Editor’s note: we’re looking this week at the many changes brought on by the invention of widespread distribution of barbed wire. This is the fourth in a five-part series.
Barbed wire had barely been introduced to Idaho when it became a defensive weapon of war. By 1888, British Army manuals included instructions for deploying the prickly stuff on perimeters to help keep the enemy out of military installations. It was commonly used in the Boer War and the Spanish-American War, but it really came into its own during World War I.
The miles of trenches dug by competing armies were not complete until a zig-zag barbed wire pattern was laid out between them. This was often wire with sharpened barbs or razor wire. Rolls of wire spread out concertina style became the norm, admired because of its lethality.
During World War II, barbed wire was the rule, spiraling along the tops of concentration camp fences in Europe, and controlling prisoners of war in the United States. It also marked the boundaries of interment camps for citizens of Japanese descent in internment camps, such as the Hunt Camp at Minidoka.
Tomorrow: Voices on the Wire
Barbed wire had barely been introduced to Idaho when it became a defensive weapon of war. By 1888, British Army manuals included instructions for deploying the prickly stuff on perimeters to help keep the enemy out of military installations. It was commonly used in the Boer War and the Spanish-American War, but it really came into its own during World War I.
The miles of trenches dug by competing armies were not complete until a zig-zag barbed wire pattern was laid out between them. This was often wire with sharpened barbs or razor wire. Rolls of wire spread out concertina style became the norm, admired because of its lethality.
During World War II, barbed wire was the rule, spiraling along the tops of concentration camp fences in Europe, and controlling prisoners of war in the United States. It also marked the boundaries of interment camps for citizens of Japanese descent in internment camps, such as the Hunt Camp at Minidoka.
Tomorrow: Voices on the Wire
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