Original subtitles

Tom ward (narrates): Coastal forts that are part

of a dramatic world war ii story.

This site, on the end of the breakwater here,

it feels like the key to unlocking what all of this is about.

That's why I wanna get inside.

A vast complex that helped to tear a nation apart.

In so many ways that are so important to underscore,

it really leads to the expansion, the entrenchment, of slavery.

And an island fortress surrounded by scandals and cover-ups.

They destroyed the buildings, burnt the files.

They didn't want people to know what happened.

Decaying relics and ruins of lost worlds,

they were forged through years of toil

and are now haunted by the past.

Their secrets are waiting to be revealed.

(Theme music)

Near the isle of Portland, which lies off the southern coast

of england, is a place that has a dramatic past life.

It's a monster of a structure, solidly built, clad in metal,

with all sorts of additions

attached to the top and the sides of it.

This is a genuinely unusual structure.

This was not one simple purpose-built structure.

This has evolved, perhaps, over a century.

How is it linked to a prison on the island?

At first glance, there don't appear to be many clues.

You immediately wonder what was kept out there?

Why was it separated from the rest of the land?

This is an incredibly claustrophobic structure.

It's hard to get in and it feels like it's impossible to escape from.

The land nearby the building is littered

with curious reminders of its past.

As you pan out and view the whole area,

you see an entire series of structures.

This is something that is the result of a serious engineering project

over a long period of time.

There is clearly so much going on in this place

in different periods of history,

but just how it's all related remains elusive.

So, what lies within that circular structure,

and for what was it built?

During the second world war, thousands of us troops arrived here

to prepare for what would be the decisive battle

in the war against Nazi Germany.

But strangely, the constructions here don't all appear

to be connected to that epic story.

Rob bell has come to the island of Portland to investigate

why this place became so important during the fight against the Nazis.

I've come across a good few old ruins and abandoned structures

dotted around the island now.

It's almost like you're gonna bump into something hidden

around every corner, and some of them look like

they're as solid as ever, but others on the brink of collapse,

just falling to pieces.

Having obtained special permission to look around,

Rob's now able to get a glimpse of everything up close.

Looking over in these buildings up here and these rooms

through the windows is some old light fittings in there,

so there was electricity supplied at some point.

Old furnace in here, look, left rusting away.

Clearly providing heat or power for some use,

but there doesn't seem like there's any one structure

or any one single piece of engineering

that tells you what all of this was for.

But there's one feature that really stands out.

Oh, this feels very, very different here now.

I thought it was just another old abandoned ruin here,

but this has a very different form to it.

Look at this.

Ok. Right.

All of this circular structure and this little raised platform here

in the middle, this tells me

this is some kind of gun placement.

But not just any gun, look at the scale of all of this.

The gun on there would've been absolutely phenomenal.

During the second world war, this place became packed with troops

and the eyes of all would've been firmly fixed upon the horizon.

The Nazis, they were sending the e-boats right near the shore.

U-boats were patrolling the area and the whole region

was right on the brink of the action.

The threat of attack was very real because the German kriegsmarine

was targeting key naval positions along the south coast of england.

The harbours here were filled with ships,

all preparing for the battle that would,

at last, turn the tide of the war.

What you would see are hundreds of ships,

all packed into every available space.

All of this, all of the men and the ships, are building up

to the decisive moment in the war in Western Europe.

The remains scattered across the area show very few signs

of that momentous event, or the part they played in it.

But Rob is fascinated by something else.

Some of the structures here seem to belong

to a completely different era.

What's curious for me is that, even from here, you can see,

looking up on the Ridge of the cliffs up there,

there are big stone walls that look like they date to way

before the second world war.

So, the question for me is,

what were all those older buildings doing here?

And did they play a role in making this area

so crucial in the second world war?

To find the answers, Rob is heading out to a structure

that stands apart from the rest,

at the end of the harbour's breakwater.

I've been around a number of the old abandoned sites

in this area now

but there's one that I've only ever seen from afar.

It's that one over there.

I've got a sneaking suspicion that's the one that's gonna help

expose the real story of what this whole place was about.

There is what looks like an old prison here,

although it has obviously taken a battering

and is quite badly damaged.

It's hard to tell at first glance whether those windows have been

sealed up to keep people out or to keep people in.

Was it a quarantine site?

Or was it perhaps a prison?

Why were they trying to keep it separate from the mainland?

Come and have a look at this down here.

This feels like a massive clue

as to what this whole place was about.

Those are huge guns.

I've been told there's a definite link

between this site and the prison over on the island.

When you see artillery of this kind of scale out here,

that tells me that this was some kind of fort.

So, what was the link to the prison then?

I'm hoping if I get inside, we'll find out.

Helping Rob is Gordon le pard, a local marine archaeologist.

Like Rob, Gordon has never before set foot inside the fort...

So this is his very first chance to get a good look at the interior.

Wow.

This is certainly very impressive.

Something I would like, if you can, help me clear up here.

I know there was a link to the prison with this fort,

but what exactly is that?

What it was, was that the prison was built to supply the labour

to quarry the stone

and they built the breakwater from there,

using the stone the prisoners quarried.

The fort has natural defences to the north, south, and west,

but it was still vulnerable to an attack from the east,

a problem that the authorities in the mid-19th century recognised

and were determined to address.

They decided to build a breakwater,

which, when it was completed, stretched for 1.5 miles.

This was a huge job, and they used the prisoners

who were kept on the island to man the quarry,

to create these huge blocks to assemble these straight lines

that cut out into the sea.

This once formed the largest manmade harbour in the world,

and it provided superb protection, not only from enemy attack,

but also from powerful storms.

I mean, we've got a little bit of daylight coming in through there.

Is that what I see from the outside, those bricked up openings?

Yes.

They would've been open,

or at least with metal covers on them

when they weren't in use.

Yeah.

But that was where the guns pointed out and fired.

And we're talking about guns.

Are they the guns that I saw down in the water there?

Almost looked like they'd been dumped in a pile

next to the breakwater.

Yes, those... Those are the breaches,

just part of the guns that were here.

They're the first guns that were placed

inside the fort in the 1870s.

To defend the sea leading towards the harbour, 14 of these guns

were placed evenly around the circular fort,

but who exactly was the enemy?

What was the threat?

What was the idea behind building this fort then?

When it started,

there was a perceived threat from the French.

They were fortifying their own coast,

they were massively mechanising their Navy,

and it was perceived that they could be

a threat to the southern English coast.

Britain and France had been at each other's throats for years

and although there was peace of sorts at the time,

there was this fear that a new battle might be emerging.

So, the British decided to construct forts

in English coastal waters.

You can see that one point it was a well-engineered, thriving,

purpose-built location with all of these passageways

and tunnels having a specific use.

Oh, we're really descending down here now, Gordon.

Look around you, though, still.

All these... these handrails just rusted away.

But this was just the first stage

of the isle of Portland's modern fortifications.

Warfare was evolving and Portland needed to grow

and expand.

As we'll see, every inch of the site had a part to play.

This is one of the rooms

where the explosive charges were kept.

Beside us, we've got one of the hoists.

Some of these round the edges here,

in would go the shell and the charge...

Yeah.

..And the fuse, and they would be hoisted up.

Well, what's the idea of separating the shells

and ammunitions down here from the artillery,

from the guns, up above?

If you had an explosion up on top,

you did not want the explosion to come down here.

It would be a disaster if the explosion

was to get through to one of the shell stores.

While the breakwater fort was central to the defence of the area,

it was far from the only piece of the puzzle.

Other fortified defences were also built,

making it one vast engineering project.

But when it was all completed,

there was a harsh reality to be faced.

Military technology was advancing at such a rate

around the turn of the century that, by the time you built something,

it was already out of date.

These forts, they were built as a reaction

to the threat from the French.

They took decades to build.

And, in fact, when they were finished,

they were an embarrassment because the threat had moved on.

Why would this place, an apparent relic

from a previous century, soon end up being chosen

to play a vital role in the second world war?

The first clues can be found on the roof of the fort.

What we've got, feels like it's a gun turret and it...

It looks like it's almost replicated over there.

But what strikes me is that this seems way more modern

than the fort down below.

Oh, it is.

The fort itself was built in the 1870s,

but it's been constantly updated.

You can see the lots of different periods culminating

in the second world war when one of these two emplacements

had the last really active gun,

the bofors gun, here in world war ii.

In 1940, Hitler's armies, using the terrifying new tactic

of blitzkrieg, smashed their way through Western Europe.

Suddenly, the south coast of britain was very near the frontline.

In the harbour, you had large targets for bombing attacks.

You would've had guns here, bolted down,

where you can see the fittings today.

The barrel pointing up into the sky,

essentially as an anti-aircraft gun, protecting the harbour.

But how would the area's old defences withstand

what seemed to be an inevitable German attack?

Now, back on dry land, Rob bell has come to blacknor fort to see

how everything was made ready.

So, I'm up on the cliffs of the West Side of Portland here,

with another enormous gun emplacement.

Installations like this, as well as a whole range

of other defensive structures,

were found right along the south coast,

forming a strong defensive line.

From the end of the 19th century, and through the years leading up

to the second world war, improvements and modifications

were made to the harbour and the areas beyond.

The breakwater was extended, artillery positions were added,

and supporting forts and batteries were built further along the coast.

These sometimes victorian,

sometimes first world war structures,

received upgrades so they're now capable

of dealing with the threat that the Germans posed.

It was fear that that Nazi attack was imminent.

In the summer of 1940, battle of britain, Portland was,

in fact, an important target for the luftwaffe.

Ships were sunk within the harbour, Portland was also under repeated

bombing attacks during day and night raids

from German medium bombers.

It was the mix of structures and the solid additions

to the breakwater fort that made Portland so effective

when it was finally called into action.

What you see is a evolution in this one location,

from the mid-19th century into the mid-20th century.

And rather than you get rid of these massive stone

armoured structures, you adapt them.

In June 1944, the battle that the isle of Portland

had been anticipating finally arrived.

But the role it was going to play was an offensive one.

And it wasn't Germans that were landing here, but Americans.

It was chosen to play a key part

in the largest invasion in history, d-day.

(Bomb explodes)

This place had everything it needed, right from the start.

Its location gave it this barrier of the beach down one side

and then the quarry for the rock to build the breakwater

on the other.

They had incredible foundations of defence all around.

So, add to that, the upgrades it received,

you've got yourself a place with the infrastructure

it needed to handle the incredible responsibility

for what was to come.

From here, many of the 1,000 ships that made up task force o made

their way across the channel to take the fight

to the Germans at Omaha beach in northern France.

Thousands of troops lined up to board those ships, all of them,

no doubt, anxiously waiting that command

to go to filter down from the powers above.

It's just impossible to imagine the emotions

they must have been going through.

Here, they were in the relative safety

of the confines of this well-defended harbour.

This place was all about defence,

but that also made it the perfect site

for the launch pad on d-day.

In the west, this is the moment of world war ii.

If the allies can directly attack the main force,

the wehrmacht on the continent of Europe and defeat it,

the Nazi regime will be brought down.

When that order finally came on 6 June, 1944, all of those ships

sailed out past the forts over there.

As eisenhower's order stated, the tide has turned.

The freemen of the world are marching together to victory.

After the war, with the Nazi's beaten,

the breakwater fort was gradually stripped of its weapons

and it was eventually locked up for good.

Today, the harbour is primarily used for commerce

and leisure, but the grand old structures remain still standing

and proud of the vital part they played

in bringing peace to the world.

In the heart of america's deep south,

on the banks of Ortega creek,

are ageing remains with an enduring legacy.

This is a site near Montgomery, Alabama

that looks completely out of place.

It's dominated by this industrial complex,

which makes it resemble more like a mill town in northern england.

As much as you see these industrial buildings,

it's very hard to ascertain exactly what these buildings were used for.

The sheer scale of the operation suggests that,

whatever was made here, was of great value.

A tunnel leads you down to the water's edge

and there you encounter the immense power of the river.

Clearly there was a connection between the river

and what was going on in this complex.

Inside, few signs of this site's former glories

seemed to have survived.

It's amazing to imagine that this quiet,

vast area would've been bustling with noise

and chaos of machinery in action.

Huge voids fill the warehouse buildings.

This was clearly part of a major industrial effort at some point.

Now, it's empty offices, abandoned desks, typewriters,

paper strewn everywhere.

It seems like the place was suddenly evacuated.

Up on the hill behind the complex, there are more hints about its past.

An eery cemetery overlooks the vast property below.

Two confederate flags stick out of one of the gravestones.

The fact that there are confederate flags

make you think that there's a connection

to the civil war, to sort of a bloody conflict

that ripped the country apart.

So, what was produced here and what role did it play

in the terrible war that scarred the soul of a nation?

Ann boutwell is an Alabama historian

fighting to preserve the extraordinary structures

that provide a window into a lost world.

I tell people when you lose a building you lose the opportunity

to tell the story of the people

who lived and worked in those buildings.

The man behind this particular site had a profound impact

on the southern United States.

What he made here would help make america's economy

the most powerful in the world,

but also divide the nation like never before.

Daniel Pratt arrived in Alabama from New Hampshire

in the 1830s and he is literally

one of the south's first industrialists.

At that time, Alabama was pretty much still

wilderness areas and he felt that he could provide jobs

and a better lifestyle for the local people,

but he also, he was a visionary.

So, he's building a complex of a scale and size

that people in Alabama would not have seen before

and he is building it so that he can produce

one of the most important machines of the early 19th century.

Surely not even Daniel Pratt could've imagined the wealth

his machine would generate

or the destructive impact it would have.

Initially, Pratt came to Alabama just with the sole purpose

of building and selling cotton gins.

The cotton gin revolutionised cotton farming

because of the speed at which it could comb

the fibres out of the seeds.

This machine could actually process 50 pounds of cotton,

as opposed to one pound doing the whole process by hand.

Originally invented by Eli Whitney four decades earlier,

the machines true potential was only fully realised

when Pratt spotted an opportunity in a growing market.

Whitney first patented it in 1794.

He wouldn't see much profit from it, oddly enough, though by the middle

of the 19th century, cotton would become

the single largest export of the United States.

Before long, Pratt's empire was rapidly expanding.

The gin company that he built

became the largest gin factory in the world.

He was shipping cotton gin's to France and Russia.

It underscores why Pratt is one of the first

major industrialists in the south.

Pratt was so successful he built an entire town in the image

of his New Hampshire home to house the ever-increasing workforce.

He even named it after himself.

His fingerprints can be found all over prattville.

Absolutely it was Pratt's town and most of the people worked

in his industries and went to the churches that he built

and the schools that he provided.

The town of prattville was held up as an example

for other southern towns to follow.

So, there's a uniformity, there's a sense of something, again,

sort of evoking new england that was sort of purposefully built

and created by Pratt in terms

of the vision that he had for prattville.

Yet, while Pratt's machine was creating jobs and prosperity

in prattville, it was having a very different impact

on other people's lives.

Ironically enough, it was this very modern invention,

the cotton gin, that created a demand

for a older and more traditional form of labour.

Slave labour.

Up until then, cotton seeds had

to be separated from the fibres by hand.

Now, machines sped up the whole process.

Increased productivity meant that the demand

for southern cotton labourers skyrocketed.

Labour that was provided by slaves in the field.

Cotton is a crop that doesn't exhaust the soil so much,

and by creating a machine that cleans it more rapidly,

the cotton gin literally, literally enables the expansion

of slavery into the deep south.

Pratt manufactured a machine that not only revolutionised slavery

in america, but entrenched it.

A devout Christian from the north, Daniel Pratt wrestled

with the clear conflict between his deep religious beliefs

and his personal ownership of slaves.

The dark shadow of a looming war meant that it was a dilemma

he'd soon have to resolve.

The family graveyard that overlooks the old factory reveals

which side Pratt eventually chose.

He's a northerner in the south, so he argues

against a session, perhaps out of a commitment to union,

but ultimately, when the south succeeds,

he throws his hat in with the confederates.

There was even a military company named after him,

the prattville dragoons, which he supplied with artillery.

The factory also supplied textiles,

which would be used in confederate uniforms.

The fighting during that terrible conflict took place

mainly on southern soil and inevitably it eventually

found its way to prattville.

It threatened the very survival

of Daniel Pratt's cotton gin factory.

We do know that there were troops in this area,

but we have been puzzled, to this day,

as to why Pratt's industries were not destroyed.

We don't know if that was because he had some influence,

because he was a yankee, or what caused the union

to leave his industries alone.

Whatever the reasons, Pratt's complex

was undamaged by the fighting.

Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said of his finances.

The people that had worked in his factories,

especially those that had sold his products across the south,

were called to serve in the military.

And because of the war, blockades were put in place

and Pratt wasn't able to export his gins,

and that had a massive impact on his business.

And, worst of all, he was paid in war bonds,

in confederate money, that would eventually be worthless.

The war is very costly to Daniel Pratt.

Some scholars argue that he lost about half a million dollars

and that the war comes close to ruining him financially.

When the civil war ended, the prospects for Pratt's

cotton gin business looked bleak.

Faced with the harsh realities of post-war reconstruction,

how would the factories and town they built survive?

It took him quite some time to get his industries restarted

and get the production levels up.

He was determined to do that, and he was eventually

able to recover that well.

In fact, Pratt somehow not only revived his own business,

but he also helped to speed up Alabama's economic recovery.

That meant there was a future for people like Ernie Edwards,

who worked here well into the 20th century.

When we were very busy and cotton was at a peak price-wise

and machinery was selling very well,

uh, we might have three shifts running in here.

But sadly, it didn't last.

In 2009, the vast halls fell silent for the first time in more than

150 years as the business struggled

to compete in a fast-changing economic market.

I miss the people.

Miss the people more than anything else.

And it's sad to see, as you go through that plant,

and see the condition that it's in.

I'd like to see the... The industry come back.

Locals are fighting to save

what remains of this important historic site.

It still faces an uncertain future.

It looks like it's gonna be converted into apartments

and office spaces rather than being torn down entirely,

so at least the distinct architecture

and some element of the history of this site will be preserved,

one hopes.

In the heart of the mediterranean sea

sits the lovely island of crete.

Tucked away in one of its bays is a tiny

but very dramatic islet.

It's such a beautiful island.

This is paradise.

But as you approach,

these foreboding walls loom over you.

And now it starts to take shape that this is a fortress,

and a strongly built one.

So, it looks like they were defending themselves

from an outside force,

or perhaps they were trying to keep those on the island in.

Inside the outer walls, cavernous walkways and tunnels

lead to a mixture of ruined stone buildings.

So, who lived here, and did they interact

with the people on the mainland?

Back then, it was forbidden for anyone to visit the island.

The truth is, by the afternoon, I couldn't wait to get out of here.

This island has become famous now,

yet little of the truth is actually out there.

And when you learn about it, you see that the government have

tried to cover it all up.

What was the secret of this place and why did the Greek government

try so hard to convince people that it didn't exist?

These imposing walls were built by the venetians back

in the 16th century and they were part of a fort.

But, as time went on, these walls became used

for a slightly different purpose.

This island, up until the 1900s, was inhabited by the Turks.

They wanted to drive the Turks from the island, so that's why

they decided it would be a good idea to bring the lepers here,

so the Turks would go away.

After that, a Danish doctor decided to use the island

as kind of an experiment, a clinical trial.

That Danish doctor was the seemingly

all-powerful edvard ehlers.

He believed, like everyone at the time, that leprosy

was contagious and that, after ten, 20 years,

when all the lepers had been sent here and died off,

the mainland would be free of leprosy.

This is spinalonga.

It would eventually become a part of an infamous government cover-up.

Greek lepers were once rounded up and deported here.

Even the most beautiful place, if you are imprisoned within it,

can turn into a horror.

So, how did this island paradise become a place of nightmares?

And why did the authorities want to hide its secrets?

These lepers had bells strung round their necks to warn

the healthy they were near.

And when they arrived,

they were faced with an imposing entrance.

This one, designated for lepers, was nicknamed Dante's gate,

in reference to hell.

One story goes that a wife couldn't bear to be separated

from her husband, couldn't bear to leave him,

to have him deported there by himself,

that she actually injected herself with his blood,

so that she become infected with leprosy as well.

Leprosy sufferers here lived in harsh,

almost inhumane, conditions.

It was around 1910, when a girl, a young woman,

that was about to get married, was diagnosed with leprosy.

They brought her here, but at that time,

life here was extremely harsh.

Shortly after arriving, she was raped.

So, what she did was she took herself up to the tower

and committed suicide.

She would rather be dead than live on that island.

That's how horrible it was.

But doctor ehlers did little to alleviate the suffering.

He offered no treatment or medicine.

He even prevented news reports of potential medical cures

from reaching the leper community.

From then onwards, everyone was out for themselves.

Everyone would only see to their own needs,

and if they had to step on someone else, they would.

So, what became of the lepers here?

When writer and anthropologist, Maurice born,

first visited spinalonga in 1968,

it was no longer a leper colony

and the island was closed to outsiders.

He made it his mission to reveal the island's dark past.

When I was here in crete, whenever I would go through

the archive records, remoundakis' name

would keep coming up.

Born decided to seek out that man, epaminondas remoundakis.

He tracked him down to a leprosarium in Athens

from where remoundakis began to reveal the secrets of spinalonga.

He started with his own remarkable story.

He had leprosy from the age of 12.

His family helped him escape crete for Athens, joining his brother,

using the big city for cover, trying to blend in.

He tried to get an education so he would truant from school

or move schools so he wouldn't be found out,

and he did manage to graduate from high school

and even got a law degree,

but then one day his secret was discovered.

His arrival in 1936 would have a dramatic effect on the island.

One of the first and the only lepers who could read and write,

he was asked by the others to try and lead the community,

to organise them, and help create better living conditions.

So, remoundakis formed a society, the brotherhood of the sick.

First, they created a set of laws and tried to get

the whole community working for themselves and for each other.

They cleaned streets, painted the houses,

organised games and music,

and once they had gotten their own community in order,

remoundakis started writing letters to the outside,

trying to change people's image of what leprosy was

and trying to campaign better treatment

for the people stuck in this veritable prison.

Remoundakis and his brotherhood were determined to escape

their island prison and return to their families.

Doctor ehlers was, however,

far from pleased with what was going on.

The director of the leprosarium tried

to put an end to all this.

He tried to quash any hope amongst the residents, and he forbade them

from intimacy, but that failed.

The resident's fell in love, they had families,

and they even had children.

The Greek orthodox religion, with its strong emphasis on family,

was something even doctor ehlers could not overcome.

And anyway, times were changing.

In 1937, a team from Athens, including nurses, came to take

the children away to a newly formed orphanage in the capital.

Now, surprisingly, the lepers accepted this because,

like any parent, they wanted the best for their children

and they thought the best lives for their children

would be away from this island,

in a city where there was proper healthcare

and just the opportunities that a big city brings.

In 1941, just a few years after their children had left,

a cure for leprosy, at last, became available.

It seemed that the long years of suffering

were finally coming to an end.

(Speaks Greek)

So, the cure did not arrive here on the island until 1948.

Then, after six or seven months, everyone was cured.

But neither the state nor the locals who were making an income out

of the island wanted the lepers to leave

or for spinalonga's leprosarium to be closed down.

Still shunned by both state and society,

the lepers were held here until 1957,

a full 16 years after the cure was available to them.

It was the final leper colony in Europe to close.

It was then made out of bounds to the public.

For two years, remoundakis worked

with born to bring the island's dark story to the wider world.

But when Maurice returned to the island in the 1980s,

he was surprised to find someone had already been there.

Someone who had been trying to destroy the evidence.

I can tell you that when I was here on the island,

all of the archived records were here.

They were all scattered on the pharmacy's floor.

Unfortunately, I did not steal any of them

because now everything is lost.

All of them.

No trace of the records exists anymore.

Everything was burned in the 1980s.

But the operation here went way beyond simply burning files.

And so it happened.

Everything that was specially built from the 1930s to the 1940s

was destroyed and the records I'm telling you about were burnt,

so today there are not many things left.

Born believes it was all part of an official cover-up.

But the state would lie to the world health organisation.

They were making up numbers, concealing the truth, lying.

Ironically, the mysteries of the island,

with its rumours of a cover-up, simply served

to increase interest among tourists,

helping it to become

one of the most visited historical sites in crete.

Despite the destruction of so much evidence,

spinalonga has a powerful legacy,

which lives on in no small part

thanks to the work of epaminondas remoundakis.

(Speaks Greek)

He died in agia varvara leprosarium

in 1978 from a heart condition.

Until the end, he was still fighting for leper's rights.

I lost not only a good friend, but one of the most original

and sincere people I have ever met in my life.

Now, they are abandoned crumbling ruins.

Many remind us of dark times,

but some were once beacons of hope

and progress,

lasting testimonies to human imagination,

enterprise, and spirit.

Captioned by ai-media ai-media. TV