The U.S. Army tested mass graves in North Carolina by practicing temporary battlefield burials meant to preserve remains for later identification and return. The exercise used five parallel trenches designed to hold 100 bodies.
Delbert Ruede, the senior fatality management leader for 3rd Corps Sustainment Command, said the exercise took a scientific approach to care for the fallen. "This exercise allowed us to take a critical look at how we respect, honor, and systematically manage our fallen in a high-intensity conflict," he said.
Phase II of Operation Dragon Covenant
Phase II of Operation Dragon Covenant brought together engineers, preventative medicine teams, chaplains and fatality management specialists in North Carolina to test temporary burial operations and remains preservation at a large scale. The U.S. Army said mass temporary interment had not been used on a large scale since the Korean War, and the exercise was built around the possibility that future large-scale combat operations may not allow quick evacuation of remains.
The Army also said the temporary graves fit the legal limits of war dead handling. U.S. guidance requires evacuation of human remains when operations permit, but it also authorizes temporary graves during mass casualty incidents when decedents cannot be safely moved because of safety, lack of transportation, or chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons.
D6 bulldozers and trench limits
Engineers excavated and then filled burial trenches without damaging mock remains made of skeletal models and water containers. In earlier trials, units using standard backhoes could excavate only one trench and thus ten remains per three hours. During the most recent exercise, operators using D6 bulldozers dug a trench large enough for 20 remains in an average of one hour and 15 minutes.
The Army said commanders can plan for an engineer company with the requisite equipment to dig and cover trenches for up to 2,400 bodies every 24 hours if operations continue nonstop. The service also said doctrine called for seven feet between rows, but the team found that spacing too narrow for a dozer to operate without disrupting the burial trenches.
Army doctrine after the exercise
The Geneva Conventions require that even the bodies of enemy forces be recorded and that identifying information be collected, and temporary graves must preserve information if available. Ruede said the Army was trying to avoid improvisation in a future war. "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."
The Army said the discovery about trench spacing and the other findings will be reflected in future Army doctrine, leaving the service with one immediate task: turn the North Carolina test into burial procedures that can work at scale before the next conflict forces the issue.
