Original subtitles

In London, England, a secret subterranean network

said to have influenced a world famous author...

It's rumoured that his visits here inspired

Q branches secret lair in his novels.

..an epic structure in New Jersey USA where an extraordinary craft

met a tragic end...

The sight of this was unimaginably horrifying.

TV COMMENTATOR: Oh, the humanity!

..in Grimsby, a once glorious symbol of prosperity drawn into

a devastating North Sea battle...

Ultimately, countries like the US stepped in, as the conflict

threatened to undermine international security

at the height of the Cold War.

..and an Italian country retreat designed with a dark objective.

This is a place to brainwash young people.

After a stay here, they're all going to be fascists.

In the heart of London is a covert facility built

to guard against a tyrannical regime during a global war.

There are shops and restaurants and commuters going back

and forth.

It's a perfectly typical city scene at first glance.

But in one nondescript service area is the entrance

to something pretty amazing.

It feels like a forgotten railway tunnel

but, you notice that it doesn't really add up to that.

There are huge generators,

rows of electronics and even office spaces.

You have to imagine that hundreds of people were down here. But why?

For more than 80 years,

this network of tunnels has been a key part of

the protection of the citizens of the United Kingdom.

At a time when Britain was facing its darkest hour,

these tunnels were home to an elite organisation.

Its role was to wage a secret war against Hitler's forces

in occupied Europe.

If they failed, the country could fall into the hands of the Nazis.

They are also said to have inspired a really important franchise.

This is truly part of the life that Ian Fleming led that became

the character that we know to be James Bond today.

Angus Murray heads the organisation that purchased these tunnels from

a telecommunications company in 2024.

They plan to raise more than £150 million from investors

to open them up to the public.

It's a vast network, almost a citadel, right in the middle

of Central London

but, really, nobody has seen the depths and size

of what is within this complex.

This site was first created in response to

Hitler's ruthless bombing campaign that began in September 1940,

it became known as the Blitz.

This was not just an attack on military targets,

it was a terror attack on British civilians,

in the heart of their major city.

The constant wail of air raid sirens became like this grim soundtrack

for life in wartime London.

So, the British government ordered

the construction of purpose-built

structures like this one.

This was a deep-level air raid

shelter for London civilians

built underneath the London Underground system.

Construction began in November 1940, when hundreds of workers began

carving out two parallel tunnels by hand.

They were more than 16 feet across,

1200 feet long

and had space for almost 10,000 people

with access shafts leading to street-level at each end.

The tunnels would contain two decks each

and they would supply bunk beds,

medical supplies

and kitchens for up to 9600 terrified Londoners.

They were completed in March 1942

but by the time they were finished,

Nazi Germany had changed its strategy.

The bombing campaign against London had lessened.

So, there was no longer a need for a civilian shelter.

For the next two years, the tunnels were used as troop accommodations

but soon, this underground labyrinth was given a new mission.

In January 1944, towards the end of the war,

a secretive organisation moved in.

It was called the Special Operations Executive

or SOE for short.

The SOE was a top secret group set up by Winston Churchill

to instigate all kinds of clandestine operations

on the continent against the Nazis.

So it was an organisation of very brave men and women.

Nearly 13,000, of which, about 3,200 people were women.

These agents were trained

to do operations in enemy occupied territory.

Often parachuting in and performing acts of sabotage

and espionage or even to aid local resistance groups.

But in order to do all of this, they needed specialised equipment.

One branch of the SOE said to have been based here,

was the Inter Services Research Bureau.

They designed pistols with silencers

for discreet attacks, suitcase radios...

They even had something they called the exploding rat,

that was packed with explosives.

Around six months after the SOE took up residence,

they would be involved in the largest amphibious assault in history...

..D Day.

We believe they stayed for the entire period of 1944

so we assume that they were heavily involved in that

particular operation.

Churchill said he wanted the SOE to set Europe ablaze.

By that he meant that when it finally came time for

the Allies to retake France,

the ground would already be softened

by these resistance groups that had

disrupted rail networks, destroyed ammunition,

anything they could do to degrade the German's ability to respond.

While the exact role of

the SOE agents working here is still a mystery,

it's claimed that they inspired an iconic author

and a blockbuster movie series.

So, Ian Fleming was a naval liaison officer to

the Special Operations Executive.

Ian Fleming would have been coming down

to these tunnels as we were leading up

to what was obviously a naval operation.

There's no question that this

location inspired him along with what

the Special Operations Executive was doing,

to become Q branch in James Bond.

In the James Bond world,

we have things like exploding suitcases,

a cigarette lighter that becomes a flame thrower,

coins that can track your location.

The kinds of things that we can

imagine being worked on or dreamed about in this underground workshop.

In 1946, a year after the war ended, the SOE was disbanded.

For the next six years, the tunnels were used to store official documents

until they were given a crucial new purpose during the Cold War.

The whole tunnel complex was significantly expanded between

the period of 1950 to 1952 when the British government determined

it needed a deep-level telecommunications exchange.

In a pre-digital age a telephone exchange provided a place

to manually connect incoming and outgoing calls.

In the event of nuclear war,

a secure location was needed to keep

the country's communication lines open.

This expansion was designed to do just that.

Telephone technology was advancing rapidly.

They needed room for switching stations and cables

and power systems.

This massive facility opened in 1954 and had

5,000 cables that were handling up to two million calls per week.

Two years later, the deep-level tunnel network became the

London terminal for the world's first transatlantic telephone cable,

the TAT-1.

This was the first time that you could carry

the human voice clearly across the Atlantic in a split second.

It was not until after the world had stood on the brink of destruction

that the true value of this transatlantic cable became clear.

In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis,

the Soviet Union had installed

a battery of nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba,

basically right off the US Coast.

For the US, the Soviet Union had crossed a line.

It was a crisis for President John F Kennedy who had to find

a way to force the Soviets to remove those missiles

without provoking a nuclear war.

This required delicate negotiations with the Kremlin.

But with no dedicated connection between Washington and Moscow,

it could take as long as 12 hours for leaders

to communicate through secure diplomatic channels.

In the end, Kennedy and his team negotiated a very deft

and top secret agreement with

the Soviets that convinced them to remove their weapons.

To avoid a repeat of this near catastrophe,

a quicker solution needed to be found.

So, after that, a direct line of communication was established

between the United States and Moscow using the TAT-1 cable

that ran right through here.

The receivers at either end were not what you might expect.

When you think of a Cold War hotline,

you might envision a big red telephone sitting in

the Oval Office

but it was actually a teletype machine.

It was believed that

a written message would be less likely

to be misinterpreted than a phone call.

For the next 30 years, the tunnels continued to handle millions of

government and civilian communications.

But after that, this set of tunnels is basically abandoned.

The advances in telecommunications equipment

and technology made it pretty much obsolete.

Today, the tunnels are being transformed into

an immersive tourist experience.

The principle objective we have is to tell that story of

the men and women that sacrificed so much

to give us our democratic rights.

In New Jersey USA,

on the edge of the Pinelands National Reserve,

is a site of extraordinary

innovation and an infamous tragedy.

We're in central New Jersey,

about an hour south of New York.

It's pretty obvious this is some kind of military base.

As you enter the grounds,

you see the structure which looms over everything.

It's got to be longer than an entire city block

and hundreds of feet tall.

When you step inside,

it opens up to this vast open space from floor to ceiling.

There's nothing in here except storage space

but surely you wouldn't build

something this big just for storage.

Yet, that's exactly what this aircraft hangar was built for.

What could the military be flying

that could warrant a space this big?

What passed through these doors was a revolutionary development.

Anything airship related really has its genesis here.

It was a marvel at the time and everyone wanted to see it.

But with innovation, came great risk.

This is the location of one of

the most notorious disasters in aviation history.

This structure dates back to a time when

the United States was completely

reimagining its air power.

At this time, the Navy was searching

for a better way

to detect submarines off the coast

and scout ahead of naval fleets.

Germany utilised the innovative technology of rigid airships.

This was a blimp

but with a metal interior framework.

They were called Zeppelin

and the German military used them

for aerial reconnaissance and bombing.

Their success caught the attention of the United States

and they initiated the Lighter Than Air programme.

In 1921, the Navy established Lakehurst Naval Air Station.

It served as its headquarters and its first major facility was

Hangar One.

James Warrick joined the Air Force 37 years ago.

He now serves as the historian for this joint base.

The hangar was opened in June of 1921.

Hangar One is 961 feet from door-to-door.

It's 350 feet wide

and about 200 feet tall.

The Titanic could fit in here.

Inside this building, naval engineers assembled

the first American-built rigid airship

the USS Shenandoah.

It made its maiden flight from Lakehurst on September, 4th, 1923.

The Shenandoah became the first Navy ship

to fly completely across the continental United States.

The journey took the crew of around 40 people 19 days

but it was more than a publicity stunt.

It proved that airships could be a valuable military tool.

Having the ability to loiter for

a long period of time was beneficial,

especially when it comes to reconnaissance.

You know, you can stay over an area for days

if you were equipped properly.

Despite their promise, these ships were still new and risky vessels.

In 1925, the Shenandoah ran into a severe storm that broke

the ship apart and killed 14 of the crew.

But the Navy still supported the venture,

in part due to the success of the German Zeppelins.

And, it wasn't just

the military that were interested in these new airships.

As one of the few airship ports in the world,

Lakehurst was a destination for a new form of transcontinental travel.

In October, the German airship, the Graf Zeppelin,

made the first transatlantic commercial flight.

It flew from Friedrichshafen to Lakehurst with 40 crew

and 20 passengers.

The journey took four and a half days,

which was considered blazingly fast by the standards of the time.

In 1936, the Graf Zeppelin was eclipsed by an even bigger airship,

one that made its inaugural flight as part of

the newly established Nazi Germany,

three years before World War Two began.

At a massive 804 feet long, it became the flagship for

the fleet of transatlantic passenger airships.

This was the Hindenburg.

So, for the Hindenburg to come here during 1936,

it was a major achievement for, for Germany.

You gotta figure for Adolf Hitler it was a good propaganda tool.

Had the swastika on it.

For the next 12 months, the Hindenburg operated a luxurious

passenger service between Germany and Lakehurst.

On the 3rd May, 1937,

the Hindenburg took off on its 63rd flight.

It departed from Frankfurt

to Lakehurst carrying 36 passengers and 61 crew.

What followed would be seared into the minds of hundreds of thousands.

Well, because of the weather, the Hindenburg was about 12 hours behind

and the captain of naval air station Lakehurst said,

"No, this weather's not conducive."

So, the Hindenburg flew up and down the east coast a little bit.

It flew over New York City.

Since this was the airship's first flight of the season,

Herb Morrison. a reporter from WLS Radio.

and a film crew were recording its arrival.

Behind me and to my right, over where that tree line is,

that's where, you know, Herb Morrison and those other film crews

were, you know, standing, doing video.

It's starting to rain again.

The rain had, uh, packed up a little bit.

And so, as the Hindenburg made its approach,

you know, it flew roughly from our left to our right over our heads.

Uh, made a series of left turns before it came back into

its final configuration to land.

Basically, right above where we're standing now.

The awestruck crowd watched on as more than 100 ground crew readied

themselves to catch the Hindenburg's guide ropes.

TV COMMENTATOR: As the motor to the ship adjusts,

holding this just enough to keep it from...

It's burst into flames!

Get this, Charlie! Get this, Charlie!

It's on fire, it's in flames.

It's terrible.

Oh, my! Get out of the way, please.

It's bursting into flames and it's falling...

The hydrogen gas that filled

the various compartments quickly caught fire

and in moments, the entire vessel was aflame.

Within 34 seconds, the Hindenburg crashed in

the open field, just west of Hangar One.

TV COMMENTATOR: This is terrible, this is one of the worst

catastrophes in the world...It's... Oh, in all humanity...

13 passengers, 22 crew and one member of the ground staff died

but, miraculously, 62 people survived the crash.

An official investigation followed.

The leading theory was that as

the Hindenburg came into land,

a structural wire broke free,

slashing open the hydrogen cells inside the ship.

Then, a static charge caused by

the stormy weather created a spark, igniting the volatile gas.

The disaster of the Hindenburg really shattered

the public confidence in airship travel and that was the end of it.

It remains one of the most notorious disasters in aviation history.

In a tragic twist of fate, it's possible the Hindenburg's fiery end

could have been avoided, if it had been filled with

the more stable helium instead of hydrogen.

But the United States controlled almost all of

the world's helium supply at the time.

The US Government recognised that it had potential military applications,

such as airships, and banned its export to Germany in 1927.

That meant that the Germans were forced to use

the much more combustible and unstable hydrogen.

At Lakehurst, airships continued to fly,

but strictly for military purposes, through World War Two.

After the war their importance declined and in 1961,

the Secretary of the Navy terminated the Lighter Than Air programme.

Hangar One is now a registered historical landmark

and is open for tours to educate

the public on its unique place in aviation history.

On England's east coast is the remnant of

a proud enterprise, cut short in its prime.

Towering over these misty docks is this industrial looking beast.

This complex is vast.

Inside is kind of a wonderland of old technology,

giant pipes and pumps and big machines.

So, clearly, this is a facility that was meant for moving

and processing some kind of product

but what that product was isn't clear.

The sheer size of the building suggests that whatever was made here,

was being done on an epic scale.

This factory didn't just serve the needs of

the surrounding area.

It was involved in an industry that spread across

the entire North Atlantic.

And at that time, Grimsby was the largest

and busiest fishing port in the world so this, enabled that.

The commodity being caught was cod.

In the late 1950s, the dominance of Grimsby's industry,

of which this building was a key part,

would be drawn into

a maritime conflict over a thousand miles away.

At first, it was low-level sabotage but tensions boiled over

and boats literally began to ram into each other.

The situation became so tense,

British Royal Navy warships were called into action.

It ultimately led to a sweeping change in international law.

Jon Lowe is a heritage consultant

and part of the team tasked with preserving

the structure that helped put this town on the map.

It's a Grade II star listed building which means it's in the top 4%

of important historic buildings in the country.

What it enabled was...was amazing.

When we think about the kinds of resources upon which empires are

built, we don't usually think of fish

but cod from the North Atlantic was

an incredibly vital resource

going back many centuries.

In Grimsby, a fishing port can be traced back almost a thousand years.

By the mid-1800s, the industrial revolution triggered

a population boom and the fishing industry here

rapidly expanded to feed the masses.

Demand was exploding and any fish caught out at sea

had to be kept cold and preserved

and, in an era before refrigeration,

the only way to do that, was on ice.

But where are you gonna get the ice?

Well, the answer is shockingly simple.

Boats headed for Greenland and the edge of the Arctic Circle,

literally, carved ice off of the glaciers

and brought it back to Grimsby.

By the late 1800s, Grimsby's fleet of trawlers had grown

so large it was impossible to keep them supplied using

the ice harvesting method.

If the fishing industry was to continue to prosper,

an answer needed to be found.

This is the Grimsby Ice Factory which opened in 1901.

This was an ice plant on a scale never before imagined.

For a time, it was the largest ice factory in the world.

So, we're in the compressor house which is

the beating heart of the factory.

This is where ammonia gas was compressed,

converting it from a gas to a very high pressure,

high temperature vapour.

And then, when that pressure is released,

it's cold.

They used that cold to chill down vats of brine.

When you add a lot of salt to water,

it gets a much lower freezing temperature.

Into these vats of super-chilled brine,

they would lower canisters of fresh water.

Just load into the brine and over 24 hours,

those big tanks of water get frozen into, essentially,

very large ice cubes.

These were then hoisted into a thawing tank so

the blocks could be removed and then put into a crusher.

From the big crusher drums,

the ice went up through elevators

to conveyors which took it out to the trawlers.

The trawlers contained insulated holds to stop

the ice from melting while the vessels were out at sea.

That means the trawlers can go further afield.

They can stay at sea for longer.

The catch stays fresher.

The catch can travel longer distances to market.

Here was a fishing port that ran like a modern factory.

You had massive trawlers going longer distances

and yet bringing back their catches perfectly preserved in ice.

It enabled Grimsby to become

the biggest fishing port in the world.

Demand for ice continued to grow and by 1931,

the factory was producing a staggering 1,100 tons a day.

That was enough to fill three

and a half Olympic sized swimming pools every week.

But the fishing trawlers themselves were headed for dangerous waters.

As these boats could go out farther and catch more fish,

they were beginning to impinge on the interests of

other fishing nations, in particular, Iceland.

Fishing was absolutely crucial to Iceland's economy

and they felt increasingly threatened by larger foreign fleets

over-fishing in their waters.

Throughout the 1950s, '60s and early '70s,

Iceland worked to ban foreign vessels from fishing off their coast,

first by expanding its three mile limit to four miles,

then 12 and then 50.

In 1975, it went one step further.

Tensions peaked as Iceland unilaterally extended their fishing

limits to 200 nautical miles.

The UK was not going to take that sitting down.

They told their fishing fleets to go ahead

and fish where they wanted and the UK would back them up.

But it became almost a dare for the English trawlers

to break and breach into the forbidden waters, as it were,

and things got quite nasty.

The Icelandic coastguard chased British trawlers

and ripped up their nets.

RADIO: You are interfering with lawful fishing

on the high seas. Over.

In some cases, ships were ramming each other,

which could be fatal out on the open ocean.

The violent conflict became known as the Cod Wars.

TV COMMENTATOR: The target of the gun boat was the Grimsby trawler,

Carlisle.

She could only stand helplessly by as Baldur and Diomede continued

the skirmish which ended in yet another Cod War collision.

The British responded by sending out Royal Navy ships to protect them.

The North Atlantic was turned into a battleground.

In total Britain deployed 37 warships to escort

the country's fishing fleet,

protecting a UK industry worth around

a billion pounds per year in today's money.

Iceland's coastguard

and fishing trawlers were no match for the strength of the Royal Navy.

But Iceland had an ace up its sleeve.

They threatened to close the strategically vital NATO base

at Keflavik.

Keflavik was positioned on Iceland's south west coast

and it played an important role in monitoring Russian nuclear submarines

in the North Atlantic.

This caused serious alarm amongst western allies,

especially the United States.

At the time of the Cod War, it was a very,

very tense environment

and every piece of information was critical.

The British Government,

under pressure from the United States

and other NATO allies, was forced to negotiate.

The UK chose to back down in 1976 and accepted the 200-mile limit.

British fishing fleets were granted limited access to

the waters but with severe restrictions on catches.

The agreement had a devastating impact on

the UK's long-distance fishing industry and the port of Grimsby.

Essentially, the fishing industry was decimated almost overnight by

the cessation of fishing as far afield as Iceland.

Soon, most countries around the world adopted

the 200 mile limit.

By the late '80s, the value of fish caught by Grimsby's trawlers

had dropped from around £14 million per year in 1974

to just £500,000.

In 1990, the Ice Factory was forced to close.

It was a status symbol.

It represented so much to the community

and it still does today.

I think a new chapter in its life is needed.

Today the port of Grimsby is finding new life

in a new resource push which is offshore wind power.

This is another instalment in the life of one of

the great port cities of the UK.

The old ice factory is set to be

a part of Grimsby's regeneration.

Josephine Waugh is a member of

the team working to revive the building.

There is an existing legacy here of cutting edge technology and so

the intention through the redevelopment of this space is

to have this be a centre and a hub for research

and development into renewable energy.

In Northern Italy, 20 miles from the city of Genoa,

a secluded forest conceals a story of vengeful retribution.

There's a clearing and we can see a massive structure.

It's got wings, it's got a clock tower

and it's not the kind of thing you expect to see in

the Italian countryside.

The location is stunning,

so you might guess it was some kind of sanatorium or a hotel even.

A closer look reveals that the rest of

the building is entirely bare with many of

the hints of its past life stripped away.

Some rooms had the remains of showers, toilets,

but the facilities feel far more functional than you'd expect

in luxury accommodation.

The biggest clue though as to its origin,

is the style of the architecture.

The design is typical of the 1930s

and that means only one thing,

it was built during the reign of the fascist dictator,

Benito Mussolini.

This was a site intended to indoctrinate

and secure the loyalty of

the next generation of Italian children.

But, during the Second World War,

it was taken over

and used against

the regime it was designed to protect.

In the woods around this place,

rumour has it that there are hundreds

of soldiers in unmarked graves buried here in

the name of freedom and revenge.

Giuseppe Isola is the Mayor of Rovegno.

When he was young,

this was a scenic getaway that had moved on from its

unsettling beginnings.

But the building's original function was not to treat

a condition that affected children's bones.

It was to shape their minds.

In March of 1919,

Benito Mussolini creates the Fascist Party

and he's going to recruit unemployed war veterans

and he's going to put them all in black shirts.

For the next two years, Mussolini used his own personal army

to terrorise political opponents

until eventually, he was invited to

join a coalition government.

By 1925 he'd taken complete control.

Mussolini relied heavily on propaganda

to spread his fascist gospel to the people.

An often used slogan was "Mussolini is always right".

Mussolini wants everyone to know that he is the most masculine guy

in all of Italy so he's ensuring that he gets himself photographed

threshing grain, he plays with lion cubs, he is fearless.

One other way he promoted his fascist ideals was

to set up holiday camps all over Italy for young people,

particularly from deprived neighbourhoods.

Construction on this one began in 1934

and took just five months to complete.

It was called the Colonia di Rovegno.

The idea was to show these young people a different way of life

to what they were used to, to build character and to show them

the fascist future of which they would be part.

From the regime's point of view, this was vital

as these were the very people who would be

the next generation of foot soldiers.

But perhaps more worryingly,

they were indoctrinated to believe in the regime

and to see Mussolini as

a father figure who would always provide for them.

But only six years after the site opened,

it suddenly had a very different function.

On June 10th 1940 Mussolini declared war on France and Great Britain

forming part of Hitler's Axis Powers during the Second World War.

The Colonia di Rovegno was drawn into the fighting.

Genoa was Italy's busiest and largest port

and for that reason it was bombed heavily by the allies.

The city was being devastated

and the residents needed somewhere to evacuate their children.

The Colonia di Rovegno's remote location only 30 miles from

Genoa, made it one of the safest places to send them.

In October 1942 the dormitories were turned into classrooms

where kids would both sleep and study.

In winter it was brutally cold

but it was a much better option than being in the city.

But soon the Allies would gain the upper hand.

Mussolini's days as leader were numbered.

In 1943, it all goes wrong for the Italian fascists.

The Allies are about to invade.

In September, the new antifascist government signed an armistice with

the Allies but the fighting was far from over.

Hitler is not going to allow the Allies

to take all of Italy

and to be just the other side of the Alps from Germany and Austria.

And so begins the Third Reich's bloodthirsty reign of terror

in Italy.

Any Italian who is suspected of siding with the Allies

is ruthlessly tortured and executed.

The Germans don't love the Italians,

they never really did but now it shows.

The population was brutalised

and the time had come to fight back.

From the winter of 1944,

an intense partisan movement gathered pace in

Northern Italy.

These resistance fighters vowed to violently oppose

the German occupation and fascist loyalists.

It was the perfect base to hide out from Nazi soldiers

and organise guerrilla attacks.

It was also used to detain Italian fascists loyalists

and German prisoners of war.

Hundreds of these prisoners were routinely executed by partisans

and buried in the woods around the camp.

After years of abuse of the Italian population,

the partisans had had enough.

They do not want to see those Germans going back

to Germany and picking up their lives.

They don't want to see the fascists going back to their communities

and pretending nothing ever happened.

But you can't ignore the role partisans played in

the conflict.

They fought doggedly to win back their homeland.

The Italian partisans forced the Germans to get into

a close fought counter-insurgency

campaign in Northern Italy

and that is a massive suck on German combat power.

On the 26th of April 1945,

the Italian Resistance Movement freed

the city of Genoa from German occupation.

It was the first time during World War Two that

an army corps had surrendered to civilian partisan forces.

When a German commander has got to surrender to partisans,

Nazi Germany is humiliated.

Four days later, Adolf Hitler committed suicide

in his Berlin bunker

and the war in Europe was effectively over.

After the war, the Colonia di Rovegno went back to being

a camp for children.

This time, to help those suffering from rickets,

a vitamin D deficiency that weakens the bones.

Exposure to sunlight was one way to treat it.

It became a happy place for the children of Genoa

to enjoy the countryside,

to learn new skills

and, most importantly, to get access to sunshine.

But by the 1970s,

the funding had started to dry up

and it was also no longer needed.

It became abandoned.

All over Italy are a number of these deserted colonies

which occupy beautiful locations.

These are places potentially worth millions

but the authorities struggle to muster

the political will to either bring them back to life

or knock them down.

So until a new owner is found,

this site remains a prescient symbol of what can happen

when a ruthless individual rules by fear and hate.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media