Valentin submarine pens

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Valentin Submarine Pens
Part of Third Reich
Farge port (Weser River, Bremen)
2006 remains of Valentin submarine pen
Type	blockhouse
Coordinates	53°13′00″N 8°30′15″E / 53.216667, 8.50417
Built	February 1943 (unfinished)
Construction materials	Ferrous concrete
In use

The Farge U-boat pen after being hit by a Grand Slam bomb - note the figure standing on the pile of rubble.

The Valentin submarine pens are in Farge, a small port on the Weser River in Bremen. The pens were built in World War II from 1943 to March 1945, and they were not finished before the end of the war.

Bombing by the RAF and the USAAF dramatically reduced production of U-boots by the German shipyards, so a bomb proof shelter was built under the codename Valentin at Farge in Bremen.

It was planned that they would be used for assembly of the submarines of the type XXI.

The pens were attacked by the RAF on 27 March 1945. Their ferrous concrete roof was up to 7 metres (23 feet) thick. Two Grand Slam bombs penetrated a section with a 4.5 m roof.^[1]

The Valentin U-boat pens were the largest fortified pens in Germany, and were second only to those built at Brest in France.