On route to zaragoza
was belchite.

The original republican
plan was to bypass the village

but that wasn't what happened.

Instead its forces attacked.

So, here, you have
belchite with a few thousand,

not elite, Spanish
nationalist troops,

but they are
supplied well enough,

armed well enough that they
turned the town into a small fortress.

Instead of going
straight for zaragoza,

which they could have taken,

they get bogged down in
this village of 3,800 people.

Who were the men who
fought to take belchite?

And what was their
connection to a fighting unit

from the United States?

When the world
learned that Franco

and his fascist compatriots
were trying to overthrow

the elected government of Spain,

there was really
a lot of outrage

and a lot of people
wanted to come and help

this beleaguered government.

And so, a lot of
people from the west

came to volunteer and assist.

Around 3,000 of those volunteers
were from the United States.

They formed the
Abraham Lincoln battalion

and made their way to belchite.

By belchite, the
Abraham Lincoln battalion

has been through a
couple of major campaigns,

they are really veterans,

they're first rate
troops at this time,

they weren't when they started.

But at this point, they
have learned on the job,

and they're pretty
effective soldiers.

It was these motivated
and battle-hardened soldiers

that made the
assault on belchite.

Juan Simon, a tour
guide in the old town,

explains how the Americans
and their republican allies

attacked the town.

The civilians who
were unable to escape

hid in their cellars as the
battle raged above them.

The town was
essentially under siege.

They were cut off from
the outside food, water.

It was really quite a
brutal way to take a city

without much concern for the
lives or the welfare of the civilians

who were trapped inside.

But the nationalist forces
had a strategic advantage.

From the top of this tower,

which is still disfigured
by the shellfire,

they had a clear line of fire down
onto the republican troops below.

Once the republican troops
had taken out the machine-gun,

the Lincoln battalion
was able to force its way

in through the
church of st augustine.

These are...

Really the worse
kinds of battles.

It's up close and it's personal.

The noise, the explosions...

You're going
building to building,

and that means
throwing hand grenades,

that means demolishing things,

that means setting
fire to buildings

to actually literally
burn your enemy out.

It's a high casualty
form of warfare.

After two weeks of
brutal and savage fighting,

the Americans and their allies
finally took control of the town.

It was very bloody,

very devastating to
the local population.

When Ernest Hemingway,

who was covering
the Spanish civil war

for American newspapers,
when he arrived in belchite,

he said the city was less
a town than a bad smell.

Decomposing in the
blistering summer sun,

bodies from both sides
piled up in the streets.

In total, 3,000
people were killed.

Were the gains worth
the awful bloodshed?

Abraham Lincoln battalion

talked of this as one
of the toughest fights

in the war.

And they aren't sure

why their elite brigade

was diverted to a
house-to-house battle.

But somehow, it happened.

It was really one of the
big screw-ups of the war,

is the offensive,

they gained a little territory
and literally accomplished

no strategic effect at all.

Six months later, the
tables were turned,

when nationalist
forces retook belchite,

but why was the
town never rebuilt?

Franco didn't want
belchite to be restored

because he knew it
had propaganda value.

This was one of the great
battles that the nationalists lost.

You would think that you would
want to celebrate your victories, but no.

If you're a dictator and you
can point to a horrific disaster

where many civilians
lost their lives,

then you can stand up and say,

"if it weren't for me, this
would keep happening."

Franco wouldn't let

the local population
rebuild the city,

but eventually they decided

they just needed to build
a new town next door.

Today, the town stands as
a memorial to the thousands

who lost their lives here
and as a stark reminder

of the tragedy and
brutality of the civil war.

When you see belchite today,

you see a warzone
kind of frozen in Amber.

You see the effects,
you see the bullet holes,

you see where the
mortar shells fell,

and you see the tragedy of war,

and how so often wars aren't
just fought between armies,

they're often fought between armies
with civilians caught in the middle,

and that's what happened here,

that's what makes
it so heartbreaking.

On the western coast of
Canada, in Powell river,

a small town 170km from
Vancouver is an astonishing sight.

Ships stretch across the water.

One connected to the other,
listing gently towards the shore.

It looks like a
decaying ghost fleet

with their crews
mysteriously missing.

There's something really
quite spooky about it.

They're covered in barnacles,

and moss, and seaweed,

it's almost as if nature is
claiming them back again.

Heavy rusting chains
extend across their decks,

their crews have
long since gone...

What secrets do the ships hold?

People think
there's still treasure

somewhere deep inside,

and if they can just get in
there and see what's there,

maybe they'll find
something really interesting.

It's hard to tell how
old the ships are

or where they're from...

But there's one thing
they all have in common.

The really unusual thing
about these boats is that,

unlike most, they're
not made of steel,

these ones are made of concrete.

They've definitely inspired a
sense of mystery growing up.

You start to wonder, like,
"what are these things?

"Where did they come from?

What is their story?"

How are they connected

to one of the deadliest
weapons ever made?

The answers are rooted
in the desperate days

of the end of the world war I.

There had already been
three years of trench warfare

on the western front,

which had resulted
in a bloody stalemate.

The allied big push
on the somme in 1916,

which was supposed
to break the deadlock,

had lasted four months and
gained practically nothing.

The allied corps received
a boost in April 1917

when the United States
declared war on Germany.

Within 15 months,

there were a million
us troops in France.

Although these vast numbers
were committed to the land war,

the us also urgently needed
to expand its naval fleet.

But it was running
out of raw materials.

It had to find a
solution to the problem.

They come up with the
idea "let's try concrete."

Well, problem with most
concretes is they're too heavy.

Now, they had to develop,
and they succeeded

in developing a new type of
concrete that was light but still

very, very strong.

During world war I,
they were a go-to option

because they didn't take up
the important raw materials,

like steel that were
needed for the war effort,

and they could be made cheaply

and much more
functionally out of concrete,

and concrete, of
course, does float.

The ships so impressed
the us government

that they ordered 24 of them.

And they're completed
just as the war ends,

but they're put into service

and they actually
worked pretty well.

Once you've made
a concrete ship,

it is actually quite
a long-lasting thing.

Concrete, unlike steel,
doesn't get metal fatigue,

doesn't wear
out, it doesn't rust.

So, potentially,

you have a very
easy-to-maintain kind of ship.

In fact, the ships
were so effective

that when there was
a shortage of steel

during the world war ii,

naval architects once
again turned to concrete.

All of them had a
very similar purpose,

which was mainly
to act as freight ships

and for storage because
they're very good at holding

large amounts of
material and keeping it dry.

But what are ten cargo
ships from two world wars

doing here in British Colombia.

This is the ghostly fleet
that the locals call the hulks.

Around the beginning
of the last century,

paper mills sprung
up all along the coast,

including here at Powell river.

The logs used to make the paper

were transported
to the mill by water

and then unloaded
into a log pond.

It had to be big
enough to store the logs

and be protected from the elements
to keep it safe for the workers.

The only problem here is
it's exposed to severe winds

from both the
north and the south,

and they needed to find a
way to shelter the log ponds.

So, the mill owners decided
to build a breakwater,

a barrier built into the
sea to protect the log pond

from the force of the waves,

as mechanical engineer
Matthew denniston explains.

So, typically a
breakwater structure

would be made of large
rocks, dumped in big piles

and they would build
up from the sea floor

to make that protection,

where in our case,

it's far too deep to make
this type of breakwater.

So, I think the light
bulb just came on,

"hey, why not use
ships instead?"

Steel being in salt
water in the ocean

deteriorates very
quickly if it's not protected.

And we found that we
would have a steel ship

that would come in and it
would maybe last 20 years

before it had to be
decommissioned,

where these concrete ships
were already 40 years old,

coming into replace them,

and had still lasted
another 50 plus years.

In 1948, the first concrete
ships arrived in Powell river.

But how effective would
they be as a breakwater?

The ships were anchored down
and chained together to form a,

sort of, artificial reef.

To help them
withstand the elements,

they were weighed down with
gravel and they list to one side,

so their decks are
angled towards the shore.

They're actually much
heavier than ordinary ships,

so much more effective
in keeping the water

and the weather at bay.

One of the ships is the
'quartz', and it has a hidden past.

So, one of the most
unique things about this ship

is that it was actually a part of
some of the first nuclear testing

that the us military
did on bikini atoll,

and this ship specifically was
part of the nuclear test baker.

The test bomb propelled

a dome of water
1.5km wide into the sky.

It created a wall
of radioactive mist

that contaminated many
of the surrounding ships,

including the 'quartz'.

They were simply there to see

the effect of the
nuclear blast on ships.

So, you know, they had ships
of every type and description

at bikini atoll and they wanted
to get radioactivity readings,

they also wanted to
see the blast effect

of the nuclear weapons
would have at different ranges.

Ten years later
and radiation-free,

the 'quartz' arrived at Powell
river to join the other concrete ships.

The service life was
supposed to only be 15 years,

when in reality, here
we are 75 years later,

and they are still
holding strong.

So, why are there now
plans to sink some of them?

Today,

the paper mill no longer
needs such a large log pond.

The plans now are to sink
some or most of the ships

and allow them to
become a natural reef,

bringing to life again

the underwater maritime
colony and community.

The ships are an extraordinary
story of creation and technology.

They were born
out of desperation,

out of a need to find a way to
build ships with new materials,

and yet when that need was gone,

they found another use
here acting as a breakwater,

and when even that
role is completing,

they're now gonna find another
one down on the seabed as reefs.

They really are a testimony
to the creativity and creation

of what can be done
with new materials.

Hidden deep within woodland
in south-east Germany,

600km from its capital,
Berlin, is a strange sight.

A cold and bleak landscape
disfigured by charred rock.

There's a real
air of foreboding.

You can tell that
something bad happened.

It looks entirely natural

until you see metal
spikes puncturing the stone.

You're walking along, and
suddenly the floor turns to concrete,

and then you see an
embedded footprint there,

and you keep walking,

and then further along,
there's another footprint.

And immediately, you
think, "what went on here?

"Who made these footprints?

And what happened to them?"

The mystery deepens
the further you go.

Rusted corroded steel and
badly weathered concrete

is twisted violently out of
any recognisable shape.

Whatever happened here
would take one heck of a force

to cause this much damage.

And there's more.

Concealed beneath the forest
floor is a mysterious tunnel...

Nearby, just visible
through the trees

are strange depressions.

And what's most
sinister is an arch...

A bridge to nowhere.

How are they all connected?

You've got what
looks like a giant rib

of some massive dinosaur
sticking out of the earth.

There is something
really fantastical about it.

It has this other
worldly quality to it,

and it doesn't really
feel like it should be,

you know, in our world.

Who constructed this arch?

And why did its builders
die in their thousands?

And what cataclysmic
event caused its destruction?

In the final years
of the world war ii,

the allied bombing campaign
against Germany reached its peak.

The Germans have lost control,
not only the airspace over France,

the allied landing areas,

but they have lost
control of the airspace

over their own country.

Despite the millions
of tonnes of bombs

dropped on German cities
such as Hamburg and Cologne,

there had not been a complete
collapse in civilian morale,

which had been part of the aim,

nor had Germany's industrial
capacity and production

been severely reduced.

That changed towards
the end of the war

when targeted attacks
on German infrastructure

and her industrial heartlands
began to take effect.

Allied bombs were
destroying German factories,

severely affecting her
ability to continue fighting.

So, the Germans
had to find some way

to defend themselves
against the allied onslaught.

So, German high command

decided to move production of
certain armaments into caves.

The problem the Germans have

is that it's really, really hard

to make caves in rock.

Their clever solution is

they're gonna make
giant artificial caverns

where there was no cave before.

And this is the
result, weingut eins,

a vast concrete structure
that the Germans hoped

would allow them to keep
their war machine running.

But what were they
going to build here?

And why was it hidden

deep within a forest in
south-east Germany?

Local historian,
dr erhard bosch,

explains that the site had to match
a very specific set of requirements.

In order to be able to
build concrete buildings,

you need gravel, you need
water, you need cement,

and you need steel,
and all that was here.

It was weingut's sheer size
that sucked in resources.

This bunker presented all
sorts of engineering challenges.

It would consist of
12 separate arches

and be a quarter of a mile long.

Each arch would be
over a hundred feet wide.

It's a major
construction project.

A workforce of over 10,000
was gathered together,

and construction of the
first arch began in July 1944.

Building arches is a challenge.

They're very strong shapes
when they're actually finished.

But while you're
constructing them,

you have to keep them
supported in order to keep it stable.

Usually, a timber or
steel frame was used,

but dwindling resources

meant that the builders
had to use another material.

You need as much
gravel as possible

because the construction
method you're gonna use

requires mountains of gravel.

They could pile up this
gravel into an immense shape,

this arch shape, and then create
their concrete arch on top of that.

But how would these
vast mounds of gravel

be moved from
one arch to another?

A few hundred kilometres
away, there's a clue.

This was an underground tunnel
with mine carts on a rail track.

Once each arch was completed,

the gravel that was beneath it

was dumped down through
hatches into these waiting carts,

which would then take the gravel
along to the next construction site.

The pressure was
on to finish the bunker,

to begin production of a plane

the Germans hoped would
change the course of the war.

It was the world's first operational
jet-powered fighter aircraft,

the messerschmitt me 262.

Overhead was a roof that
was virtually bombproof.

We are here under
the 7th archway,

the foundations to the
left and right go 17m deep.

In the lean concrete layer,
you can see it up here,

it has broken away
in some places.

The first reinforcing
rods can be seen.

They reinforced 5m of concrete.

When complete,

the factory would have seen
production on a massive scale.

They wanted to dig
further down from here

and would have had
eight factory floors.

When you consider the overall
area that they would have had,

the manufacturing area,

that's an area of
114,000 square metres.

That is approximately
14 football pitches.

Who built these enormous arches?

And what is their connection
to these deep caverns,

hollowed out of the
ground, just over 3km away?

These craters are all
over this particular area,

and it's hard to tell
exactly what happened here

to create these holes
just by looking at them.

But their size and
their depth are ominous.

What were these craters?

And how were they linked
to thousands of deaths

deep in the German woodland?

It was because slave
labourers from the death camps

were forced to build weingut.

Their huts once stood
where the craters now are.

They had no heat, they
had no toilet facilities,

they had no washing facilities,
they didn't even have fresh water.

They didn't have enough to eat,

so you can imagine that they
became emaciated very quickly.

If they did try to escape, they
were shot if they were caught.

Four thousand of the weingut
slave labourers died here.

By the end of April 1945,

only seven arches
had been completed.

But the allies were already
sweeping through Germany.

The area was liberated and
placed under American control

the following month.

So, why is there now
only one arch left standing?

The clue is in the
twisted steel and concrete.

If there were another world war,

the Americans thought they
might adopt a bunker like this

for their own military
installations back in the us.

But first, they wanted to
see just how strong it was.

So, they decided to blow it up.

The us blew the
arches up one by one

until they had discovered
how much explosive power

each structure could withstand.

So, all of the cold war
era nuclear bunkers

are based in their structure

on tests that were done in 1947

here at weingut eins.

After it was destroyed,
weingut was abandoned.

When I look at the
ruins of weingut eins,

that terrible slave
labour project

that was designed to keep
the Nazi war machine going,

I look at its failure.

And I know that when power

is untrammelled by justice,

it can only go so far
before it destroys itself.

In a remote forest in Maine

at the north-eastern
tip of the United States

is something you don't
expect to stumble across.

You're in this part of
Maine that is overgrown

with trees and low
forest and it's very scenic.

And then in the middle of it,

you can see the remnants
of old cables and machinery.

There are two identical
structures made of metal,

completely rusted out with
what appears to be a pipe,

coming out of the back of it.

You can see a
large old engine...

Clearly something
technical and industrial

used to dominate this space.

It looks like some mad
experiment gone wrong...

An eccentric scientist who decided
to create something fantastical

in the middle of nowhere.

But what is it?

And how is it related to these
two dilapidated locomotives?

You come across what
looks like a pulley system

and these rusted and
corroded pieces of metal,

which looks like
broken pieces of trash.

The entire woodland
is full of mystery.

Normally, tracks
connect something...

But these just end abruptly...

But are they somehow
joined and, if so, how?

And then you have the
fact that it's so remote,

it's deep in the Maine
wilderness, far from anything,

so the question is what is
it and what is it doing here?

To find out,

we need to look to an industry
that helped define Maine

and make america great during
the 19th and early 20th centuries...

The logging industry.

Northern Maine has 18
million acres of forest land,

and at the turn
of the last century,

it was the hub of
the logging industry,

at the time when
timber was king.

The usa was growing fast
and so was demand for wood,

but it was not only domestic
demands that were driving the industry.

During the late 19th century,

the industrial revolution
was in full swing

in countries such
as Great Britain.

It too had an insatiable
appetite for lumber.

In fact, it is estimated
that at one point,

Maine had the largest shipping
port for lumber in the world.

And so, forests were being
felled at breakneck speed

by lumber barons eager to profit
from these huge new markets.

Matthew laroche, superintendent
of the allagash wilderness waterway,

explains how it worked.

The loggers would come up
the river systems cutting pine,

and as the pine got depleted,

they would just keep
moving up the rivers.

You know, cutting down
the tree is the easy part.

The hard part is getting that
giant log out of wherever it fell

and into some kind of
transportation system

that can get it to the
sawmill or the paper mill.

The nearest sawmill was
in bangor, 145 miles away.

The only problem was they
needed to find a way to transport

all these logs between
one lake and another

across a really
narrow strip of land.

This isolated stretch of land

lay between eagle
and Chamberlain lakes.

And it was only about 3,000 feet,
just a little more than half a mile,

but if you were gonna
drag all those logs by oxen,

it might as well
have been 50 miles.

How would they overcome
the problem of hauling

thousands of logs across
this narrow strip of land?

A way had to be
found to bridge the gap.

And this is what
they came up with...

An ingenious system
of rails, cable, and iron,

powered by the
technology of the day.

It was called
eagle lake tramway.

Essentially, the tramway
was a small railway

that was pulled by a cable
loop and powered by steam.

But this narrow strip of land
was in the middle of nowhere.

How would they be able
to transport the parts?

So, all the material
came by rail to Greenville,

up moosehead lake
with steam boats,

and then landed
at north east carry,

and from there, it was
brought in with horses on sleds

in the middle of the wintertime.

We're talking about a 35-mile
trip with sleds and horses

to get this material in here.

It took 12 arduous months
to build the tramway.

But would it actually work?

When they originally
put this together,

they had to bolt all of
these dollies to the cable,

and it turned out that

they tightened the
bolts down all the way

but it wasn't
quite tight enough,

so everything slipped
and nothing worked.

And they then had to take
thousands of bolts back out

and it turned out the threads
didn't go far enough down the bolt.

So, they had to get
out a filing system

and extend the threads
a little bit one at a time

and then put it
all back together.

Once it was finished,

the workers watched nervously
as the trucks crawled along.

And they noticed it wasn't going
as fast as they had expected.

That was because there's
a bump along the path.

And once the logs got over
the bump, the weight of the logs

helped it pick up steam
the rest of the way.

Would the tramway
system be able to move

thousands of logs over land
to mills in bangor and beyond?

The tramway ran on
these rails right here.

There was a top layer
and a bottom layer.

And these trucks, and
there's one right there,

the logs went onto
those little pointed things.

The logs would be pulled
on the eagle lake end,

and they would travel
on this top layer of rails

all the way to Chamberlain lake,

and then roll off the
end of the tramway,

and dump into Chamberlain lake,

and then from there, it was
log drive down to bangor.

The logs moved at 5km an
hour, powered entirely by steam.

These are the boilers
which created steam,

ran through these pipes
up here, over to this engine,

that would drive this belt.

And the belt drove the
machinery over here.

These reduction gears

and the big final drive over
there with the u-shape cut outs in it

was where the trucks fit into.

The cable fit right into there

and it would drive
the logs over there

and dropped them right into
Chamberlain lake over there.

It was quite an engineering
model for the time.

The tramway operated
from 1903 to 1909,

carrying in total 100
million board feet of timber.

But why did the lumber barons
abandon such an effective system

after only six years?

Eventually, a small
railroad was built

that was able to move the logs in
an even more convenient fashion.

And in fact, this was the way
that logging was being done

across new england at that time.

There were dozens of
small little rail lines being built

into all kinds of
wilderness areas

for the sole purpose
of extracting the timber.

They did not remove the tramway

from this location when
they stopped using it

primarily because it
was such a remote area,

they couldn't
really take it out.

I suppose they didn't really
know if they would use it again,

but they never did.

Once they had shut it
down, it never got used again.

Now, the tramway is rusting away

and gradually being
reclaimed by nature.

When I come here and I
see people looking at them

and they are asking
a bunch of questions,

"how did they get it
here,"what did it do,

"when did it work,
how much did it move",

it kind of renews your
enthusiasm for the site.

When I see this kind of thing,

it just makes me think
about the enormous effort,

the sweat, the ingenuity that
went into these kinds of projects

and into building
the United States.

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.