Original subtitles

They were once the most advanced buildings and structures on the planet.

The best achievements in design and construction .

Today they are abandoned, polluted and occasionally deadly.

These empty buildings are filled with the lost lives of real people,

leaving many questions unanswered and mysteries unresolved.

In this series we dig into the past,

to find out how many ships have sunk throughout history

related to medical research and the space program.

One fascinating modern myth says that their steel

used for NASA's Voyager spacecraft ,

which were supposed to head into the depths of the universe.

We ask why the US government spent millions on steamships during the I MS

and then deliberately destroyed them.

When you go to war , you need a lot of ships.

An extraordinary guide was published

to create a thousand 90-meter wooden ships that would do the job.

We find out why the forerunner of modern warships

lies half-drowned and forgotten on the other side of the world.

There are 7,500 shipwrecks in Australian waters. But this ship

is unique in its construction

and there is no other like it in the whole world.

We board a survivor of a Cold War cat-and-mouse game,

to find out how it could have caused World War II.

People don't know how close we were to World War III during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Abandoned Buildings

Ghost ships

Today, large aircraft carriers, such as those used by the US Navy,

some of the largest man- made structures on Earth.

150 years ago it was claimed to be the most powerful warship in the world

to be a foundation that is not at all like these technical marvels.

But this ship was also filled with the latest technology

and his appearance changed the conduct of warfare at sea.

In the very shallow waters of the Australian Crescent

sits one of the most important warships ever built.

This is another example of how past technological achievements

now littering the world's oceans,

however, this ship is of particularly great historical importance.

There are 7,500 shipwrecks in Australian waters .

But it only has one monitor,

The Brestwick Monitor, an amazing piece of naval engineering

and it is the only ship of its kind in the whole world.

Looking at him today, it's hard to believe

that the royal ship Cerberus was once the leader of the world.

What makes this abandoned wreck so special?

Heritage Victoria Executive Director Tim Smith

has researched this interesting story.

Cerberus was commissioned and completed by 1870

and arrived here in Australia.

The ship was brand new, it arrived straight from the shipyard

and it was her maiden voyage - the longest voyage of such ships at that time.

Hmvs Cerberus, or translated "Defender of the Underworld"

demonstrated wonderful technology

a ship with a small displacement had the most powerful weapons.

It was seaworthy enough to get from England to Australia

and this meant that anyone coming into Melbourne harbor would be drowned.

By the middle of the 19th century, warships were made of wood

to be replaced by iron ships such as the famous HMS Warrior.

However, iron-hulled ships already had a design that had been used for centuries.

Was it the Nelson traditions that refused to die?

A myth has it that naval officers were so conservative,

that they wanted to stick to the one used by Nelson at Trafalgar.

That's not true. Naval officers are professionals

and fighting in naval battles requires skill and competence.

But they all wanted the latest and greatest technology,

they didn't want untested and failing technology.

Before going into battle, they wanted to see the technology work.

Then an important invention changed the way warships were built

and beat all others forever.

During the Crimean War, a naval officer invented Cowper Coles

an armored box for the guns of warships .

When the box was placed on a rotating base, it became a cannon turret.

The magic of the turret is that it can be rotated 360 degrees.

So it can be fired in any direction.

One tower in the bow of the ship, the other in the stern

and firepower can be directed where it is most needed.

Tower technology is actually pretty boring.

It's just an armored box on a mobile base ,

located at each railway station where locomotives are turned around.

However, this system changed the design of warships,

as it cannot be combined with masts or high superstructures.

So the design of the ships had to be changed.

Two very large cannons can be placed

for a shallow draft that is not designed to fight in the open ocean.

For me, this is a revolutionary time in warship design,

because this design with two towers, each at one end of the ship,

lasted for many decades.

Incredibly, it was the Australian state of Victoria,

which led to the gun turret being combined with a new warship design.

People's donations paid for a ship to defend against the Russian invasion.

The readiness of the people of Victoria, Australia

pay out of pocket for a warship,

which would protect against a Russian attack may seem silly,

but actually they did it for a reason,

because in 1864 the Times reported that Russia's Pacific Fleet,

which threatened shipping across the Pacific Ocean ,

had been commanded in the war with Great Britain,

which could have erupted with England's participation in the Polish rebellion,

to sail to the coast of Australia and attack the ports there.

Thus, Cerberus, the newest word in military technology, was acquired

an iron ship with powerful cannons,

which would have scared the Russians away.

Of course, we don't know if the ship would have done that,

since the war never broke out,

but the plan was not as crazy as it seems at first glance.

The citizens of Victoria wanted a powerful warship,

which would protect the harbor and city of Melbourne.

In England, work began on a new "breast monitor" design.

With two 200-ton turrets, each with two 250 mm guns

and with a central armored structure, it was not like a normal warship.

The ship was specifically commissioned by the Victorian government to protect this bay.

Construction began in 1867 and the base was completed in 1870

and was ready to sail to the other side of the world to Australia.

It was the longest voyage of this type of ship in history.

A remarkable achievement, but a harrowing journey.

The 3,000-ton ship Cerberus, launched in 1868, was named

after the three-headed dog guarding the underworld in Greek mythology .

A 16,000-kilometer journey from England to Australia awaited him.

The biggest test awaited Cerberus at the very beginning of his life.

The ship was built in England to operate in Australia

and had to travel 16,000 kilometers across the most dangerous waters on the planet.

The ship's cannons were sent separately

and the turrets were filled with coal.

Coal was placed in every possible place on the ship,

that it would definitely be enough to cover 16,000 kilometers.

But in case it is still missing,

what did they have on board that could provide extra power?

Masts and sails that belonged to old technology.

It shows how impressive the ship was and the engineering behind it.

For a ship that was intended to sail 50-60 km from the coast,

it was an impressive feat.

Arriving in Melbourne, Cerberus settled for a peacetime role.

The Russians never came and the cannons were not used as intended.

The ultimate goal of military spending remained to ensure peace.

Winning wars is a very secondary consideration,

because it's expensive and messy and you can't guarantee the result.

Cerberus worked as well as modern nuclear deterrents.

The Russians did not come, peace prevailed and Port Philip Head was not bombarded.

At one time, Cerberus was one of the most powerful warships.

It would have easily defeated its opponents.

He didn't have to use his cannons properly ,

because the development of technology was so fast,

in a few decades, the design of warships developed enormously,

we cannot imagine what would have become of naval technology,

if Cerberus didn't exist.

Without the design and blueprints needed to construct Cerberus.

He was part of an iterative process that led to the warships of the I MS.

But with the end of World War I, Cerberus was no longer needed.

What to do with 3,000 tons of steel from another era?

Ceberus was lucky to survive

so many years standing in Melbourne Harbour.

It saved the ship , and when the opportunity came to sink the vessel,

to use the ship as a pier to protect the shore from erosion,

so the protector of the harbor became the protector of the shore line.

Abandoned Buildings

Ghost ships

Abandoned Buildings

Ghost ships

Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands

is one of the best natural harbors in the world.

Here were more descendants of the Cerberus design during World War I ,

than anywhere else on Earth.

Scapa was home to the battleships of Britain's mighty Grand Fleet.

In recent decades, the popularity of sport diving has increased.

Many divers head to the north of Scotland

to one of the largest natural harbors in the world.

The icy waters and limited visibility of the harbor are not to everyone's liking.

Swimming on the so-called tourist route

I see new things every time.

And then there are still ships waiting to be explored and discovered

and there are battleships that are so big,

you have the opportunity to go places where no one has been before,

these corridors have not been walked in for hundreds of years.

War has always brought new technology,

naval warfare is no exception.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the latest technical achievements were combined

into a unified weapon system - a battleship.

In the early 20th century, a battleship was

which was the culmination of success and progress in many technical fields .

Steam turbine engines were used to propel these large ships .

Advances in communications, optics and firearms,

the possible size of these weapons, everything matched

in those amazing war machines that became the symbols of every navy.

If you didn't have one, who were you?

During World War I, Scapa was home to dozens of British warships.

And when the struggle in 1918 ended in November,

the German navy was stationed here for internment.

Emily Turton is Scapa Flow's Dive Master

and an expert on what became of these once feared German ships.

Scapa Flow is surrounded by the southern Orkney Islands,

creating a huge natural harbor,

what you see behind me and all around us,

which made it strategically the best place to station a navy

both during World War I and World War II.

The German Navy during I MS did not want Scapa Flow to be so important to them,

but eventually it became the final resting place of their fleet.

Until the Allies worked out treaty terms for peace with Germany,

German ships stood under British artillery fire for half a year.

But on June 21, 1919

the remaining German team members took matters into their own hands.

Admiral von Reuter was not kept informed of the peace negotiations.

He expected the entire German fleet to be taken over

and that it would be divided among the allied forces.

He couldn't help it because the ships were armed.

He couldn't resist, so his only option

was to sink these ships so that no one could get them.

The destruction of the German fleet was the largest mass sinking of ships in history.

52 ships, from the latest 27,000 ton battleships

up to 600-ton destroyers, sank to the bottom of Scapa Flow.

A good day was chosen for the immersion. British fleet at Scapa

was headed for training so there were few ships in port,

and there were few men and boats and they could not get to the German ships,

to stop them from doing what they did.

On any other day an entire battle squadron would have been present,

there would have been more men than Germans and they would have kept the ships afloat.

Captain Nigel James is an expert in shipwreck recovery.

All ships usually have kingstons

and these kingstons are located in the engine compartment.

Through them the ship gets water

for engine compartment systems and ballasting,

the system takes the water to the bottom ballast tanks.

And these pipes are huge, they are of such a diameter,

they are so big that you can't reach around them to grab them.

If you want to sink a ship, you open the Kingston valves

and open others, taps leading to the system,

so that the water can flow directly into the interior of the vessel,

which would create the negative buoyancy needed to sink the ship.

The sinking of the German fleet in 1919,

when a number of warships sank in the mouth is a relatively forgotten event,

as it was a somewhat shameful story from the British point of view,

because we could not prevent it.

In fact, we would have liked to have these ships

and the German admiral and his captains

partially saved their honor by sinking their ships,

instead of giving them away so it's not a glorious episode

and of course it overshadowed it in its own way

many land battles.

One man decided not to leave 40,000 tons of metal and machinery

to rust the seabed.

Ernest Cox was an engineer with no seabed rescue experience,

but in 1920 he began to attempt the impossible.

Engineering is fundamentally about achieving the impossible.

The problem faced by Ernest Cox,

was how to raise 52 sunken warships

up from the ocean floor and delivered to dry land.

Warships came in many sizes and shapes,

the largest of these were 26,000-ton battleships.

Ernest Cox, known as the man who bought the fleet,

is such a rare person who is ready to offer a win in a game of chance.

Money floats at the bottom of Scapa Flow,

but he doesn't know how to bring it to the surface

and taken to a shipyard to be scrapped.

At that time there was no such lifting power,

as we have today.

They had to use air.

If the hull can be made airtight

and fill with air, it is possible to raise it to the surface.

For this, the base must be quite healthy.

One of Cox's methods was the detailing of smaller ships

use to surface their larger sisters.

One example of Cox's genius is that he used chimneys,

taken from raised ships to create huge airlocks,

which started from the surface of the water where the ships were raised

and he welded them together, making very long pipes

and got an airlock right at the bottom of the sea,

where the hull of the sunken ship lay.

In the 20s and 30s , the scrap metal price was

that made raising sunken ships worthwhile.

However, 1945 brought a new and powerful weapon system

a new use for the remnants of the German fleet .

A strange twist in the story, and probably a completely unexpected result, is that

how about the armor that protected the super weapons of the past - battleships

against the largest explosions possible at the time,

used to analyze contemporary effectiveness and impact.

So today's superweapon: the nuclear weapon.

On steel made before the first nuclear explosion,

has a much smaller radiation signature

than on modern steel made in an irradiated atmosphere,

because the process of making quality steel uses a lot of air.

So when radiation is measured,

then the equipment used for this should not be irradiated.

This steel, which has been submerged since 1919,

is very useful for this purpose .

Doctors need a way to measure a person's radiation level,

which would not be disturbed by high background radiation.

The quality of German steel is shown by

that it could later be used for radiation experiments in hospitals,

in this way, only high-quality steel could be used,

which had been produced before the first atomic bomb.

But, of course, the creators of this wonderful German metal would not

imagined what use it would eventually find.

They thought it would be used for the glory of Germany

and for a very different purpose than that for which it was finally used.

Abandoned Buildings

Ghost ships

Abandoned Buildings

Ghost ships

Mallows Bay is located on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean near Washington.

It is still there today at a depth of a few meters

the remains of the second World War I fleet are visible.

The Potomac is one of the most historic rivers in the United States

and an important waterway to Washington.

But many people living on the banks of the river have no idea

that there is something hidden there that cost the United States millions of dollars

Mallows Bay Ghost Fleet.

We are in Mallows Bay, which is 50 km from Washington.

Here there is a bay soup about 800 meters wide,

which is full of World War I wooden ships, steamships,

there are about 130 vessels in this area

and most of them - about a hundred - are bases from the time of the First World War.

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917 ,

his factories had been producing equipment for the Allies for two years.

Now they were tasked with supplying America's own forces.

Was the US ready for war? Was not.

In fact, US industry was producing at full speed

armaments for the allied forces.

All American industry supplied the British, the French, and the Russians.

They had no spare production capacity and were not ready to fight.

They were unable to continue sending supplies to the Allies in Europe

and that was a big problem.

If we go to war and have to, in addition to supplying the Allies

to transport our own soldiers as well, we need an awful lot of ships.

How many ships do we really have? It turned out that there were not enough of them,

because an extraordinary guide was published

to create a thousand 90-meter wooden ships that would do the job.

The result was one of the largest shipbuilding projects in history.

Maryland State Underwater Archaeologist Susan Langley

is an expert on this unusual story.

With the advent of World War I, a proposal was made

to make 2 million tons of ships in a year and a half .

It was a phenomenal offer. A thousand steamships were requested.

They weren't warships, they were civilian support ships.

The trouble was that they were 80 to 90 meters long,

their speed was to be no more than 10 knots,

so they were vulnerable, they weren't fast,

they were sacrificial, meeting a German submarine

it was preferable to lose a wooden ship rather than a steel ship.

Although we didn't want to lose the supply, the supply line had to be kept open,

getting this equipment across the sea was of the utmost importance.

The big American shipyards were already working at the limit of their capabilities.

The order for 1,000 steamers was impossible to fulfill.

The US government had no choice but to take a step back

and use technology from a previous era .

1916 iron shipbuilding was not a very large industry in America,

so the Americans saw building wooden ships as a quicker solution.

Put steam engines in ships, but build ships out of wood,

because it would be faster than creating new shipbuilding centers.

Eight different basic constructs came under question

and each shipyard did what it did best.

In 1917, it was not known when the war would end.

It didn't have to happen very soon , and a year and a half was a short time

in order to complete 200 million tons of ships,

which was badly needed.

Contracts to build this huge wooden fleet

went to 87 shipbuilders across America.

The project was to be a unique war-winning triumph of American construction .

However, it soon became clear that the shipyards could not cope with the work.

In my opinion, the maritime sector was not an industry

ready to build a thousand ships ready for an emergency.

The ships had to be built quickly, the problem was with raw wood,

the problems were with leakage and vibration.

Here are the large concrete blocks that were used to balance the bases.

The ships were basically patched up.

The shipyards were too small, they didn't have enough resources,

many had not built ships for some years.

At the beginning of the 20th century, this industry was no longer very dynamic.

Many men had gone to do other work.

People who had no means, tools and experience were used

and for whom the work was probably too much,

so that by the end of World War I none of these 1000 ships

only 130 of them were completed - none of the 1000 ships were used,

to transport men or equipment across the Atlantic .

Changes and improvements to the ships meant that,

that each of these ships cost a full million dollars.

And the entire program was behind schedule.

Costs were getting out of control.

Incredibly, a year had passed since the end of the war,

when the US government finally canceled the order for the wooden fleet

and two hundred unnecessary ships remained in their hands .

Thousands of dollars had been spent to keep them afloat .

Now there was only one way.

Most of them were anchored on the other side of the river in the so-called "stormy water" area,

from where they were transported to Alexandria to have the metal parts removed.

Some wood, mostly metal,

but there were always problems due to storms and fires ,

because the ships got loose and were a danger to shipping.

So the ships were tied together and burned down to the waterline,

were taken to the bay, filled with stones and left there.

At most , thirty ships were burned at one time.

In the end, the entire project became an example of

what happens when you start doing something unprepared,

you make hasty decisions and spend a lot of money.

This is a classic problem with democratic governments.

So we have ordered a thousand ships that cost a million dollars each.

Is it an American "can do" or an American "shouldn't"?

Today they are in the wild ecosystem,

but it is the most expensive nature reserve in history.

From the disastrous story that turned Mallows Bay into a dump,

had met with unusual and unexpected success.

A backdrop to the ships that lie here almost forgotten,

but it deserves its place in US history.

Abandoned Buildings

Ghost ships

Abandoned Buildings

Ghost ships

In the city of Rochester in southern England, there is proof that

that it is not only difficult to get rid of wooden steamships .

It is home to a class of Soviet warships,

which nearly ignited World War III 50 years ago .

The River Medway was home to the British fleet for hundreds of years,

so warships are a common sight here.

However, when the Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine B49

arrived in 2003. Down to Rochester, that 's when it happened for the first time.

John Sutton is responsible for this relic of the Cold War.

and one of the 22 torpedoes the ship carried.

Mostly with conventional explosives,

but they were also capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

But they didn't always have them with them.

The Cold War is often seen as a time when nuclear missiles and tanks

were lined up and waiting to be implemented.

However, it is often forgotten that at sea

the opposing sides were often faced together.

When we talk about the Cold War, we imagine everyone sitting in a fur coat.

Actually, a lot happened. We know there was a covert air war,

we know that the Americans spied on Russia,

but all used submarines to explore others' backyards,

cut a little in between and spy.

The British and Americans spied on the Russians

and the Russians tried to stop them from spying.

Many things happened under water, so the submarine is

a warship symbolizing the cold war, as it is the most active,

it is the only one that can be used without leaving a visible trace.

Submarines became the main striking force of the Soviet fleet.

At a time when the US and British fleets only wanted a nuclear fleet,

continued to use diesel-electric ships similar to the Nsvl B49 .

The Soviet attitude towards submarine warfare was something like this:

"If it ain't broke, there's no need to fix it."

The Soviets continued to use diesel power because it was efficient,

went where it needed to go, although not in the most comfortable way.

It was so tight in those machines

and three large locomotive engines were running at all times.

The noise and smell there must have been terrible.

Many wonder why Nsvl continued to build outdated technology

with his Foxtrot class until the 80s.

Of course, there was newer technology that they could have used.

But their production preferred quantity over quality.

That was the reason - the most important were the numbers.

Of course, you could upgrade, but why do that when there is such a good thing?

This pantry version of a submarine could be called a workhorse,

it was a fairly simple submarine, but it was enough,

to make the Americans and NATO worried and make them look for

because the submarine could still carry a nuclear bomb.

Although not particularly glamorous, it was Russia's most effective weapon.

The problem with diesel powered submarines was that

that they could not remain under water for a long time.

The Foxtrot class was able to dive, for two, maybe three days,

but then they had to push their batteries to the limit to stay under water .

They could rise below the surface,

start the engines and charge the batteries,

but they could be spotted by airplanes from a depth of four meters

below the surface, they would be quite easy for aircraft to spot.

The weakness of Foxtrot-class submarines became an important factor,

when four of them were sent against the US Navy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Soviet Foxtrot-class submarines were in the Caribbean during the Cuban Missile Crisis

and the Americans did not find all the Foxtrot in the Atlantic.

They found two and sat on them until they ran out of air.

But the other two managed to sneak through.

Conditions aboard the hunting Foxtrots became unbearable,

as both air and energy began to run out.

The Russians designed them only as war machines,

they did not construct comfortable conditions for the team.

The heat, smells and humidity were quite unbearable,

depending on the ocean of course so it was not a pleasant experience.

They were so claustrophobic! There were 74 per man on board

just one toilet and two showers, imagine how disgusting it was.

It's amazing they made it across the Atlantic at all.

There was no more personal space than the immediate space around you.

No wonder it gets to you after a while

and you begin to lose your mind - judgment is no longer the same

and you are extremely stressed.

The Soviet team members were in such conditions .

The US did not know if the Foxtrots had nuclear warheads in their torpedoes.

Not being able to contact Moscow and not knowing if war had already broken out,

a Soviet captain was ready to send the torpedoes.

People don't know how close we were to World War III during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The US threw deadly charges at the Russians underwater

and tested their ability.

The Russian ships had been submerged for a long time

and the captain of one of them began to lose his mind.

As they were ordered not to communicate with Russia,

they had no way of knowing what was going on around them.

But from the radio signals they put together piece by piece,

that something is happening on the surface of the water, that they are being searched for.

This one captain was ready to launch a nuclear torpedo.

He had been underwater too long

and thought that World War III had started, so he went to push the button,

to launch a nuclear warhead at US naval vessels.

His colleague said: Don't do it, you can't do it, stop it."

If there is an unsung hero,

then the man who stopped the commander from starting World War III.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1989

unnecessary warships began to pile up in ship graveyards,

creating a looming natural disaster.

We had to get rid of them properly ,

otherwise an environmental disaster would have ensued .

Modern warships are full of truly terrible things.

II MS ships are full of asbestos, diesel and worse.

Yes, it costs more than just scrapping,

but who knows what effect they would have on the environment and the Earth?

There was a problem with radioactive contamination during the dismantling of nuclear ships.

Even diesel submarines have a dangerous cocktail of pollutants.

Simply throwing them into the sea was out of the question.

Although B49 appears to be completely broken down,

its current owner is doing restoration work,

so that the ship can be turned into a tourist attraction.

In contrast, Mallow Bay is from the Ghost Fleet

already received a unique marine resource - an archaeological area,

nature reserve and leisure center and all this at the same time.

But the ships built quickly a century ago don't last forever.

It has to be in the top five for environmental and historical enclaves.

It may not be a cross-section of ships, but because they tell their own story

and as they give credit to the merchant fleet,

have now become an integral part of this environment,

where both aspects are present and will continue in the future,

it is the link between the environmental living laboratory and the future.

Unfortunately, Cerberus will no longer be a tourist attraction.

But her wreck has become a center for marine conservation.

For decades, Heritage Victoria has led research into the wreck,

so with archeological research we can piece together the history of the ship.

These include studies of the base's exterior

and interior research using a remotely operated vehicle.

Every time we look at the base, we learn about its design and equipment

and about how the hull was made

and its amazing ability to freeboard down

and about weapons and armament, there is so much to learn from the original ship.

Seven shipwrecks preserved in the icy waters of Scapa Flow

attract divers from all over the world.

But there are stories about how the steel of these lost sisters

has made one last incredible journey.

A fascinating modern myth tells,

that from the steel of a German battleship sunk near Orkney

used to build the Voyager spacecraft ,

which were supposed to head into the depths of the universe.

The idea of ​​a fleet of warships reaching the edge of the solar system,

may seem a little strange, but outdated technologies,

which is no longer needed for a long time can be used for other things.

This isn't the only time old naval equipment has been used in space .

It may be a myth, but to the German engineers who built the ships,

might like the idea that their hard work

plays a role in humanity's greatest journey

traveled to the stars.