Original subtitles

[narrator] A strange structure at the heart of a Miami suburb

that began as a dream and turned into a nightmare.

They call us one of the top murder capitals of South Florida

but we are waking this city back up.

[narrator] A Lebanese high-rise of glitz and glamor,

consumed by hate and fear.

[translator] The battle became so ruthless that you could kill your brother,

cousin or your friend 'cause you couldn't tell who was who.

[narrator] And a Japanese curiosity

caught in a web of corruption.

[man] He was a very high-flying businessman.

with a lot of big plans

and a tendency to cut corners, ethically, in his businesses.

[narrator] Decaying relics...

Ruins of lost worlds...

Sites haunted by the past.

Their secrets waiting to be revealed.

In Miami-Dade County, Florida,

are relics of a storybook fantasy

brought to life.

[Luke] This looks like a typical Miami suburb.

But then you notice that the streets have some pretty unexpected names.

You have Baghdad Avenue, Sharazad Boulevard and Sindbad Avenue.

[narrator] In the middle of the town

is what looks like a crumbling palace.

Which, much like the street names,

appears wildly out of place in Florida

[Luke] It's got these pink domes, touring minarets,

castle-like battlements,

and a wide courtyard.

It seems to be a mix of various Eastern influences.

There's something a bit fantastical about it all.

[Hadley] Exteriors don't really match the interiors.

Their offices, their spaces that would be used

for everyday activities.

They're not elaborate like the outside of the building.

[narrator] The construction is just one piece of a much bigger puzzle.

These structures aren't as big or impressive

but their coordinated style

suggests there was once a wider vision for this place.

[Hadley] For a time, this was a fantasy you could buy into

but the dream would be very tragically short-lived.

[Alex] I was living not far from here, in a neighboring community.

And was interested in what homeownership would look like.

[narrator] Alex Van Mecl began digging into

the extraordinary history of this region

when he bought his first home here

in September 2021.

[Alex] It was very exciting

and was the beginning of a very long journey

to uncover a lot about the city

that has, in some instances, never been seen or told before.

[narrator] This curious structure

was to be the beating heart of a grand vision.

To transform this once unpopulated area

into a thriving city.

The driving force behind it

was American Renaissance man, Glenn H. Curtiss.

[Luke] Curtiss was a pioneer of American aviation.

And one of the nation's wealthiest men.

He had helped develop the first aircraft career

for the US Navy,

and built the first sea plane.

[narrator] While Curtiss was vacationing in Florida,

he recognized the money-making potential of this area.

In the years after the first world war,

Florida experienced a land moon.

The number of skilled workers in the country was rising

and they were benefitting from higher wages and paid vacations.

Suddenly people had the resources

to travel and to buy vacation homes.

[Hadley] Everybody had cars, everyone had a Modet T.

They wanted to be in the sun.

And there was no better place to go than Florida.

Curtiss and his partners bought 17,000 acres of land.

And Curtiss entered a new business.

Real Estate development.

[Hadley] Fortunately, there was this new craze that was sweeping the nation,

and it would inspire his next project, Opa-Locka.

[narrator] Opa-Locka was to be something entirely unique.

Never before attempted in the United States.

It was a big gamble,

based on architecture and literature from the Islamic World.

[Sascha] In 1925, the architect Bernhardt Muller.

read the collection of middle eastern folk tales

known as the 1001 Nights.

He was so inspired that he relived it in his dreams that night.

He soon came up with a vision

of a city built around the theme and design of the stories.

[narrator] And in Curtiss, Muller had a partner

with the resources to make it happen.

And advertisement that was placed in The Miami Herald in 1926,

began with the words "one thousand and one reasons".

It encouraged investors to get in on the ground floor

of a never to be repeated opportunity.

[narrator] This administration building

was intended to be an icon of the city's success.

The construction of this building began

in early 1926.

It took approximately seven months to construct.

At that time, they estimated cost $150,000.

It's primary focus was to sell the idea and dream

of what it was to become an Opa-Lockan

[Hadley] This was to be a completely self-sufficient community.

with its own airport, golf course, pool,

parks, country club, zoo.

All the things that make life fun.

Muller personally approved each and every design.

He specified all the paint colors and finishings to be used.

And even suggested landscaping around the buildings.

[narrator] In less than a year,

over 30 homes were built and residents moved in,

while the rest of the city's construction

was still underway.

Curtiss' ambitious risk appeared to be paying off.

But before the city can be completed,

Mother Nature interfered.

In 1926, a massive hurricane swept through the Miami area

and although it didn't really affect Opa-Locka,

it affected Florida as a whole.

And sent it into this economic tailspin.

Florida's reputation as Heaven on Earth,

was shattered in the wake of the destruction

[Sascha] Suddenly, both, investors and new residents

became harder and harder to find.

[narrator] But railroads had helped

other planned communities in Florida prosper.

And Curtiss was certain

a new train line coming in 1927,

would keep his vision alive.

He also had one last trick up his sleeve.

He was an astute marketer.

And when the first train arrived,

through Opa-Locka, on the new line,

he decided he was gonna put on a show.

[narrator] In the late 1920s,

the visionary planned community of Opa-Locka,

was failing to attract new residents.

It's founder, Glenn H. Curtiss,

aw the arrival of the new Sea Board railroad

as a vital opportunity

to generate some crucial publicity.

Onboard was the governor of the state,

the president of the railway

and a host of other dignitaries.

They were greeted by something straight out of the movies.

A representative of the company,

dressed as the Grand Vizier of the empire of Opa-Locka,

charged on horseback out of the administration building.

He was flanked by others dressed as Arabian horsemen,

who were racing out to meet the iron horse.

Homeowners from all across the city

joined in the celebrations.

Nobody wanted to see Opa-Locka crash and burn.

[Hadley] Most of the town had costumes

that had been rented from New York theaters.

And the whole community put on a show for visitors.

[Luke] The event was a big success.

And the newspapers gave it plenty of coverage.

All of which provided great advertising for the city.

[Sascha] These days, that type of naked cultural appropriation

would definitely be frowned upon.

Though there are certainly outrageous stunts

pulled by real estate developers on a daily basis.

[narrator] The so-called Arabian fantasy

may have captured people's attention,

but it failed to get them to open their wallets.

The future of Curtiss' $1.5 million investment

was uncertain.

Less than two years later,

the aspiring city was dealt another devastating blow.

[Sascha] In the wake of the Wall Street crash,

things weren't really looking good for Opa-Locka.

[narrator] Curtis pulled out all the stops to try and salvage his dream.

And save his city's struggling residents.

[Alex] He helped pay for people's landscaping.

He started paying people's mortgages.

I think he had every reason to believe

that Opa-Locka still could become

as great, as thriving as a Coral Gables,

or Miami Beach,

or even Palm Beach, at that time.

[narrator] Curtiss was convinced

that development could continue expanding

after the economy recovered.

Fate disagreed.

On July 23rd, 1930,

the aviation pioneer died suddenly.

It's my school of thought

that Curtiss would very much have stuck his vision through.

And it still would have been the fully-built environment

that he dreamed of it becoming,

had he not passed away.

[narrator] In the years that followed,

he suburb declined beyond all recognition.

And its crime rate soared.

By 2009,

the one-time centerpiece of Opa-Locka,

had been left to fall into ruin.

John H. Taylor Jr.

was elected mayor of Opa-Locka in 2022.

The city he grew up in was very different

from the one originally envisioned.

[John] I'm 34 years old and Opa-Locka is all that I know.

During the early '70s, '80s, '90s, early 2000s,

they called us one of the top murder capitals of South Florida.

It's not the same Opa-Locka that you see today.

Our crime is down 30%.

I wanted a community where my daughter

and my family can grow, live, play

and be safe here.

[narrator] Today, Taylor hopes to finish

what Glenn H. Curtiss started.

[John] We want it to be a cultural art center.

We want, um, birthday parties here.

We want you to make memories here.

And by 2026, you won't be able to recognize Opa-Locka.

We are waking this city back up.

[narrator] The Lebanese capital of Beirut.

Modern buildings conceal the reminders

of a city divided.

[Jim] You have all these gleaming high-rises

and fancy shops and restaurants.

But in the middle of all this,

is one tall building

that is an absolute wreck.

[Geoffrey] This does not look like normal wear and tear.

And you go inside,

there's no clues as to what it was,

Everything's been stripped out.

[narrator] In the beginning, this was a beacon of progress,

and the height of extravagance in a modern city.

It became a ferocious symbol of struggle.

So how did it fall from that place

to this destroyed shell of its former self.

[narrator] Haunting clues are revealed etched into the crumbling walls.

It's almost like you can see some kind of clash of civilizations

playing out in the graffiti.

There's-- Some is in Arabic,

but then you also see Christian crosses.

[Lynette] This is a building that had gone from

a beautiful Middle Eastern destination

into the very epitome of Hell on Earth.

[narrator] Marwan Ayoubi

first came here in 1976,

when he was 17 years old.

When it was built, two years earlier,

it was the talk of the town.

[translator] It was the most luxurious hotel in Beirut.

Not just in the city but the entire country.

[narrator] But Marwan didn't check in as a guest.

He was here for a different purpose.

[Marwan speaks Lebanese]

[translator] Despite my young age,

I was responsible for military command.

From the first time I entered with the guys,

I felt something different.

Honestly, the hair on my neck stood up.

High-rises like this were new.

Its importance was for its height, location,

and very strong build.

[narrator] This is the Holiday Inn hotel.

Once, the pinnacle of sophistication,

at the heart of a destination city.

Different from the one we see today.

[Lynette] In the 1970s,

Beirut is a Western-looking French speaking city.

And people from around the world,

are happy to fly to Beirut

to enjoy the Mediterranean climate.

[Jim] It's a place of openness

and a kind of pride in their ability,

which was not unusual in the Middle East at any time

to co-exist with so many different cultures.

Christian, Jews, Muslims.

[narrator] In this booming cosmopolitan metropolis,

impressive new hotels sprung up in the downtown port district,

including this one in 1974.

[Geoffrey] The Holiday Inn was a very ambitious hotel chain.

And they would open these, kind of, flagship hotels

in important cities around the world.

to advertise the brand.

[Lynette] It's the tallest hotel in the city.

It has got a revolving restaurant

on the roof.

Which is possibly the most 1970s thing ever.

It opened at a time when the future for Beirut

and Lebanon seemed very bright.

[narrator] But below the surface,

tension was building

between the country's Muslim and Christian populations.

Soon, it would spill out onto the streets.

And the Holiday Inn would find itself at the center of the storm.

So, while wealthy tourists and other visitors were partying,

the politics in Lebanon were changing radically.

[narrator] In Lebanon,

are the remains of the once-luxurious Holiday Inn hotel,

which opened for business in 1974.

But beyond the glitz and glamor,

a vicious conflict was brewing,

that would change Beirut forever.

Like many of the countries in the Middle East,

the borders of Lebanon were more or less imposed on it,

by European powers.

The French established the current borders after World War I.

[Geoffrey] When Lebanon was given its independence in 1943,

power was distributed among the various religious groups.

You know, the-- The Maronite Christians,

the Muslims and the Jews.

It makes no one happy.

It's just a matter of how long it's gonna take

for Lebanon to fall apart.

[narrator] After the founding of Israel in 1948.

Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes.

In the years that followed,

the refugee crisis only intensified.

And by 1968,

400,000 people had sought shelter in Lebanon.

But they introduced a new radicalism into Lebanese politics.

And you started seeing the emergence of sectarian militia

to defend Maronite interests

or Shia interest or Sunni interest

or Jews' interests.

All of these different religious and cultural groups

that had coexisted peacefully...

suddenly they were at each other's throats.

[Lynette] A year after the Holiday Inn opens,

the civil war kicks off.

[narrator] The city's hotel district

quickly became the epicenter of the violence.

Beirut's kind of bifurcated

into a Christian East Beirut

and a Muslim West Beirut.

separated by something called the Green Line.

And the Holiday Inn and the other, you know, fancy hotels in Beirut

just happened to be situated along what is now the Green Line.

[Jim] In any military encounter

you wanna control the high ground.

This is how the Union Army

won the battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War.

And in Beirut, these tall hotels,

they were the high ground.

[narrator] The Holiday Inn was the tallest of them all,

in what would become known as the Battle of the Hotels.

[Geoffrey] And in the early years of the Civil War,

the phalange militia,

the Maronite Christians, they controlled the Holiday Inn,

while the neighboring Phoenicia hotel and other structures

are controlled by the Lebanese National Movement militia.

[narrator] In March of 1976,

a coalition of Muslim forces

launched an attack against the heavily guarded Holiday Inn.

Marwan Ayoubi led a small unit into the high-stakes fight.

[speaking Lebanese]

[translator] The battles were from room to room.

You go up the stairs, but you don't know what's in front of you.

So you just shoot while you go up.

Like you're shooting for no reason.

[Geoffrey] Muslim militias, they penetrate the hotel,

They get control of the lobby and the lower floors,

and they start to celebrate, "We've taken the hotel."

[Jim] It seemed like a victory.

What they didn't fully appreciate

was that there were still

dozens of Christian militia fighters

on the floors above them.

The result was total chaos.

-[Marwan speaks Lebanese] -[translator] In the counterattack,

the battle became so ruthless,

you could kill your brother, your cousin or your friend

because you didn't know who was who.

It was too dark.

[narrator] For three days and three nights,

bitter fighting rages across the 26 floors of the Holiday Inn.

Over 40 men were killed,

and 100 severely injured,

before the Muslim militia emerged victorious.

All the world sees the violence in Beirut

heir television screens,

every night.

Everyone sees once-great hotels

dissolve into a welter of explosions.

[narrator] The conflict continued to ravage the country

for the next 14 years.

During that time, warring factions periodically occupied the hotel.

Any trace of its former grandeur

was obliterated by the struggle.

[Geoffrey] And the civil war really isn't resolved

until the Taif Accord in 1989.

When, you know, the various groups are

all coaxed into this peace arrangement.

Basically, giving certain portfolios of government

to the different groups.

[narrator] Those who fought in the war,

had to reconcile the many years spent

fighting against their fellow countrymen.

[speaking Lebanese]

[translator] As we grow older, our sense of humanity increases.

Because we have children,

we have sons,

and we understand what humanity is.

We killed the country with civil war

because we differed in the way we love this country.

[narrator] Over the years,

the Port of Beirut has been revitalized,

while the Holiday Inn has sat untouched,

caught in a legal limbo.

[Jim] The ownership is split

between a group of Lebanese investors who want to refurbish it

and a Kuwaiti shareholder

who wants to tear it down and-and start over.

For now, it stands there as this

somewhat horrifying symbol

of just how far off the rails a modern society can go.

[narrator] In the hills west of Niigata, Japan,

stands a place that defies rational explanation.

[Rob] The first thing your eye's drawn to

is this huge sea of solar panels.

But, right on their edge,

is a very unexpected structure.

[Jim] You see an enormous Russian-style cathedral,

complete with the onion-type domes

and crosses on top of each one.

What's it doing here in the middle of rural Japan?

[narrator] For two countries that were sworn enemies for many years,

something doesn't add up.

Yet, whoever ordered its construction,

clearly invested heavily.

[Alexis] With the twisted remains of the stained glass windows

and the gold paint,

you can still get a sense of its fated grandeur.

If you look straight up,

who's staring back at you? Jesus.

[narrator] But, a fire-damaged complex

next to the church

suggests faith alone was not enough to save this place.

It seems there was some kind of cross-cultural tribute

intended here.

But, one that obviously

didn't work out that well in the end.

Unchecked ambition and corruption

is what brought this dream to an end.

[narrator] In the Niigata Prefecture of Japan,

is a majestic structure driven by one man's vision.

Sasaguchi Yuji is the caretaker of this site today.

When he came here in the 1990s,

it was as a paying guest.

[Sasaguchi] At first, I was curious to know what kind of place it was

and I wanted to bring my kids.

It was a merry-go-round and a few stands for sweets and food.

The folk dancing was the main attraction.

[narrator] This is the Russian Village.

It began as evidence of friendship

between two bitter rivals.

[Jim] Traditionally, relations between Japan and Russia

were not good.

But, towards the end of the 20th century,

something happened that established

a certain bond between the people.

In 1964, a severe earthquake hit Niigata.

The ground liquified.

Collapsing bridges and buildings,

even buckling train tracks.

[narrator] In the wake of the destruction,

help came from the most unlikely of places.

The earthquake killed about three dozen people,

destroyed thousands of homes, it was a real crisis.

And then, a month later,

in the port, a huge shipment

of wood for construction, for rebuilding, arrived

from two small cities in Russia

that had heard about the disaster.

It was a gesture that would allow

those who had lost their homes to rebuild.

The people of Niigata never forgot that kindness.

[narrator] Mr. Ryutaro Omori was one of those people.

[Rob] Ryutaro Omori was a local businessman

who rose through the ranks to become the president

of the Niigata Central Bank.

[Jim] The Japanese economy was booming

and the Japanese people had a lot of money

and they wanted to spend it, they wanted to travel.

It led to a boom in building theme parks around Japan.

And Omori had an idea for,

not just one theme park, but a whole chain of them.

So, he started with his Russian Village.

[Rob] With Niigata's connection to Russia

and the landscape of pine trees

and snowy mountains,

it must've felt like the obvious place to build it.

It had reportedly cost $150 million to develop.

[narrator] On September 1st, 1993,

Russian Village opened to great fanfare.

[Sasaguchi] In the parking lot,

there would be tens of hundreds of vehicles.

And then, the visitors would get the shuttle bus

to the entrance of the park,

which would go in back and forth constantly.

In one day, it could've been 1,000 or 2,000 people

visiting the theme park.

[Jim] So, while people were at the Russian Village,

they could eat at a Russian restaurant

serving Russian food,

there was a little museum,

there was even an aquarium that had a certain species of seal

that lives in the Siberian Arctic.

[Alexis] There used to be areas filled with souvenir shops,

uh, variety of fast food stands,

places where they would demonstrate Russian folk crafts.

[Rob] In later years,

the park even opened up a bizarre exhibition

of fake, life-sized, taxidermied woolly mammoths.

[narrator] The star attraction

was the park's most faithful offering.

The church was closely based on an actual Russian church

called the Cathedral of The Nativity.

It's about 100 miles outside of Moscow.

[Rob] They went to great lengths

to make it as authentic as possible.

Even hiring a Russian painter

to create the murals decorating the ceilings and pillars.

I mean, if you were looking for somewhere a bit different,

somewhere quite grand to get married,

where better than here?

[Alexis] Fortunately, for the bride and groom,

they had plenty of facilities next door for the reception.

The [indistinct] hotel had 20 rooms,

including luxurious suites on the top floor,

perhaps where the newlyweds spent their wedding night.

[Rob] Though little remains today,

from the size of the spaces,

you get a real sense of just how grand

it would've been.

[narrator] But, in 1994,

only months after Omori's bizarre venture first opened,

cracks began to show.

[Sasaguchi] In Niigata,

it was the first time that this kind of attraction had been opened.

So, at first, there was a lot of curiosity.

But once you had been here,

it wasn't as good as people hoped it would be.

[Jim] So, once you'd looked at the church,

had a Russian meal, seen a show,

you were ready to go home.

[Alexis] With its poor attendants,

the numbers just weren't adding up for the Russian Village.

[narrator] The park managed to keep going for the next seven years.

But in 2001,

damning allegations came to light

revealing how...

[Rob] The visionary behind the park

and the head of the bank that financed it,

Ryutaro Omori,

had criminal charges filed against him.

[narrator] In Japan are the remains

of a Russian-based theme park

that opened in the 1990s.

It operated for seven years,

before the criminal dealings of its owner,

Ryutaro Omori, finally caught up with him.

His bank reported a deficit of ¥168.7 billion.

That's about $1.3 billion today.

[Jim] Omori made a lot of loans

that were somewhat dubious,

and one of... the shakiest

was to his own Russian village.

Even when he knew that the finances were not that strong,

he pushed through another loan

for the project.

And that one really got him in trouble.

[narrator] Omori was forced to resign as head of the bank.

While he was awaiting trial,

a group of Russian financers tried to help save the park.

Their investment was too little, too late.

[Rob] Whilst this park was shutting down,

in 2003, Omori was sentenced to three years in prison.

Just two years later, he died.

[narrator] In 2004,

a short-lived attempt to reopen the park

ended in failure.

Many of the buildings were then demolished

and vandals destroyed what remained.

[Jim] The future for this area seems to me...

in the solar energy being generated

in this massive solar farm

right next door to the Russian Village.

The hopes that people might someday travel to this compound

were really dashed many years ago.

[narrator] On England's southern coast,

anchored in the Blackwater Estuary

is illicit piece of pop culture history.

At first glance, this seems like a perfectly ordinary sight.

A ship moored in a waterway that leads out to the sea.

But, look again,

there's something here that doesn't quite add up.

It has this strange mast,

sort of sprouting out from its center.

What can it be used for?

[narrator] A look below deck fails to yield an obvious answer.

Inside is everything you would expect to find on an average ship.

Other elements come as a little bit of a surprise,

they really seem out of place here.

[Onyeka] We find these strange machines,

scattered microphones, record players,

album covers.

This is unmistakably

a broadcast studio.

[Rob] So, you have to ask yourself,

why put all this equipment on a ship?

Who were they hiding it from?

[narrator] Over the years,

vessels like this were crewed by buccaneers,

hellbent on liberating the masses.

Not from their money, but from musical monotony.

[Onyeka] There was a kind of joyful anarchy

that took place on this ship.

And the authorities decided to put this to an end.

[Nigel] I came out here in 1994

when I was in my twenties.

The ship glistened in the sunlight

and I was very excited uh, to step onboard.

[narrator] Nigel Harris lived and worked

on this former North Atlantic fishing trawler for five years.

But Nigel was no fisherman.

He operated on the wrong side of the law.

The authorities were keeping an eye on us all the time

and getting boats to bring out these lads

became more and more difficult.

But when it worked, I must say, it did work well.

[narrator] This is the Ross Revenge.

In the 1980s,

it was the latest in a long line

of ship-based off-shore pirate radio stations.

The concept began as a cunning antidote

to the British establishment's uptight attitude

to 1960s popular music.

So, we like to think of the 1960s

as a great moment of change in music.

And we talk about the British revolution,

uh, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones

and of course, in the Americas we have Motown music.

At that time, the BBC,

the British Broadcasting Corporation

were the only ones with a license

to broadcast on the radio.

[narrator] But, the rock and roll revolution sweeping the United States

had no place on British airwaves.

[narrator] The BBC considered such music, to be immoral

favoring a bland diet of news and light entertainment.

All of these era-defining artists

were releasing albums

that people just weren't able to listen to

on traditional, conventional radio.

[narrator] Irish businessman Ronan O'Rahilly

was determined to find a work-around

to Britain's refusal

to give radio licenses to commercial broadcasters.

He discovered that by operating three miles off the coast,

they would be outside the government's legal reach.

O'Rahilly raised around $700,000

to launch his passion project.

[music playing]

♪♪ Caroline, the sound of the nation ♪

When Radio Caroline first started broadcasting in 1964,

they were at the forefront of the pirate radio revolution.

Suddenly, music fans could tune in

and hear new artists whenever they wanted.

♪♪ Caroline ♪

[narrator] By 1965,

around 15 million Brits

were tuning into off-shore pirate radio on a daily basis.

The BBC didn't like it

and neither did the British government.

Over the following decades,

the authorities and the pirates

played a game of cat and mouse,

with the government passing new laws to shut them down

and the pirates finding new ways to keep the music playing.

[narrator] In 1980,

Radio Caroline's latest ship, the Mi Amigo,

sank during a violent storm.

The team needed a new boat.

Enter, the Ross Revenge.

Official broadcast of the new Radio Caroline

began at noon on August 20th, 1983.

[Nigel] This studio you see now

is the main on-air original studio

on the Ross Revenge.

This is the mixer we used

and it still works,

as far as I know.

Uh, microphone,

faders here, four turntables,

it was a great space to be, lots of fun out here.

[narrator] But, Radio Caroline was treading a fine line.

And the British government's patience was running out.

They were in international waters

and that was supposed to keep them safe.

And they were safe,

until the raiders arrived.

[man speaking]

[narrator] In the 1980s,

the Ross Revenge was the base

for pirate radio station, Radio Caroline.

The ship may have operated

in the perceived safety of international waters,

but that didn't stop the British government

from cracking down in any way they could.

[Nigel] Over time, things did get more complicated.

The authorities became warier of boats getting out here.

So, the time between our supply boats

would get longer and longer and longer

as things became more difficult.

[narrator] Life onboard was about to get even tougher.

The Ross Revenge was also home to a Dutch radio station,

which made it a target for both countries' governments.

On August 19th, 1989,

Nigel was hosting his morning show

when suddenly, all hell broke loose.

[Nigel] I was on the air in here

and it's a misty morning

and I look through that porthole

out to the stern of the ship

and through the mist, this great, big Dutch tug appeared.

It came alongside, slammed alongside.

Faced with a 30-strong, armed boarding party

the small crew were in no position to stop them.

[man speaking]

There were two or three of us in here

and they came and manhandled inside of the studios,

closed the door on us

and then started to pull wires out of the back of the mixer.

I just don't understand how this can be happening.

The strange feeling in your-- in your stomach that, uh,

"Is this the end? It can't be."

[Onyeka] At 1:08 p.m.,

the Ross Revenge was silenced,

and Radio Caroline has gone off the airwaves.

[narrator] While the pirate crew was rounded up

and interrogated,

the authorities went to work.

[Rob] Studio equipment,

records and tapes were all boxed up and confiscated.

They even cut the aerial cables from the tower.

[Sascha] They knew that they couldn't remove

the massive transmitters held below decks.

So, they simply took sledgehammers to the delicate electronics.

[narrator] When the raiders had finally gone,

Nigel was left to assess the damage.

[Nigel] I saw beer bottles lying around everywhere.

So, it was almost like they'd come out here

on a-- on a bit of a jolly.

Bit of drinking, bit of smashing

and then they went home.

[narrator] The pirate DJs didn't give up.

They scavenged replacement parts

and quickly got back on air.

We had so much help from listeners as well.

They donated food, they donated records.

[narrator] But, the writing was on the wall.

In November 1990,

the ship was forced to stop broadcasting

due to a lack of fuel and essential supplies.

It was left anchored in the English Channel

to await its fate.

[Onyeka] In 1991,

the Ross Revenge lost its moorings

and began to drift onto a sand bank.

And when the ship was eventually towed into port,

its 27 year broadcast history came to an end.

[narrator] Pirate radio, although illegal,

is credited with paving the way

for popular music to be given a voice

in the United Kingdom.

The Ross Revenge is part of that legacy.

[Rob] Today, the Ross Revenge is open to the public for visits.

But, keeping a ship of this size in good condition

is no easy feat.

[Nigel] Well, it's still a lot of work to be done, uh,

on the Ross Revenge.

It can't sit on the water forever.

Unless its work is done,

its future is uncertain.