Echoes of War
Last month I visited Lorient, a city on the south coast of Brittany in France. As you step off the train, at first glance you find a seemingly unremarkable town. But a brief rummage on Google quickly reveals that Lorient has a dark past and was very much the victim of World War 2. For it was here the Nazi regime chose to base part of its U-Boat submarine fleet. And it was from here that Admiral Doenitz’s so-called ‘Wolf Packs’ sailed to fight the Allied convoys in what is now known as the ‘Battle of the Atlantic’.
The heavily reinforced concrete structures of the U-Boat pens remain a prominent and brooding presence in the heart of Lorient’s vast harbour. From the water it is impossible to miss these monoliths of war and, as a photographer who is constantly intrigued by the echoes of past conflict, I immediately wanted to make an image that said something about former strife and new beginnings.
I also wanted to capture the feel of a place that the citizens of Lorient have done their best to repurpose - the concrete poured in 1941 may be too strong to demolish easily or cheaply - but today it is an international centre for yachting.
As this image (left) of the first of the three ‘pens’ in Lorient harbour shows, a broad sweep of these dark, unadorned and amorphous hulks of reinforced concrete seemed to offer little prospect of delivering the kind of narrative I was keen to communicate - particularly on a warm and sunny afternoon and in the time I had available.
But getting close-up to the walls of these vast constructions immediately changed my perspective. The very feel of the hastily poured concrete, now with signs of the protruding iron and gradual decay, gave me not only a sense of its grim past but also a feeling that this was a visible reminder that wars will always come to an end.
So how to make an image that communicates these powerful ideas about political violence and redemption?
As my portfolio reflects, I have always been drawn to making images of surfaces. I find intrigue and often beauty in the most mundane of places. The Lorient submarine pens may be far from ordinary but this approach seemed to offer the opportunity to try to tell a story of conflict, forced labour, heavy attacks, and the stiff resistance that the occupiers maintained right up until the moment the Allies reconquered Europe in May 1945.
Even on the bright day I was in Lorient, the tactile feel of rough concrete and rusting rivets felt cold - reflecting the grimness of their wartime origins. I hope the viewer may even sense the dark story they contain without knowing the broader history.
Like many places of battles past, I found myself imagining the sights and sounds these walls once contained: the heavy engineering involved in keeping the submarines ready to go to sea; the shouted orders as torpedoes and rations were loaded; the clang of a dropped hammer; the deadly percussion of frequent bombing raids; and then the sounds of silence, as war ended and the battered people of France started to accept that the fighting and constant threat of death were finally over.
Am I freighting these images with too much meaning? I hope not. For 75 years, we Europeans seemed to heed the lessons of history. But at a moment when the hideous realities of war have returned to our continent, I hope people seeing these images may reflect briefly on the rawness and bitterness that is too often the legacy of war. I also hope people will recognise that while these remnants of war still stand, they can also serve as both a warning for the future, and a celebration that brighter and happier days will always lie ahead.
