ST NAZAIRE: THE U-BOAT PENS

The pens in rear across the St Nazaire Bassin.

This immense complex, built during WW11 to house the 'Grey Wolves' of the  6th and 7th U-Flotillas, dominates the harbour of 21st-century St-Nazaire, just as it did the battle area of more than sixty years ago. Capable of accommodating 20 U-Boats, it took the form of 14 deep chambers, some of which could be drained and used as dry docks for even the most complex repairs. Accounting for almost 500,000 cubic metres of heavily reinforced concrete, its massive walls and roof, armoured doors, gun platforms and firing embrasures, combined to make it a self-contained fortress within which boats could be received, repaired, refuelled and dispatched almost without reference to the war being pursued beyond its confines. Heavily bombed over a period of several years by both British and American aircraft, it was never penetrated, nor was any damage ever caused to its boats or personnel.

 

Inside one bay looking towards the basin

The later constructed Fortified lock in distance.

The fortified lock entrance opposite,

to The St Nazaire Bassin and pens.

Landward side of the pens.

NB. the rail-line entrance tunnel.

Tourist Office location.

The rear blast walls have been removed on a few such as this.

Jackie at the pens Tourist Office sending e mails.

The 'Das Boot' connection

In the movie 'Das Boot', a young propaganda photographer arrives at a U-Boat base to join the crew of a boat - whose captain was played by Jürgen Prochnow - and share with them the trials of a war patrol. In real life the photographer was called Lothar-Günther Buchheim, and he arrived here, in St-Nazaire, October 1941, to join U-96, a boat belonging to the 7th Flotilla (Wegener), whose captain was the decorated ace Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock. Buchheim later wrote about his experiences in the form of a novel, which was then turned into this gripping movie.