Last week I visited the Lorient Keroman U-Boote Base. This place was chosen by Doenitz as early as 1940 to become the largest U-Boote facilitly on the Atlantic coast. It was taken over by the French Navy in 1945 and used until 1997 . Nowadays Keroman 3 is a museum whereas K1 and K2 are used as warehouses.

from 1941 three huge bunkers shelters were built by the Todt organisation, each new bunker coming with new techniques to counter the allied bombings.

1) Keroman 1 was built first and could hosted the first generation u-Boote







notice the original cammo from 1944

2) Keroman 2 was built next to K1 and hoted bigger subs with better protection. It was connected to K1 but was separated by a 90meter open track that was still vulnerable.









3)K3 was built later with better technology (no open space and 7 meters thick concrete protection instead of three to which was added blue granite imported from Norway .



4) a K4 was planned in 1943 , but never completed . This one even planned a protected railroad station. see open hall on pic below.

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great pics skipper,must have been awesome place when fully operational...

Just wait till I post what I saw inside!

achtung Minen!



Torpedo los!

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I see the trip was productive.

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Great pics, Skipper. Looking forward to more from what seems like an informative trip.

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"Faint heart never won fair maiden", so I say "Go for it!"

Lou

Torpedo! Shame on you, eels old boy.

Nice pictures there Skipper, you visiting any more?

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I am English and proud of it...Europe dose not need a another State, nuts to the EU.

a French Daphne class sub (the Flora) between the K1 and K2 buildings. This 1950s model was left here in 1997 to help you imagine the transfer of the U-Boote at the right scale. It is about 57 meter long and the total vulnerable distance between both buildings was 90 meters. Notice that even the later 70 meter U-Boote would fit in there.

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these 2 ships were deliberately sunk by the Germans and loaded with concrete to make and anti- floating mine dam . As it does not hinder navigation the authorities have chosen to leave it as such up to nowadays.

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What's with the beached sail boats? Is the tide out?

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you are correct there is a very strong tide in Britanny and you better sail out when the water is high

I spotted more wreckage in a part of the harbour that was not touched since WWII. I'm not sure whehter these are WWII relics , but they are certainly surrounded by bunkers and other Flak remains.

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more WWII relics: a Flak socle, a Tobruk (about to fall into the sea) , another socle

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great photos Skipper, i'd say you enjoyed yourself - my kind of holiday


i love the little Tobruk....there were so many of them in Normandy, it felt great to go inside them and then stick your head up out of the opening

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All the Best,

Andy

Cheers guys, I have many more pics to post but it's 1 am , so you "ll have to wait a few hours before you see the pics I took inside the huge Keroman building. Here is one of the K1 I managed to take through a net.

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very atmospheric, is that a long lost U-Boot down in the far end or maybe a derelict Schnellboot ?

great pic this last one

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E ~

Excellent pics, thanx Skipper for sharing those!!!!!

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It looks like a sunk U-Boot Erich , but it's a French ship sunk by the Germans in 1941 to serve as a rempart against mine attacks. If you want to see sunk U-Boote you will need to visit the Davis Tower Museum , it's in the K1 building . It hosts relics from the KM but also a unique German WWII diving simulator

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Hi Skipper, great shots and info on these. Thanks for your time and effort to give us such a great photo essay of your time there. I NEED to go there some day ;-)) Too bad that they can't borrow U 995 from Laboe, U 10 from Wilhelmshaven and U 2540 from Bremerhaven. They would help make a great German display ;-))

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Thanks, Skipper!

Seems that you, as french countryman can reach authentic treasures inside Keroman.....



Jan.

well pull out the 3 long lost late War U-booten XXI's out of the Hamburg bunkers and put one to scale there in Lorient.........

nah not worth the effort really.

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The place is open for ay body and there are even guided tours in English .

Here are a few pictures of the roof of K-3 . Notice the Flak turrets and the bombing bouncing devices. The roof at this point is 7 meter thick and resisted to a massive bombing on August 1944 which included a direct hit on this very roof by a +-5000 kilo Tall boy bomb.

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here are pictures of the inside of K3 with the German ceiling crane that was s maintained by the French after the war and still works.

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a question on the Flak apperatures Skip with loading bays for ammo, you think 8.8cm or larger .....your # 3 pic on thread # 20 ? great impressive shots

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I believe tha tis correct. Considering the large socle I'd say 88mm for anti bomber defense on the roof and 20mm along the docks to prevent diving stafing aircraft from coming too close. I think the 20 mm were twinned or even quadruple mounted , but I'm not certain about that because they were also used by the French after 1945

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Skipper, thanks again from someone who will probably never get to see this in person. It's a poor substitute, but it gives me a better understanding of the setup.

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"Faint heart never won fair maiden", so I say "Go for it!"

Lou

Great shots, Skipper. Thanks for sharing!

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"I do not have to tell you who won the war. You know, the artillery did." - Gen. George S. Patton
"In 9 months and 3 days of combat on the Continent the 949th FA Bn had fired 51,000 rounds of ammunition, approximately 2,550 tons." - Unit History