Trench Warfare - World War II

World War II

The stunning victories by the Germans early in World War II showed that fixed fortifications like the Maginot Line were worthless if there was room to circumvent them. At the Battle of Sevastopol, Red Army forces successfully held trench systems on the narrow peninsula for several months against intense German bombardment. The Western Allies in 1944 broke through the incomplete Atlantic Wall with relative ease through a combination of amphibious landings, naval gunfire, air attack, and airborne landings. Combined arms tactics where infantry, artillery, armour and aircraft cooperate closely greatly reduced the importance of trench warfare.

It was, however, still a valuable method for reinforcing natural boundaries and creating a line of defence. For example, at the Battle of Stalingrad, soldiers on both sides dug trenches within the ruins. In addition, before the start of the Battle of Kursk, the Soviets constructed a system of defence more elaborate than any other they built during World War II. These defences succeeded in stopping the German armoured pincers from meeting and enveloping the salient.

The Italian Campaign fought from 1943 until the end of the war in Europe largely consisted of the Allies storming strongly fortified German lines which stretched from one coast, over the mountains to the other coast. When the Allies broke through one line, the Germans would retreat up the peninsular to yet another freshly prepared fortified line.

At the start of the Battle of Berlin, the last major assault in the European Theater of Operations during World War II, the Russians attacked over the river Oder against German troops dug in on the Seelow Heights, about 50 km (30 mi) east of Berlin. Entrenchment allowed the Germans, who were massively outnumbered, to survive a bombardment from the largest concentration of artillery in history; as the Red Army attempted to cross the marshy riverside terrain, they lost tens of thousands of casualties to the entrenched Germans before breaking through.

In the Pacific Theater, during World War II, the Japanese used a labyrinth of underground fixed positions to slow down the Allied advances on many Pacific Islands. The Japanese built fixed fortifications on Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Guadalcanal using a system of underground tunnels to interconnect their fortified positions. The Japanese had on Battle of Iwo Jima several levels of honeycombed fortifications. The Japanese caused the American advance to slow down and caused massive casualties with these underground fixed positions. The Americans had to use flamethrowers to clear them out, as well as systematic hand to hand fighting.