Lorient Submarine Base was a

submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...

naval base A naval base, navy base, or military port is a military base, where warships and naval ships are docked when they have no mission at sea or need to restock. Ships may also undergo repairs. Some naval bases are temporary homes to aircraft that usu ...

located in

Lorient Lorient (; ) is a town (''Communes of France, commune'') and Port, seaport in the Morbihan Departments of France, department of Brittany (administrative region), Brittany in western France. History Prehistory and classical antiquity Beginn ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. It was built in 1941 by the German Kriegsmarine, and was continued to be enlarged until 1943. After the German defeat it was used by the

French Navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...

. It was decommissioned in 1995 and converted to civilian use.

Lorient U-boat base

After the

fall of France The Battle of France (; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (), the French Campaign (, ) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Net ...

in June 1940 the head of Germany’s

U-boat Arm The (, ) was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official branches, along with the ...

, ''

Konteradmiral (; abbreviated KAdm) is a senior naval flag officer rank in several German-speaking countries, equivalent to counter or rear admiral. Austria-Hungary In the Austro-Hungarian '' K.u.K. Kriegsmarine'' (1849 to 1918) there were the flag of ...

Karl Dönitz Karl Dönitz (; 16 September 1891 – 24 December 1980) was a German grand admiral and convicted war criminal who, following Adolf Hitler's Death of Adolf Hitler, suicide, succeeded him as head of state of Nazi Germany during the Second World ...

, was keen to use the French Atlantic ports as forward bases for his U-boat force then engaged in a commerce war against the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. Prior to this U-boats had to travel from ports in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

to their patrol areas, losing valuable time in the long transits necessary. From the coast of France these distances were substantially reduced, with a corresponding increase in the active range and endurance of the U-boat force. Dönitz lost no time in sending teams of engineers and base personnel to the ports, beginning with

. Already a French naval base, Lorient had the facilities Dönitz needed, as well as numerous cafes and bars, and a red-light district. A special train loaded with replenishment supplies and ordnance, and the personnel to manage them arrived in Lorient at the end of June, and the first

U-boat U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...

, docked a week later. ''U-30'' had departed

Wilhelmshaven Wilhelmshaven (, ''Wilhelm's Harbour''; Northern Low Saxon: ''Willemshaven'') is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea, and has a population of 76,089. Wilhelmsha ...

on 8 June and arrived at Lorient on 7 July after a 30 day patrol which had accounted for 5 allied ships. She was repaired and resupplied in 7 days, departing on her next patrol on 13 July. The first area put into use as a U-boat dock was the fisherman's wharf of Keroman( fr) on the River Blavet, between the districts of Keroman and La Perriere. This was a quayed inlet with a

boat lift A boat lift, ship lift, or lift lock is a machine for transporting boats between water at two different elevations, and is an alternative to the canal lock. It may be vertically moving, like the Anderton boat lift in England, rotational, li ...

that could raise vessels out of the water, to be placed, via a turntable into one of twelve bays arranged in a circle. The boatlift and turntable was designed to lift a pelagic trawler and could accommodate vessels up to 65 metres in length, just adequate to raise and carry a

Type VII U-boat Type VII U-boats were the most common type of German World War II U-boat. 704 boats were built by the end of the war. The type had several modifications. The Type VII was the most numerous U-boat type to be involved in the Battle of the Atlantic. ...

. However the trawler dock was in the open, and offered no protection from air raids, so work commenced on a series of enclosed pens protected by bomb-proof concrete roofs on the banks of the River Scorff, a branch of the Blavet, adjacent to the Lorient Arsenal( fr). Work commenced in November 1940, and the installation comprised two wet docks capable of accommodating the larger

Type IX U-boat The Type IX U-boat was designed by Nazi Germany's ''Kriegsmarine'' in 1935 and 1936 as a large ocean-going submarine for sustained operations far from the home support facilities. Type IX boats were briefly used for patrols off the eastern Unit ...

. At the same time, in the trawler port, two large above-ground bunkers were constructed to protect U-boats that may require repairs or refit. These structures were reminiscent of church naves, and were nicknamed "Dom" bunkers (''Dom'' being the German word for a cathedral). As work progressed on the Scorff pens, it became apparent the site was prone to silting, and would require constant dredging, while the soft ground was unable to take the weight of the structures, so plans were advanced for a new set of pens on the rocky Keroman peninsula, where the Etang de Kermeloe branches from the main estuary. The first installation, designated K1, comprised a boat lift and rails to deliver the U-boats to one of 5 enclosed bays. Work commenced in February 1941 and was completed in September that year. A second set of protected bays, K2, were built opposite K1, completing in December 1941. While these were suitable for boats needing an extended stay the access was too complicated for boats needing a fast turnaround, and a third installation, K3, was built at sea level. This comprised 7 double side wet pens that U-boats could simply sail in and out of. All these structures had a substantial bomb-proof roof, though the rails delivering boats to K1 and K2 were left exposed. However Allied bombing strategy gave a low priority to these installations and they were not seriously attacked during the first 2 years of operation. Royal Canadian Air Force records show 427 Squadron conducted raids from base in Croft, directly attacking the harbor. In the summer of 1943 work began on a fourth phase of construction, a set of 6 pens (designated KIVb) alongside K1 another six (KIVa) by K2. However little more than the foundations were completed. The last part of the Lorient U-boat base was across the inlet at Kernevel, in

Larmor-Plage Larmor-Plage (; ) is a commune in the Morbihan department of Brittany in north-western France. History Larmor-Plage was created as a new commune in 1925. Before that, it came within the administrative area of the town of Ploemeur. It was alm ...

. This was the Villa Kerlilon, which was used by Dönitz and his staff as a headquarters for the Atlantic campaign. The villa was equipped with a bomb-proof bunker in the grounds as protection from air-raids. The base was capable of sheltering thirty submarines under cover. Although Lorient was heavily damaged by Allied bombing raids, this naval base survived through to the end of the war. Since they could not destroy the base and its

submarine pen A submarine pen (''U-Boot-Bunker'' in German) is a type of submarine base that acts as a bunker to protect submarines from air attack. The term is generally applied to submarine bases constructed during World War II, particularly in Germany and ...

s, the Allies had decided to flatten the city and port of Lorient to cut the supply lines to the U-boat bases. Without resupply of fuel, weapons (e.g.

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such ...

es), and provisions, it became impossible for those U-boats to return to war patrols in the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. Between 14 January 1943 and 17 February 1943, Allied aircraft dropped as many as 500

high-explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An exp ...

bombs and more than 60,000

incendiary bombs Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires. They may destroy structures or sensitive equipment using fire, and sometimes operate as anti-personnel weaponry. Incendiarie ...

on Lorient; nearly 90% of the city was flattened. Following the

Normandy landings The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and ...

in June 1944, and subsequent breakout, Lorient was surrounded by the Allies on 12 August 1944. The remaining U-boats were evacuated, the last, , escaping for Norway on 27 August. Lorient was held until May 1945 by the regular German army forces, though surrounded by the

American Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

; the Germans refused to surrender.

Engineer Stosskopf submarine base

Following the German surrender the installations were taken over by the

for use as a submarine base. In July 1946 it was named by the French as Base Ingénieur Général Stosskopf commemorating Jacques Stosskopf, a hero of the

French Resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...

. Stosskopf was a German-speaking Alsatian Frenchman who had been the deputy director of naval construction at the base, and used this position to promote sabotage and to pass information on submarine movements to the Allies. His activities had been discovered and in September 1944 he was executed.Tourist office of Pays de Lorient Leaflet The base was in use until 1997, serving up to 10 submarines, and 2000 personnel. The base was also used for training, with the building of a 15-metre-high Submarine escape training facility and a

hyperbaric chamber A diving chamber is a vessel for human occupation, which may have an entrance that can be sealed to hold an internal pressure significantly higher than ambient pressure, a pressurised gas system to control the internal pressure, and a supply of ...

; also in the 1960s France’s nuclear submarine force trained there on the ''Gymnote''. However the base lacked the facilities to handle nuclear submarines, and in the 1990s was scheduled to close.

Keroman submarine museum

After 1997 the site became available for civilian use, with the conversion of the pens into industrial units. One of the first companies to move in was Plastimo( fr), which manufactures marine instruments. It is also the site of the Keroman submarine museum, which is open to the public. The museum features the preserved submarine ''Flore'', a ''Daphné''-class submarine launched in 1961; a simulator, in the Davis tower; and tours of the K III bunker. During tours, the submarine pens of block K3 can be seen. Its roof ( of steel-reinforced

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

) can be visited, as well as a former anti-aircraft tower on top of the U-boat base. The tower affords an excellent view of the

harbour A harbor (American English), or harbour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be Mooring, moored. The t ...

and of the former headquarters across the bay at

. Another part of the base has been reconverted for industrial naval activities, with the preparation of racing

multihull A multihull is a boat or ship with more than one Hull (watercraft), hull, whereas a vessel with a single hull is a monohull. The most common multihulls are catamarans (with two hulls), and trimarans (with three hulls). There are other types, wi ...

s. The site also the location of the City of Sailing exhibition centre( fr), named for yachtsman

Eric Tabarly The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, Eirik, or Eiríkur is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Nor ...

, and a yachting

marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : "related to the sea") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or cargo ...

References

Bibliography

Clay Blair Clay Drewry Blair Jr. (May 1, 1925 – December 16, 1998) was an American journalist and author, best known for his books on military history. Blair wrote some two dozen history books and hundreds of magazine articles that reached a popular audien ...

(1996) Hitler’s U-boat War : Vol I Cassell * Clay Blair (1998) Hitler’s U-boat War : Vol II Cassell *Jak Mallmann Showell (2007) Hitler’s U-boat Bases

External links

"Nazi Mega Weapons (S01E02): U-Boat Base"
(

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