Original subtitles

Narrator: an epic cliff face Construction carved into rock...

It's not only the fact this Tunnel sort of leads out

To sea, but it comes out Halfway up a cliff.

Narrator: an eerie facility With a gothic feel...

Auerbach: those gargoyles are Very strange, almost like

They're guarding something

Or perhaps warning people About what's inside.

Narrator: ...And a mystical Labyrinth with the power

To play with the mind.

So increasingly Disoriented underground,

These russian secret police Begin to hunt each other.

Narrator: Decaying relics.

Ruins of lost worlds.

Sites haunted by the past.

Their secrets waiting To be revealed.

*

*

On the outskirts of Louisville, kentucky,

Perched on top of a hill, lies

The battered shell of A huge and imposing building.

Auerbach: it's not the kind of Place you'd stumble across

Auerbach: it's not the kind of Place you'd stumble across

By accident -- It's pretty secluded.

To get to the place, You have to take this long,

Winding drive that snakes up The hill.

Narrator: At first sight,

The building raises more Questions than answers.

You can't really Tell if this is

The front or the back of The building.

Auerbach: how do you get in? It's a bit disorienting.

This rambling structure Seems to

Go on forever in Every direction.

Narrator: while ominous-looking Creatures gaze down from above,

Narrator: while ominous-looking Creatures gaze down from above,

Inside, The different spaces paint

An eerie and confused picture.

We have to ask, Why are these abandoned?

What terrible thing Happened here that

Makes people want To stay away?

Narrator: And how is it linked

To a modern-day Global pandemic?

A three-story solarium Dominates its southern face.

A three-story solarium Dominates its southern face.

Could this be the key To unlocking

The mystery of this Building's original purpose?

There would have been A bed

Pulled out in front of Every single open doorway

All the way down and around This thing,

Across the whole back.

Narrator: dale clark grew up Just five miles away

And has been showing people Around for the last 18 years.

Then there were usually Smaller children's beds shoved

Then there were usually Smaller children's beds shoved

Up against the brick wall On the outside.

And there was just a little path Between the foot of

The beds over here and the side Of the beds over there.

They spent a good chunk of Their time out here.

It must have been a very Strange sight coming up

That driveway and seeing All the people out like that.

But what were they doing Out there?

It's not like there's a view Of the ocean or the river

It's not like there's a view Of the ocean or the river

Or anything like that.

Barratt: it's not there As a show of wealth.

It's there for a purpose, And what that is, to my eyes,

I'm not quite sure.

Narrator: This is waverly hills,

An 180,000 square foot Facility built to house

Over 500 people.

But the devil here Is in the details.

So if from the outside it Looks like maybe it could be

A fancy hotel or retreat,

A fancy hotel or retreat,

The inside has a very Different feel to it.

Nusbacher: when you go down These lengthy corridors,

You realize that this is not A luxury hotel fallen

On hard times.

Barratt: There's not much left behind,

But there are odd bits of Medical equipment.

This is not just a place

Of life here in the hills

Of kentucky.

What we're looking at Is a place of death.

What we're looking at Is a place of death.

Clark: This is the morgue.

We have no idea why this room Is so small.

At the worst cases, A body an hour,

This little room is gonna Fill up very quickly.

That's why there's A maintenance department

Down the far end of The building

That's four times the size Of this.

It became the auxiliary Morgue during the worst of it.

Auerbach: when you need to have An auxiliary morgue,

You're talking A lot of bodies.

Narrator: Waverly wasn't alone.

Narrator: Waverly wasn't alone.

The body count was piling up All over

The states as well as The rest of the world.

It hit the u.S. So badly that they had

To form a national committee To deal with the problem.

Nusbacher: a global pandemic Of this disease

Struck terror into the hearts Of everyone.

Narrator: the rampaging disease Was tuberculosis.

Built in 1924,

This was more than Just a hospital.

This was more than Just a hospital.

It was a home For those afflicted.

You've also got Dentists and barbers

And even a gift shop.

Nusbacher: patients are not Just here for

An operation and then Go home.

The patients, or the inmates In this place,

Are here long enough to grow Their hair long and get it cut.

They need to function in This place

They need to function in This place

For the rest of their lives.

Children that were Born in waverly had to

Be taken away from Their mothers immediately

After birth.

The risk of contamination Was that severe.

And it gives you some sense Of how long people

Were confined here if they were Having children born here.

Narrator: The story of a patient called

Lois brings this Heartbreaking reality to life.

Clark: she was a mother of Two when she got here,

And if a patient was Doing better,

They would allow them to go Home on furlough

They would allow them to go Home on furlough

And then have to come back.

She came back, And it didn't go well.

She had conceived a child While she was gone.

To our knowledge, The only time lois

Ever got to see her son That was born here

Was standing in one of These solarium windows,

Looking at the road that ran Across the back of the building

As somebody held him up.

Patients need to be isolated.

They need to be kept away From cities and towns

Where they could cause Thousands of infections

Where they could cause Thousands of infections

And thousands of deaths.

It can survive in the air,

And it can attack Any organ in your body,

But it usually goes For the lungs.

Barratt: the victorian name For it was consumption,

Because it consumes your body

From the inside -- at one Point across america

And europe, one in seven Deaths were down

To tb -- one in seven people Died of tuberculosis.

To tb -- one in seven people Died of tuberculosis.

Auerbach: Jefferson county, kentucky,

Was one of the worst-hit Places in the country.

Narrator: fortunately, waverly Hills rose to the occasion.

Waverly is as good as it gets.

Here is a place Where you're going

To be looked after By the best.

Auerbach: if you were gonna Try out a new procedure,

Waverly was where you were Gonna try it out.

And they were really at The cutting edge of

Tb treatment.

Narrator: But in the early 1900s,

Narrator: But in the early 1900s,

The best tuberculosis Treatment was still

Experimental to say the least.

Procedures we talk about Most of all in here are

Auto pneumothorax,

Which is basically where they Would let air into your chest

Cavity and manually collapse One of your lungs.

It's very, very painful.

They thought, mistakenly, That while the lung was

Collapsed, it would rest And heal itself.

Nusbacher: medical science Had not yet learned how to

Deal with this disease And the best way

Deal with this disease And the best way

To heal was for the patient To heal himself or herself.

Narrator: aside from These last-ditch operations,

There were only three treatments

Thought to be effective Against tb --

Fresh air, sunshine, And nutrition.

This building has areas Purpose built for that,

Along these massive Balconies called solariums.

These are the best treatments They had,

These are the best treatments They had,

But as we know from the number Of people that were dying here,

It wasn't really That effective in the end.

There are hospitals today Which have a whole separate

Set of corridors for moving Dead people out of rooms.

Narrator: the solution here Was more direct --

A body shoot.

It was not originally built To be a body shoot.

It was built to bring up Building supplies

And materials.

All the mechanism, machines,

The track and everything that Was built to bring bricks up,

The track and everything that Was built to bring bricks up,

They just reversed it And took bodies down.

Bottom, there was A little building

It was basically storage So they could

Either be loaded Into hearses, ambulances,

Train cars, depending on Where they needed to go.

Barratt: this was just A grim form of architecture

But totally necessary.

Narrator: and scrawlings On the walls serve as a reminder

Of the risks taken by The staff who worked here.

Clark: the employees were The original graffiti artists.

Clark: the employees were The original graffiti artists.

There's a lot of names signed In pencil,

Quite a few of them Are dated,

And some of them are very old,

Just to let themselves know That they're still alive.

That, you know,

They came and did a horrible Job, took a chance on getting

Deathly ill, and a lot Of 'em, you know, survived.

Narrator: a new discovery was About to change everything.

Waverly would have To reinvent itself.

*

Narrator: in 1943, A scientific breakthrough

Spelled the beginning Of the end

For the waverly Hills sanatorium.

The antibiotic streptomycin Was discovered, and it was

The cure the world Had been waiting for.

Nusbacher: without streptomycin Or similar antibiotics,

Tuberculosis would Still be a plague,

Tuberculosis would Still be a plague,

Even in the developed world Where it's rarely seen.

Barratt: it's no longer needed In the 21st century,

But it's such a monumental Building, it has to

Reinvent itself in order to Find a purpose today.

Narrator: Closed as a tb sanatorium

In 1961, it is now

Frequented by people Looking for something

Entirely different.

If an unmerciful god

If an unmerciful god

Allowed the souls Of the departed to

Roam the world,

Then this is just the kind of Place people imagine

Unquiet spirits would be.

Narrator: a room on waverly's Fifth floor is

The most anticipated stop On dale's paranormal tour.

A nurse who had gotten pregnant By a doctor

Who was married to someone Else mysteriously was found

Hanging out here in the hallway Across from the elevator car,

Hanging out here in the hallway Across from the elevator car,

Just that, right up there Is where she was found.

Was she just overcome?

Or a lot of people

Think that maybe something More sinister happened.

No one will ever 100% for sure

Know exactly what Happened to her.

Narrator: For most of the world,

Tb is seen As a disease of the past,

But recent studies have cast Serious doubt on

But recent studies have cast Serious doubt on

That assumption.

Clark: the original strain, They can pretty much

Take care of -- the problem is There's a new strain

Coming out that is very Antibiotic resistant,

And the old treatments Just aren't working.

Nusbacher: tuberculosis is Nature continuing,

To this day, To claw

At human life and to force us To fight back.

Narrator: Scientists across the globe

Are racing to find treatments For this new strain of tb

And entirely new viruses And diseases that emerge

And threaten us With a global pandemic.

It's almost like an arms race

With these terrible diseases,

And we hope that We're winning,

But it's a close battle.

Narrator: these battles, despite Their devastating effects,

Bring humanity together In new and inspiring ways.

Bring humanity together In new and inspiring ways.

This togetherness has been Critical to our fight against

Pandemics and will continue To be so in the future.

In the blue waters of The mediterranean,

On the italian island Of sardinia,

An intriguing ruin Clings to the cliff face.

Meigs: you see this structure That just boggles the mind.

Meigs: you see this structure That just boggles the mind.

It looks like some Ancient building,

But it starts maybe 100 feet up

This rocky cliff.

Jerram: Has some of it fallen away?

It's a really strange Juxtaposition from cliffs to

Something that's almost, like, Plastered on the side.

Barratt: now, it might look, On the face of it, that there's

Been an engineering catastrophe Here and the cliff face has

Fallen away, but no,

This is purpose built And what you see

Is what you're Supposed to see.

Is what you're Supposed to see.

Narrator: Inside, the true extent

Of this complex is revealed.

Jerram: the tunnel itself Is quite extensive.

It goes several 100 meters Into the mountain.

You have to have A big incentive

To blast your way through Such hard rock.

Meigs: ultimately, you see There's two levels of tunnels,

And you can see that There is a series of

Bins in between the two tunnels With some kind of gate

At the bottom of each bin.

Barratt: This is an amazing sight

Barratt: This is an amazing sight

Of great ingenuity, And it really is

What gets people Into engineering.

You give someone a problem, And with enough imagination,

They come up with An amazing solution.

*

*

Narrator: antonio littarru Is an expert on

The history of this place.

Narrator: and yet This particular structure

Is far from ancient.

Meigs: it's not as old As it looks, actually,

And it's quite Beautifully engineered.

This is not An ancient monastery

Or some kind of Strange castle.

Or some kind of Strange castle.

This was Something industrial.

Narrator: a closer look At the tunnel walls

Reveal valuable rocks Buried in the hillside.

Jerram: you've got rocks that Are very, very old and rocks

That are very, very young, And all through

Those different eras, You get times

When you're Having magma,

Which causes mineralization And causes things like silver

And lead and zinc.

Narrator: Along the coast,

Visible from this cliff face, Are the remains of

A sprawling complex that Suggests an operation on

A sprawling complex that Suggests an operation on

A truly industrial scale.

Barratt: you can see rail Tracks, huge storage chambers,

All sorts of things going on, On an epic scale.

Jerram: you're almost dwarfed by These rusting bits of machinery,

And it's clear that somehow, This tunnel,

These two places Were linked.

Narrator: What connects these two sites?

Narrator: What connects these two sites?

And how would An engineering genius

Overcome An age-old problem?

*

Narrator: in sardinia, Tunnels seemingly engineered

Directly into a cliff face

Are somehow connected to An industrial wasteland

Just along the coast.

Meigs: one of the biggest Challenges of mining here

Is getting the ore Off the island.

For centuries, there was No real infrastructure.

For centuries, there was No real infrastructure.

Narrator: the lead and zinc ore Was hauled to the coast by ox

And cart.

These men and their beasts Of burden

Toiled in the baking Sardinian sun,

And from there, Things only got tougher.

And from there, Things only got tougher.

Jerram: when you have hard rock, Hard basement rock,

You often end up with rugged, Rocky coastlines,

Cliffs, inaccessible areas, So they don't

Necessarily lend themselves To big ports.

Narrator: small boats Transported the ore

To the nearest Deepwater port

On the island of san pietro,

15 miles across The treacherous open sea.

The area itself is Quite precarious

In terms of weather -- You've got the mistral winds,

In terms of weather -- You've got the mistral winds,

These cold winds coming down From the northwest of france,

And you've got The ponente winds

That come in from the west.

These boats can only Hold about six tons of ore.

That's a remarkably Small amount.

I mean, that's really -- That's just a few wheelbarrows

Full of ore, And they would load them

As heavily as they could.

So now you've got this little Open boat trying to get

To a harbor Some distance away,

Where it can be loaded Into a bigger boat.

Where it can be loaded Into a bigger boat.

It's full of rocks.

These boats sank all the time.

It was incredibly dangerous, Slow, inefficient.

Jerram: they're quite Precarious little boats,

So you can imagine you're Loading a boat full of rocks,

And then you're trying To get it off.

If you've got bad weather, Those boats could easily

Topple over, and many did,

And many people fell To their deaths.

Narrator: To solve this age-old problem,

The mine owners turn to

Venetian engineer, Cesare vecelli.

Venetian engineer, Cesare vecelli.

Meigs: and this guy Was a real genius,

One of those Out-of-the-box thinkers.

Vecelli spent a year Studying the problem

And studying the geography Around the mine

And the coastline.

Jerram: they found this sort of Wonderful site where a sea

Stack was actually protecting

The waterway between The sea stack and the land,

And it was deep water,

So in principle, you could get Big ships in there,

But then your issue was Creating a port.

But then your issue was Creating a port.

His answer was this -- Porto flavia.

Instead of taking The ore to the ports,

They would bring A port to the ore.

He said, "Instead of Building something new,

Why don't I use a structure That's already there?"

Normally, any mariner Looks at this coastline,

Looks at that cliff, This is their worst nightmare.

And yet here they were, Planning to

And yet here they were, Planning to

Turn this forbidding cliff Into a port facility.

Narrator: Construction began in 1923,

And the teams worked day And night for two years.

Now all they had to do

Was blast out thousands of Tons of rock.

Jerram: they finally broke Through the cliffs,

And they could see the sea, But they didn't stop there.

Meigs: and then here comes The really scary part.

They started hanging out Over the water.

They started hanging out Over the water.

That way, As they dug the tunnel,

They could just shovel all The rock out into the water.

And again, they repeated The process of drilling

And blasting until

They'd carved out a parallel Tunnel below the other one.

Narrator: The miners then dug

Nine vast chambers connecting The two tunnels.

Barratt: the silos are huge, 20 meters high,

And between the nine of them,

They could hold up to 10,000 tons of minerals.

They could hold up to 10,000 tons of minerals.

Narrator: with some Final machinery installed,

The system was complete.

Electric trains from the mine Would arrive

At the upper tunnel,

And the ore was poured Into the nine huge silos.

And the ore was poured Into the nine huge silos.

Meanwhile, large cargo ships Would moor in the calm waters

Under porto flavia.

In the lower tunnel, The ore poured out onto

The conveyor belt.

A nearly 50-foot-long Retractable arm extended out

Over the sea,

And the ore would drop into The ships waiting below.

Meigs: At the end of that boom was

Kind of a rubberized sleeve.

So as all that gravel And rock was tumbling down,

So as all that gravel And rock was tumbling down,

It wasn't just gonna Spray everywhere.

It was all gonna go directly Into the hold where it belonged.

Barratt: in fact, they could Turn around one of these ships

In two days,

Loading up to 500 tons an hour Directly into the hold.

Jerram: so a really amazing Engineering feat,

And they used the cliff And the geology

And the whole function Of gravity, really, to

Aid them in that process.

Narrator: porto flavia Was a huge success.

But global forces lay in wait.

How would it meet The challenge?

*

Narrator: Porto flavia, italy --

An ingenious mineral port built Into the cliff face.

Completed in 1924, it slashed Production costs by up to 70%,

But this increased efficiency Came at a price.

Narrator: the success of Porto flavia was

Also short-lived for Its owners.

Sadly, the company didn't Have that many years

To enjoy the efficiency of Their brilliant engineering.

At the end of The 1920s, you had

The stock market crash And then the great depression.

Then you had world war ii.

It reopened for a few years In the 1950s,

But by the 1960s, there Were new efficiencies,

But by the 1960s, there Were new efficiencies,

New technologies.

Narrator: porto flavia is now Preserved for visitors,

Standing as a testament to The vision of one great engineer

Standing as a testament to The vision of one great engineer

And paying tribute To the lives

Of generations of Sardinia's miners.

Barratt: this port shows Engineering at its best.

You throw someone a challenge Of how to get a huge amount of

Material out where nature Is against you,

And they came up With this incredible,

Imaginative solution.

Narrator: on the banks of The black sea in southern

Ukraine is a port city Founded by catherine the great.

Ukraine is a port city Founded by catherine the great.

*

The stylish architecture Above ground is

Matched only by What lies beneath.

Every so often you hear a story Of some young people who

Go down, and someone gets lost And doesn't make it

Back out again.

Some researchers say that We have approximately

800 accesses.

Narrator: These access points range

From the obscure To the bizarre.

From the obscure To the bizarre.

Meigs: when you look At this shed,

It might just be some Kind of equipment shed.

And then you go inside And realize,

It gives you access to

The most incredible underground Labyrinth anyone has ever seen.

Zagnyboroda: it's absolutely Quiet place.

The silence is 100%.

As soon as you switch off Your torch,

Then the darkness is absolute.

Narrator: few people Walking the streets of

Odessa appreciate what is Beneath their feet.

Odessa appreciate what is Beneath their feet.

Jerram: if you go down, It's clear that it's not just

A normal set of tunnels.

It's actually much more Grand than that.

They just don't understand That they're literally walking

Above the underground city.

It's the biggest such system In the whole world.

Narrator: a subterranean System perfect

For a criminal underworld.

Yet it also served as The city's last line of defense

Against an occupying force,

Against an occupying force,

A resistance movement That descended into

A horror story.

So month-by-month passed -- They began to get insane.

Nusbacher: increasingly Disoriented underground,

These russian secret police

Begin to hunt each other.

*

Narrator: the city of odessa Owes its very existence to

Narrator: the city of odessa Owes its very existence to

One of the world's most Iconic female leaders.

Nusbacher: the russian empress Catherine the great

Wanted to build A new port city

In order to open up the south

Of russia to commerce, A mighty port

Where the three great rivers In eastern europe

Came together --

The bug, the dniester, And the danube.

They desperately Wanted access to a port

On the black sea And via that,

On the black sea And via that,

The mediterranean And the rest of the world.

Narrator: in 1794,

Catherine approved Funding for odessa,

Which soon became A russian trading hub.

So odessa went from being

Basically a village to A large city almost overnight.

They had a problem, though.

In this area, there aren't A lot of trees.

It's grasslands and farms, So for building materials,

It's grasslands and farms, So for building materials,

They turn to the local stone.

Jerram: and luckily, they were Sitting on a particular type of

Limestone, which is Very, very good

For making buildings out of, So they used

The geology of the rocks Beneath their feet.

Narrator: the soluble nature of Limestone meant natural

Underground caves Had formed through

Millions of years of erosion.

Meigs: so when people started Carving out tunnels to get

Their building materials,

Their building materials,

They vastly expanded This underground network.

Narrator: this gave birth to A subterranean world that

Pavel zagnyboroda now Explores for a living.

Zagnyboroda: local authorities, They try to control it somehow,

But it's almost Impossible really.

No mobile Phone connection.

No radio communication.

No gps signal reaches That deep, so you can rely

Only on yourself And your own knowledge.

Narrator: yet even he may Never understand

Narrator: yet even he may Never understand

The full extent Of this system.

No one's really sure, But one estimate

Is that there's about 1,500 miles of tunnels.

Jerram: now if you put that Into context,

Paris has got about 150, 200 Miles of tunnels, rome maybe

About 300 miles,

So it's three times both Rome and paris combined.

Meigs: The layout of these tunnels

Is extraordinarily complex,

And it's not just On one level.

They go down On multiple levels.

They go down On multiple levels.

Jerram: so you've got a kind of Complexity in terms of

The different types of rooms And corridors,

But also it's multi-tiered.

It's actually on different Levels, they've used

Different parts of The geology in different ways.

It really is a labyrinth Underneath the city.

Meigs: you can imagine How someone could become

Dangerously lost down here,

But also how someone who really Understands the network

And knows their way around

Could use it to Their advantage.

*

*

Narrator: a group of spies And saboteurs are

About to make this layer Their home.

*

The buildings of odessa have A grand and colorful

Architecture, created by The limestone dug out of

A subterranean world utilized For centuries by smugglers,

Gangsters, and thieves,

But in the city's Darkest hour,

This underbelly would offer A glimmer of hope.

During world war ii, The romanians were allied with

During world war ii, The romanians were allied with

The germans,

And they attacked odessa And took it over in 1941.

The soviets pulled out,

But they actually left behind Some secret --

What you might call, like, Special forces.

A group of soviet Secret police,

A group of the cheka From moscow,

And another group From the odessa

Office are sent down Into the catacombs.

Narrator: at the head of These units were majors

Kolodchin and kuznetsov,

Kolodchin and kuznetsov,

And pavel has Discovered evidence

Of their time here.

Zagnyboroda: kuznetsov and Kolodchin, This group was exactly here.

We found some bullets, Some batteries for

Radio station, Some guns, as well.

They were well trained and Prepared to act as a partisan.

So they had water, food, Guns, explosives, mines,

Whatever they needed for A long time to stay here.

Whatever they needed for A long time to stay here.

But they weren't prepared for The psychological challenge,

The isolation, the darkness.

You know, We hear about people

On polar expeditions Who really struggle.

Imagine if you're down in A tunnel for six months without

Seeing the sun,

Maybe only able to light A candle once in a while.

Some of the men turned Violent, perhaps suicidal.

Narrator: They also had to contend with

The occupiers tossing poisoned

The occupiers tossing poisoned

Gas into the catacombs And sealing random exits,

Hoping to trap or smoke out The rebels.

And there was another ever

Present danger lurking Around every corner.

Of course, partisans Are always vulnerable.

You know, it just takes one Person spilling the secret.

Along with kuznetsov is Yevgeniya simirunik,

And she is a traitor.

Narrator: simirunik, A member of

Narrator: simirunik, A member of

The surface team, Betrays her unit.

She turns informer and tells The romanian security forces

Everything she knows.

Zagnyboroda: we don't know Why she did this.

She betrayed all of them.

First of all, They arrested all

13 people in the city, Of course,

And then they blocked all the Exits for this underground team.

Narrator: but yevgeniya Simirunik is soon detected.

Her fellow conspirators Were on to her.

Nusbacher: so, she is put On trial in a brief,

Nusbacher: so, she is put On trial in a brief,

Informal people's trial and Put up against the walls of

The catacombs, And she's shot dead.

But now,

The two groups of communist Partisans mistrust each other,

Fatally. -they began to get insane,

So they really got Absolutely mad.

After approximately 10 months, They began killing each other.

Nusbacher: the two of them Hunt each other

In a silent vendetta.

And in the end, none of

The soviet partisans emerges From the catacombs alive.

Having dispatched of kolodchin And his moscow team,

Kuznetsov had been killed by One of his own.

And yet declassified Documents later revealed that

And yet declassified Documents later revealed that

One man did, in fact, Survive to tell the tale.

So he came to The security services of

[indistinct], And they came here,

And so he showed Them everything.

And they just shot him dead, In his back, right here.

On the third day, after The liberation of the city,

He was killed By his own people

After three years of this Terrible hell underground.

Narrator: a potentially Damaging story,

Narrator: a potentially Damaging story,

The last living eyewitness to

This horrific tragedy Had been removed.

The soviets would not allow The reputation of their

Heroic resistance fighters To be tarnished in this way.

Because for propaganda, They needed an absolutely

Different story.

It may seem that they -- All these people,

All these partisans, They died for nothing,

Like completely in vain,

That's not true, because Romanians, they didn't

That's not true, because Romanians, they didn't

Know how many exactly There were partisans

Hiding underground.

Narrator: so tens of thousands Of troops were stationed here

Throughout the war To hold the city from

This unseen enemy below.

I think that it was

This huge contribution of These partisans into

The victory.

*

*

Narrator: pavel now runs part Of the catacombs as a museum,

Bringing centuries Of history to life,

From the city's birth to Piracy and smuggling, right up

To the nuclear bunkers of The cold war.

On the edge of a bay in The southwest of japan

Is a complex that's been Towering over the land

For decades.

Somara: this is set in Beautiful landscape.

There's water And trees everywhere.

And then, right in front of you, These three huge towers

Are just there, They're massive.

Wawro: we're looking At a really tall,

400- or 500-foot-high towers,

Very slender, tapering upward, Like, almost like -- like

Concrete needles.

They look almost Like smokestacks.

If you can take a peek Inside the tower,

If you can take a peek Inside the tower,

You see a long,

Precarious-looking metal Ladder going up to the top.

Whoever had The job of climbing

That ladder certainly Didn't suffer from vertigo.

Somara: the fact that There's three of them,

It makes you question why wasn't One good enough.

Why did there need To be three?

Narrator: Only when viewed from above

Does the answer Begin to present itself.

Wawro: they form a perfect Equilateral triangle,

And then at the center of This triangle is some sort of

And then at the center of This triangle is some sort of

A building.

Somara: it's so overgrown. It's been forgotten.

That building has been Completely wrapped up

By the plants and trees That surround it.

Meigs: inside the building, There's not much there.

Clearly, this was an important Installation of some sort,

But when it shut down, Whatever was there got

Taken away.

Narrator: The complex is linked to

One of the gravest military Disasters in

U.S. History.

But the bare rooms And the hollowed out

But the bare rooms And the hollowed out

Tower seem to only offer Up an incomplete picture.

Meigs: whatever these towers Were built for,

You don't see a lot Of infrastructure.

There's no lights or cables Or other things.

Is there some other piece of The puzzle that's missing here?

Narrator: Dating back to 1918,

The towers have stood guard Over the site

For more than a century,

For more than a century,

Thanks largely to their once Cutting-edge design.

Hideaki matsuo is A historian

With a detailed knowledge of Their construction.

[ speaking japanese ]

Translator: if you head to The back, you can see

The lines in the wall.

Each layer is 4.5 feet tall.

[ speaking japanese ]

After the first layer, You have to wait for another

Two days before you can add Another one on top,

And after completing 100 layers,

This 446-foot tower Was finished.

This 446-foot tower Was finished.

[ speaking japanese ]

Narrator: the decision to build This tower with reinforced

Concrete despite the high costs And slow progress

Shows the importance placed On getting the construction

Exactly right.

Wawro: it took four years to Build this at a cost in

Today's dollars

Of nearly $50 million, which Speaks to the sophistication of

The technology employed.

Narrator: appearing like An industrial chimney

Narrator: appearing like An industrial chimney

From the outside,

The central winch system and Other remnants show this was

Really all about reaching New heights.

[ speaking japanese ]

Translator: when you go to The back, there is a ladder.

It's the original one,

And there are 550 steps To the top.

To reach the top takes 55 minutes,

And you have to keep climbing Without a break.

[ speaking japanese ]

[ speaking japanese ]

There is nowhere to rest In between.

It is quite a hard climb, And it's slow.

[ speaking japanese ]

Narrator: today, a light For warning aircraft

Sits atop each tower.

But years ago,

It was the equipment that Defined this site that crowned

These monoliths.

What's missing from The structures today are

The aerials, Which were in the form

Of triangular frames, And they would have

Sat on the top of the towers -- Between the towers

Were connecting wires, And that linked all of them,

Were connecting wires, And that linked all of them,

So they became one.

Narrator: together, The towers were used to

Transmit radio signals over Great distances.

Radio waves come in a range Of wavelengths from

Very short ones To very long ones.

And it's the long waves That most easily travel

Long distances.

But to create a long radio Wave, you need

A very big antenna.

Narrator: these towers are part Of the hario wireless

Telegraph station,

Telegraph station,

And they were designed To remedy

A costly problem identified Years earlier.

One of the forgotten wars in World history by many is

A brief war between japan And russia in 1904.

But it was a time when japan Actually tried out

A lot of Their technologies.

And in that war, They really

Learned the importance of Good communication.

Narrator: Prior to radio communication,

The standard way of Sending a message

The standard way of Sending a message

Between ships was using flags.

Meigs: navies around the world Developed very

Sophisticated systems,

Using flags and other signals Where they could communicate

From ship to ship and Coordinate their activities.

But communicating from ship To shore was always a problem.

Once you were over The horizon,

You were on your own.

Narrator: in the modern world of The 1920s and '30s,

Flags simply wouldn't cut it Any longer.

Flags simply wouldn't cut it Any longer.

Japan would soon start Trying to expand.

They had imperial ambitions,

And so communication Was paramount to this.

Narrator: built To aid the expansion

Of japan's empire in asia,

Little did anyone realize At the time that

The tower's most devastating Use might come against

The united states.

Japan was about to engage In battle with the u.S.,

And supposedly, these towers Were integral to that attack.

And supposedly, these towers Were integral to that attack.

*

Narrator: near the city of Sasebo in japan,

Towering structures From the 1920s still

Loom large.

In time, the united states would Witness their deadly potential,

But their original task Was to

Help the japanese with Their imperial ambitions

In asia.

They want to measure themselves Against great britain,

They want to measure themselves Against great britain,

Against the united states,

Against the french empire, Against the russians.

And so, for this, They're going

To need a really modern Communications array

So that tokyo central Can communicate

With the japanese navy Wherever it is.

There were actually three Complexes like this --

One in taiwan,

One near tokyo, and this one Close to nagasaki.

The three could communicate With each other, so you could

Relay a message from one To the next and beyond,

But they could also broadcast Messages far out

But they could also broadcast Messages far out

Over the ocean.

You have better Communications,

Better information,

You have a huge edge In any military conflict.

Narrator: Central to the success of

The site was the building At its heart.

It was crucial to japan's Military victories

In the 1930s, and as the second World war crept closer,

It would be put to use again, Possibly playing a part

In one of the gravest events In u.S. History.

In one of the gravest events In u.S. History.

[ speaking japanese ]

Translator: this is the rooftop Of the telecommunications room.

It is also the center of The three radio towers.

These radio towers are Positioned in an equilateral

Triangle almost 1,000 feet Apart from each other,

And this is located right in The middle of those towers,

Which was important.

[ speaking japanese ]

Cables coming from those three Radio towers were connected to

The telecommunications room.

But the telecommunications Room itself was

Hidden underground.

Narrator: Overgrown on the outside

And stripped bare On the inside,

During the second world war,

This facility was highly Secure and self-sufficient.

The building housed The power to run the whole

Operation in the form of Generators and batteries.

But it was also where Communication was sent

And received.

Narrator: messages would be Picked up by the towers,

Narrator: messages would be Picked up by the towers,

Relayed to this building,

Decoded, and then Retransmitted on their way to

Their destination.

That role gave This dark space

The potential to cause Untold damage.

[ speaking japanese ]

Translator: this room was Where they transmitted

The secret codes

That were created in sasebo.

[ speaking japanese ]

From the size of the room, And because we know there used

To be five or six desks in here, We presume

That there was a small number of Transmission workers in here.

That there was a small number of Transmission workers in here.

However, as they were Dealing with highly

Confidential documents,

I don't imagine many people Were allowed in.

[ speaking japanese ]

Narrator: In 1941, a top secret

Coded order that would have

World-changing consequences Is likely to have filtered

Through these rooms.

There's good reason to Believe that one of most

Pivotal radio transmissions In history was made via

This transmitter.

The words "Climb mount niitaka 12 08."

The words "Climb mount niitaka 12 08."

Those words were code To send the instruction to

Proceed with the attack on Pearl harbor.

Narrator: Once the order had left tokyo,

It's thought that hario Would have been the site that

Actually transmitted This message

Beyond mainland japan On its way to the naval fleet.

The results were devastating And immediately

The results were devastating And immediately

Drew the united states Into the war.

But questions About the site and its role

In all this remain To this day.

Translator: there's almost no Documentation remaining

About the hario radio site.

Architectural drawings, Records of

Transmission history, And so on,

They don't exist at all.

The reason being that straight After the war ended,

The reason being that straight After the war ended,

Any related documents Were burned.

Narrator: While the japanese may have

Destroyed the paperwork,

That was the smoking gun, They left behind

A lot of concrete proof In a different form.

Wawro: We can't say for sure that

The order to attack pearl Harbor came from hario,

Because after the war,

The japanese destroyed All the records that were

Stored there, But given

The configuration of The various transmission sites

In japan, It probably came from here.

In japan, It probably came from here.

*

Narrator: The towers' prominence today

Helps educate people to not

Repeat the mistakes of The past,

And they'll continue to do so For a long time to come.

These towers were designed To last for about 90 years,

But the way they were Engineered and constructed

Means that they'll last for A lot longer than that.