Cu Chi Tunnels - A Brief Background
In the Sixties and Seventies, Cu Chi was part of hotly contested territory during the Vietnam War. Cu Chi was a point in the "Iron Triangle", a 60 square mile area in the Binh Duong province of Vietnam whose residents sympathized with the Viet Cong, or Communist rebels in the South.
Cu Chi also functioned as an important depot in the "Ho Chi Minh Trail", through which supplies and troops filtered from Communist North Vietnam to rebels in American-allied South Vietnam.
The U.S. military top brass recognized the importance of the Cu Chi Tunnels, and tried several times to flush the tunnels out.
Operation Crimp in 1966 attempted to bomb the Viet Cong out of their position, but many parts of the tunnel network were bomb-proof. Booby-traps in the tunnels scared off the 8,000 American and allied soldiers on the ground at Cu Chi. The tunnels' innovative engineering meant that grenades and poison gas couldn't flush out or trap the Viet Cong inside the tunnels.
Operation Cedar Falls in 1967 increased the troop complement to 30,000, including "tunnel rats", or specialists trained in tunnel warfare (see image above). "Tunnel rats" had no fancy equipment - at most they'd be equipped with a .45 pistol, a knife, and a flashlight.
Carpet bombing and tunnel rat infiltration succeeded up to a certain point, but the local guerrilla units simply melted into the jungles, taking back Cu Chi when U.S. operations in the area had ceased.
Cu Chi also functioned as an important depot in the "Ho Chi Minh Trail", through which supplies and troops filtered from Communist North Vietnam to rebels in American-allied South Vietnam.
The U.S. military top brass recognized the importance of the Cu Chi Tunnels, and tried several times to flush the tunnels out.
Operation Crimp in 1966 attempted to bomb the Viet Cong out of their position, but many parts of the tunnel network were bomb-proof. Booby-traps in the tunnels scared off the 8,000 American and allied soldiers on the ground at Cu Chi. The tunnels' innovative engineering meant that grenades and poison gas couldn't flush out or trap the Viet Cong inside the tunnels.
Operation Cedar Falls in 1967 increased the troop complement to 30,000, including "tunnel rats", or specialists trained in tunnel warfare (see image above). "Tunnel rats" had no fancy equipment - at most they'd be equipped with a .45 pistol, a knife, and a flashlight.
Carpet bombing and tunnel rat infiltration succeeded up to a certain point, but the local guerrilla units simply melted into the jungles, taking back Cu Chi when U.S. operations in the area had ceased.
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