Largest And Most Secret Bunkers in Cold War - Documentary films - Official

Oh from indomitable fortified structures - secret hideaways very deep beneath the ground bunkers offer protection from one's enemies and the hope of a refuge in the face of unthinkable danger one of the largest most secret bunkers ever built lies nestled in a lush in remote pocket of the Allegheny Mountains near White Sulphur Springs West Virginia the luxurious greenbrier hotel and recreational facility is a five hour drive from the nation's capital this 6,500 acres resort is a playground for the rich and famous the 531 room main hotel is complemented by three golf courses and innumerable amenities but this old southern style mansion belies a deep secret behind this utility door marked high-voltage to keep out the curious lies the entrance to one of the largest most secret bunkers of the Cold War i'm standing at the wheel of a 25-ton blast door this is one of four entrances into the bunker itself we're standing at the West tunnel entrance this particular door as well as the other three Doors all have to be manually operated it is 10 x 18 18 inches thick and it swings freely in closing up to lock it into place this bunker was designed to protect not an individual or small group but every member of the united states congress in the event of a nuclear strike named greek island the facility was encased by up to three feet of steel reinforced concrete with portions resting nearly a hundred feet beneath the ground as Barker really was an amazing project in the sense that it was not just a big concrete box it was a site where a whole segment of the government come down they could live here they could sleep here they could eat here all their physical needs were taking care of 18 Spartan dormitories with a capacity of 60 individuals each comprise the core of the bunker the dining facility able to feed 400 at a time and chambers large enough to accommodate sessions by both the House of Representatives and Senate completed the complex enough food and water were stored to sustain the lawmakers for 60 days meanwhile forty-two thousand gallons of diesel fuel was available to feed three generators providing power for over a month for government planners it seemed a long enough period to ensure delivery of more supplies built in 1958 the construction of the greenbrier bunker was shrouded in secrecy so the challenge was the government is asking the greenbrier and its owners such as speaking our railway to build a huge hundred and twelve thousand square foot steel reinforced concrete bunker right next to a major luxury resort hotel without anybody noticing what they're doing so how we gonna do this is the issue and they come up with a very clever idea which is we're going to build it right in front of everybody's nose the plan called for the greenbrier hotel to build a new wing work on the new building with mass construction of the mammoth subterranean bunker tons of excavated earth from beneath the hotel were quietly disposed of by building an additional nine hole golf course but the simultaneous construction of the hotel and bunker led to some interesting compromises an unusual aspect to the secret bunker is that a portion of what about a fifth of the square footage was in fact available to green bar guests in fact situations will arise where you'd be standing there and somebody with salsa hands and this is secret bunker at the rim bar and you said no there's no such thing and and there you were standing inside of this secret bunker the room behind me was used by many thousands of Greenbriar guest they never realized it was part of the bunker hidden behind this secret panel is an 18-ton blast door when closed it seals off the bunker from the hotel despite the government's best efforts covert construction and hidden doors could not keep the bunker secret a Washington Post article in 1992 blue it's cover effectively destroying the facility is thoroughly as a nuclear bomb even the accuracy and power of today's weapons a bunker is only as good as its anonymity the newly exposed greenbrier was retired but most certainly not before another top secret congressional bunker was opened to take its place with secrecy at a premium it goes without saying that the best bunkers in the world are the ones we know nothing about the President of the United States is said to have access to a network of top secret bunkers probably located on or near military bases around the country in addition the president relies on a sort of flying bunker Air Force One able to refuel in midair the plane can stay aloft indefinitely or be flown to any number of secret hideouts Bunker's of course can protect us from the enemy but they can also protect the enemy from us that's why building bunkers is only half of any country's defensive challenge learning how to smash through buggers is equally important beneath this desert landscape sits a state-of-the-art fortified defensive position a military bunker safely hidden from sight the bunker is built of concrete and reinforced steel and protected by tons of Earth but it is about to be utterly destroyed the GPU 28 bunker buster bomb has been specially designed to destroy hardened under ground targets the GPU 28 is this weapon right here in the front it's got a laser detector where we can spot a laser on the ground and this weapon will fly directly to that spot very accurately this bomb is a 5,000 pound or two but it is the brains of the weapon that make it especially effective against bunkers use is a little device used to set off this warhead and what it will enable this weapon to do is actually count the floors it's going through in an underground bunker so it can actually sense different stories and we can have to go off in the precise room or a critical computer radio transmitter maybe even weapons of mass destruction are located weapons such as the GPU 28 underscore fact that bunker builders have struggled with since the dawn of the nuclear age the distributed power unleashed by today's weapons is far greater than any structure can withstand but that has not stopped people from trying to build the perfect bunker one of the most impressive bunkers in the world lies beneath 9560 *** with Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs Colorado nearly a third of a mile under this massive granite peak it's the Cheyenne Mountain operation center the reason that the ad states established cheyenne mountain as a bunker was to create a central facility within which it could collect information initially about bomber attacks against the United States and its name the north american air defense command NORAD and later to war in the United States of an attack with ballistic missiles that presumably would have been launched from the Soviet Union your earlier dude in 1966 Cheyenne Mountain was one of the deepest and best protected military bunkers on the planet facility was specially designed to withstand a near hit by a nuclear device shielded by the mountain the 15 building complex was shocked isolated on hundreds of three foot steel springs in the event of an attack these Springs would provide a moving barrier between the facility and shifting earth a 25-ton blast doors sealed the four and a half acre facility protecting the military and civilian staff from the force and heat of a nuclear blast nearly 1,200 people can survive in this mountain for up to three weeks at a cost of a hundred and forty-two point four million dollars the massive bunker jointly run by the united states and canada is still active protecting the personnel and equipment that scan the skies for enemy attacks a few experts believe even this bunker could withstand a mirage from today's nuclear arsenal in the early days nuclear weapons were not terribly accurate a place like Cheyenne Mountain for example with the NORAD headquarters was reasonably safe because it was unlikely that could be directly it but today with super accurate missiles there's virtually no place that's involved in here not even a bunker in the middle of a mountain next cannons and forts face off while I explosive spring armies to new loads during World bunkers are relatively recent creations on the military fortification family tree but the story of defensive structures goes back to ancient times and the beginnings of war fortifications existed as long as people have built buildings from the very earliest ages there was a need to defend against some sort of hostile threat and as technology advanced the need to improve those defenses to meet that technology also increased for thousands of years fortified positions had the upper hand during battle ancient siege machines were so ineffective against citadels and walled cities that attacking armies often resorted to treachery during the legendary Trojan War a Greek spent nine years trying to breach the walls of Troy they finally succeeded after convincing the Trojans to accept a giant gift horse made of wood Greek soldiers hidden inside the voice waited until they were safely through the city gates to mount their attack the clandestine Greeks bear testament to the near and vulnerability of early strongholds from primitive forts of earth and rock to medieval castles of carved stone these fortifications enabled a relatively small number of defenders to hold off Army's many times their size the first real challenge to defensive superiority came with the invention of the cannon a powerful yet relatively mobile siege weapon first used in the 14th century projectiles fired from cannons forced builders to construct thicker walls to safeguard the structures within when artillery first came along the first attempt at the military engineers did try to do was to make their walls thicker and stronger but that didn't work as artillery got better it was able to knock down the stone walls no matter how thick they made them military engineers responded by sinking fortress walls into the ground using the earth to absorb shells impact the new defensive technique coupled with the relative in accuracy of early artillery shifted the advantage back to the defender where it remained well into the 19th century we've reached a stage where the technology of war makes fixed known facilities highly vulnerable once you have accurate artillery you have the ability to destroy facility might take days or weeks but very few things can withstand long-term assault with with artillery the American Civil War saw the first widespread use of these more accurate weapons in 1862 just two years after the start of hostilities the Confederate held Fort Pulaski on Cockspur Island in savannah georgia or the brunt of an attack using newly developed rifle barreled cannons Union shells fired from these weapons were stunningly accurate fort pulaski seven and a half with thick walls were pummeled by artillery fired more than a mile away dominance of ramp earth and stone walls is quickly coming to an end the introduction of high explosives at the end of the 19th century made for two people more elite high explosives were capable to a great amount of damage more than any masonary or earth wall could sustain so then there was a need to develop a new technology to deal with that in the technology that they came up with was reinforced concrete at the turn of the 20th century both France and Germany began to use the new technology to strengthen existing ports neither country realized that just 15 years later the hardened structures would be the center of the greatest battles of the first world war the Germans built the first true military bunkers and incorporated them into their trench lines during World War one is relatively small structures made of steel and reinforced concrete defended german troops command centers and weapons against the nearly 5 million tons of explosives fired by the Allies here in the French countryside lay the remnants of a world war one concrete bunker yeah less than a hundred and twenty kilometers north of paris this structure was once part of a 250 mile trench and bunker complex comprising the famed Western Front today the bunkers rusting steel reinforcing rods protrude from the crumbling concrete shell as it marks the boundary between a bean patch and a field of wheat yeah during the war war machine gunners inside these bunkers were blinded by smoke and deafened by the sound of their weapons reverberating off the bare walls inside the bunker was far preferable to being outside firing through slits known as embrasures conquered owners took a terrible toll in allied lives so hated with a machine gunners that upon surrendering they were often executed by vengeful soldiers still the bunkers were remarkably successful one of the reasons that the bunker concept really took hold was the realization that the old fashioned for it was really a case of putting all your eggs in one basket a fort was considered to be a target and damage to one portion could potentially damage another portion so you wanted to disperse your defense as much as possible and that led to putting everything in isolated bunkers France and Germany each suffered nearly a million and a half casualties in the Great War the catastrophic losses prompted both countries to create bunker and defensive line fortifications on an unprecedented scale the French began construction on the imagino lie in 1929 a 200-mile defensive barrier that they believed would keep germany at bay stretching over much of the northern and eastern borders of France and incorporating many natural barriers the mammoth structure may be the greatest bunker complex ever built the marginal line use the theory of a thin tough skin a very narrow very strong line of fortifications that was designed to repulse the enemy the fortification consisted of a line of strong mutually supporting completely self-sufficient bunkers armed with machine guns and anti-tank weapons much of the line bristled with artillery some of the structures were connected by a tunnel to a subterranean support complex containing a command post living quarters storage facilities and power plant in short everything necessary to make them fully independent the largest structures within the line utilized integrated rail systems to move men and ammunition taken as a whole imagino line was a formidable obstacle to any hostile advance but it would not fulfill the French desire to keep the Germans out in nineteen forty soon after the outbreak of world war two Hitler's forces completely circumvented the National on my first invading Luxembourg and Belgium to the north and then descending into france between the wars the Germans in particular developed a new approach to warfare they've seen what happened in trench warfare and they didn't want to repeat it and they looked at ways to avoid repeating them French on the other hand we're basically still ready to fight the First World War they weren't prepared for what the Germans did and when the Germans went round the marginal line they had no Carter after over running most of France the German circled back to finally take on the imagino line but even one attack from behind French fortifications were exceptionally difficult to destroy the Germans unleashed heavy artillery fired from a distance but bringing forward special guns and zeroing in on the target took precious time for the lightning-fast German war machine the best offensive against bunkers was infantry soldiers different types of bunkers and imagine a line meant that no one textbook maneuver worked most plans involved first blinding the bunkers with clean throwers then moving in close to plant an explosive device known as a central charge no the bunkers were clearly vulnerable they had proven their effectiveness so much so that while the Germans part to crush the remaining imagino bunkers they also built similar concrete structures on the western seaboard of France to protect their newly conquered territory like the bunkers of imagino line the German fortifications would prolong the battle but ultimately lose the war next the weapons of the Second World War force engineers to construct some of the greatest bunkers ever built german submarines were the bane of Allied ships during the Second World War patrolling the waters of the North Atlantic the submarine stopped American supplies and troops from reaching European ports when submerged these stealthy hunters were almost unstoppable but above water they were nearly helpless particularly vulnerable when taking on supplies or being repaired building a bunker to protect a single 250 foot submarine would be a major undertaking but on the north eastern shores of occupied France Germany built a submarine bunker complex to house not one but up to 24 of their u-boats dream mammoth block structures comprise the submarine complex in the seaside village of lori all inside these bunkers lay a small city able to house and protect the submarines as well as perform repairs and stored tons of ammunition torpedoes and fuel to supply the underwater killers our program is at the core two buildings phenomenal structure about it obviously needed a lot of workers is your name nearly fifteen thousand prisoners labored for 10 years two buildings most of the labor went into constructing the roofs of the buildings the bunkers ceilings were built of steel reinforced concrete over 10 feet thick to protect against enemy bombs the third and largest building has two routes making it nearly impenetrable that before network at home it's like on defense so they could work the first silly measures 3.5 meters thick and covers the entire building of it then there is an air space on top of which there is a second group which covers approximately two-thirds of the bunker groups were so well built they forced the British to develop special 6-ton bunker buster bombs called tall boys in August six nineteen forty-four the Royal Air Force scored a direct hit this 15-foot wide crater on top of the roof is the result of the monstrous blast but despite the tremendous explosion the weapon was only able to penetrate a few feet the roof was so thick nearly 20 feet of solid reinforced concrete remained intact to protect the facility below the tall boy at least managed to land on the roof most other bombs earmarked for the bunker and the planes carrying them never came close over the course of the war nearly 20,000 German soldiers were assigned to anti-aircraft batteries atop the bunker complex and throughout the surrounding city successful tax by allied pilots were nearly impossible Ariel frontal attacks on the bunker were equally difficult many of the submarine pens have water level blast doors that were lowered at the first sign of troubled the barrier would stop torpedoes and specially designed skipping bombs from literally entering through the front door yeah for additional protection the German scheduled two ships in the harbor 200 yards from the bunkers entrance the sunken ships provided an additional barrier to defend against torpedo attacks the bunkers were impervious to nearly every weapon in the Allied arsenal still they were vulnerable Lori own bunkers depended upon a steady stream of goods and materials to operate properly once the Allies realized they could not destroy the bunkers out right they turn to cutting the supply lines unfortunately for the French the bunker supply lines ran directly through the city of lori all that's not a long one sixty thousand bombs fell on the city and always 70 building of were left standing in the town center after they were the whole city had to be revealed fortunately the lorry on population was completely evacuated before the bombing started so on a human level there are a few victims but on a material level we lost everything Lori all suffered the same devastating fate as many European cities during the war but unlike Lori all other cities were rarely able to evacuate before hand in London german bombers showered the city with high explosives and incendiary bonds the citizens sought refuge underground bunkers and hastily converted subway tunnel shelters protected the people while the city above them burned the bombs of the raining down on London of that time and indeed not just London but practically every major city in the UK we're doing incredible damage stink bombs could devastate whole area literally flattened buildings destroy streets destroy people's way of life and you might go down to an underground shelter movie tube shelter or even just Street shelter and *** *** and find your whole street it literally just disappear and disappearing was not an option for the British government and in particular Prime Minister Winston Churchill who refused to leave London worried that his absence would demoralize the British people we're good high level British officials take refuge as the bombs fell the British addressed that question by building a top-secret high-tech command bunker in the centre of London converted from a series of small basement storerooms in 1938 the cabinet War Rooms served as the underground nerve center from which Churchill and his War Cabinet led the fight the configuration of the cabinet War Rooms 1940 was about 21 rooms making up about 1,000 square meters but it ended extended in nineteen forty want 45 that occupied similar in the reason about a hundred rooms and was literally three times as big located under the present day treasury building the bunker is within walking distance of both parliament and number ten Downing Street but it was chosen less for its size and location and for its strength building had a steel frame it steel-framed building technology was relatively new or even revolution at that time it wouldn't necessarily stop a bomb but it would hopefully withstand better with the bomb and hit one concerned with aesthetics British builders left these exposed steel girders visible in nearly every major room of the bunker book joists short of the smaller rooms and get the ceiling from crashing down during bombing raids I think the planners knew when it became the headquarters building that it wasn't properly speaking bum proof but it was only at the end of nineteen forty so well into the the bombing raids of the Blitz which started in September's that year that they finally began to install proper bump roofing and what they put in was a layer of reinforced concrete and quite the strongest concrete you can imagine very detectives between about five and ten feet depending body was covering this cutaway in the ceiling reveals the thickness of the concrete as it rests upon the steel girder subframe but it was not just the strength of this structure that made it such an effective command *** behind this unassuming bathroom door lies one of the greatest technological secrets of the entire war the war rooms were really Churchill's high-tech basements head courses and one of the highest high tech items in it suppose was the so-called transatlantic telephone and it allowed the prime minister to talk to the president in complete secrecy and it was in effect really the first direct secret hotline so is behind this humble door marked as a very basic toilet luck that some of the most secret and high-level conversations of the war we're taking place but not every secret associated with the cabinet war rooms were so diligently concealed canada forums code name and mother ironically was number two storeys gate which was its address so i think if the Germans ever did find out about it they had a pretty fair idea where it might be the Germans expected Churchill to be rather deeper and rather further away from his normal premises than literally 10 feet underground hundred yards from his official residence on the other side of the war it all Hitler to sought shelter in underground bunkers these bunkers were the backdrops for some of the most dramatic events in the war the viewer survived an assassination attempt after disillusion German officers placed a bomb in his will chance a bunker complex which was located on the border between Poland and Germany but the most infamous bunker in the world was constructed under the Chancellery building in the heart of Berlin the reason that bunker survived and it survived until the very end of the war when all Soviet and later American other troops went in to investigate that facility it survived because we as the Allies did not have weapons that were sufficiently accurate to destroy that bunker what we were doing is launching aircraft conducting raids against that bunker but bombs and forward to had accuracy is measured in hundreds if not thousands of meters and to destroy a hardened deep underground facility or Bunker you have to have weapons at land directly on that facility otherwise it will survive forever the structure survived the onslaught Hitler did not taking his own life inside the bunker on April thirtieth 1945 with the defeat of Germany America turned its full attention to the south pacific and japan the death knell for the island nation arrived August six nineteen forty-five atomic blast on Hiroshima killed nearly a hundred thousand people and forever changed the landscape of peace and war conkers seemed pointless against the awesome power of a nuclear blast yet the terrible weapon would lead to a bunker building explosion the likes of which the world had never seen next frightened Americans digging deep while the Air Force builds bunkers to protect the deadliest of weapons yeah d onset of the hole and the sudden possibility of nuclear attack paranoia gripped the American public you might be out way at home when the warning stop drop and cover became the survivalist mantra for an entire generation getting the United States government did its best to lay the nation's fears in danger and maybe have a god and he knew just what to do be sure and remember what Burt the turtle just did friends because every one of us must remember to do the same thing that's what this film is all about I think in in retrospect as we look back on that time I think many conclude that idea prospects for survival would have been very dim indeed very dismal indeed and but this was reflective of the time in which people deep you feared that their existence was was on the line and bunkers were seen as the as a solution despite the government's best efforts to provide protection many Americans decided to take matters into their own hands back yard bomb shelters the bunker for the man in the street became the rage from basic store-bought models for less than a hundred dollars especially built structures that cost as much as a house whoa isn't that night was routed directly can live any or very comfortably for at least two weeks and you know this room can be put to other uses as well yes what you could do that there's an extra bedroom for company as the United States came out of the Second World War we had massive armies we had developed nuclear weapons we had crushed to enemies can contrast that with the condition of the United States beginning in the nineteen fifties when the Soviet Union 1949 detonate a nuclear weapon we now for the first time in our history faced absolute vulnerability we never before had faced a time in which our survival our existence could be eradicated on the order of 30 minutes and the reaction was to build bunkers throughout American society both in the governmental level and the military level as well as bunkers throughout American society in many cases within residences Wall Street analysts in the nineteen fifties projected the bomb shelter business as a potential 20 billion dollar industry but this was a quiet building boom the construction and subsequent storage of food water and supplies in underground shelters was performed secretly not from fear of the Russians but from fear of one's own neighbors fighting for cover during the missile attack ironically the best Cold War bunkers did not protect people from nuclear weapons but instead protected the nuclear weapons themselves yeah very deep in the desert flatlands outside of Tucson Arizona it's one of the most advanced and potentially deadly bunkers ever built the facility and others like it were designed to protect and if necessary launched America's largest intercontinental ballistic missiles the Titan tubes builders or retaliatory weapon the missile could be launched in less than 10 minutes by a two-man crew operating deep within the facility a Soviet missile sent to destroy the bunker would take just over half an hour to reach the site by that time the 103 for Titan to will be thundering toward its Russian target constructed in the early sixties the Titan to missile facility is comprised of a 146 foot deep silo and joining command center the structure took nearly a year and a half to build and cost over eight million dollars like the Cheyenne Mountain bunker in Colorado the Titan to facility was built to roll with the punches in the event of a nuclear strike everything in here is shocked isolated from the missile down to the smallest piece of equipment that means they're mounted on spring so should there be a ground movement for any reason the equipment's not going to break is just going to move around the facility could also be closed off to the outside world during an attack we are entering complex we've just come to an area that's very well constructed but not hardened against attack but once we go through a series of three ton blast doors like this one we will be in the hardest part the complex there's a set of blast doors protecting the control center from the outside force and another set protecting it from the style what the largest door is not inside the bunker at all it's on top the enormous 740 tons sliding silo door can be opened in 27 seconds when closed the door shield at the facility to help the structure survive an ear hit by a nuclear weapon my 1963 no less than 50 for Titan to missile sites were operational throughout the country ready at a moment's notice to obliterate an enemy target ironically despite their construction and secrecy nearly all the missile sites were knocked out though not by an enemy attack fifty three of them were dismantled as part of a mutual disarmament pact between the two superpowers today the Arizona bunker is the last that remains in its original form it now draws visitors is a National Historic Site and stands as a testament to both bunker ingenuity and just how close we came to nuclear war next smart bombs wreak havoc in Iraq while the underground bunker DJ hi tek the iraq war as Operation Iraqi Freedom began the Iraqis entrench their forces to defend against the onslaught of us-led coalition troops just as in Desert Storm bunkers and fortified structures how's everything from artillery Saddam Hussein himself but the sense of security provided by these bunkers was quickly shattered ok little smart bombs targeted and struck even the most secret of Saddam's hidden bunkers nothing could have prepared the Iraqi troops for the state of the art precision-guided weapons the war with Iraq suggested bunkers are no longer viable military options when fighting well organized and technologically advanced military's and the US government center at Eglin Air Force Base wants to make that a reality occupying an area two-thirds the size of Rhode Island the air armament center on the Florida Panhandle hilton tests state-of-the-art bunker-busting weapons here test pilots and scientists are able to perfect the guidance and delivery systems for these bonds by dropping the missive in a real battle situation when we're testing the bunker buster type weapons and the idea is to put the weapon on the target ultimately you plan a specific route to get to the target and release the weapon at a specified range from the target the weapons are so accurate they can be dropped by planes up to 10 miles away and it within feet of their target special fuses guidance systems in the ability to burrow underground make these bombs perfect bunker killers but how do you test the individual components of a weapon the travels over a thousand feet per second and is vaporized within milliseconds after impact use our sled track tests yeah the sled tracks are like a railroad track going down for a long distance we put rocket motors behind an actual bomb and we have these things propelled down at the exact same speed that they would seem to hit the ground at the end of the sled track we build an actual bunker now we'll build it with the protection that we see the ground we have the hardened concrete we have layers of dirt with that what you can see is that we can test any of our warheads very effectively just like it when flight tested high-speed cameras and electronic test equipment catch the apocalyptic destruction unleashed in a fraction of a second I do see a time when bunkers will no longer be a utility military protection because we do have much more capable weapons in our inventory despite their practical limitations lunker's still continue to be built humans will always have an instinctual need to be protected and taken out of harm's way the bunker mentality is his old is nearly any thought process and as long as this persists presidents dictators and common people alike will quietly dig into the earth in search of a degree of protection that may no longer be obtainable yeah all right