Lorient was the location of a German U-boat base during World War II. Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz decided to construct the base on 28 June 1940. Between February 1941 and January 1942 three gigantic reinforced concrete structures were built on the Keroman peninsula. They are called K1, K2 and K3. In 1944 work began on a fourth structure. The base was capable of sheltering thirty submarines under cover. Although Lorient was heavily damaged by Allied bombing raids, this naval base survived through to the end of the war. Lorient was held until May 1945 by the Nazi German army, even though this city was surrounded by the American Army, since the Germans there refused to surrender.
Since they could not destroy the base and its submarine pens, the Allies had decided to flatten the city and port of Lorient, in order to cut the supply lines to the U-boat bases. Between 14 January 1943 and 17 February 1943, as many as 500 high-explosive aerial bombs and more than 60,000 incendiary bombs were dropped on Lorient. The city was almost completely destroyed.
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