In the nineteen thirties the points to watch in Southern Switzerland were the passes of Jorio and Monte Ceneri and the roads along the lake side of Magadino and Gordola. Although the valley of Ticino was easy to defend, the Magadino plain represented a clear danger since it was an ideal area for the landing of the paratroops, which became popular just in those years.

The fortified line of LONA was an answer to that danger. The idea was to establish a very strong and well covered position of Helvetic troops to allow a potential counterattack on the enemy if they would arrive at the doors of Bellinzona. The LONA would allow blocking further headway of the enemies in direction of the Leventina, which would have had catastrophic consequences for the area of Ticino and for the whole Swiss defence.

The constructed anti-tank defence was build to slow down and hinder the advancement of tanks, taking the enemy under fire out of 23 fortresses made of reinforced concrete or bunkers located in the mountainside.

The wide loop of the river Ticino nor-east of Lodrino narrowed considerably the transit through the valley. This geographic characteristic along with the upright rock face on the mountain side strongly limited the possible breakthrough of the newly established defence line.

The obstacle of the river, traditionally a difficult element for military troops to cross over, was strengthened by blocks of reinforced concrete. These blocks had the form of a big tipped-over “V” and were laid aligned one after the other on the ground through the areas of Lodrino and Osogna. The name LONA derived from the first and the last letters of LOdrino and OsogNA.

In the year 1945, at the end of Second World War, the military equipment was formed of 45 machine guns (lights and heavy ones on carriages in the fortress or in the field) 2 bazookas 24mm calibre, 6 anti-tank guns 4.7cm calibre and four 7.5 cm, which topped the many nets of barbed wire and the obstacle of the anti-tank unit. Furthermore the retreat at the position of Mondascia-Mairano south of Biasca, equipped with 8 tanks 12cm calibre in their specially provided fortresses, gave the needed artillery support.
This represented a truly considerable number of military equipment and facilities not comparable to any defence line of Switzerland.

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Unlike other European nations the end of Second World War was not the end of these military facilities. The line was modernised regularly in alignment to the concept of the “armed neutrality” of the Swiss Confederation.
A notable enforcement of the line was represented by the many bunkers out of pre-fabricated materials, built in the years 1950-1960 in the area of Iragna, called the “spherical fortresses”. LONA got in addition two mortars (lethal) of 8.1cm calibre and the artillery of the fortress of Mondascia and Mairano were equipped with howitzers of 10.5cm calibre. Only with the falling of the wall of Berlin at the end of the cold war the line was “retired” in 1995.

Today this defence line, unforgotten by the soldiers who were once on duty in these fortresses and by the population who experienced the building-projects and efforts, can be relived as a cultural and tourist attraction through the work of many volunteers of the Fortress Mondascia and the local public administration, the military museum of the LONA-Line.