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Abandoned Engineering - Season 15 Episode 4 -
Suicide Island
Suicide Island
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00:00An imposing bastion in Dover transformed in the face of an unprecedented crisis.
00:07This went from defending against enemy forces to a new kind of front line for Britain.
00:14In Japan, a secret training camp for wartime missions of no return.
00:21The weapons created here would be turned against American sailors.
00:26Hundreds would lose their lives.
00:30An Italian town whose people were given lethal advice by government officials.
00:36They told the locals to stay inside. This is what signed, tragically, their own death warrant.
00:43And a floating fortress in New Jersey that became a sanctuary and a savior.
00:49This marvel of engineering played its part in some of America's biggest battles.
01:00In southern Japan are the remains of a facility that defined a desperate moment in the nation's history.
01:12We're on Ozu Island, a really thin strip of land just a few miles long.
01:21This seems like a normal little harbor.
01:24But along the cliff face, there is a tunnel entrance.
01:28When you come out the other side, there is only the pier and then the open sea.
01:33There is not a lot to tell us what this place is for.
01:38And it makes you wonder, how is this tunnel connected to the other structures we see around here?
01:44It was built to inflict mortal wounds on Japan's rivals.
01:50But as their empire crumbled, it was given a horrifying new mission.
01:58Their own culture would lead the Japanese armed forces into a different way of engaging with their enemies.
02:07These people are indoctrinated to sacrifice their lives for their country.
02:13This was the last shred of their homeland that these men would ever see.
02:21Konichi Tanaka was born on Ozu Island.
02:51He remembers when his peaceful home became a hive of mysterious activity.
02:57The Japanese had good reason to keep this site concealed.
03:13In the late 1930s, when it was first operational, Japan was hell-bent on expanding its empire.
03:21At this point, Japan, having defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, sees itself as kind of the overlord of East Asia.
03:28They want the United States out of Asia.
03:30And as tension ramps up, Japan needs a much sharper naval weapon to counter what they see as inevitable American pressure on them in the Pacific.
03:41So the Japanese Navy starts to design what becomes the Type 93 torpedo.
03:48The Type 93 has got a top-secret tank of oxygen inside that is going to make it ever so slightly faster, ever so slightly more powerful than any other torpedo around.
04:04The Navy now needed somewhere away from prying eyes to trial-run their deadly new technology.
04:12In 1937, construction began on Ozu Island.
04:20They test them here because of the size of the CEDO Sea and the fact that it is remote and there's not going to be any collateral damage.
04:27And here on the island is the barracks for all personnel, the testing facilities, the maintenance facilities for this ambitious torpedo program.
04:40After a year of development, the Japanese Navy perfected their secret weapon with the data they gathered here.
04:47It was now the most advanced naval torpedo in the world.
04:54The effective range of the Type 93 torpedo is 13 miles.
04:58And the best American torpedoes in this period, their effective range is 8 miles.
05:03So this gives the Japanese an immediate edge.
05:06The American military had no idea this new weapon even existed, but they were about to find out.
05:13In December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
05:20And the Type 93 torpedo would prove devastating against the Allies in the Second World War.
05:28During the Battle of the Java Sea alone, the formidable weapon destroyed multiple Allied vessels.
05:35These ships that were hit by those Type 93s, they didn't know what hit them.
05:41They couldn't believe that a torpedo could come from a Japanese ship that they saw that far off the horizon.
05:48But by mid-1942, it became clear Japan had seriously underestimated the strength of the American military.
05:56Over the next year, the U.S. Navy Marine Corps start to conduct the island-hopping campaign.
06:06As island after island is taken away from the Japanese Empire, the Americans are getting closer and closer to Japan itself.
06:17So they start casting around for new ideas. How does this outgunned, outnumbered, outindustrialized power go toe-to-toe with the United States?
06:28They have to find new diabolical weapons.
06:32This site is going to be developed into something terrifying, something desperate.
06:39The Japanese Navy would be inspired by a bloody confrontation 1,500 miles south of Ozu Island.
06:47At the Battle of Saipan in 1944, the Japanese garrison launches a suicide charge at the American invaders.
06:57And 4,000 Japanese soldiers just run at the American lines, and almost all of them are killed.
07:02This Banzai charge at Saipan, you know, heralds a new kind of Japanese warfare.
07:09The Japanese Naval Air Service starts to use the so-called kamikaze aircraft attack.
07:19And the Japanese Navy is going to find its own way to conduct suicide attack.
07:25In September 1944, this facility was given a menacing new purpose, to turn men into human torpedo pilots.
07:37These horrifying new weapons were called chitin.
07:41They take these Type 93 torpedoes, and they say,
07:44why don't we, you know, put like a suicide pilot on each of these torpedoes?
07:50We'll make a little cabin with 30 minutes of oxygen inside, and the guy will steer it into the side of an American destroyer.
07:58When adding the cabin, the Navy also increased the length of the torpedo,
08:03to allow for three times more explosives than the original Type 93.
08:08A Kai-10 was big enough not just to sink a destroyer.
08:13The Kai-10 had enough payload to sink a battleship, to sink an aircraft carrier.
08:21Incredibly, when the Japanese Navy advertised for people to pilot these suicide submarines,
08:28and they were seeking 200 such people, more than 2,000 17- to 28-year-olds applied.
08:34By November 1944, just two months after training began, the first chitin pilots were ready to attack.
08:45Before they left this base, their sacrifice was honoured by the island's residents.
08:50On the 6th of November, eight chitin and their pilots were loaded onto submarines.
08:57Two weeks later, they had U.S. ships in their sights.
09:02I thought I was very proud of it.
09:08On the 6th of November, eight Kaiten and their pilots
09:12were loaded onto submarines.
09:15Two weeks later, they had U.S. ships in their sights.
09:20So five of the Kaiten are deployed against the USS Mississiniwa,
09:25which is a fuel supply ship.
09:28There's a huge explosion and 63 U.S. sailors are killed in the attack.
09:34The fireball was so big that the Japanese assumed
09:37that all these Kaiten had hit targets
09:39and they'd blown up this entire assembled fleet in this anchorage.
09:43But in fact, they sank one ship.
09:45But because the Japanese believed the mission had been more successful
09:49than it really was, it gave them a sense of false confidence.
09:54So they poured more resources into the program,
09:57thinking that this would be a secret weapon.
10:00They were wrong.
10:01And for the rest of the war, they only sank like a couple of ships.
10:05It promised incredible results but delivered very little.
10:08Far more Japanese sailors died than Americans were killed by this program.
10:14Regardless of the Kaiten's success rate,
10:17the Japanese made plans to deploy them against an American invasion of the mainland.
10:25It was part of the government's wider strategy to defend the country,
10:29called 100 million shattered duels.
10:34The big picture was that 100 million Japanese people
10:39were ready to give up their lives in suicide attacks to defend their homes.
10:46But it never came to that as Japan finally surrendered
10:50after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
10:53This terrifying and inhumane weapon of war was consigned to a dark period of Japanese history.
11:04Every year since 1962, the relatives of Kaiten pilots and the people of Ozu Island
11:12have gathered to remember the young men who left here never to return.
11:21The local people were to raise their hand and
11:30they would not have to be able to give their love.
11:34So I was in the Kaiten temple,
11:37and I was in the Kaiten temple.
11:42I was in the Kaiten temple,
11:45but I was in the Kaiten temple.
11:48In central Italy stand the ghostly remains of a catastrophe that left a trail of broken dreams in its wake.
12:03This is a beautiful part of the world.
12:07The landscape is rugged, the mountains are snow-capped.
12:12Nestled in the middle is what looks like a town typical of this region.
12:16Yet, the cobblestone streets are eerily quiet, and it creates this very unsettling feeling.
12:24These buildings look as if they've been caught in a moment of time.
12:29People left this place in a hurry. Why?
12:33The only reason you would do that is because you're running for your life.
12:46The warning signs were all around, yet the authorities chose to ignore them.
12:53They told the locals to stay inside.
12:58That turned out to be a terrible and tragic mistake.
13:02This disaster devastated the entire region, and claimed hundreds of lives.
13:16But the question that haunts everyone is, could this tragedy have been avoided?
13:21Giovanna Colagrande grew up in this sleepy rural town.
13:32It was a tight-knit community, forged through family and friendship.
13:40Giovanna Colagrande grew up in this sleepy rural town.
13:45The earliest history of this town dates back to about the 12th century.
14:14So it really has stood here for hundreds of years.
14:19There were generations that had grown up here, living side by side with each other.
14:25This is the town of Fossa.
14:29High on the hill is the most important building for those that lived here.
14:33It's called the Chiesa de Santa Maria Assumpta, and it was built in the 18th century.
14:43Every Sunday it would be packed to the rafters.
14:45A storm was coming that would test the faith of the town's residents.
14:51A storm was coming that would test the faith of the town's residents.
14:55On December the 14th, 2008, this region was struck by a series of tremors called a seismic swarm.
15:00A storm was coming that would test the faith of the town's residents.
15:06On December the 14th, 2008, this region was struck by a series of tremors called a seismic swarm.
15:25Just over a month later, in January 2009, the tremors began to intensify in both severity and frequency.
15:37There was good reason to be concerned.
15:59After all, Italy is the most geologically active area in all of Europe.
16:03If the big one came, the town's residents wanted to be ready.
16:10But predicting earthquakes is not considered scientifically possible.
16:15Yet Giampaolo Giuliani, a local amateur seismologist, claimed he knew how to do it.
16:22He installed radon detectors in the basements of buildings in the nearby city of L'Aquila and elsewhere in the region.
16:28Giuliani believed that the release of this gas signaled a looming tremor.
16:35When the seismic swarm occurred, he noticed increased radon levels in his detectors
16:40and predicted that a major quake would strike in a town 30 miles from here.
16:45On the 30th of March 2009, the earthquake did happen, but it was much smaller than Giuliani anticipated.
16:52As a result, the authorities put an injunction on Giuliani for causing unnecessary panic and alarm.
17:03He was even forced to take down his warnings from the internet.
17:07But the day after, there was an earthquake, 4.2 on the Richter scale.
17:11The residents in the region were now terrified, especially because they had been told that there was no basis to Giuliani's claims.
17:19The Italian government convened a special committee of six scientists and a government official,
17:27Bernardo de Bernardinis, to assess the risks.
17:31So after the meeting, the government official relayed the scientists' discussions to the public.
17:38about a week later, in the middle of the night, a 6.3 magnitude tremor struck the Abruzzo region,
17:58and this was the deadliest the country had seen in 30 years.
18:06Fossa was directly in the firing line.
18:10People were sleeping when the quake hit, and the ground began to shake violently.
18:16There was no way to get up from bed. It was a terrible thing.
18:22It was terrible. Terrible.
18:24I was like a dragon.
18:31Cracks opened up in buildings.
18:34Huge boulders sheared off the sides of mountains and came crashing down on the town.
18:40My house was built well, because it was a fairly modern house.
18:51But my family, the family of my husband, were here, in the country.
18:56So we left, we went with the car for a certain road, and we found the hell.
19:03In one building, a boulder was struck, a house, and bunk beds that children once slept in are left exposed.
19:15It was a case that they were back to sleep on the low ground, otherwise they would be dead.
19:22There were four dead.
19:26A child of three years, a woman of 76, and a couple who were dead together.
19:32In the nearby city of L'Aquila, the situation was even worse.
19:44Entire buildings were reduced to rubble, and 70,000 people were forced to flee.
19:52309 people were killed, and more than 1,600 were injured.
19:57The damage totaled somewhere in the range of 10 billion dollars.
20:05The dust didn't even have time to settle before the backlash began.
20:10Mounting anger led to the region's capital of L'Aquila, bringing a prosecution case against the scientists who said there was no reason for alarm.
20:20The prosecution didn't blame them for not predicting the earthquake, but rather for the failure of accurate communication.
20:31The fact that they told people to stay in their homes was a key part of the trial.
20:37A year later, the seven defendants were convicted and sentenced to six years imprisonment.
20:52The result triggered an international outcry, as researchers around the world felt science itself was being put on trial.
21:01Many in the scientific community warned that it would discourage scientists from sharing their expertise,
21:07for fear that they might face lawsuits in the aftermath.
21:125,000 scientists signed an open letter calling, demanding that these defendants be released.
21:19And in 2014, the Court of Appeal overturned these convictions.
21:23But the families of those that lost their lives were outraged at this.
21:29One conviction was upheld, that of Bernardo de Bernardinis.
21:32He was convicted of manslaughter, but with a reduced sentence of two years.
21:36Now, well over a decade later, a reconstruction is happening in Fossa, but it's a slow process.
22:06For a similar event, the character of the people's character has changed.
22:13Because many people want to go back to the country, many have still fear.
22:20But we need to go ahead.
22:22We need to rebuild these houses, rebuild them, rebuild them, rebuild them.
22:28In Camden, New Jersey, lie the remains of an American juggernaut that symbolizes an era plagued by global conflict.
22:45We are on the Delaware River and on it you can see this huge mass of metal just glinting in the sunlight.
22:56You don't have to be a naval expert to realize that you are looking at a battleship and a big one at that.
23:05So the ship had served in World War II in Korea and earned 13 battle stars and the affectionate nickname, the Big J.
23:12It was an avenging angel to American servicemen in conflict time and time again.
23:21In Vietnam, this vessel achieved something extraordinary.
23:25We fired all nine 16-inch guns and then we had the plane come back and tell us,
23:32congratulations, you're the first battleship to sink an island.
23:37But any ship with a service record that long is bound to eventually run aground of controversy.
23:43And that's what happened with this one's last deployment to the Middle East.
23:54In 1968, Steve Sheehan began serving aboard this vessel.
23:59At the time, he was an electrician's mate.
24:02Taking the first steps on board since I've been discharged made me feel like I was finally home.
24:11It's the only ship I ever sailed on in the Navy and I'm very proud of it.
24:16This now peaceful ship was built at a time when the United States was on the brink of war.
24:22The American government sees the writing on the wall and in July 1939, two months before the German invasion of Poland,
24:31they commissioned an entirely new class of battleships.
24:35When this vessel was launched, it was the biggest and most powerful battleship in the entire U.S. Navy.
24:43This is the USS New Jersey.
24:46One of four Iowa-class battleships built to strike fear into the hearts of America's rivals during World War II.
24:56Able to hold a crew up to 2,700, the New Jersey was a floating fortress.
25:04It had nine 16-inch guns and a secondary armament of 20mm and 40mm anti-aircraft batteries to protect the battleship from aerial attack.
25:16In 1944, the vessel arrived in the Pacific ready for war.
25:22It served with distinction, playing a key role in the battle for Leyte, the largest sea campaign of all time.
25:32But despite its critical role in the American victory, its days were numbered.
25:40By 1957, the USS New Jersey had reached the end of its useful life.
25:46The era of big battleships was really coming to a close.
25:52Naval technology is changing and the battleship is being supplanted by the aircraft carrier,
25:58because the aircraft carrier can engage targets at much longer range.
26:01When the Vietnam War begins, the Americans begin this air campaign called Rolling Thunder,
26:07where they send planes over North Vietnam to take out critical infrastructure.
26:12But these repeated sorties are ending up putting American pilots in immense jeopardy.
26:20Around 1,000 US aircraft were shot out of the skies, with the same number of pilots being wounded, killed or captured.
26:27As increasing numbers of downed US airmen were paraded on TV screens around the world,
26:36pressure mounted to find a new way to attack the enemy.
26:39The US Navy had a secret weapon, and it was one that would save American lives.
26:47On August 1, 1967, the USS New Jersey gets the call.
26:53It's like, this is my opportunity to go on board a ship.
26:57And when I came up here and looked at the battleship, and I went, my God, that thing is big.
27:02And we went to the Panama Canal, and then we were off to Vietnam.
27:08On September 29, 1968, the USS New Jersey arrives off the Vietnamese coast.
27:17And the next day, it opens fire.
27:21The New Jersey would maraud up and down the coast, demolishing bunker complexes,
27:26fortified positions, troop concentrations, and sinking enemy ships in the process.
27:31The ship would also provide ad hoc artillery support to US troops on the ground near the coast.
27:36In one three-day battle, it's estimated that the USS New Jersey saved 100 American lives
27:44for each day it was deployed there.
27:49They knew when the battleship was firing because it sounded like a railroad train.
27:54As a projectile went through the air, it just vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom before it hit.
28:00So they knew the battleship was coming to their aid.
28:03With this unrivaled firepower, the USS New Jersey is able to pull off the unthinkable in the South China Sea.
28:12The ship was called on to bombard some coastal artillery on an island.
28:17The captain said, all hands, get your battle stations.
28:22Tert 1, 2, and 3 is going on line.
28:25It's going to be a nine-gun salvo.
28:27And when the USS New Jersey fired up, it ended up sinking part of this island.
28:34This is reported with great enthusiasm back in the States, with newspaper headlines saying that the New Jersey has sunk an island.
28:44But to the troops fighting on the ground, Big J, as it became known, was much more than a battleship.
28:51It was a sanctuary.
28:54The grunts, the ground troops in Vietnam, found it, you know, just, you know, filthy, dirty work in the field.
29:00And some of them were fortunate enough that they got a period of rest and relaxation on board the USS New Jersey.
29:07The poor guys hadn't had showers in weeks.
29:10And they got a good night's sleep, a warm bed, hot dinner, good breakfast.
29:18When going by where they were bunked, we had to walk softly because we knew they were still asleep and we wanted them to be asleep.
29:31For the beleaguered troops, an even bigger surprise lay in store.
29:35At 10 a.m. on Christmas morning, 1968, a helicopter touched down on the deck of the USS New Jersey.
29:48So this is approximately where I stood when Bob Hope was on the top of the turret with all of his gorgeous women.
29:55And the deck was filled with Marines, Army and Navy.
29:59When those girls came out, the place went wild.
30:02Bob Hope was a lifelong performer and comedian.
30:06He first began entertaining troops in 1943 during World War II.
30:10It was always something that the troops yearned for.
30:13It was a break from the monotony.
30:15He stayed around afterwards and thanked everybody for their service.
30:20He was very generous. He was a wonderful guy.
30:22Christmas can be such a lonely and difficult time of year.
30:26So what Bob Hope did for soldiers' morale is really incalculable.
30:37But less than four months later, Big Jay was called back to the United States.
30:43Among the ship's crew, it was rumored that the North Vietnamese had refused to engage in peace talks while the battleship patrolled their coast.
30:52Four years after the New Jersey returned home, America's involvement in the Vietnam War finally ended when they withdrew from Saigon.
31:04But its service was not over yet.
31:07And incredible as it sounds, the USS New Jersey, laid down in 1943, is called back to action in 1983.
31:17Lebanon was in the midst of a messy and brutal civil war.
31:22And New Jersey became part of Reagan's decision to send U.S. Marines and other personnel to Lebanon to try to calm down the civil war and bring peace to the region.
31:32Sadly, it ended with tragedy.
31:36After the New Jersey arrived in Lebanese waters, its fearsome weaponry was soon called on to retaliate when U.S. naval reconnaissance planes were fired on by enemy combatants.
31:49But there was a problem. The ship's powder had been mixed incorrectly.
31:53So these huge guns were wildly inaccurate and they were missing their targets by big margins.
32:00Civilians were likely killed as a result of that and so America's reputation in the region took a hit.
32:08These were the last shells ever fired aboard the USS New Jersey.
32:14After leaving Lebanon in 1984, Big J continued to serve in the Pacific and the Persian Gulf until 1991 when it was officially retired.
32:24It was a ship of such significance, it was even featured in Tom Clancy's classic Cold War thriller, The Hunt for Red October.
32:40In 2001, the USS New Jersey was turned into a museum.
32:45Steve Sheehan now shares with the public the story of America's most decorated battleship.
32:53They should know about the people that have fought for their freedom and the ships they were aboard.
32:58On England's south coast is an ageing complex designed to defend the nation's borders.
33:20Overlooking the port, a vast structure is etched into the hillside.
33:24It seems to dominate the town and the coastline.
33:29It's a real jumble of architecture from different eras.
33:33There are cannonades, defensive ditches.
33:37This is clearly some sort of military stronghold.
33:42Once intended to keep Britain's enemies out, it turned into a site that trapped people within.
33:49There's barbed wire and shiny metal fences, a sports pitch, 1960s blocks and a foreboding castle-like structure.
34:01There's no mistaking this place is a prison.
34:04So what kind of criminals were kept here?
34:08Yet looks can be deceiving and not all is as it seems.
34:13Despite its appearance, this building was not planned to be a prison.
34:17But the people who pass through here tell a very different story.
34:23There was no charge, no trial, but the doors were locked and they were trapped here.
34:30Weekly, you were hearing someone trying to commit suicide because they've lost all the hope.
34:35For centuries, the coastal town of Dover has been the gateway to Britain.
34:46Its proximity to mainland Europe, only 21 miles from France across the narrowest part of the English Channel,
34:54meant that it often needed to be defended.
34:56Let's just say the British and French have had their disagreements over the years.
35:01In 1803, the rise of a new dictator named Napoleon Bonaparte spurred a frenzy of construction.
35:09He posed the biggest threat to the nation in over a century.
35:15During the Napoleonic Wars, the fort held barracks for 200 men and was intended to house 12 24-pounder guns in large casemates.
35:26It was called the Dover Citadel, and it formed part of the biggest defence network ever built on England's south coast.
35:36If Napoleon dared to cross the Channel, Britain was going to be ready.
35:41Defensive ditches, ramparts and barracks were built in anticipation.
35:46But the feared invasion never came, and when the war ended, it was put on hold.
35:51Yet, the Dover Citadel continued to be upgraded for the following 150 years to combat Britain's foreign adversaries.
36:01The fort would remain garrisoned through both world wars until 1944, when the threat of Nazi invasion had passed.
36:10Over the next half-century, parts of this site were converted for use as a prison for young offenders.
36:17But it was transformed after a wave of instability swept across the world in the 1990s.
36:26Global conflicts in places like the Balkans, Somalia, Sri Lanka and the Middle East triggered large-scale population movements.
36:36The UK government was struggling to deal with the growing numbers of refugees.
36:40In the late 1970s, individual asylum applications to the UK were around 300 a year.
36:48In 1999, there were more than 70,000.
36:53They resorted to housing some asylum seekers in criminal prisons.
36:57But that was only a short-term solution.
37:01This is the Dover Immigration Removal Centre.
37:05Opened in 2002, it was part of the British government's answer to the growing refugee crisis.
37:14The nationalities of those detained tallies closely with countries that have been torn apart by a war in recent years.
37:22Iraq, Syria, for example.
37:24The facility housed more than 300 asylum seekers.
37:30Your freedoms are very restricted.
37:33At night, the doors to your cell are locked and you're held there until the following morning.
37:39Jack Taylor is visiting for the first time since he was detained here in 2015.
37:44I'm from Afghanistan.
37:47When I first been brought here and been put in this building, I was very, very afraid and suffered a lot going through depression, anxiety.
37:57Jack's path to this place began in the aftermath of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center.
38:04Following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, Jack's father served in the newly formed Afghan army, fighting the Taliban alongside American troops.
38:17But in 2006, the Taliban launched a major offensive, marking the most significant escalation of the war since the regime was overthrown.
38:26Jack's father was killed during this violent period.
38:29As the Taliban regained territory, the country became more dangerous for those opposed to their radical beliefs.
38:40Imagine what it must have been like.
38:42It must have been absolute hell for them.
38:45Tens of thousands were forced to flee.
38:49Jack was one of them.
38:51In 2007, he arrived in the UK illegally and applied for asylum.
38:56First day when I come into this country, I'm being taken to the police station.
39:03And then they have asked me what was the reason that I've come to this country, which I told them, and then transferred me to a foster care.
39:10I was 14 years old.
39:13He spent the next eight years in a legal limbo, waiting for his asylum application to be processed.
39:20But in 2015, when Jack was 22 years old, he was detained in this building, after failing to report regularly enough to the authorities.
39:31There was a bomb bed here, and my cellmate was on the top.
39:37It was a very, very noisy place, because imagine how many rooms, and every single room they were putting two or three people.
39:44Detainees were usually restricted to the wing they were held in, other than at mealtimes or if you were taken to the medical building.
39:52Making friendships is very difficult, as people have regularly moved, without warning.
39:58At any time, you could be presented with the news that you were going to be deported within the next two weeks back to the country you'd suffered so much to escape.
40:09Jack discovered he faced the same fate after being held here for around two months.
40:16The country he fled in 2007 had become even more dangerous, following the emergence of the Islamic State terrorist organisation.
40:25My head went spinning, I was like, gosh, you know, this is a very short time.
40:32But then I was trying to find a lawyer to do something and to cancel the removal decision.
40:37For some, the fear of being sent back to the country that they'd escaped from was so bad, they decided to take their own lives.
40:51So a lot of people were going through a very hard time. They were thinking it's better to die here. So they were just hurting themselves.
40:58But Jack didn't lose hope and fought the decision to return him to Afghanistan.
41:04He managed to find a lawyer who helped secure his release and get him permission to stay in the UK.
41:13It was the very happiest moment the day when I'd been released, you know, because I wasn't expecting that would ever happen to me.
41:22Now I have the ability to make my life better day by day and make new friends. I feel very, very lucky.
41:30In 2015, it was announced the detention centre would be shut down, with the government citing its lack of modernity, security and proximity to airports.
41:49Within two weeks of the announcement, the site was closed and detainees moved to other centres.
42:01In 2022, Jack was granted refugee status and could now begin his new life in the United Kingdom.
42:10He has high hopes for what the future holds.
42:15This country has saved my life and has given me dignity.
42:19Now it's time for me to do something and pay back and be able to help those people like me who has a very difficult past.
42:29As you know, you've got a lot of costs.
42:59You
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