U Boat pens La Rochelle/France Anyone help?

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On hols recently spent time skulking around the docks in La Rochelle looking for U Boat related things.

Had been told U Boats were kept there as well as St Nazaire,Bordeaux and Brest during WWII.

Love to find out more about this subject,that is anything to do with the role of U Boats in France,

the Allied missions to destroy their pens etc..books, films whatever.Anyone help?

When I got as close as I could,I could see the pens were still in remarkable condition and still being used for this and that.

The whole complex seemed to hold a palpable air of menace.

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Thanks to all of you for posting,got lots of stuff to read up on now.

One last comment..until I saw the pens upfront I'd not really seen part of any industrial sized war making paraphernalia

and,if I may paraphrase dr gn 'it's a sobering sight.' On the way to pick up a hire car the bus drove through the centre of La Rochelle,

past the main square and Town Hall.Which 55 years ago was adorned with two massive swastika's,and the square rang out with the sound

of the occupying Nazis jackboots.

My budget flight took a mere hour and a half back to Manchester.

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dr_gn said:

goldblum said:

My budget flight took a mere hour and a half back to Manchester.

Yeah, wierd: an hour and a half back to Manchester...after raving the night away in the nightclub that now occupies the once deadly Hamburg Flackturm IV G-tower.

These things are awesome: It's as if Hitler thought "Right. Time to get Medieval on the RAF's ass" :

|http://thumbsnap.com/xSVeuK3a[/url]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower#Flakturm_I...

Many of them are too chuffing strong to demolish by any normal means FFS! Like I said, that thing stopped me in my tracks when I first saw it.

Just as well they got stopped really!

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dr_gn said:

jmorgan said:

Chuffin hell. Never come across them before. How far would you have to avoid them? And would a grand slam do the trick with the obvious danger.

According to the Wikipedia link:

"With concrete walls up to 3.5 metres thick, flak towers were considered to be invulnerable to attack with the usual ordnance carried by Allied bombers, though it is unlikely that they would have withstood Grand Slam bombs which successfully penetrated much thicker reinforced concrete. Aircraft generally appeared to have avoided the flak towers. The towers were able to sustain a rate of fire of 8000 rounds per minute from their multi-level guns, with a range of up to 14 km in a full 360-degree field of fire. However only the 128 mm guns had effective range to defend against the RAF heavy bombers. The 3 flak towers around the outskirts of Berlin created a triangle of formidable anti-aircraft fire that covered the centre of Berlin."

The Berlin Flack tower was IIRC the last enclave to surrender: they turned the AA guns downwards onto the tanks below. I *think* they ran out of food or water and that's why they had to give up.

Was talking to an acquaintance earlier on this subject,and was surprised that he knew of these things.He said the reason why the towers have windows,albeit small,

was that Hitler planned to turn them into art galleries after he'd won the war.

Which is nice.

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RicksAlfas said:

I spent a day looking round the ones at Lorient this Summer.
Very interesting. They have a cold war era French sub you can go round.
http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/page/afficheli...

This bit was particualry interesting/moving I thought:
http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/page/affichegh...

Very interesting.