Original subtitles

Tom ward (narrates): The twisted remains

of a war-torn mountainside complex.

It's such a strange-looking site.

It kind of starts, but just disappears into the forest.

A secretive military structure marooned in freezing waters.

It's a place with lots of mystery.

There really aren't many clues left.

The stranded rusting carcass of a vessel deserted long ago.

There is that slightly

spooky element to it.

You do feel there's a story here somehow.

And a crumbling bridge in america's southern-most state.

It doesn't seem to go anywhere.

There's nothing on it.

Where did this come from? What was it for?

Once, they were some of the most advanced structures

and facilities on the planet,

at the cutting edge of design and construction.

Today, they stand abandoned,

contaminated and sometimes deadly.

But who built them and how

and why were they abandoned?

In southeastern Europe,

in the hills around Sarajevo

a major city in former yugoslavia

is a strange, abandoned complex.

Weaving its way down the side of a mountain

is a network of snow-covered concrete walls,

Bridges and channels.

It's such a strange-looking site.

It curves around with these oblong structures

coming out of the high wall

and it kind of starts, but just disappears into the forest.

It looks like something from 'mad Max'.

The setting for a futuristic game of death.

A concrete channel sits hidden in the forest high above the city.

It's covered in graffiti

and it's stained with algae and decay.

It is a strange place indeed.

It's not the only deserted structure here.

On different slopes around the city are other devastated buildings.

And together, they tell of a story of violence and death.

But what were they all built for

and what sinister event

left them severely damaged and abandoned?

Some of the answers are linked to the battle

that ripped Sarajevo apart

during the terrible war in the Balkans.

The siege of Sarajevo,

the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

became a bloody emblem of the conflict.

It began in April 1992

when 13,000 Bosnian serb troops surrounded the city

and it lasted almost four years,

far longer than the infamous sieges of stalingrad and Leningrad

during world war ii.

The events that unfolded here

cast a dark and tragic shadow

and made men such as Stanislav galic

and dragomir milosevic notorious throughout the world.

So, was the complex billed as part of an elaborate military structure?

At first sight,

it has all the hallmarks of a damaged

and war-torn defensive line.

Its location is strategically important,

because typically, those who hold the high ground

in a military conflict have an advantage.

In this case, that was very true

in terms of artillery positionings and snipers

being able to terrorise the city.

You've got snipers shooting anybody.

We're not just shooting soldiers,

we're shooting civilians, we're shooting children.

They're shooting

people who just are caught in the crossfire.

It is a ghastly place.

In fact, they weren't originally built for war.

They were all involved

in one of the cities proudest moments.

These are the remains of the 1984 winter olympic venues.

The winter Olympics were extremely important

for Sarajevo.

For a start,

it's the first time that a socialist state

has hosted the winter Olympics.

But for yugoslavia,

it was a chance to put the best foot forward

on a world stage.

This gives Sarajevo a chance to be seen.

So, they really think,

with that much focus coming onto them from abroad,

this is going to do wonders

for the yugoslavian tourist industry.

But as previous hosts had found out,

the cost of putting on the games often got completely out of control.

The decaying structures here tell a story of despair,

rather than celebration.

So, was Sarajevo really able to make a success of the games?

You're going to need to look after the athletes.

You're going to look after everybody

who's going to come to see the games.

So, what they've already got,

they're going to need to reinvigorate.

Sarajevo had to invest a large amount of money

in both the venues themselves as well as the infrastructure

to handle all of the crowds.

So, it was quite a daunting task.

One of the key sites was this curving concrete channel.

And its position on this mountain offers a clue as to what it was.

A huge bobsleigh and luge track.

Slavko malec is a former manager of one of the olympic venues.

This is one of the steepest tracks in the world,

where crews were able to achieve super high speeds

and had to possess a lot of skill to avoid flipping over.

But despite all those elements,

the speed, the steepness and the rest,

it was still considered one of the safest tracks.

Today, its crumbling remains peppered with holes

tell only of a deadlier use.

But was the track and the other sites on this mountain

an olympic success story?

On 8 February 1984,

the world tuned in to find out.

The Olympics weren't just successful in a technical

and organisational sense,

it was also a financial success.

The equivalent of a 20 million surplus

speaks for itself.

I do not remember any olympic games that were so successful,

especially nowadays.

It was the first winter Olympics to actually make money

since the early 1930s.

So, for the people of yugoslavia, it was a great success.

After the winter Olympics,

the facilities continued to be in use.

The luge track, for instance,

was used in many world cup competitions,

while the ski resort went on to become

one of the most popular in the country.

But the sites today show that the olympic dream

was eventually shattered.

So, what happened?

I never believed that there could be a war in Sarajevo.

Not for one moment did I believe it could happen.

Life in Sarajevo was such

that you could not foresee war coming here.

Just eight years later, in 1992,

the Yugoslav federation was breaking apart

and civil war engulfed Sarajevo.

For more than three years,

fighting between Bosnia's Muslim, serb and croat populations,

tore the region apart.

The Bosnian Serbs held the city to ransom

and the siege lasted 44 months.

The longest siege of a capital city in modern history.

The scars of war can still be seen

in the pockmarked concrete of the buildings.

And the mountainside that housed the bobsleigh track

had a deadly role to play.

The bobsleigh track was, in effect,

the frontline between the two sides.

And unfortunately, the track was damaged by both mortars

and used as an artillery position.

All of the nearby facilities were destroyed.

Because of its elevated position overlooking the city,

this slope and others surrounding Sarajevo

became key offensive locations

from where Bosnian serb artillery constantly pounded the city.

In the peak of the siege, 300 shells a day

rained down on Sarajevo.

The Bosnian serb commander says,

"shell them to the edge of madness."

And he's good to his word.

Memories of the city's bright past disappeared

as stories of horrific scenes began to emerge.

It's at the medal podium

where perhaps some of the most tragic events happen.

Soldiers, when they've captured people from the town,

they take them to the medal podium and there, they are executed.

It's even said that the olympic hotel

was used as a prison.

So many thousands of people died during the siege

that they ran out of space to Bury them.

In the end, they had to use the olympic arena

as a mass cemetery.

The ordeal finally came to an end

on 29 February 1996.

But by then,

the lives of 11,541 sarajevan's

had already been lost.

Today, while some areas have been patched up,

the abandoned structures across this mountain

still display the visible reminders of a very dark period

in the city's history.

When you look at what's left from those winter games,

we have to look at that

as a memorial to the spirit and accomplishment

of the yugoslavian people.

Not to the horrific events that came later.

160km southwest of Miami

lies a vast abandoned structure.

Straddling the waters of the Florida keys,

this bridge stretches out for almost 1.5km.

It looks almost like a metal superstructure on its side.

It's an amazing ribbon of steel and concrete.

There's a big gap in the middle of the structure...

And a smaller gap towards the southern end.

It doesn't seem to go anywhere

there is nothing on it.

So, where did this come from? What was it for?

A rusting pipe that runs the length of the lower level

seems lost amongst the intricate metalwork.

While perched precariously above

is a series of badly cracked concrete slabs.

Could the structure's location hold the key to its current state?

The Florida keys sit right in the middle of hurricane alley.

Southern Florida is target number one.

So, what was the purpose of this colossal bridge?

Why was it built here

and why was it left to disintegrate in the sea?

The story is closely linked to a site over 1,600km away

in Central America.

At the turn of the 20th century,

one of the most ambitious engineering projects in history

was taking place

the construction of the Panama canal.

A lot of ships have come from the pacific,

into the Atlantic, into the Caribbean,

without having to go

many thousands of miles around the horn,

the southern tip of South America.

It was going to revolutionise transport.

It was an 82km stretch of artificial waterway

that connected the pacific and the Atlantic oceans

and it was designed to make maritime trade easier

and speedier.

Work actually began in 1881,

but construction was a slow, complex and hazardous business.

It wasn't until the usa

took control of the project in 1904

that real progress was made

and the canal opened in 1914.

The shortcut suddenly put key west on the map.

As the most southerly point in the usa,

it was perfectly placed to become the gateway to america

for the shipping industry.

But the state of Florida wasn't prepared.

Key west was a pretty thriving port city.

It was one of the largest towns in all of Florida.

What's interesting is the rest of Florida

wasn't very developed this time.

It was largely uninhabited scrubland

and swamps.

The grand resorts and cities and Disney world,

none of that was there at that time.

The main problem was that key west

had no transport link to the mainland.

And the state wasn't about to construct a new one.

So, who built this and why?

Park ranger Elaine Mason has the answer.

A man named Henry Morrison flagler decided to build this bridge.

He had already started building the railroads on the east coast

and he had gotten to Miami

and then, he decided he was going to build the railroad to key west.

He was the man to do it.

These remains spanned

the most treacherous section of water

the railroad had to cross.

This is the bahia Honda bridge.

This was one of the biggest

single engineering challenges of the entire project

because of the sheer depth of the water.

So, really challenging place to build.

This was one of the great engineering innovations of that era.

And look at it now. It's still there after 100 years.

But this bridge was just one of many.

The whole route was planned to stretch

more than 200km from key west,

all the way to the mainland.

This was just an incredibly audacious undertaking,

because when you look at that map, you see

there's almost as much water between the islands,

as there is land on the islands.

Just imagine trying to build Bridges

over around 40 different stretches of water.

In 1905,

work began on what was called the overseas railroad.

To be in with a chance of success,

it had to be completed before the Panama canal opened.

And if they couldn't cross the water around bahia Honda quay,

then the whole project would fail.

The bahia Honda bridge was the biggest challenge

the workmen faced.

It's almost a mile long.

It's the deepest channel in the quay.

It's 30 feet deep.

The currents are very fast.

And you'll get four changes of tides a day.

But the unpredictable tropical weather

would soon play its part.

One of the challenges in the quays, of course, is hurricanes.

Today, we know a week in advance

when a hurricane is coming.

Back then, these things came out of nowhere.

They didn't have

that kind of weather forecasting.

So, they couldn't anticipate them, they couldn't prepare for them

and many, hundreds of lives were lost in the quays.

During construction,

three major hurricanes struck the Bridges,

killing more than 100 workers

and putting the entire project in jeopardy.

After three years of hard toil,

the bahia Honda bridge successfully stretched

the 1,540m to the next quay.

But would the rest of the overseas railroad

be finished in time?

It was very difficult, building the Bridges.

A lot of it was unknown territory.

There were mosquitos, bugs,

the heat was intense.

They had to bring everything, all fresh water, all the food,

plus all of the materials.

Finally, in 1912,

the bahia Honda bridge

and the overseas railroad were ready for use.

It had beaten the construction of the Panama canal by two years.

Everybody in the world who was interested in engineering

knew about the Panama canal.

It was by far the most impressive

work of engineering on the planet.

But a lot of people thought that this railroad was a close second.

So, had it worked?

Did this become the route into the us?

Sadly, the dream of the trade

from the Panama canal never materialised.

The ships bypassed key west altogether,

went straight to the major ports on the east coast

or into Texas or New Orleans areas.

Unfortunately, it never really made any money.

But it had the tourists going back and forth to key west.

Then, in 1935, the labour day hurricane hit.

Between 250 and 300 men

working on a new road bridge network

were lost to the storm,

which also killed more than 100 natives of the quays.

As well as the devastating loss of life,

the hurricane caused damage estimated at $3 million

to the overseas railroad.

And the company couldn't afford the repairs.

They sold the entire thing,

lock, stock and barrel, to the state,

who was already building a highway.

They converted all the old Bridges

and people started driving their automobiles.

In the 1970s,

a larger, four-Lane highway was built right beside it.

Two sections were removed from the bahia Honda bridge

to allow boat traffic through.

And, finally, it was abandoned for good.

Today, the two sections of the bahia Honda bridge

are the most obvious signs

of this extraordinary engineering project.

But a few small remains can still be found.

A few weeks ago, I was walking on the beach

and I found this railway spike.

It's over 100 years old.

You can still see the marks of the hammer on the top of here.

And it really does make you think, though.

All the brutally hard work and the hot sun.

Pounding these railroad spikes into the ground.

There's a whole story in this itself.

In central Europe,

on the north coast of Poland,

is a mysterious structure lost at sea.

Just over 300m from the shore,

this crumbling concrete building dominates the coastal waters.

With its high observation tower and isolated position,

it looks like a maximum-security prison.

That, or a James Bond villain's lair.

A tower is a bit odd.

Then you think, "well, was this some kind of lighthouse

or some kind of marine research centre?"

It's really a skeleton of what

was once probably a much larger and much more imposing structure.

But what remains above the water is only part of the story.

There's a sunken walkway nearby.

One wonders whether that was

in any way part of this construction.

It's a place with lots of mystery,

lots of questions you can ask yourself.

So, what was this complex used for

and why was it finally cut off from the land

and abandoned out at sea?

The answers are to be found in the Nazi's effort

to advance their weapons programme during the second world war.

When it comes to world war ii,

one of the most significant weapons systems deployed

was the torpedo.

Normally, we think about the torpedo fired by a u-boat

as being a real potential war winner for Nazi Germany.

Torpedos might damage a battleship. They won't sink it.

But merchant ships, which are unarmoured,

are easy prey for torpedoes.

Operating with deadly force in the battle of the Atlantic,

groups of u-boats called wolf packs

terrorised the allies' merchant fleets.

The convoys across the Atlantic were vital to the British war effort

and the fight against the u-boat peril

was part of the longest continuous campaign of world war ii.

In all, 3,500 allied merchant ships

and 175 war ships were lost

and more than 72,000 allied seamen were killed.

The man most associated with the wolf pack tactic

is admiral Karl donitz,

who from 1942,

marshalled his type vii u-boats to devastating effect.

But u-boat torpedoes had not always been reliable.

U-boats, at the beginning of the war,

are finding that 30% of their torpedoes

are simply not exploding when they're supposed to.

German torpedoes suffered from their proximately detonators.

These were affected by the magnetic core of the earth,

which mean the torpedo just went off well before it should have done.

So, you need a lot of critical, detailed research early on.

And when the war breaks out in 1939,

Germany has not done that critical research.

The Germans knew they had to quickly improve

their torpedo technology.

This site was built to help solve the problem.

During the war,

it was called torpedowaffenplatz hexengrund,

meaning torpedo weapons place of the witch's ground.

Local diver mariusz szymanski knows the site well.

The first time I dived

near the torpedo testing station was in 2001.

It's always been shrouded in mystery.

You can say that

it's a very difficult area for diving

because there are many dangerous items left behind in the water.

There are various parts of torpedoes and other dangerous objects there.

Today, this structure is known as torpedownia,

but what remains is just a small part of the vast complex.

Onshore, the Nazis constructed an airfield,

manufacturing facilities,

a railway yard and more.

Around 2,500 people worked across the coastal sites,

which were dedicated to torpedo development.

You had diver embarkation areas, you had harbours for small vessels,

you had research facilities, workshops,

even living quarters for the staff who worked there.

Torpedownia was connected to it all by a long pier

used to bring in the new torpedoes.

All leading to this unique,

u-shaped building,

which is there to actually launch the torpedoes

that are being assembled and tested.

So, torpedownia is a crucial final element.

The Nazis were relying heavily on this site

to give them the advantage in the fight for the oceans.

But why build such a sophisticated research site here,

hundreds of miles from the battle of the Atlantic?

The torpedo testing station was built in 1940

and put into operation in 1942.

This location was chosen as it was a remote place.

It could not be reached by the allied air force.

The goal was to protect

this research and development centre,

which was of great importance

as far as creating torpedo prototypes was concerned.

But these torpedoes were not destined for u-boats.

Torpedownia was, in fact, run by the luftwaffe,

the German airforce.

These weapons would soon be strapped to the underside of an aircraft.

A number of countries

already possessed effective aerial torpedoes.

Most notably Japan,

who had demonstrated their destructive power

on the us fleet at Pearl harbor.

Germany, however, lagged far behind.

In the early years of the war,

Germany misses a major opportunity

to attack British warships

particularly in the campaign around Norway

and cripple the British fleet.

They simply don't have a viable airdrop torpedo

that can do the job.

Nazi high command

ordered the luftwaffe to get up to speed.

And this site became the heart of the operation.

But developing aerial torpedoes

presented a whole new set of challenges.

Because torpedoes are so delicate,

it's difficult enough to fire them from a submarine

or fire them from a surface vessel.

Dropping them from an air is a whole different project.

You need some kind of apparatus to make it fly effectively

as it goes from one medium, the air,

into the second medium, the water,

and not start doing all kind of crazy things.

On the surface, there's little to suggest

the Nazis ever developed effective torpedoes here.

But the secrets of the facility have begun to be offered up

by the waters below.

I hold, in my hands, a very rare object.

It's an emersion device

which was mounted on the warhead at the front of the torpedo.

It's a prototype,

probably the only one in the world that has survived.

But it's not only this outer casing that has survived.

Even some of the more complicated components

have remained in astonishingly good condition.

And here's the gyroscope.

It still works. Have a look.

You could say it was like the computer

that controlled the torpedo trajectory.

It was all up to the gyroscope, really.

It was the most important device in the torpedo.

From here, the new torpedo prototypes

would undergo vital tests...

While the engineers tracked their progress from the watchtower.

The torpedo on a ramp

was pulled down to a submerged torpedo launcher.

It was then launched along a channel that ran seven miles across the bay.

When they were at the end of their rung,

they were caught in torpedo nets.

Divers were then deployed from small boats down to the bottom,

recovered the torpedoes,

and any adjustments that were being needed

and were being observed from the observation tower were made

and the torpedoes were tested again.

Further testing saw aircraft dropping torpedoes into the bay.

But ultimately,

the Nazis never managed to catch up with the other nations.

In the field, initial successes

quickly turned into mounting losses

as the allies learned to defend against low-flying torpedo aircraft.

If they'd been able to employ

these airdrop torpedoes earlier in the war,

it could have had a big effect on the war

in the mediterranean, for example.

But it didn't.

Torpedownia is a great might-have-been

when it comes to world war ii structures.

Yes, it did its job. It worked very effectively.

But really, it was too late to do the job

it was supposed to be doing much earlier.

Torpedownia was just too little, too late.

They were never going to get

their torpedo technology perfected in time.

The Germans had hoped

that torpedownia would be a game changer in the war,

but they were always one step behind.

And soon enough,

with the Soviets closing in,

the site was abandoned.

Today, the front wall of the building has disappeared,

having fallen in to the sea years ago.

And what remains seems to be about to collapse.

But it's still a visible monument to Nazi failure.

When you see torpedownia today, it reminds you that

even the greatest empires are heavily dependent

on technological advancement.

If you don't move fast enough, technology will fail you.

And that's exactly what happened to the Germans

and their torpedo development.

In the south Atlantic ocean,

in the waters of the Falkland Islands,

is a bizarre site.

A deserted sailing ship stranded on a sand bank.

Here's this rusting carcass

just stuck out there in the bay.

Where did it come from?

Usually, when we think of a shipwreck,

we think of a ship that's pretty broken up.

But this one looks pretty intact.

What's it made of? How come it hasn't fallen apart?

It's very hard to see what's wrong with it.

There's a bit of damage, but not that much.

It almost looks as though you could stick

some sails on that thing

and sail it out of the harbour today.

Still almost upright,

she seems to have defied both time

and the elements to remain anchored to this spot.

There is that slightly

spooky element to it.

You do feel there's a story here somehow.

There's something behind this relic of a bygone age

just sitting, waiting for its crew to return.

It makes you wonder,

what happened that left it in this sorry state?

Was it attacked in war

or did pirates take it

and just leave it there to be abandoned

or did the crew actually mutiny and leave on their own?

So, how did it all go wrong for this ship?

And of all the places in the world,

why is she stranded here, in such a remote location?

The beginnings of her story can be found far across the seas

in the second half of the 19th century,

when one mighty power ruled the waves, britain.

This was the time of the industrial revolution.

Only a few decades earlier,

britain's economy had been based on the textile industry.

But now, it was known as the workshop of the world,

a mighty industrial powerhouse

driven by the new factories in the big cities.

Two things were crucial

to keep britain's industrial wheels turning.

One was her all-powerful Navy,

which was the greatest in the world.

The second was her empire.

The British empire, the largest empire

the world has ever known, was an empire built on trade.

There was simply no way britain could survive

once the industrial revolution had taken over.

And once britain really stopped being able to feed itself,

it was heavily reliant on trade,

bringing food and raw materials in

and exporting its goods

so they could be sold around the world.

To keep the British empire running,

greater numbers of cheaper ships were desperately needed

and this was one of those vital crafts,

the lady Elizabeth.

She made her maiden voyage in 1879.

But in the age of steam power,

why did she have three masts?

It all came down to cost.

A sailing ship

doesn't need to burn expensive coal.

The wind is free

and as long as you're not in too much of a hurry,

the sailing ship will get your cargo to its destination eventually.

Though it looks very old,

it's actually a much more modern vessel than you'd realise,

and that's because of what it's made from.

The iron plates along the side rather than timber.

Iron essentially offers more bang for your buck than wood.

So there's more space for cargo,

which means that each of your journeys

is going to be more profitable.

So, what disaster

caused such a reliable and profitable ship

to be abandoned so far from home?

Life at sea back then was no ocean cruise,

as the lady Elizabeth soon discovered in 1884

on a treacherous journey from London to Sydney.

They hit real hurricane-force winds going around the horn,

and which caused a lot of damage to the ship.

The crew had to fight for hours

to survive this storm and this heavy weather.

All of a sudden, these guys have to climb up these lines,

high up the mast of the ship that's swaying back and forth.

At one moment, you're out over one side of the boat,

the next moment, you're out over the other side.

It was not uncommon for sailors to fall out of the rig

and not even hit the boat.

They would just fall right into the water

and, of course, there was no way to turn around and pick them up.

The lady Elizabeth survived,

but the narrow escape terrified her crew.

And the moment they reached port, a number of them jumped ship.

The grim mood aboard wasn't helped

when two seamen contracted highly contagious malaria

and then mysteriously went missing.

All is well until one of the men goes missing.

And word goes around the ship really quickly that,

"hey, he's gone."

And, you know, that creates some concern.

Of course it does.

But it got worse that evening when the other man went missing.

Now there's a state of panic.

Now they go and they cheek the lifeboats.

They're all there. Well, how about the sea?

It's not rough. It's really still.

Nobody really knows what happened to the two men

and to this day, it remains a mystery.

But if the ship could withstand unexplained disappearances

and the worst weather mother nature could throw at her,

then what happened in the falklands that finally cut her time short?

The end came for the lady Liz in 1913, her final voyage.

She was doing a fairly long haul.

All the way from Vancouver to Africa, carrying timber.

But again, she hit heavy weather.

There was a lot of damage to the ship itself.

And actually, four men were washed overboard

in this appalling weather she met

going round the southern tip of South America, cape horn.

It was so bad, in fact,

there was so much damage to the ship itself,

the captain decided he had no choice

but to run for the nearest safe harbour.

The remaining sailors fought for their lives

as they battled through the storm.

But disaster was about to strike.

As she neared the port,

the lady Elizabeth smashed into a rock.

The ship was headed to a small port

in the Falkland Islands,

which are really in the middle of nowhere in the south Atlantic.

And on their way towards the port, they hit a rock.

They knocked a pretty good size hole in the bottom of the boat.

It started to flood.

She had been fatally holed below the water line.

Lady Elizabeth crawled into harbour with water pouring in.

And that was the end of her days on the open seas.

She was patched up, sold

and moored in the harbour

to become a floating warehouse for timber.

But if she couldn't be sailed,

how did she make it across from there

to her final resting place?

On 17 February 1936,

a heavy storm hit the falklands.

Lady Elizabeth was moored in port Stanley,

but her moorings broke loose.

She drifted round to whalebone cove,

where she beached on the sands

and that's where she's been ever since,

slowly rusting away.

What's so interesting and kind of spooky

about the lady Elizabeth

is it looks so intact.

That's that iron hull.

Usually when a boat's been wrecked for,

you know, the better part of a century,

it's really broken down to some pretty scattered pieces.

The masts are still sticking up

for the most part

and it looks pretty intact and dramatic,

like it just sailed in maybe just, you know, not long ago.

Today, the lady Elizabeth's rusting remains

are a haunting memorial to both the sailors

who lost their lives in the service of the ship

and the perils of life on the open oceans.

If the lady Elizabeth has a moral,

it's that the life of ships and the life on the sea

is difficult, dangerous

and often does not come to a happy end.

There have been plans over the years

to convert lady Liz

into a floating museum

as testament to all the work she did around the globe

for so many years.

Sadly, that's never come to fruition.

Sheer lack of funding.

Now, they lie abandoned,

but once,

they were at the cutting edge of engineering.

There are echoes from history in these decaying structures.

They remind us of terror and war,

but also of great innovation

and human endeavour.

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