In the 21st Century, it’s basically common knowledge and certainly widely accepted that the Pentagon, in Arlington County, Virginia, has multiple levels of enormous bunkers and an immense network of tunnels beneath its visible exterior.
Aerial photograph of the Pentagon…taken in 2008.
It makes complete sense, too. You’d expect the Department of Defense’s headquarters of the world’s greatest superpower would have multiple access routes and escape tunnels to accommodate sudden evacuations and other emergency actions.
We examine the Pentagon and describe, as well as speculate, what lies beneath it in our new release book UNDERGROUND BASES: Subterranean Military Facilities and the Cities Beneath Our Feet.
Here’s an excerpt from a chapter devoted to the Pentagon:
For an overview of the Pentagon’s official history and specifications, History.com is hard to beat. Excerpts follow from a January 15, 2013 article by author Barbara Maranzani published on the site:
“On January 15, 1943, work was completed on the new headquarters for the U.S. War Department…in Arlington, Virginia. The massive complex, commonly known as the Pentagon, was built to house the nearly 30,000 defense workers tasked with helping America win World War II. With more than 17 miles of corridors, it remains one of the largest office buildings in the world, and has become a symbol—for better and for worse—of military might.”
Ms Maranzani then lists a series of little known facts about the Pentagon. The following are some of the more interesting:
“One of (Brigadier General Brehorn) Somervell’s first dictates was that the massive building be no taller than five stories (plus two stories below ground). This was due, in part, to…a more practical reason–the steel shortage already underway in a nation girding for war. Instead of steel, the building was built primarily of reinforced concrete, 435,000 cubic yards of it…
“It’s pretty difficult to understand just how big the Pentagon is. In fact, the U.S. Capitol could fit into just one of the building’s five sides, and with 5,100,000 square feet, it has twice the office space of the Empire State Building.”
The author concludes that in the wake of 9/11, “when American Airlines Flight 77 smashed into the building’s east side… plans were soon underway for an extensive reconstruction program, dubbed the Phoenix Project, which was completed in February 2003 at a cost of $5 billion—five times the cost of the original building.”
As an interesting aside, Ms Maranzani reveals that the same person oversaw both the Pentagon’s construction and the Manhattan Project, the initiative that resulted in the development of the world’s first atomic bomb. She writes, “While Somervell was officially in charge of the Pentagon project, it fell to…Major Leslie Groves, to make it a reality…While still working on the Pentagon, Groves was also put in charge of the Manhattan Project” and “was involved in nearly every aspect of the top-secret project, selecting and constructing clandestine sites for the research facilities and its workers across the country.”
That’s the official account of the Pentagon and its construction specifications and history.
However, it’s the unofficial story we are interested in.
T.B.C.
Underground Bases is available exclusively via Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/UNDERGROUND-BASES-Subterranean-Facilities-Underground-ebook/dp/B0184KA4KS/
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Morcan Books & Films 