THE CU CHI TUNNELS
OF VIETNAM
G'day folks,
The tunnels of Củ Chi are an immense network of connecting
underground tunnels located in the Củ Chi District of Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam, and are part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie
much of the country.
In order to combat better-supplied American and South
Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War, Communist guerrilla troops known as
Viet Cong (VC) dug tens of thousands of miles of tunnels, including an
extensive network running underneath the Cu Chi district northwest of Saigon.
Soldiers used these underground routes to house troops, transport
communications and supplies, lay booby traps and mount surprise attacks, after
which they could disappear underground to safety. To combat these guerrilla
tactics, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces trained soldiers known as “tunnel
rats” to navigate the tunnels in order to detect booby traps and enemy troop
presence. Now part of a Vietnam War memorial park in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly
Saigon), the Cu Chi tunnels have become a popular tourist attraction.
Digging the Cu Chi Tunnels
Communist
forces began digging a network of tunnels under the jungle terrain of South
Vietnam in the late 1940s, during their war of independence from French
colonial authority. Tunnels were often dug by hand, only a short distance at a
time. As the United States increasingly escalated its military presence in
Vietnam in support of a non-Communist regime in South Vietnam beginning in the
early 1960s, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops (as Communist supporters in
South Vietnam were known) gradually expanded the tunnels. At its peak during
the Vietnam War,
the network of tunnels in the Cu Chi district linked VC support bases
over a distance of some 250 kilometers, from the outskirts of Saigon all the
way to the Cambodian border.
As the United States relied heavily on aerial bombing,
North Vietnamese and VC troops went underground in order to survive and
continue their guerrilla tactics against the much better-supplied enemy. In
heavily bombed areas, people spent much of their life underground, and the Cu
Chi tunnels grew to house entire underground villages, in effect, with living
quarters, kitchens, ordnance factories, hospitals and bomb shelters. In some
areas there were even large theaters and music halls to provide diversion for
the troops (many of them peasants) and their supporters.
War in the Cu Chi Tunnels
In
addition to providing underground shelter, the Cu Chi tunnels served a key role
during combat operations, including as a base for Communist attacks against
nearby Saigon. VC soldiers lurking in the tunnels set numerous booby traps for
U.S. and South Vietnamese infantrymen, planting trip wires that would set off
grenades or overturn boxes of scorpions or poisonous snakes onto the heads of
enemy troops. To combat these guerrilla tactics, U.S. forces would eventually
train some soldiers to function as so-called “tunnel rats.” These soldiers
(usually of small stature) would spend hours navigating the cramped, dark
tunnels to detect booby traps and scout for enemy troops.
In January 1966,
some 8,000 U.S. and Australian troops attempted to sweep the Cu Chi district in
a large-scale program of attacks dubbed Operation Crimp. After B-52 bombers
dropped a large amount of explosives onto the jungle region, the troops
searched the area for enemy activity but were largely unsuccessful, as most Communist
forces had disappeared into the network of underground tunnels. A year later,
around 30,000 American troops launched Operation Cedar Falls, attacking the
Communist stronghold of Binh Duong province north of Saigon near the Cambodian
border (an area known as the Iron Triangle) after hearing reports of a network
of enemy tunnels there.
After bombing attacks and the defoliation of rice
fields and surrounding jungle areas with powerful herbicides, U.S. tanks and
bulldozers moved in to sweep the tunnels, driving out several thousand
residents, many of them civilian refugees.
North Vietnamese and VC troops
slipped back within months of the sweep, and in early 1968 they would use the
tunnels as a stronghold in their assault against Saigon during the Tet Offensive.
Tourism in the Cu Chi Tunnels
In all,
at least 45,000 Vietnamese men and women are said to have died defending the Cu
Chi tunnels over the course of the Vietnam War. In the years following the fall
of Saigon in 1975, the Vietnamese government preserved the Cu Chi tunnels and
included them in a network of war memorial parks around the country.
Visitors
to Vietnam can now crawl through some of the safer areas of the tunnels, view
command centers and booby traps, fire an AK-47 rifle on a firing range and even
eat a meal featuring typical foods that soldiers living in the tunnels would
have eaten.
Clancy's comment: Amazing, eh? I've just read a book about them, written by two former US soldiers. Necessity is the mother of invention they say.
I'm ...
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