'If we went to war tomorrow...': US Army conducts mass battlefield grave-digging exercise, first since Korean War

In a highly unusual exercise, the US Army has practised digging mass graves for fallen soldiers. While the exercise is unusual, it is not unprecedented. The US Army carried out similar preparations during the Korean War. But why is it doing so now? According to the Army, the exercise is a test to prepare for the possibility of a future war.

According to reports, US Army soldiers in North Carolina recently completed a test-of-concept exercise focused on large-scale temporary battlefield interments. Personnel from the 3rd Corps Sustainment Command (3rd CSC), the 20th Engineer Brigade, both based at Fort Bragg, and military chaplains participated in the exercise.

The teams used heavy construction equipment, including bulldozers and excavators, to assess how quickly temporary burial plots could be prepared while ensuring that fallen soldiers' remains remained intact. The objective was to preserve the bodies until they could be identified and eventually repatriated to the United States.


"If we went to war tomorrow, we would be making this up as we went along. What we are doing here is taking a scientific, field-tested approach so that we can maintain positive control and respectfully care for our fallen," said Sgt. 1st Class Delbert Ruede, the senior fatality management non-commissioned officer for the 3rd CSC.

He said the exercise allowed the Army to examine how it could respect, honour and systematically manage fallen personnel during a high-intensity conflict.

How the US Army tested its mass burial capabilities

The exercise, conducted near the St. Mere Eglise Drop Zone, focused on whether heavy earthmoving machinery could excavate and backfill temporary burial trenches quickly without causing structural collapses or damaging human remains.

Under the standard temporary interment plan, a burial site consists of five parallel trenches designed to accommodate up to 100 casualties, with 10 remains placed on each side of a trench.

Previous exploratory trials using conventional backhoes took an average of three hours to excavate a single trench designed for 10 remains.

However, during an exercise called Dragon Covenant, operators from the 27th Engineer Battalion of the 20th Engineer Brigade used D6 bulldozers to improve the process. They completed a trench designed to accommodate 20 remains in an average of one hour and 15 minutes.

The exercise also revealed that existing Army guidelines needed adjustments to account for the dimensions of heavy construction equipment.

The original doctrine specified a seven-foot corridor between burial rows. However, the space proved too narrow for bulldozer tracks to pass without disturbing the burial area.

"We realized quickly that the existing measurements in the book didn't accommodate the physical reality of the equipment," Ruede said.

To address the problem, the team expanded the trench width to 15 feet and maintained a nine-foot pillar of undisturbed soil between each trench. This arrangement allowed bulldozers to travel along the central corridor and push soil inward to backfill the trenches without applying direct downward pressure on the remains.