Original subtitles

(Dramatic music)

Tom ward (narrates): A monster machine in Ukraine

seemingly high tech yet left to rust in a giant hanger.

You see a winged structure, part of a fuselage

and then looming over all of it

is this absolutely enormous aircraft.

A ghostly facility sprawling across northern Indiana

displaying strange features.

So, we've got slides coming out of these buildings

and those are not there for fun.

A forest of derelict towers in Greece with mythical origins.

It's a dramatic site, a collection of ruined towers

perched on a hill

with a coastline stretching out in the distance.

And a collection of ruined constructions

strategically perched on the edge of a Scottish loch.

This is such a peaceful location

but these concrete structures,

they evoke a time when this loch

was transformed in to an area of action and frantic activity.

Decaying relics...

Ruins of lost worlds...

Forged through years of toil

now haunted by the past...

Their secrets waiting to be revealed.

(Mildly suspenseful music)

Ukraine Eastern Europe on the outskirts

of the capital of Kiev sits a vast featureless structure

that hides an extraordinary secret.

We're in a kind of industrial suburb

and as you come in to this very abandoned derelict area

with weeds growing through the pavement,

on the edge of this thing you see this one enormous building.

The first thing that strikes you is that

it has these massive, massive doors,

over 100ft high so whatever

this building's intended for

was clearly some kind of super size structure.

When you see anything that's unusual

or just beyond your normal expectation

in scale you're drawn to it,

you want to know what lies behind those doors.

Inside, old machinery that lines the cavernous interior

provides a clue as to what was manufactured within.

It's kind of like a crypt for ancient aircraft,

in pieces mostly.

You see different parts laying around that

haven't been connected yet.

Dwarfing the aircraft stored there

is one massive fuselage of an aeroplane.

It is huge, it towers above everything else

and it dominates the space.

We know that there's a link between this mammoth aircraft

and the cold war but just looking at the plane.

The link isn't clear.

What's the story behind of this?

Why get so far on such a massive scale

and then not complete the job?

Inside this giant hanger

lies an impressive feat of aviation history

that was once at the heart

of a fierce international rivalry

between two super powers.

Hennadii silchenko has worked for the Antonov design bureau

for nearly four decades...

He was part of the team responsible for this plane's development.

As to where we are now...

I can say that we are standing

in one of the warehouses of our company...

Which is used for conservation and storage.

Antonov are a huge Ukrainian aeronautical company,

they were known for making big aeroplanes,

that was their thing.

And it's the sheer scale of the parts

that are key to understanding its origin.

At 84 metres in length,

it is over 11 metres longer than

the world's biggest passenger plane flying today.

The famous a380,

the supersize passenger jet from airbus, isn't even as large.

Clearly this aircraft was designed

for some extraordinary purpose,

something extremely large and heavy.

(Speaks foreign language)

Born at a time when east and west

were locked in bitter struggle

this flying fortress was to have a special role to play.

When we think about the cold war

we think about the potential for military conflict

between the us and the ussr.

We think about nuclear weapons

and the build up of that capability

but the cold war also took place in all these other arenas.

There was a battle of propaganda

to be won as well and space

became the place to fight that one out.

The space race took engineering

and creativity to a whole new level.

So, in 1972

the United States announces the space shuttle program.

And the Soviets see this as alarming,

first of all it's a huge leap

in this prestigious space race.

The Americans are gonna have a new generation of technology

the Soviets don't have.

The Soviets were on the back foot

but they could see that the shuttle program

was the future of space exploration

and this plane is part of that story.

This is the Antonov an-225,

the world's largest model of aircraft.

But how was a giant plane supposed to help the ussr

achieve its goal of conquering space?

Soon as the us announced the shuttle program,

the Soviets decided they were gonna have to come back

with their own program called the buran.

Geographically the ussr is a huge, huge space

with lots of centres of engineering excellence.

Now, the space shuttle program requires huge pieces of technology.

Very big scale engineering and to get them in to one place,

fit for launching,

you'd need to transport everything to that location.

So, the Soviet solution...

Is to fly the space shuttle to the cosmodrome

in southern Kazakhstan

and yet there is no aircraft big enough

to carry a space shuttle.

The engineers knew that the construction of an aircraft

that could solve those issues would without doubt

elevate the aviation industry of not only a Soviet state

but of the entire world.

With an epic challenge ahead of them

the Antonov team got to work.

Just three years after the idea for this model of aircraft

was conceived the monstrous

an-225 finally took to the skies

with a shuttle on its back.

One of the challenges of carrying

a space shuttle on top of an aircraft is

that it really disrupts the airflow

so in the design of the Antonov 225,

they split the tail in to two pieces

so that the vertical stabilisers

were outside of that turbulent zone.

And when it took off

it was not only a shock for the whole world

but to some extent even for us, its creators.

Such a plane in the air is still fantastic to witness.

And it was striking 'cause in 1989

to kind of announce this

great technological breakthrough to the world

they send the an-225 to the Paris air show.

And everybody who sees it is just blown away

by the sheer scale of this aircraft.

With the an-225 declared a resounding success,

the Soviet union forged ahead

with plans to assemble three more.

This was meant to be number two off the production line.

Forget about just being an engineering marvel,

for the Soviets this was a massive propaganda coup.

Although in the end

it really turned out to be too little too late.

A storm was brewing that would spell disaster

for the world's biggest aircraft.

A couple of years later the Soviet union collapsed

and everything changed.

There was really no purpose for the plane,

it got mothballed,

the other models that were under construction

never got completed.

Without the space race,

without that competition with the usa,

why did the world need a plane on that scale?

That's what nobody could figure out.

Yet that wasn't the end of its story.

Pilot dmytro Antonov is one of the few men

to have flown this winged leviathan.

An-225 was bought back to life in 2001,

it started to fly again.

And since that time it has performed numerous

humanitarian missions.

But with the plane costing an astonishing 24,000 pounds

an hour to charter, it's rarely called in to action.

When it does make an appearance it attracts quite a crowd.

When we went to Australia for instance

we were met by more than 15,000 people.

And when you realise that all of them

just came to see us, to see the plane,

it makes us feel proud, we are proud to be flying it.

What puts this on the must see list is that

it actually holds 240 world records

including carrying

the world's heaviest commercial cargo

and the world's heaviest single object.

(Soft music)

Today this incomplete chapter

in aviation history may lie in pieces

but Antonov have not given up hope of one day

seeing it take to the skies.

Unlike the first aircraft,

this one is unfinished, however we are still proud of it.

Of course we really want to finish it,

we have the means to do so,

the only thing we need is a customer

who would buy it

and then we would start work on it straight away.

It's getting another look by powers like China

as a possible entree into the space race for themselves.

So, you know, potentially there is still even a bright future.

On a remote coast in Scotland

a cluster of ruins emerge out of a wild landscape.

(Suspenseful music)

On the fringes of the north west highlands,

on the tip of Scotland, you're totally exposed

to the full force of the north Atlantic.

We've got a rocky rugged coastline

and we've got concrete fortifications

built right in to the rocks.

You can see that this is a defended location.

Some look like lookout posts,

others more like pillboxes or gun emplacements.

It becomes ever clearer that

this was a scene of a major military enterprise.

We have to wonder

what is so important

here in this quiet rural area

that needs to be defended like this.

This was the setting for a daring operation.

Yet mystery still swirls around this site.

The impact of the war has left its Mark

and it's a story that due to the secrecy act

isn't entirely well understood.

The origins of this secret site

are intrinsically tied

to a remarkable story of perseverance and sacrifice.

When we look at the way

these reinforced concrete emplacements

are designed and built

it's very clearly mid 20th century,

it's second world war era stuff.

And yet when we think about

second world war in the British isles

we think about defending London from a Nazi invasion.

Were the allies expecting Hitler

to mount a UK attack from the north?

Or is there another reason for fortifying so heavily

this remote region of the British isles?

This is a part of Scotland

that was facing away from the Nazi's.

Why would we build fortifications that face away from the threat?

The area has a sparse local population...

Yet for one of them, Nicky ellakirk...

This military site has always held an allure.

My childhood was spent playing around this bunkers,

it's a rather unique kids playground made up of, you know,

70 year old rusting lumps of concrete.

Yet there was a time when this was a hive of activity.

We're up here in a tiny fishing crofting community

and there was this sudden influx of 3,000 troops

who landed from everywhere,

India, Poland, britain, other overseas territories.

Why were troops flooding in to this desolate area?

Various remnants of military hardware provide clues.

Francis Russell has been researching the site for decades.

Here we have the,

one of the six-inch gun emplacements.

There were two six-inch guns here

and then further round the corner another two six-inch guns.

They were a deterrent and they looked mean.

Beneath these guns

a mine field ran across the mouth of the loch...

And behind that another line of defence.

We've got submarine boom netting

which is large rings of wire all woven together like chainmail,

that was hung between surface floats

and huge chunks of concrete on the seabed.

As well as protecting against u-boats,

lookout towers warned of incoming aircraft

or naval attacks.

It's hard to imagine now

but this was once a hive of activity.

Hundreds of ships and thousands of men

all crammed in to this small area.

This is loch ewe, a sea loch used as a secret assembly point

in the second world war,

its need was driven

by the German invasion of the Soviet union.

When the Germans attack Russia

on June 22, 1941,

they sweep initially

almost literally to the gates of Moscow.

And first britain and then once america enters the war,

america promise aid to Russia.

These vital supplies had to be transported by sea to Russia

from a suitable base and it had to remain secret.

People often ask why loch ewe.

And the answer is quite simple,

it's at the extreme range for German bombers

at the beginning of the war.

It's got a narrow entrance which makes it easier to protect,

it's deep up to 240ft...

And its wide and it's a safe Anchorage.

Loch ewe is a different kind of loch,

it's a narrow inlet of the sea.

It's salt water, it is exposed to the elements...

But it's a really clever place

to tuck away a big naval operation

until you're ready to let it loose on the world.

By February 1942, loch ewe

was fully operational as a base for the arctic convoys,

with its first convoy sailing that same month.

Merchant ships carried the supplies

and were escorted by ships of the royal Navy,

and the Canadian and us navies.

The arctic convoy is one of the biggest examples

of cooperation during the war,

it was a combined operation of 14 different nations

ranging all the way from India through Panama,

the Netherlands, the UK, Canada, the us, the list goes on.

Men would have been drafted

from all of these various places

and put on ships and sent up to loch ewe.

These men would have

little idea of their ultimate destination.

But all feared the dreaded arctic run.

Often the first clue

they'd have that they were heading out round the north

instead of back down to the south

would be the ships would be loaded

with cold weather gear,

cold weather gear consists of a sturdy coat...

Not much to protect you against the ice and hail

and freezing waves.

The route for transporting supplies to Russia

was a highly treacherous one.

The best route,

the fastest and most efficient route

to get warm material to Russia

was through the ice free northern ports

and that's murmansk and archangelsk

and that is going this northern route.

Ships on the murmansk run had to worry about the Nazi's,

they had to worry about u-boats, destroyers,

battle cruisers operating out of Norway.

Nazi planes flying out of Norway.

Then had to navigate the perils of the icy arctic water.

Fog that camouflaged icebergs

and snow storms raging across their bows.

Many were young boys you'd have volunteered,

some as young as 16.

The merchant seamen never signed up for war

and here they find themselves amidst ice, storms,

gails and the constant threat of the enemy.

Could they successfully arm the Soviets

against the biggest land invasion in human history?

And would loch ewe manage to stay under the Nazi radar?

(Dramatic music)

Ships that arrived in loch ewe had to pass an examination vessel

and then once through the boom net,

which was for protecting against enemy subs,

they were allocated a place to anchor.

We had to have lots of buildings to accommodate sailors

and to accommodate the dockyard technicians

who would do all the work of refuelling,

resupplying and repairing ships.

But the key was to avoid

alerting the Nazi's to their presence.

You want to have radio silence

because your enemy will have direction finders

so you want to have prominent signal posts

so you can use light signals,

signal flags to communicate

throughout the fleet through visual signals

and not use the radio.

Your best defence is secrecy.

A total of 19 convoys made up of 481 merchant ships

and over 100 naval escort vessels left loch ewe for Russia

during world war ii.

Part of a highly effective convoy system.

What is amazing though is that

despite German attacks only 7%

of the ships and convoy traffic

through northern Russia will be lost.

This vast volume of materials and weapons flowing in to Russia

helped the Soviets fend off Hitler's massive invasion force.

The boots that they wore

in Russia were made in america,

the jeeps that they drove in Russia

were made in america.

Because we the western allies were able to ship

so much stuff to the Soviet union,

the Soviets were able to keep on fighting

and without the Russians defeating the Nazi's from the east,

we all would not have been able to defeat the Nazi's.

After April 1945, loch ewe became a marshalling point

for many of the German u-boats

that had surrendered whilst still at sea.

Yet this success still came at great cost.

3,000 or so brave young men

went up north and died on what Winston Churchill called

the worst journey in the world.

Loch ewe is a monument to the way that people came together,

the Russians, the Americans, the British, Canadians,

all came together to defeat the Nazi's.

Today the Russian arctic convoy museum

works to ensure these stories of bravery live on,

along with these concrete remains.

They need to be preserved

to let people know that...

Sacrifices were made.

In the open countryside of north Indiana

lies a sprawling network of over grown structures

that hide a secret past.

This is a complex that covers thousands of acres

and what you see are clusters

of buildings, widely separated.

Some of them festooned with undergrowth and trees,

some of them look almost like tree houses.

When you get up close

you can see that the buildings are strangely segmented

with large walls covering each segment.

This looks like a place that people forgot about entirely.

Did something desperate happen to warn people to stay away?

The scale of the site suggests this place

was once of Paramount importance

but it's the distinctive layout and design of the buildings

that offer the clues as to why.

What you're looking at is

something that is certainly organised

not for efficiency but for safety factors.

What could be so important but also so dangerous?

Overgrown and abandoned today

this place was once filled with workers.

Amongst them in the 1950s was fern eddy Schultz

who was employed here as a secretary.

Much of the work she did was highly confidential.

The saying here was

what you're seeing here and what you hear here you

let it stay here.

We weren't at Liberty to go out

and tell anybody a lot of the things

that we saw go on.

It's no accident that this site was built out here

in rural Indiana.

But secrecy wasn't the only reason.

If you're gonna build a factory to make jeeps

you'll do it in Detroit

because that's where the work force is,

that's where the facilities are.

If you are gonna build things that

go bang you don't want to do it in the middle of a city.

Hidden in the woods are clues to what this place was.

Look at the way escape slides had been

located around the place.

Those are not there for fun, this is not a playground.

The chutes were for the safety of the employees

in the event there was a, what we called a blow.

This was the kingsbury ordnance plant.

A vast ammunition manufacturing site.

On 7 December, 1941, Japan attacked the naval base

at Pearl harbour and the us

soon entered the second world war.

Sites like this were desperately needed

but getting a place like

kingsbury built and up to speed would take months if not years.

To successfully fight

a major war in Europe and the pacific

you needed ammunition.

The us government goes to a place in Indiana

that's right on the railway,

it's near the coal and steel output

of the mid-west in Pittsburgh,

it's built on 13,500 acres of farmland.

This site is huge.

And you've got these very widely spaced factories

so that if there is a disaster in one area,

it won't set off all the others in a chain reaction.

The site also included ammunition storage,

barracks, laboratories, offices and testing facilities.

All linked together by miles of rail tracks.

Fern remembers her time working here

years later during the 1950s,

the systems however were much the same.

We're on a one line and on the one line

they made what we call fuses and boosters,

the fuses were part of something

that set the ammunition off when it was fired.

The booster boosted the capacity of the fuse.

The final product on the two line

was a 20 millimetre shell

and on the three line was a 30 millimetre

and so on down the line to the five line.

Separating the facilities wasn't the only safety measure taken

because the work being carried out inside these buildings

also dictated how they were built.

The main thing that

they're producing here is smokeless powder

and it's a process that uses a lot of different acids,

it's a very dangerous process to do.

You see the interior walls are really solid

and then the exterior walls

and the roofs are relatively thinly built of light steel,

glass, plastic,

and that's so that if there's an accident

the interior wall will be so strong

that it will direct the blast toward the weaker areas away

from the very valuable machinery and also the man power.

But with the us suddenly embroiled in war

in the pacific and in Europe,

how would such a vast site be made ready in time?

In December 1941, the us entered the second world war,

while the attack on Pearl harbour

had come as a sudden tragic surprise,

the military had been preparing to enter the war

for some time and sites like the kingsbury ordnance plant

had actually been operational for months.

You see the story begins long before

the Americans go to war in Pearl harbour.

United States although not willing to actively

jump in to world war ii,

saw the danger of a possible Nazi victory

and began a massive rearmament program.

As early as the summer of 1941

kingsbury had been shipping out

munitions to Europe to aid the allies.

From here its importance would only increase.

This place kingsbury ordnance plant

was an absolutely critical piece of the us war machine

in world war ii.

At its height in a single day,

kingsbury produced 180,000 point detonating fuses...

Over 46,000 40 millimetre shells

and 500,000 rounds of 20 millimetre ammunition.

But to achieve this staggering output level it needed workers,

something that was hard to find in rural Indiana.

They purpose built a neighbourhood

here at kingsbury heights to house people

because there was nobody here.

In all close to 21,000 people worked at the site.

In amongst them was a great number of women

both breaking down old social conventions

and doing their part for the war effort.

They are working full shifts,

double shifts in factories,

and that changes not only the way others see them

but it changes the way they see themselves.

But despite the progress

the work force faced numerous dangers

and ailments that could last a lifetime.

People are being exposed to toxic chemicals.

People are getting burns from flammables

and in some cases

people are displaying really worrying symptoms.

Employees were forced to wear these powder suits,

they had to remove all jewellery,

anything that might cause static electricity,

any kind of friction that could create

a spark would set off

some kind of a conflagration inside the ammunitions plant

or any of its buildings.

In the powder blending areas

people actually turned orange

from handling the material.

When the second world war ended the plant went in to standby

before being called back into action for the korean war.

Finally in 1960 it closed for good.

Today it's a shadow of its former self.

But in its prime, the kingsbury ordnance plant

and those who worked here

were a valuable part of the defence of america.

I think that, there was a feeling amongst all of us

that worked here that we were all part of the war effort.

And we're doing our share.

We're very proud to be making something

that was helping our country be free.

In southern Greece is a barren land that time forgot,

in what's known as the deep mani,

a craggy headland juts out in to the mediterranean sea.

This is an inhospitable landscape

and even today few tourists actually venture this far south.

Near the end of this dramatic peninsula

in what appears almost like mountainous desert

you catch a glimpse of these ruins.

You have the perfect vantage

looking out to sea and down the coast.

These towers look almost military rather than civilian.

They kind of blend in to the landscape

but they are defensive, they are proud

and they are there to be seen.

These constructions

have become synonymous with the maniats,

a great warrior people still revered by Greeks today.

Part of the mystery of the area to me is well,

who were these war faring maniats, you know, where did they come from?

Some believe they descend from the spartans

and thus they have this kind of

mythical invincibility in Greek culture.

Over the centuries the maniats developed a reputation

as fierce some fighters.

How did they garner this reputation

and how did these now battered towers

fit in to that story?

Local guide and author Matthew Dean

has been exploring these castle-like structures

for over 30 years.

You just have to walk

around these ruined towers and imagine

what was it like 100 years ago, 200 years ago,

it's a place for those who like using their imagination

rather than seeing something directly

for what it is now.

So, if we look at the, the towers themselves,

the first thing that strikes you is just how tall they are,

three or four storeys high.

Why?

Defence.

From there you get a great view

over potential threats arriving by sea.

The towers are narrow,

they've got tiny windows

and on top there are turrets

and they are also places where you could put weapons.

So, when designing your bespoke war tower

you had a number of choices,

sometimes they'd build just a war tower on its own

which is only ever used, in times of war,

or to make life a bit easier

you'd add on a more open easier

to live in space for times of peace

and then when the threat comes you'd retreat in

to the tower for as long as necessary.

In the 15th century Greeks came to this remote mani peninsula

fleeing the area around sparta

when it was taken by the ottoman Turks.

The new inhabitants who became known as the maniats

developed a certain notoriety

and would inspire a revolution

but in the meantime survival was everything.

The number one concern was defence.

Both defence against foreign invaders

coming in by sea whether it was venetians or Turks

but also due to the lack of resources

in this very infertile area

it was to defend your own family against your neighbour.

You had to fight your neighbour literally to survive.

Ritualised vendettas

between families could last for months, even years.

So, feuding became a fairly regular part of life

for the, the maniats living down here.

An English colonel in 1805 noted that over the last 40 years

100 of vatheia's men had been killed

in an ongoing feud between two families.

To lose 100 men out of a total population of 300

is a huge amount

and that gives you an idea

of how bitter the feuds were in this area.

And so you and your clan needed to

defend your plot against others with equal ambitions,

whether Turks, venetians,

pirates or neighbouring clans,

the method of defence, to build a tower.

These are the mani towers of vatheia.

The design of the towers

played a crucial role in protection from your enemies.

Not only did these stone

sky scrapers give you a good vantage point

to view any potential aggressors on the horizon,

they also gave you a high vantage point

to defend for potential ground attackers.

Small windows, easy to shoot down on your enemy,

even better if you block them up

leaving just a tiny hole for the muskets

and small doorways are much harder to breach.

Construction of the towers increased in the late 18th century

as the Turkish threat intensified

and the maniats bitterly resisted the ottoman Turks

who now controlled the rest of Greece.

The fighting between the Turks and the maniats

was particularly vicious.

If a maniat went down in battle and was injured,

a fellow soldier would take him,

kiss him on the forehead and then lop off his head,

it was better to die at the hand of your fellow man

than to fall in to the Turks hands.

In to the early 1800s a revolution was brewing.

This was the moment

when the maniats would seal their reputation as great warriors.

The war for independence

started down here in the mani,

significant clansmen gathered there their troops together,

hooked up with other clansmen

and together they all marched to meet up with kolokotronis,

who all Greeks regard as the father of the revolution.

Throughout Greece there developed a slogan freedom

or victory whereas the mani's version,

it was a little different, death or victory.

And this sums up the difference with the maniats,

they always consider themselves free

and independent and never subject to ottoman rule.

By 1826, ottoman soldiers

renewed their offensive in the mani peninsula.

7,000 men were forced to retreat

by the fierce maniats attacking from their towers.

Greek independence was finally secured in 1830

and the mani's resistance of the Turks

has never been forgotten.

This is the only part of Greece

that never fell to the Turks,

that never became part of the ottoman empire.

The pride that the Greeks feel for this area

comes from their determination

not to be conquered by the ottoman empire,

the rest of Greece fell including crete behind us,

but the mani remained independent.

The mani had been making their homes in towers

for not decades but hundreds of years

and the towers evolved over time starting off very small,

very military, a statement of power to external enemies

but over time they become slightly more domestic

but still with that structure, that power.

Over time the inhabitants emigrated to major cities

with many heading to Western Europe,

Australia and the United States.

The fact that these towers

were orientated towards war and defence means that

they just don't have a place in the modern world.

So, they remain largely blocked up

and left gradually crumbling away.

I think it's important the vatheia remains preserved

because it's a very clear indication of past times

where life was difficult,

life was violent and yet

within such dire circumstances

there was still a fierce pride

and almost a sense of nobility of being a member of that society.

(Dramatic music)

Now, they're 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