Construction
In the late 1930s, the Italian government commissioned a network of underground galleries and anti-aircraft bunkers under Monte Soratte, about 45 km (28 mi) north of Rome.
Secret excavation work began in 1937 to build a huge air-raid shelter intended to house the Italian government and Comando Supremo should Rome come under siege. The works were conducted by direction of Military Engineering Corps of Rome. Over 4.5 km of underground tunnels were dug into the bowels of the Mountain. [1] The tunnels were reinforced with a layer of cement up to two metres thick and they extended to a depth of over 300 meters (985 feet) underground. [2] The bunker occupied almost 500,000 cubic yards. It had its own water supply, a heating system, electric generator, sewers, radio communications, dormitories, kitchens, storerooms and arms deposits. [3] The complex was initially to spread along 14 km (9 mi) of galleries deep under the mountain, but the work was never completed because of the Italian capitulation. [2]
After the 8 September 1943 Frascati air raid, the extensive bunker became the headquarters of the German occupying forces commanded by Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring. [4] [5]
In the 1950s, the Italian Ministry of Defence used the bunker as a powder magazine before abandoning it in 1962. In the 1960s, during the years of Cold War, the bunker was turned into a fallout shelter for the Italian government and President in case of a nuclear attack on Rome. It would have housed 50 members of the government and 50 NATO technicians. Work on the construction of the atomic bunker began in 1967 and lasted until 1972. [2] In 1989 the bunker fell into disuse. [2] It was kept secret until 2008. Soratte underground network can now be visited.
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War.
The Battle of Monte Cassino, also known as the Battle for Rome, was a series of four military assaults by the Allies against German forces in Italy during the Italian Campaign of World War II. The objective was to break through the Winter Line and facilitate an advance towards Rome.
Porto Torres is a comune (municipality) and a city of the Province of Sassari in north-west of Sardinia, Italy. Founded during the 1st century BC as Colonia Iulia Turris Libisonis, it was the first Roman colony of the entire island. It is situated on the coast at about 25 kilometres (16 mi) east of Falcone Cape and in the center of the Gulf of Asinara. The port of Porto Torres is the second biggest seaport of the island, followed by the port of Olbia. The town is very close to the main city of Sassari, where the local university takes office.
A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. They were used extensively in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War for weapons facilities, command and control centers, and storage facilities. Bunkers can also be used as protection from tornadoes.
The Winter Line was a series of German and Italian military fortifications in Italy, constructed during World War II by Organisation Todt and commanded by Albert Kesselring. The series of three lines was designed to defend a western section of Italy, focused around the town of Monte Cassino, through which ran the important Highway 6 which led uninterrupted to Rome. The primary Gustav Line ran across Italy from just north of where the Garigliano River flows into the Tyrrhenian Sea in the west, through the Apennine Mountains to the mouth of the Sangro River on the Adriatic coast in the east. The two subsidiary lines, the Bernhardt Line and the Hitler Line, ran much shorter distances from the Tyrrehnian Sea to just northeast of Cassino where they would merge into the Gustav Line. Relative to the Gustav Line, the Hitler Line stood to the northwest and the Bernhardt Line to the southeast of the primary defenses.
Albert Kesselring was a German military officer and convicted war criminal who served in the Luftwaffe during World War II. In a career which spanned both world wars, Kesselring reached the rank of the Generalfeldmarschall and became one of Nazi Germany's most highly decorated commanders.
Air raid shelters are structures for the protection of non-combatants as well as combatants against enemy attacks from the air. They are similar to bunkers in many regards, although they are not designed to defend against ground attack.
The Gothic Line was a German and Italian defensive line of the Italian Campaign of World War II. It formed Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's last major line of defence along the summits of the northern part of the Apennine Mountains during the fighting retreat of the Axis forces in Italy against the Allied Armies in Italy, commanded by General Sir Harold Alexander.
Monte Soratte is a mountain ridge in the Metropolitan City of Rome, central Italy. It is a narrow, isolated limestone ridge with a length of 5.5 km (3.4 mi) and six peaks. Located some 10 km (6.2 mi) south east of Civita Castellana and c. 45 km (28 mi) north of Rome, it is the sole notable ridge in the Tiber Valley, geologically represents the Meso-cenozoic Tiber ridge. The nearest settlement is the village of Sant'Oreste. Saint Orestes or Edistus, after whom the settlement is named, is said to have been martyred near Monte Soratte.
The Aqua Augusta, or Serino Aqueduct, was one of the largest, most complex and costliest aqueduct systems in the Roman world; it supplied water to at least eight ancient cities in the Bay of Naples including Pompeii and Herculaneum. This aqueduct was unlike any other of its time, being a regional network rather than being focused on one urban centre.
An airraid of USAAF planes against Frascati, a historic town near Rome, Italy, was made on 8 September 1943. The target was the German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone (O.B.S.) and the Italian headquarters, scattered in buildings and villas near the town.
Tunnel warfare is using tunnels and other underground cavities in war. It often includes the construction of underground facilities in order to attack or defend, and the use of existing natural caves and artificial underground facilities for military purposes. Tunnels can be used to undermine fortifications and slip into enemy territory for a surprise attack, while it can strengthen a defense by creating the possibility of ambush, counterattack and the ability to transfer troops from one portion of the battleground to another unseen and protected. Also, tunnels can serve as shelter from enemy attack.
The Raven Rock Mountain Complex (RRMC), also known as Site R, is a U.S. military installation with an underground nuclear bunker near Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, at Raven Rock Mountain that has been called an "underground Pentagon". The bunker has emergency operations centers for the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. Along with Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in Virginia and the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado, it formed the core bunker complexes for the US continuity of government plan during the Cold War to survive a nuclear attack.
Running beneath the Italian city of Naples and the surrounding area is an underground geothermal zone and several tunnels dug during the ages. This geothermal area is present generally from Mount Vesuvius beneath a wide area including Pompei, Herculaneum, and from the volcanic area of Campi Flegrei beneath Naples and over to Pozzuoli and the coastal Baia area. Mining and various infrastructure projects during several millennia have formed extensive caves and underground structures in the zone.
Campo Imperatore is a mountain grassland or alpine meadow formed by a high basin shaped plateau located above Gran Sasso massif, the largest plateau of Apennine ridge. Known as "Little Tibet", it is located in Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park, near L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy.
The Government Bunker(Regierungsbunker) in Germany, officially named Ausweichsitz der Verfassungsorgane des Bundes im Krisen- und Verteidigungsfall zur Wahrung von deren Funktionstüchtigkeit (AdVB), in English: "Emergency Seat of the Federal Constitutional Organs for the State of Crisis or State of Defence to Maintain their Ability to Function" was a massive underground complex built during the Cold War era to house the German government, parliament and enough federal personnel needed to keep the government working in the event of war or severe crisis. Located only about 25 kilometres (16 mi) south of Bonn, Germany, in the Ahr Valley between the towns of Ahrweiler and Dernau, it was one of the best kept secrets of West Germany. It was built between 1960 and 1972 inside two abandoned railway tunnels that were built as part of the Strategic Railway, maintained and kept in a working condition for about 30 years and decommissioned in 1997. A small part of the once-secret site is now open to the public as Government Bunker Documentation Site, while the vast majority is abandoned and sealed.
Kleines Berlin is the complex of underground air-raid tunnels dating to World War II, which still exists in Trieste, Italy.
Stalin's bunker is an air raid shelter located near Samara State University of Culture in Samara, Russia. It is a subterranean bunker complex constructed between February and October 1942. It was the alternative Supreme High Command General Headquarters of the Soviet Armed Forces intended for Joseph Stalin during World War II. Stalin's Bunker is located 37 metres (121 ft) beneath the Kuybyshev CPSU oblast Committee building, 100 metres (110 yd) south-east of the Samara Academy Theater. Stalin's Bunker was declassified in 1990. Now the civil defence museum occupies the former air raid shelter. Air-raid shelters for the Soviet High Command were built also in Yaroslavl, Gorky, Kazan, Ulyanovsk, Saratov and Stalingrad.
The Riserva Naturale di Monte Salviano or Riserva naturale guidata Monte Salviano is a nature reserve in Abruzzo, Italy, established in 1999. It lies in the territory of the comune (municipality) of Avezzano, in the Province of L'Aquila. The reserve is named after Monte Salviano, a massif that extends northwest to southwest dividing the Fucine basin from the Palentine Plains, in the Marsica sub-region.
The Via Rasella attack was an action taken by the Italian resistance movement against the Nazi German occupation forces in Rome, Italy, on 23 March 1944.
