In May 2012, I was guiding a group of, mostly, Taiwanese students along the Bassins à flot of Bordeaux. We were heading to the U-Boot-Bunker which was opened at night for the European museums night. As back in this time, the submarine pens were used as a cultural place where you could enjoy, for free, Art exhibitions. My friend Mr Jim who is now back in Taipei took that moment on his fancy camera. Najwa was passing over a fence and I was looking at my group wondering if I wasn't walking too fast or giving too many details about this area History. Maybe, I recalled that in May 1943 this tidal basin was heavily bombed by the US Air Force. This bombing raid caused the destruction of a sluice-gate which conducted to the emptying of the 1st tidal basin. This basin was used by the Italians as a base for their "sommergibili" called Betasom, while the tidal basin number 2 was controlled by the Germans whom were making built up a U-Bunker. On this port you had 2 submarine bases until September 1943 when Italy surrendered (at least a part of Italy). More infos: search my articles on your favourite browser. As the water went down to the river really fast, it resulted the destruction of a dock. This dock (called a "quai" in French) was the one we were walking on; as it was rebuilt in 1947. Nonetheless, all the hangars that can be sighted on the archive picture's aren't nowadays all up. The old area of the tidal basins was in 2012 still free of big buildings... Edifices in concrete have arisen in these past years, replacing free space left by some of the disappeared hangars. Now, I know why we weren't walking as fast as we wanted.