What is a bailey bridge, used during Wayanad rescue ops

A Bailey bridge is a type of modular bridge whose parts are pre-built, so they can be put together quickly as needed. An English civil engineer named Donald Coleman Bailey is credited with inventing it during World War II.

A US Army Engineer School manual says that Bailey gave his first sketch of a bridge that could be moved, rebuilt, or replaced in hours, even under enemy fire, to the British War Office in 1941. “It was used widely and well by Allied armies in Italy and northwest Europe, 1943-45,” the manual says.

The British Field Marshal Lord Bernard Law Montgomery said: “Without the Bailey bridge, we should not have won the war. It was the best thing in that line we ever had.”

The pre-fabricated parts in a Bailey bridge include light steel panels linked through pins, which are big, screw-like objects. These help establish the guardrails of the bridge. Through the guardrails on either side, workers place beams to form the deck or path of the bridge. All beams were constructed such that they would lock in on the guardrails to ensure stability.

After that, the bridge can be extended, and the lightness of the parts allows it to be mobile. No heavy installation equipment is needed. In disaster relief situations, this is ideal because parts can be transported in small trucks — something also of use during wartime.

A Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) publication says, “The Indian armed forces, and particularly the Indian Army carried on the British legacy and thus inherited a large inventory of the Bailey bridge.” Such bridges were used in the 1971 war with Pakistan, and in disaster relief situations such as in Uttarakhand after the flash floods of 2021.