During the independence war to rid Vietnam of French colonial rule in 1940s, communist fighter groups began digging tunnels, by hands, of short distances in the rugged terrain of southern Vietnam (Mangold & Penycate, 2012). As the US increased its support for a non-communists political regime in southern Vietnam, it increased its military presence in the country in the early 1960s. Viet Cong guerrilla troops, which supported Communism in southern Vietnam, and North Vietnamese troops expanded the tunnels leading to a network of tunnels in the country. At the peak of the war, the network of underground tunnels linked the support base of Viet Cong, traversing the area from Cambodian border to the periphery of Saigon. These covered an overage of 250 kilometers (Mangold & Penycate, 2012).
Since the well-equipped US soldiers relied on aerial bombs, the ill-equipped guerilla troops of North Vietnamese and the VC went underground in order to survive the bomb attacks and plan their guerilla tactics in response. As the US soldiers increased their invasion on the land, the areas where they had adversely attacked and bombed saw people moving underground hence such areas had entirely villages completely housed in these underground tunnels (Mangold, & Penycate, 2012). As the troops got used to life in the underground tunnels, they even built kitchens, hospitals, bomb shelters, music halls and theatres, ordnance factories and living quarters. As the war continued, the US soldiers started invading the tunnels and the guerilla troops started laying booby traps and cornered PLAF. The US had to trail special troops called tunnel rats who could recognize and avoid losing its soldiers through these traps.
Today, remaining 171 kilometers of complex tunnels that mostly underlie the Ho Chi Minh City, of Cu Chi district, have been preserved by the Vietnam government. The current day war memorial park is a popular tourist attraction and can has Ben Duok and Ben Dinh as its display sites (Mangold & Penycate, 2012).
References
Mangold, T., & Penycate, J. (2012). The Tunnels of Cu Chi: A Remarkable Story of War. Hachette UK.
