A Tour Of WW2's Most Fortified Island | Alderney With Dan Snow 

As an Alderney resident I'm so happy to see a piece about my home, it's a wonderful little island filled with so much history. I am blessed to have been able to grow up exploring these bunkers and forts which is what got me into history. Hope you can cover more about our island in the future Dan!

As a total Atlantikwall nut, Alderney has always been at the top of my list of places to visit. It was nice to see that the bunkers are rightly being treated as historical artifacts with information panels on them and not being tagged by modern grafitti artists as they do across the rest of Europe. They remain as solid testaments to those prisoners who built them

Wow Dan, brilliant video. Mid 60's my Dad & Mum took me to Alderney for a holiday. Dad took me round many of the bunkers & explained them to me. He had served in UK, France & Africa in the war. Still stays with me to this day.

I remember going to Alderney for two weeks with some schoolfriends on our first holiday after finishing our O-Levels in 1986. I say "remember", but all I remember really was arriving. The rest of it was an alcoholic haze.

I Remember sailing there in 1978 as a teenager with a school trip, after beaching the boat we all went off exploring, the fort at the end of the beach was a kids paradise, no keep out signs etc. The amount of treasures there was amazing and today would be worth a lot to collectors but then it was just scrap. German signs, bullet and shell casings, solders possessions etc. I also remember a massive pile of rusting metal hoops, piled high on the breakwater, and old local told us they were submarine nets, it was all so cool to a 14 year old.

In 2012 I sailed from Cherbourg to Alderney on a 48 foot sloop...I think it took us about 10 hours. The island these days is a summer haven for tourists from UK and France...I think someone said that it is the sunniest place in England :) The weather is pleasant and the main town near the harbour is filled with souvenir shops, ice cream parlours, pubs and old timey grocery stores...quite charming and a far far cry from the horrors of war. I remember there was a cliff diving contest that week we were there and there was also an event where nearly a thousand people walked thru the streets with candles for almost 2 hours one evening...a large number of summer residents leave back to the mainland for the winter... Hard to believe that such a tiny place was considered such a strategic piece of the war...

I love the TV work Dan does and as always another great report. As a resident now of Alderney, it is great to see the research his team did to produce this video and the scenery shown and blue skies are so typical of this beautiful island renowned for wildlife and walking holidays.

Sorry Dan this is unacceptable, get your wellies or waders and get through those tunnels.

Takes me back to holidays on the Channel Islands, including Alderney, as a child. I remember being driven around in an old Land Rover with a canvas-roofed back and a bungee cord holding the passenger door closed (registration number was AY1), and visiting several of these bunkers.

15:00 just to add the picture their is a 37mm tank gun from a captured French tank. So not one of the big heavy guns, the largest guns on the island was four, 17cm SK L/40 gun which shell weight was 64kg compared to the 37mm tanks shell which weighed around 0.61kg a 100 times less in weight. Honestly not a huge deal just thought I'd add that in as it's quite interesting.

Amazing fortress. A piece of history I had never seen.

Incredible content as always, really enjoy Dan Snow as a host probably my favourite on this channel. He does a remarkable job. This was something I thoroughly enjoyed this morning with my coffee, cheers to more great videos soon!

Excellent video. The Channel Islands were the only British territory to be occupied by the Germans. Alderney certainly was the one of the last Nazi-occupied territories to be freed but the very last place in Europe to be liberated from the Germans was the neighbouring island of Sark. I'm glad Dan spoke about the slave labourers. Among them were many Spanish Republicans who had fled to France after Franco's victory.

I live in Jersey, we have amazing German bunker's here too! I still haven't been too Alderney yet!

Some really well informed comments on this, I see. Although I was aware of the broad outline of the story its nice to have some detail! Also the pictures are stunning. A lovely job Dan and team. Nice one! 🌟👍

Amazing Video, very Educational. I enjoyed it very much. Thanks for Sharing! ✌️😁

You can still see the gun placements and the OG flame throwers at corbier light house wich was also the first one made completely from concrete in the world

Great show, keep up the good work

As an American, I love watching your videos! Back when I was around 10 or 11 years old in the 60s, my dad and I would watch Alastair Cook documentaries. They were great but your enthusiasm is so refreshing and enjoyable - keep it up!

fantastic video this one would love to visit one day

Love all your shows . Bullet point , no nonsense delivery , told with passion and enthusiasm . Great stuff .

That island reminds me a lot of the Marin Headlands in the SF/Bay area California. It's one of my all time favorite places to wander around, because there are so, so many random bunkers and old bits and pieces of military hardware, some of which you can pretty easily explore, and some. . . not so much.

Thank you Dan yes another very interesting video

Awesome series

Interesting to see the Isle of Wight at 6:23! We're pretty far south, but not _that_ far! Oopsie!

can you imagine the noise in there!!

The irony was, the Germans thought they were building a large fort, but in reality it turned out to have become their prison. The Allies just ignored the Channel Islands and concentrated on other areas.

Always love your content

My mate Ginge used to be a fisherman in Alderney. He told me he lived in a bunker!

The breakwater still being one of the biggest in the world and an extraordinary feat of napolionic engineering. The air defence tower in the centre of bray is now a phone mast. The numbers of dead in the camps probably grossly underestimated. Pushed off the cliffs and rumoured evidence of cannibalism it was so bad

One minor thing: when you mention the huge guns that would be in contact with the observation bunker you show a turret of a tank with a light infantry gun which were commonly used by Germans on top of bunkers for close range direct fire on for example beaches. The long range guns needed that bunker to guide their indirect fire out to sea or to the peninsula. Those canons were a bit bigger 😅 see the restored example in Guernsey

They say History repeats itself. They keep it up kept for a reason.

Hey, as a Guernsey-man who recently visited Alderney- Which i have to say, I knew they were well fortified but the concentration of it was genuinely ridiculous. I thought Guernsey was fortified. Never saw anything like this. Can tell it was the very tip of the western front. You cannot stand in almost any outdoor location without seeing a bunker. Anyway, chatted to a lot of locals, a couple of things to add. Alderney was not entirely abandoned/evacuated by it's locals pre invasion. Some lifelong locals were forcibly removed by the germans and shipped to Guernsey because the Germans didnt want the residents split across all islands and had other plans for Alderney. Alderney largely acted as the base and concentration camp of the slave laborers who worked across all islands fortification construction however it was also the place the Germans used to farm most of their food with Alderney/Guernsey farmers kept there specifically for that purpose. The Roman ramparts covered at the start there. Outside the beach facing wall is a drop off to a headland ledge. I was told that this ledge is one of the places that many slave laborers who died in construction were buried. There is a touching story of a local Jewish immigrant care nurse who was shipped off to a European mainland concentration camp. Forgive me, i forget her name. There is a heavy focus on the World war 2 affected fortifications in this video but there are actually a load more pre-ww2 forts with varying levels of German alteration all over the place. There is a clip of Dan at the above ground part of this location when he is backed by the giant seabird colony at the western tip (past the gannets) including Annes Battery. Under his feet is a large network of bunkers and trenches. Now this network was almost entirely buried besides the actual gun posts until last year. When there, the guy who owned it and his family were digging them out. We got chatting and he kindly gave me an awesome tour of one of the recently dug-out bunker networks. The amazing thing about it was how untouched it was. There were hand written notes and markings all over the walls. Even their ammo store had symbolic labels across the walls, we assumed referring to the type of ammunition to be kept in each area because they were like '-' '*' with one just an obvious shell drawing. At the centre of this huge ammo store ringway was these incredible shell elevators which though largely rotten, painted a clear picture of how ammo would be fed from the below ground store areas through a series of thin shafts on these metal shelves mounted on almost bicycle chain linked pullies with some rotting, thick electric cables also running up the shaft sides upto those people manning the St Anne Battery. Anyway the guy actually completed his restoration of that network now and i saw it listed on a local property site! One final Aldernsey related point. My grandfather was a teenager on Guernsey during the occupation. He took a joy-ride on a soliders motorbike and also stole a pair of binocullars/ kept telling the soliders that alderney was England. Anyway he annoyed them enough so that they put him in the Aldernsey labor camp for a period of time before transfering him to a french labor camp. Luckily the war ended and he survived. I'd love to see you do one on Sark if possible. I know there is not much to cover and it would be incredibly short, but more specifically covering the story of the British SAS group who were sent to do reconesence on the German occupation in WW2 and ended up hitman game style stealth killing some Germans on their way around. Sark is my favorite of the islands and that story was especially interesting, at least to me.

Very scary to see such massive structures of war. Even scarier to think what would be reality today if this regime wouldn't have brought down. And a reminder of what a huge effort was put into the liberation of Europe to bring down such an awesome opponent, represented here by these massive forts and military structures. It was a horrible time and we can be blessed to life in our reality today.

If you had to be in the German army in the war, duty on the island would have been the best. Although there were some air raids, the bunkers would have been, and there were no land battles. I wonder if the troops were rotated to the continent, or once on the island, spent the rest of the war there?

This really reminds me of the fortification system built here in old Czechoslovakia for only one reason - against nazi Germany. And since Germany took over us, they were testing their guns on our bunkers and found out they couldn't hurt them at all. Our bunkers even had anti-grenade "slides" so if you throw a handgrenade in the air shaft, it slides back under your feet. They had one machine gun aiming through the only entrance, which was L shaped, so you couldn't get inside. The largest bunkers even had the exact same pits for heavy artillery like you can see here 5:19, only deeper so the entire cannon could slide underground during bombarding. And since Germans built some forts on this island which look exactly the same, i can't help it but think they just copied our bunkers. Many of the bunkers are still intact today and are opened to public, so if you Come to Czechia, be sure to visit one! In my opinion the best one to visit is Bouda, where you can see the giant cannon pit, you can walk the entire underground system which leads to other bunkers and it's all a giant museum with great staff.

Couple amendments from a Crapaud (Jerseymen) There are at least 2 remnants of the wooden machine gun positions in jersey. Secondly, a lot of the artillery pieces were captured French guns, including FT17 turrets

That observation tower look like something out of starwars

I thought for a second that this movie was a new DLC for my Game Sniper Elite 5 which I just completed a map where these buildings were off the coast. How the game makers were able to almost get these buildings down to the last brick is beyond me. The story and History as well covers so much of the pass war, it is so wonderful that I'm able to be a part of the reinactment in that war within a War game. EA Games was the best War Game makers but have completely last site of whats real and whats not and the History within these types of games are now lost. The new Kids on the block are Ubisoft who are makers of the old History that will change iall future wars!!

Heartbreaking to think of WHY these marvels were built

Well worth looking at the WW2 stuff on Jersey too.

Somebody in the German high command must have known that fortifying these islands was a waste of resources.

I'm not a military tactician, but, think it was probably a wise move to bypass this place on the route to Berlin.

Very interesting. TFP

thx

You should go to jersey and see the war tunnel hospital is awsome

Well presented

Yeah !

HELLP!!! 10 to 15 years ago i seen a documentary on 1 of the discovery channels.. abbot Rear-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood "basically his life story " it woss a full episode abbot 60 mins long, i have searched the net and i starting to think it never happened ass i cannot find it ..being from tynemouth and seeing his statue i wood love to find the documentary and get a copy off it !!!

Imagine how loud it was firing those big guns inside those concrete bells.

Can we start a GoFundMe to get this chap a better torch?!

Great place to bring a metal detector . Really interesting place .

Go to Guernsey, there is a military emplacement about every 500m around most of the coastline. Many used and repurposed during WW2. Evidently Hitler got a little silly on the only British land he conquered, hence the over the top military installations on the channel islands. And ofcourse there is huge military instillations on the Normandy coast as well AFAIK no locals were used as slaves on Guernsey. We happened to get Liberation Day on our short visit and they defenitly remember! m Family came to Oz from Guernsey in 1852. A lovely place to visit.

At 6:22 it's very clearly the Isle of Wight being shown, The Needles, Alum Bay etc. Perhaps an edit is needed! :)

good mentioning the people who died making all those fortifications. Excellent look at a slice of history

Wow - where did all the concrete building materials come from?

Hi Many years ago I was talking to a Islander and he was telling me that when the Germans took the Islands they decreed that all traffic will drive on the right ,so everyone drove on the right including Horses Cars bikes etc,so for a few days there was carnage. then when the war ended they changed back to driving on the Left More carnage. All the guns and armaments they could move were thrown into the sea. Many Islanders thought that the allies would retake the Islands but Churchill correctly said { Leave them there to rot there are 8 thousand germans there ,that is 8 thousand that we don't have to fight }

Peter Snow was very good

Imagine how loud it was in those bunkers with full guns firing.

Wellington would have got his wellies on!

NICE JEEP

I think Kinmen islands in the taiwanese strait is probably the most fortified island in the world nowadays.... anyway great piece of history in Alderney!

That thumbnail building isn't that the mighty morphing power rangers command centre??? Zordon is in there

18:50. From a strategy point of view, it wasn't in vain, because it denied the allies the ability to use it

Great history and well presented. Was there a crematory for the concentration camp dead?

"Big heavy guns" shows small french tank turret. :)

Architecture is history

14:59 Zordon?

Do you mean 24" (2') search lights , perhaps !?

I wonder if this inspired that mission in sniper elite 5?

The Channel Islands were the last remnant of the Dutchy of Normandy retained by England after the mainland part was lost to France by King John in the early 1200's.

This would be a great place to be during the upcoming meteor swarm!

«..big heavy guns..» Shows a French tank turret.

I think Fort Drum in Manila Bay may have an argument as being the most fortified

My wife and her family were born and raised in Guernsey

Aurigny in French(and Norman-French)

And duck earlier! Every time you enter a door way, I think you're about to crack your head open.

Given rough translation... "Plug - reinsert or you will die!" 16:46

Looks like Zordon base

That’s the needles on the Isle of Wight

Looks like a real life fortification. Similar to the fictional movie “The Guns of Navarone”

Is the island in the sky ?

The video thumbnail looks like the mighty Morphin power rangers base where Zordon and alpha were at

Very little about the Palmerston era fortifications in this video

I have a hard time not seeing the mighty morphin power rangers base in this place. We sure zordon isn't in there?

This remind me of the Havana fortress. It's so well defended from naval attack that the British attacked it overland. And it is REALLY well defended seaward. There were even multiple kill zones. None what so ever on the landside.

Yeah everyone would Go deaf after firing inside those little bunkers

Would make a good COD or Battlefield map

Also remember Alderney had a concentration camp on where quite a few poor soles were tortured and died whilst under the Germans in the second world war

It wasn't in vein. The allies show how well fortified the islands where. What's the the point of a attacking a fortified position when you can go around. That's what the Germans did with the Maginot line they went around it.

One battleship - and this island would remain a flat, lifeless desert. What was he protecting? show-offs and a sense of their own greatness.

Look there, you can see the 18th century addition👈👀 ...2 bricks 😂 That had a touch of the purest green about it. Could it be??!.....Percy?!!👀

I'm sorry, in the picture, does it not look like the Power Ranger's old base where Zordon lives? Is no one else curious?

woof

I thought that was hegoiland before it’s destruction

It is amazing how many of their limited resources the Germans basically wasted on the Channel Islands, thankfully.

Do you mean Victorian or Georgian Dan? The Battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo more or less finished hostilities between England and France, Victoria came to the throne in 1838, so most of these pre German fortifications were already in place when she became queen?

Turn back? The Dan I've been watching would have explored wearing at least wellies

I'm amazed at the lack of graffiti.

i bet the Romans didnt thought that fort would last more the a thousand years.