Lorient Submarine Base was a

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

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 us ...

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 primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. 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 (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

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

Lorient U-boat base

After the

fall of France The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France during the Second World ...

in June 1940 the head of Germany’s

U-boat Arm The (, ) was the navy of 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 It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic.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 an ...

, ''

Konteradmiral ''Konteradmiral'', abbreviated KAdm or KADM, is the second lowest naval flag officer rank in the German Navy. It is equivalent to '' Generalmajor'' in the '' Heer'' and ''Luftwaffe'' or to '' Admiralstabsarzt'' and ''Generalstabsarzt'' in the '' ...

Karl Dönitz Karl Dönitz (sometimes spelled Doenitz; ; 16 September 1891 24 December 1980) was a German admiral who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as head of state in May 1945, holding the position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government follo ...

, 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 Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. 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 is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

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 were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ...

, 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, like ...

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. 703 boats were built by the end of the war. The lone surviving example, , is on display at the Laboe Naval Memorial located in Laboe, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Conc ...

. 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 Lorient (; ) is a town (''commune'') and seaport in the Morbihan department of Brittany in western France. History Prehistory and classical antiquity Beginning around 3000 BC, settlements in the area of Lorient are attested by the presence ...

( 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. https://www.427squadron.com/history/wartime_logs/jan_1943.html 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 (; br, An Arvor) 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 ...

. This was the Villa Kerlilon, which was used by Donitz 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 An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

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, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, su ...

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 oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. 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 expl ...

bombs and more than 60,000

incendiary bombs Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using fire (and sometimes used as anti-personnel weaponry), that use materials such as napalm, th ...

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 Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

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 land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

; 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 Jacques Stosskopf (27 November 1898 – 1 September 1944) held the post of deputy director of naval construction at the German-held Lorient U-boat arsenal, but was a member of the French Resistance and war hero killed by the Nazis. Military care ...

, a hero of the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

. 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 killed.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 Davis tower 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 fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...

) 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), harbour (British English; see spelling differences), or haven is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be docked. The term ''harbor'' is often used interchangeably with ''port'', which is a ...

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, 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, with four or more h ...

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, or Eirik 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-Norse ''* ain ...

, and a yachting

marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : ''marina'', "coast" or "shore") 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 o ...

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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